Part 13

"Why, those two handkerchiefs in the glass frames hanging each side of your lovely looking-glass. There’s poor Bartley’s purple and yellow and David’s blue and white spots. Now surely, surely, Rhoda, it ban’t a seemly thing to hang ’em up there to remind everybody of that horrid fight? And besides, as ’tis only of a Sunday the parlour’s likely to be used, that makes it worse, for who wants to think of such a business on the seventh day, of all days?"

Rhoda was looking at the colours, but showed only interest.

"They come out very nice," she said, "and of course they ought to be here. If I was you, I should be prouder of them two things and the great, valiant battle they stand for, than anything else belonging to David. And if you’d been there, Madge, as I was, and had seen David, despite all that he went through, come out top and smash in t’other man’s face with his last strength afore he went blind--if you’d seen it, you wouldn’t wish the colours away. ’Twas I hitched ’em off the post when everybody else had forgot ’em."

"There’s the other man to think of, however."

"Why?" asked Rhoda. "I’m sure that Bartley Crocker, who be pretty large-minded with all his faults, wouldn’t think none the worse of David for hanging up the handkerchers like this. He’d have done the same quick enough--or his mother would have done it for him. The men be good friends, and so they ought to be. But that’s no reason against it."

Margaret admitted the justice of the argument.

"If you think it can’t hurt anybody’s feelings, no doubt there’s no real harm," she said.

"Of course not. Men be men, and not so tender and touchy as the likes of you. Why, what did Mr. Crocker say at your wedding? Nothing but what was friendly and kindly, I’m sure."

"No, indeed--a beautiful speech; and ’twas as much for that reason as any other that I thought perhaps, if ever he came to see us and caught sight of the colours--"

"He’ll be the first to say they look very fine," prophesied Rhoda. "All the same, I hope I shan’t be here when he calls--if he does call--for--"

She stopped and Margaret answered.

"Don’t say that. I’m sure, after what he spoke about you in his speech, you ought to let bygones be bygones and feel friendly."

"That’s all past and forgiven," said Rhoda; "but I won’t pretend I feel to him like I do to other men."

"I hope you don’t," replied Madge, laughing. "That’s just what I want to hear, Rhoda."

The younger was puzzled and her sister-in-law, unconscious of the fateful moment, made the first move in a game that was to determine three destinies.

"I hope you don’t. I hope you feel that Bartley Crocker be worth a little more thought than most men. At any rate, don’t set your mind against him. That wouldn’t be fair--to yourself, Rhoda."

"My mind’s neither for nor against any human creature outside my own people. Why should it be?"

"There’s no reason at all. You’re young and you’re terrible pretty, and not a soul that’s ever set eyes upon you feels anything but kind thoughts of you."

Rhoda did not answer for a few moments; then a bewildered expression faded from her face.

"I’ll go out and see the kennel now."

"Leave that till the morning and unpack your things. ’Twill be dark as a wolf’s mouth over there."

"I’ve brought my own lantern," said Rhoda; "I’ll go over now, if you’ll show me the way."

The horn lantern was lighted and Madge led Rhoda where her husband had planted a row of flat stepping-stones across the river. The kennel and a byre stood there together, and four dogs whined a welcome to their new mistress. In the light of the flame their shining noses and lustrous eyes flashed out of the gloom, and they leapt about the women. David appeared; then Madge went in to wash up and prepare supper, while Rhoda stayed beside her brother.

"’Tis good to be back-along with you," she said, "and I do think, all ways, it must be better. Joshua be coming out wonderful and surprising father every day since you went; and Sophia will take my place; and Nap and Wellington, between them, will look after Joshua’s work with the traps. ’Tis all right but for Dorcas. There’s nobody left to keep her in order now I’m gone--hateful little toad! I axed father to set parson on her; but he wouldn’t. Something will have to be done, but I don’t know what."

"I’ll see father later," replied David. "Dorcas be the first Bowden that’s a fool, and we must treat her according."

They all supped together presently, and David planned the nature of the life before his sister. The course of laborious days did not spare her and left little margin for idleness; but Rhoda neither knew nor wished to know the meaning of leisure. She appeared well content with David’s plans and nodded from time to time, but said little.

