Part 18

"So do I--nothing better. I go along ten miles of the leat six days a week, winter and summer. You might be surprised to know that I go more than three thousand miles in the year. ’Twas done out in figures by Mr. Mattacott all quite correct."

They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence. Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous.

"There’s that clacking creature, Mary Main. She haven’t seed us yet. If you’d rather for me to go away afore she does--?"

"Yes, if you like."

"It might be better--unless-- Well, here’s good-bye then for the present, and I’m very thankful to you for walking--very thankful and no less."

"Us have had a nice walk."

"I quite agree, I’m sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an everyday sight for anybody."

"Yes, it will."

He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no idea of her recent great adventure.

What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl’s mind none ever knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he told nobody about it. He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing of his thoughts. Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think. Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother. She said nothing about her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it, she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter. It happened thus.

"Did you like Mr. Snell’s opinions?" asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda took off her hat and came to the tea-table.

"They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground, and they want to be driven back, which I’ll do after I’ve had a cup of tea and changed my clothes," said the other.

Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between these women since Bartley Crocker met David. By ill-fortune Madge annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated. Mr. Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel. With great circumspection he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and proposed another.

"’Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so," she said.

"I like the dark so well as you, however," he assured her.

"I only like the dark alone," she answered.

"How coorious! I only like it in company," he declared. "But, if you’m willing, I’ll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come Sunday week."

"I shall be home that day. I dare say my sister-in-law will come too."

"As to her--" began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself. "She’s a very nice woman; in fact, you’d have to look a long way further than Sheepstor parish to find her equal," he declared. And then he went his way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.

When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face, and the other had not asked her to join the party. Mr. Snell’s appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke.

"Why, here’s Simon again! So ’tis him you be prinked up in that new hat for, Rhoda!"

Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with anger.

"Look at her roses!" said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an easy mood. Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness.

"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say such things, David? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I won’t see the man! Never again will I see him! ’Tis you coarse creatures ought to blush--not me!"

She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret came up and pleaded with her.

"Tell him to go," was all that Rhoda said.

Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache.

"The headache is a very painful thing; but she’ll soon be rids of it," he said. "Us was going for a walk, but ’tis not of any consequence. I can go just as easy alone. Or I needn’t go at all, come to think of it."

He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned.

"When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects," he said; "and if ’tis her stomach that is out of order, there’s nothing better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the organs all be empty."

"I’ll tell her," promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.

He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled the former topics very accurately.

"I shall leave it now till well on into the new year," he told himself; "then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at present, I might offer for to go walking again. There’s nought like a walk for helping a male to see into the female mind. ’Twas Crocker, I remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at your jokes, ’twas a great thing done. But ’twill have to be something out of the common funny to make that woman laugh. And as to making a joke--I don’t know I’m sure."

*CHAPTER XIII*

*RHODA PASSES BY*

A great uncertainty prevailed above Margaret Bowden, where she sat on the lofty side of Lether Tor before noon and waited to meet Bartley. The aerial doubt was reflected on earth in shadows and darkness shot with fitful light; an increasing opacity threatened rain; yet, where the vapours crowded most gloomily and massed their hooded cowls, light and wind would break their conclaves and scatter them upon the humid bosom of the Moor. Through this welter, sunshafts fell and flashed over the grey and russet of the wilderness.

A sort of mystery belonged to the day seen in its huge encounter between cloud legions and the light of heaven. Strange things might have been happening within the penetralia of the fog-banks, where they drove through the valleys gloomily. There was an air of mighty preparation, of imminent explosion, of forces stealthily taking stand and making ready to declare themselves in elemental encounter between the armies of the sun and the rain. Light and darkness joined battle, and Mother Earth lowered heavily, in mood to welcome the victory of her own innumerable cloud children. The sobriety of the hour increased. The distant details of the land faded; the tors ascended solemn and purple above the grey.

Yet, through loopholes in the driving fog, the sun still shot his arrows strongly and, where they fell, there broke forth fire on dene and dingle, and small roof-tree isolated in the loneliness. The watcher marked a sudden shaft sweep the vale of Kingsett with a besom of light, while another radiant gleam broke the clouds, descended upon her old home, and set the far-off whitewash glimmering like a jewel at the throat of Dennycoombe.

Now the high lands southerly shone for a moment; now the ragged crest of Sheep’s Tor was glorified with a nimbus of light, that revolved in a broad, wet fan, and then shut up again, as the clouds thrust between sun and earth.