*CHAPTER VI*

*REPULSE*

At noon in early May, when the willow’s golden flowers ran up the still naked stems like fire; when the clouds in the sky were large and fleecy and the birds sang again from dawn till even, Bartley, walking beside the leat, where it wound like a silver ribbon between Lowery Tor and Lowery Farm, met Rhoda Bowden. Neither expected to see the other in that spot. She explained that she had been far afield with a message for her brother; he admitted that he walked there with no special object but to kill an hour.

"How’s your mother?" she asked.

"No better. I’m only here now till I know the doctor’s been. As soon as I see his gig drive up the hill, I shall go down across the river home. She vows ’tis nothing; but I think she’s worse than we know."

"Summer may get up her nature again."

"I’m sure I hope so too. And ’tis more than kind of you to cheer me up."

He walked beside her.

"May I give your dogs a sandwich?" he asked. "My aunt cut me a bit of bread and meat to fetch along with me; but I don’t want it."

She nodded and Bartley divided his food between a fox-terrier and a collie. In a twinkling his luncheon vanished.

They kept silence for a long time and she, astonished that he could be mute, addressed him.

"David be going to show sheep at Tavistock this year."

"Good luck to them then," he answered, wakening from his reverie. "Those horned creatures he has got look very fine and carry an amazing deal of wool--anybody can see that. I’m very much inclined to try a few myself. Must ask him all about them if he’ll be so kind as to tell me."

"No doubt he would. He’s doing a bit of Moorman’s work now in the quarter, and looking after a good few things besides his own."

"The Moorman, old Jonathan Dawe, is past his work, I doubt?"

"Far past it. But he and David understand each other, and David does very well out of it. He’ll be Moorman for certain come Mr. Dawe dies, unless something better turns up."

"Why doesn’t the old chap retire?"

"David have often axed him the same question. He says the race of Dawe never retires. He means to die in harness--unless Duchy won’t lease the quarter to him no more."

Bartley nodded and silence again fell. He had seen not a little of Rhoda during the past few months, and he knew now that he longed to marry her and none else. Madge had promised to use her wits in the good cause, and she did her best for him, but Crocker perceived that his wooing must take place upon no very conventional lines. Rhoda Bowden was not to be taken by storm but by strategy. So, at least, he believed, and he had devoted much time to the problem of her capture and displayed a patience and pertinacity alike very remarkable in him. He paid no regular and obvious court, for fear of being warned off by David before he had given Rhoda a fair opportunity to change her mind concerning him. He merely considered her when the chance offered; spoke well and enthusiastically about her behind her back, and seized every incident and event that could serve to bring her into his company, or take him into hers. Margaret helped, but not as she would have liked to help. Bartley held himself cleverer than she in this matter and expressly forbade her either to ask him at present to ’Meavy Cot,’ or take any other step which must result in a meeting between him and Rhoda. She did just what she was told, watched his cautious progress and felt absolutely certain that he was mistaken. Her way had been quite different from his, and, as she came to know Rhoda better, she felt that Bartley’s elaborate plans would miscarry and leave her sister-in-law absolutely indifferent.

"You can try your plan and I’ll look on," she said to him; "and, after you’ve proved you’re all wrong, then you will have to try mine. Mind, I don’t say my wits will be much more use than your own; but they may be."

And now the time was ripe, in Crocker’s opinion, to put his experiment to the proof and see whether his unostentatious but steady siege had in reality shaken the fortress at any point. He felt tolerably certain that Rhoda would refuse him; but he intended to ask the great question. He was, indeed, prepared to put it many times before taking ’no’ for an answer.

At a stile their ways parted. She would follow the leat, which leapt Meavy at an aqueduct not a quarter of a mile from her home; and he would plunge into the valley, cross the river and return to Sheepstor.

"Well, good-morning to you," she said. "I hope that Mrs. Crocker will mend afore long."

"Wait," he answered. "I won’t keep you, Rhoda, but ’tis a pretty place and hour for speech. May I ask you something?"

"I’m a thought late for dinner as it is. But ask and welcome."

"’Welcome’! I wonder? ’Twould be a very welcome thing to think I was welcome. But I’m not vain enough to think it. I only hope it."

His personality and the masculine look and voice of him troubled her. A man who was obviously alive to sex and alert before women made her uncomfortable. The deep-eyed sly man--the man who was servile to women, who rushed to set chairs for them, who bowed to them and strove to catch their eye in public--these men she hated. Bartley was such a man, but he had long since perceived her dislike of gallantry and had given her no second cause to resent his attentions in that sort. His sustained reserve and apparent indifference had satisfied her and modified her former detestation; but it had not advanced him one span in her regard. She did not answer him now, and he continued--

"You see, Rhoda, very queer things happen--things that are deeper than we can explain or understand. And, before I speak, I want to go back a bit, because what I’m going to say may seem pleasanter in your ears if I remind you of a thing that happened long since. When I kissed you in the Pixies’ House you were terrible angered with me, and ’twas as natural for you to be so as ’twas for me to kiss you."

"I don’t want to hear no more of that, and I won’t," she said fiercely.

"You must," he answered. "You’ve no choice. You’re a just woman--as just and honourable as all who be called Bowden, and you must hear. I insist on it, for ’tis almost life or death to me. When I kissed you and you tore from me like a frightened bird, what did you say? You forget, but I remember, and I’ll remind you. You pressed your face against my cheek by accident, and I couldn’t stand it, and I kissed you and you said: ’You loathsome, Godless wretch! I could tear the skin off my face. I’d sooner the lightning had struck me.’ Then you fought your way out and trampled on my hand with your boot till the blood ran. Now, Rhoda, listen. I’m not loathsome, and I’m not Godless. You touched me accidentally and I took a terrible fierce fire from it. Why? Not because I’m a free liver; not because I would do the like from any maiden’s touch. Not from that--I swear it; but because that touch meant a great deal more to me than I understood. I did a thing any man may do under certain circumstances, Rhoda; but the circumstances were hid from me then, though they came out clear enough after. I loved you in the Pixies’ House, though I didn’t know it then; but my nature was quicker than my mind, and my nature took charge and made me do the thing I did. Not out of insult, but out of honour I did it; and I’ve honoured you more and more ever since that day. I honoured you when you helped David; and I knew then, as well as I know that God made me, that if you’d been in my corner instead of his I’d have beat him. I honoured you at his wedding--so graceful and lovely and above the rest as you were; and I honour you now, and I’ve been a better chap since I knew you. And--and if you’ll marry me, Rhoda, I’ll try with all my strength to be worthy of such a wife. Oh, Rhoda, don’t say ’no.’"

She only understood a part, and the tone of his voice spoke and soothed her to patience, though his words left her cold. She perceived that he was deeply in love with her and had hidden it carefully from her. That he had hidden it was a grace in him: she thanked him for that. His excuse for the past did not impress her. All that remained was to refuse him and leave him as swiftly as possible. She did not feel very flattered or elated. She did not like him any better for this avowal. The master-sense in her mind was one of frank discomfort. She felt not particularly sorry that she had to disappoint him; she experienced only a desire for haste--to speak and end this unsought scene and get out of his sight. She wasted no words.

"’Tis kind, no doubt, to offer marriage," she said, "but you’re wrong. Us wouldn’t suit each other. You’ll find a girl to please you better than me. Ban’t no use talking about it. I don’t feel--I don’t feel drawed, Mr. Crocker, and I suppose unless both parties be drawed ’tis no use hoping for a happy marriage."

"Think of it--take a bit of time. ’Tis mere moonshine the likes of you going single, Rhoda."

"I’ve seen marriage under my eyes ever since I could mark anything," she answered. "I’ve seen it and still see it."

She stopped and shook her head, implying that as yet the state offered no large charm for her.

"Good-bye. Think no more of this--and no more will I."