In process of time, as the war swept hither and thither, there grew a cheerful hope in Madge’s mind that the clouds might be beaten. When all seemed lost and new vapours gathered even to her feet, she saw the upper heaven shine with sudden access of glory. It collected in close, dazzling centres; it pierced and riddled the fog beneath with silver that warmed into gold. And then the earth, that had taken service with storm and lifted her dark bosom to welcome rain--the faithless earth paid court to the conqueror and welcomed him with beauty. No longer she sulked; no longer the tors and hog-backed hills answered the dark strata of the sky with greater darkness, and spread beneath the sullen colours of the clouds a face still more sullen. Instead they donned a brighter aspect; while banderoles of blue unfurled aloft in the widening rents of the cloud rack. A great wind gathered strength, scattered the mists, and drove them flying down the hills; there fell warmth on the watcher’s cheek; the world smoothed out her granite wrinkles, smiled, and reflected the azure of heaven upon her manifold stony faces, her water-ways and plains. Light conquered and upon the skirts of the defeated fog there burnt cold fires and glimmered the iris.

This transformation and overthrow of the day’s dark prophecy much heartened Madge. The victory of sunshine lifted her spirits unconsciously. She grew happier with the unfolding serenity of the hour; and she was singing to herself when Bartley Crocker arrived.

Of late not seldom they had met unseen in lonely places, far afield. Sometimes she waited for him by the great menhir of Thrushel Coombe; sometimes at Plym Steps; sometimes in spots even more remote, haunted by the heron and the shadows of clouds. But during the past fortnight Margaret had only seen Mr. Crocker on one occasion, when she called to know of his mother’s fading health. Then he made the present appointment; and now, as she sang, he climbed up through the wild clitters of Lether Tor to keep it.

"Go on," he said. "I heard you long afore you saw me. ’Tis pleasant to my ear; for nought be singing just now but the robins."

"I was cheered somehow when the sun mastered the fog."

"How’s Rhoda?"

"Very well. She’ll come this way herself presently, by Nosworthy bridge."

"Mr. Snell called again?"

"Not again. ’Tis a pity you can’t see a bit more of Rhoda, however."

"My mother wouldn’t let me out of her sight at the last."

"Well I know it, poor dear. How does she find herself to-day, Bartley?"

"A bit strange, no doubt; but with my father to show her the new place. She’s dead."

"Dead! Oh, Bartley!"

"Yes--thank God. Faded out at four o’clock yesterday morning. Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out. Wavers and shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there’s nought but a bead of fire left. And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it’s there still; but it isn’t."

"Dear Bartley, I’m so sorry for you."

"Are you? But I know you are. Not many else will be--not many but me and my Aunt Susan. She’s torn to the heart. I couldn’t stand no more of it."

"I’ll see your aunt to-morrow. I’ll see her to-day."

"She’ll thank you. Make it to-morrow. My dear mother wasn’t a very much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect. But you could comfort her sister. Nobody else will trouble about her."

"To-night I shall go down."

"The funeral’s on Tuesday. Would you put her to the west where the big holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses family all stand?"

"She’d have liked to be buried by her husband. She told me so."

"I know; but ’tisn’t convenient. He lies at Honiton, and ’twould cost a King’s ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing, and she thought and shook her head. Past caring then."

"Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I’m pretty sure he’ll go."

"D’you think you could get Rhoda to come? D’you think I might go so far as to ask her to come?"

"I’m sure she’d go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure."

"Not pleasure exactly. You might almost say ’twas business more than pleasure. Don’t think I’m hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but when you’re in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else. I want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her. I’ve planned to get her there if ’tis possible."

Margaret stared at him in wonder.

"Don’t think me daft. I’m suffering enough; but ’tis man’s way to look on ahead. And I can’t look on ahead into nothing. I’ve grown to feel to Rhoda that she’s got to marry me. And yet ’tis idle to pretend that I’ve much right to be hopeful. What’s the best news about her?"

"There’s no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news. She must think of something when she takes ’em. She can’t talk to the dogs all the time. Her mind can’t be empty, can it?"

"Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her. "She must be travelling over something in her brain, if ’tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in your parlour. But it isn’t about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon. Canada, perhaps, but not me."

"I will say this: there’s no unfriendliness in her. I never hear her speak a word against any man, bar William Screech. And I go in hopes that she’ll forgive even him and Dorcas."

"She’d forgive ’em right enough if she was married to me. Anyway, when my dear mother’s laid to her rest, after a few days are past, I shall ask Rhoda again. The time has come to do it."

"I think it has."

"Will she be along with you at Christmas?"

"No," answered Margaret. "’Tis ordained that we all go to Ditsworthy for Christmas dinner. ’Tis a longful time since David was to home, and his mother has planned this."