She left him, and he sat down where a sluice opened off the leat, so that the overflow in time of torrent might do no hurt to the banks. He sat and regretted what he believed to be his precipitation. The time was not ripe. He had sprung this proposal too suddenly upon her. For her own sake he had not played the lover as a preliminary, and as a result she failed to recognise the lover in him. He had erred in tactics. He was not much downcast, but felt that the opening battle was well ended, with a defeat that he foresaw. He had explained the kiss, and this interview was thereby justified. It would not be necessary to retrace that old ground again. And yet he doubted whether Rhoda had quite understood him.

"If she did understand, she didn’t believe," he told himself.

He was not ill-pleased with the encounter. He had fired the first shot and engaged her in the first skirmish. He must tell Margaret all that had happened, and he must hear from Margaret if any results of this adventure were displayed by Rhoda. He felt pretty certain that none would be. David she might confide in, but not in Margaret. The interview as a whole did not dismay him, and it was not until he reached home and heard an unfavourable report of his mother’s health that he became gloomy.

Meanwhile the girl, a little fluttered by this occurrence, proceeded on her way with thoughts not wholly pleasant; and to her came the leat man, Simon Snell, upon his rounds. His eyes grew large and watered a little when he caught sight of her in the distance. At first, indeed, he was minded to dive off the footpath, hasten away and make as though he had not seen her; but he fortified himself against this pusillanimous instinct, held on boldly, and presently saluted her in his thin, somewhat senseless voice.

"Good-day to ’e, Miss Rhoda Bowden. Glad to meet you on the leat path, I’m sure. Don’t often see you this way."

"Good-morning, Mr. Snell."

"And a very good morning to you. Beautiful spring weather, to be sure. Beautiful dogs, to be sure. Never see you or David without a fine dog. And the dog as I had off your farther would have made a very fine, upstanding dog without a doubt, if her hadn’t have gone and died. Not your fault--I’m not saying that."

"I was very sorry to hear it."

"Of course you was; and if I’d had enough sense, and put the poor young dog in a basket and carry ’un up over to you, I’ll lay with your dog cleverness as you’d have saved ’un. But, instead, I traapsed off to Walkhampton with him--to Adam Thorpe--and he got the dog underground in a week."

"Thorpe don’t know much about dogs."

"You’re right there; I quite agree. Would ’e like to see me open a sluice-gate? ’Tis purty to see the water go down all of a tumble, and often a rainbow throwed off when the wind be blowing slantwise across the sun."

"Can’t stop, but I’ll see the thing done some other time, if you please."

"An’ welcome; and I’m sorry, I’m sure, to have kept ’e with my talk, and you wild to be on your way, no doubt."

"If you want a puppy, you can have one next month," said Rhoda. "That yellow collie there, with a bit of Gordon setter in him, be the faither. They’re very nice-looking creatures."

"And so I will then, and gladly and thankfully," he said.

Simon walked by her and she felt easy and comfortable. His neutral, not to say neuter, personality met and matched her own. His round, innocent eyes, smooth face and silly beard put her at ease. He did not thrust masculinity upon her, but was merely a fellow-creature talking upon subjects that interested her. What Crocker had of late tried to be in his attitude towards this woman Mr. Snell really was. The one attempted a posture other than his own, and failed in it; for no woman could look into his eyes and not know something about him. The other equally remained himself, yet even so he satisfied Rhoda, although she came to him unusually exacting from her recent interview with Mr. Crocker. Simon’s thoughts, Simon’s humble humour, and Simon’s general attitude to life, if vague, were quite acceptable to Rhoda. To her his voice did not sound thin or his opinions childish. She was comfortable in his company, and she left him presently with a pleasant nod and a ’good-bye’ that was almost genial.

He stood a long time, scratched his beard when she had gone out of sight and felt that thus to walk and talk beside a maiden was rather an achievement for him. He admired Rhoda very much, but he thought of her with chronic rather than acute admiration.

She had certainly been amazingly gracious and kind to him. Could it be possible that she liked him? The idea brought moisture upon his forehead, and he sat down and mopped it. He began to fear that he had been too bold in thus proceeding for more than a hundred yards beside her. Perhaps she had indicated annoyance and he had failed to observe it. Then he assured himself that he was a man, like other men, and had a perfect right to talk to a woman. He decided that he must think about Rhoda quietly for the next month or two. He asked himself if he should take her a dish of the fat leat trout that he caught sometimes; but he felt doubtful whether such a step would not be going too far.