"Well, you must ask me a bit later. Or I’ll try to get David to bid me come and eat along with you after New Year. I may tell you this: David wouldn’t make any objection."

"None--none at all."

Bartley began to spare a little thought from himself for Margaret. He had often wondered whether his plain hints to her husband brought any fruit for her. To-day he was in a high-strung and somewhat emotional mood; therefore he did not shirk the subject as usual; but prepared to plunge into it.

"Let’s get down the hill," he said. "We’ll go so far as Nosworthy bridge together, if that’s not drawing you too much out of your way."

"’Twill suit very well," she answered. "I want to meet Rhoda, and she’ll be fetching back by the bridge afore long."

"You’ll be hungry."

"No; I’ve got a bit of bread and cheese in my pocket. You can have half, if you mind to."

He shook his head.

"Can’t eat to-day. ’Twill be a fast day in my life for evermore."

"Dear Hartley, I don’t say much. Who can say anything to the purpose against such a loss? But I do feel for you."

"I know it, Madge. Nobody’ll feel for me like you. Give me your hand. ’Tis a thought steep here; but it leads to the best road to the bottom."

He helped her down the crooked acclivities, and in half an hour they were at the bridge beneath.

Here Meavy opens her arms, and shutting them again, creates a little island. The waters join once more below and sing and foam under the ivy-mantled span of one grey arch. To-day naked boughs thrust up from the drooping red mat of the brake-fern, and the leaves of the willows were reduced to a mere yellow sparkle of yellow on the boughs. Only the greater furze laid a heavy green in great masses on the harmony of winter colours.

Bartley led the way by mossy stones beside a backwater where dead leaves danced.

"We’ll sit on the island," he said, "while you eat your food. There’s an old hurdle there, and I’ll put my coat over it for you."

A few moments later they were talking about Margaret’s self, and she felt her heart flutter somewhat at this sudden and very unexpected change of subject.

"D’you mind what you told me some time since, Madge?" he asked. "At least it can’t be said you told me; but, between the lines of things that you spoke, I somehow pieced together a sort of feeling you wasn’t as happy as you’d a right to be."

"How can you think so? I’m sure--"

"Well, anyway, it got into my stupid head, and as luck would have it I fell in with David a bit after I’d left you. You must remember the day, Madge. It’s idle to pretend you’ve forgot."

"Yes, I remember. I was down-daunted and silly. You oughtn’t to have thought twice about my feeble grumbling."

"You didn’t grumble. Another person would have marked nothing in what you said; but I know you so well--quick as lightning I am where you are concerned, or any woman I care about. And I talked to David."

She started and stared at him.

"Then I’m very angry indeed with you, Bartley."

"Are you? Well, he wasn’t. There’s few more sensible, clever chaps knocking about than your husband. Like a flash I opened his eyes, and he thanked me for doing it. Thanked me, mind you."

"Opened his eyes! Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean I opened his eyes. He’s a terrible busy man and I’m a terrible lazy one. And ’tis no use being lazy if you can’t use your time to do the busy folk a good turn. Fools would say ’twas interference; but not a wise man like David."

"What did you tell him?"

"Say you forgive me."

"It depends what you said."

"It depends on the result of what I said. I told David that I reckoned he was--well--too busy. I said he dropped you out of his life a bit too much and didn’t humour you enough. I told him plump out that he wasn’t so kind as he might be. Now you’re properly angered with me, no doubt; but just think if you’ve a right to be."

She was silent, and her flush faded and her eyes fixed on him and grew puzzled.

"’Twas only because I knew him so well and his straight, just way that I dared," he continued. "And now you’ve got to say if that talk did harm or good. And if it did harm, heap hard words on me; but if it did good--"

She put out her hand impulsively, but not until a silent minute had sped. During the moments she retraced the past and remembered what had surprised her and made her happier. Then she stretched out her hand and clasped his.

"Good came of it," she said.

"If that’s so, I’ve gained something to-day as well as lost something, Madge."

"David--it shows what he is, Hartley."

"Yes. He’s high above anything small or mean."

She continued to reflect. It was impossible to say much more on the subject, and, indeed, the brightest that could be said was spoken. The wife, though she knew that her husband had long since resumed his old absorbed attitude and found less and less leisure for amenity and tenderness, could not whisper this outside her own heart.

"It was good and brave of you," she said. "And dear David belongs to the large-souled sort of men that ban’t above learning even on such a sacred, secret business as his wife. But he knew you had known me ever since I was a little girl."

Bartley nodded.