"I might catch ’em, and clean ’em, and start with ’em," he reflected; "and then, if it comes over me on the way that I’m a bit too dashing, I can just sneak home again, and none the wiser."

*CHAPTER VII*

*EYLESBARROW*

Margaret Bowden not seldom visited the haunts of her youth, for many favourite places lay within a walk of her home, and she had a measure of loneliness in her life which might be filled according to her fancy. Sometimes she blamed herself that life should offer intervals for amusement or for rest. David found no such leisure from dawn until after dark; Rhoda was always busy out of doors, and even when she had nothing left to do, as happened in the evening, would often sequester herself afield under the night. But Margaret’s holiday generally followed the midday meal; and after noon she often went to see her mother, or sought some holt in Dennycoombe Wood, or beside Crazywell, or among the heathery hillocks of Eylesbarrow. That great eminence upon the forest boundary was familiar and pleasant to her. She knew it well, from its tonsure of stone, piled above a grave, to its steeps and slopes and water-springs. A pool with rushes round about spread under the highest elevation and mirrored the sky; while southerly the ling grew very large, and there were deep scars and embouchures torn by torrents from the sides of the hill.

Hither came Margaret to keep tryst with Bartley Crocker on a day in June. She had not seen him save for a moment since his interview with Rhoda, but meeting a week before at Sheepstor, he made a plan and she promised to join him on Eylesbarrow and hear what he had to tell her. The east wind roared over Madge where she sat snug in a little pit; but the sun was warm and found her there. From time to time she rose and lifted her head to see if Bartley was coming. Then she sat down again and fell back upon her own thoughts. She began to apprehend the mixed nature of marriage and those very various ingredients that complete the dish. As yet only one cloud hung over her united life with David. But time might reasonably be trusted to lift it. They were a happy pair, and if his stronger will lacked ready and swift sympathy on all occasions, it still served the fine purpose of controlling her sentimentality. He hurt her sometimes, but she kept the pain to herself. His sledge-hammer methods were new to her; while he could not understand her outlook, and, indeed, he made no attempt to do so. But she never argued; she always gave way and she loved him so dearly that it was easy to give way. Rhoda, too, she liked better as she knew her better. She felt sorry for Rhoda and longed to round off her life into a more complete and perfect thing. It appeared an outrage on nature that such a girl should remain unmarried. She strove to enlarge Rhoda’s sexual sympathies and make her more tolerant of men. But she did not succeed. And so it gradually happened that the future of Rhoda rather obsessed the young wife’s mind. She was determined to see Bartley and Rhoda man and wife if she could bring it about. She was here upon that business now. That he had spoken to Rhoda she did not yet know; but she suspected it.

Again Margaret looked round about her, while the wind flapped her sunbonnet till it stung her cheeks. At hand morning and night alternately swung up over the uttermost eastern desolation that even Dartmoor offers. By Cater’s Beam and the sources of Plym and Avon, the solemn, soaking undulations ranged; and they were shunned by every living thing; but to the north a mighty company of tors thrust up about the central waste; and westerly stretched the regions of her home. Far beneath lay Dennycoombe under Coombeshead, and Sheep’s Tor, like a saurian, extended with a huge flat head and a serrated backbone of granite. She saw her father’s fields on the hillside and knew them by their names. In their fret of varied colour under the stone-crowned hill, they looked like a patchwork coverlet dragged up to some old, gnarled chin. Men were working there and elsewhere on the land; and in the stone quarries, far off on Lether Tor, men also worked. She gazed upon the familiar places, the homesteads and the solitary homes. She busied her mind with the life histories advancing beneath these roof-trees; and here she smiled when she marked a dwelling where joy harboured for a little; here she sighed at sight of one where joy had ceased to visit: here she wondered at thought of houses where the folk hid their hearts from the world and stared heavy-eyed and dumb upon their kind. But she had an art to win secrets, and few denied her knowledge or declined her sympathy.