"So long as you can tell me that good came of it, I’m content. Now leave it. Eat your lunch and then I must go. And strive to bring ’em both--Rhoda and David--to the funeral."

"All Sheepstor will surely go."

She brought her food from her pocket and he watched her eat some little sandwiches made of bread and cheese. Their backs were turned to Nosworthy bridge, but they were quite visible from it.

"There’s more here than I want," she said. "I wish you’d take some."

The whimsical child in the man, even on this dark day, broke loose.

"Feed me," he said. "Don’t think I’m a fool for asking; but feed me. I mean it. ’Twill comfort me. I’m cruel miserable, though not to the eye."

Of old she remembered his follies and fancies.

"When you was young you was always like a little, silly, petted bird or puppy," she said, smiling.

"So I often am still--and especially when I’m down on my luck. There’s no dear, silly mother to pet me no more and make me chirrup again. How she would do it! Feed me, Madge."

She held a sandwich to his mouth.

"One more."

"Here’s four more. Eat ’em quick. And then I must get going."

One by one she put the morsels of food to his lips, and laughed at him, in spite of herself, while she did so. Then he thanked her and declared that he was much the better and happier for her charity.

"Mother’s in heaven," he said. "And I’m going to her again some day. If a man believes that really, and doesn’t only fool himself to think he believes it, ’tis the greatest comfort of all. And I didn’t ought to be miserable to-day, and I’m damned if I will be."

"Of course you believe it. So do I--heart and soul--and so do every true, faithful Christian creature."

"Of course. Didn’t you say you counted to meet Rhoda here?"

"Yes--’tis time she came by."

"I shall pass her going back; and I’ll tell her you’re at the bridge waiting for her. Good-bye, Madge; and the Lord bless you for the kind things you’ve said to me."

"And thank you, too, Bartley, for--for--"

"That was nought."

He helped her back from the island to the road; then he left her and went his way in expectation of meeting Rhoda at every turn. But he did not meet her, because she had already passed by.

She had flitted swiftly over the bridge; but stricken to passivity by a sudden and astounding sight--she had stood a moment upon the farther side. She had then gone forward without disturbing those who astonished her.

Therefore Margaret and Mr. Crocker were wholly unaware that Rhoda Bowden had seen her sister-in-law not only putting food into the man’s mouth, but also laughing at him while he ridiculously imitated the fluttering action of a fledgling bird.

Rhoda gasped and slipped her foot once or twice from sheer absorption of mind as she proceeded homeward. She considered this spectacle in the light of news just gleaned at Sheepstor.

"And the man’s mother not much more than cold in her grave-clothes!" she thought.

*BOOK III*

*CHAPTER I*

*MYSTERY*

The company at ’The Corner House’ had divided into two groups, and each was concerned with a separate subject. Mr. Shillabeer himself, with Bartley Crocker, Mr. Moses, Simon Snell, and Bart Stanbury, discussed a strange phenomenon that had of late startled the dwellers at Sheepstor; while, with their backs to this throng, Ernest Maunder, his friend Timothy Mattacott, and Billy Screech whispered together upon a private problem.

"The thing can be explained in a word," said Moses; "there be amongst us some high-minded, religious creature that have got hold of this way of advertising the Truth. He have said to himself, ’There’s nought like a gate to catch the eye of the passer-by.’ And so, where a gate happens to stand by the wayside, he have gone by night and painted up a Bible truth. Farmer Chave found ’_Prepare to meet thy God_’ on his bullock byre yesterday morning, and there’s ’Eternity’--just that one solemn word--on every second gate betwixt here and Meavy."

"He’s come out our way, too, since last week," said Bart Stanbury. "There be a text up over on the moor-gate above our house: ’_Now is the accepted time_.’"

Young Stanbury was courting a girl at Nosworthy Farm, near his home, and this text, staring out of the dawn-lit desert, had come to him with the force of a direct command. But he made no mention of its private significance in his affairs.

"The party means well enough," declared Hartley. "There’s no doubt about that. And it can’t be denied that coming upon these solemn things all of a sudden makes men and women think. The puzzle is to know who’s doing it."

"Some of the people that own the gates don’t like it, however," said Simon Snell. "Farmer Bassett, out to Yellowmead, says ’tis a form of trespass and battery to write on a man’s gatepost; and it don’t bring you any more within the law because you write up Scripture. The man stuck up ’_Let there be light_’ on Mr. Bassett’s big gate--the one going into his four-acre field--and Bassett was cruel vexed and said as how he’d let light into the chap himself if ever he caught him."

"And he’s cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury.

"’Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way not long since, and there’s words written there again--namely, ’God is Love.’"

"Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have never catched the man," mused Crocker.