Part 21

"I’ll be off then. And mark this: you’ll have to listen to me once more yet before I go. No man worth the name would take ’no’ for an answer under thrice."

"Better save your time. You’ll never make me feel different to you. We’re not built to look alike or feel alike at any point. The sooner you know that the better."

"Bid ’em good-bye for me and try to think different."

He offered his hand and she took it.

"I’ll never think different so long as I can think at all," she said.

He departed, and Margaret and David saw him go and knew that he had failed.

Madge sighed for him; her husband showed no emotion.

"Come what may come, ’twill be best," he declared. "Rhoda knows her own mind; and that’s more than half the maidens do nowadays."

They returned to her and found her sweeping the hearth.

"Mr. Crocker have gone," she said. "I was to bid you good-bye from him."

Elsewhere the baffled suitor tramped through Dartmoor under conditions of setting sunlight and approaching darkness. Strong winds had scattered the fog of the preceding evening and now a gale shouted along the heath and drove the clouds before it. Flashes of light broke through the west and, like golden birds, floated upward over the dark bosoms of the hills. They reached the ragged summits of the land, revealed the granite there, then seemed to take wing into the sky.

*CHAPTER IV*

*POINTS OF VIEW*

The folk were coming to church, and some walked by road; some drove from distant hamlets; some tramped by sheep-tracks and rough pathways over wide spaces of heath and stone. Down through outlying farms that stretch tentative fields into the Moor; down past gorse-clad banks and great avenues of beeches; down past Kit Tin Mine--busy then, but empty and silent now; down into the valley bottom, drawn by the thin bell music from the tower above the trees, came the family of the Bowdens. It was smaller than of old. But the boys were growing; Napoleon and Wellington had become responsible persons in the scheme of life at Ditsworthy, and even the twins could be trusted to work without a ruling eye upon them. Mr. Bowden and his wife came to pray upon this early summer noon. Of women there were only two left at Ditsworthy; therefore Sarah and her daughter Sophia had to take Sunday at church alternately; and to-day the widow stopped at home to cook the dinner. With the Bowdens came other of the people. Susan Saunders appeared beside her nephew; but he saw her to the entrance only; there he stopped and talked with a knot of men. Among them was David Bowden. He, however, stayed not long outside and soon joined his family and Rhoda. She was already seated between Joshua and her father in the Bowden pew. Charles Moses was finding seats for chance visitors; Reuben Shillabeer, who never missed Sunday service, sat in his corner, having just handed four collecting dishes to those who would presently carry them through the congregation. He was a sidesman now, and Mr. Merle held the old prize-fighter in high esteem as a valuable example to the young men.

Mr. Screech arrived with his elder child. Mattacott met him and they talked apart. Their conversation concerned Timothy himself. Jane West had ceased to smile on Mattacott since the winter; yet there was no report of any engagement between her and Bart Stanbury. The appearance of Timothy’s rival cut this conversation short. He came with his father and mother. The men entered and Mrs. Stanbury spoke to Mr. Crocker.

"Be Margaret gone in?" she asked.

"No," he said. "She’s home to-day. David and Rhoda are here. Madge hasn’t come."

Mrs. Stanbury sighed with dismay.

"There! And I want particular for to see her. Now whatever shall I do?"

"Come and see her," suggested Bartley. "I’ll be very pleased to walk along with you. I’m not going in. The weather’s too fine to miss two hours of it, and I shan’t taste another English June for many a long day--perhaps never."

Constance considered, and then, the matter being of some urgency, consented.

"I’ll just go into the church and tell master I’m stepping over to see Margaret. And I shall have to get my dinner there. Everything’s locked up at Coombeshead till evening. We was all going to take our meat along with Mr. Moses to-day; but my men can do so, and I’ll ask Madge for a bit."

So it fell out, and Hartley, quite to his satisfaction, escorted Mrs. Stanbury to ’Meavy Cot.’

First he chattered about his own hopes and disappointments; then he interested himself in his companion’s affairs.

"Yes, I must be gone. No good staying here in sight of that girl--only makes me savage and good for nothing."

"A pity she won’t take you; but she’ll never take anybody. She’s cut out for the single state," declared Constance.

"How can you say that? Was ever a finer woman seen in Sheepstor?"

"Womanhood’s a matter of heart, not body, my dear. To the eye she’s female, to the mind she’s male--that, or neither one nor t’other. I know all about her through my daughter. Not that I don’t wish with all my heart you could have her, and take her long ways off. Not a word of unkindness do I mean; but ’twould be better every way, and better for Madge if she lived somewhere else."

"Yes--I understand that," he said. "David never can be everything to Madge while he thinks such a deuce of a lot of Rhoda. They’re all good friends, however."

"Good friends enough. But ’tisn’t the home it might be. You don’t see, and strangers don’t see; but I see, because my mother’s eyes can’t be blinded."

"I see too--I know very well what you mean."

"If you do, then say nought," she answered; "for ’tisn’t for you--nor me neither--to stand between a man and his wife. D’you know what Madge said to me last week? I grant she was down when she said it; but she’s down too often now. She said, ’Life was sunshine with only a little cloud three year agone; now it’s cloud with only a little sunshine, mother.’ Not a very nice thing for me to hear. But it didn’t astonish me. We’re an unlucky race, I must tell you. Whether luck comes through the blood, or through some dark powers outside us, I don’t know yet; ’tis a very real thing, and some has it from the cradle and some never gets a pinch of it. Stanburys don’t."

But Crocker was thinking of Margaret Bowden.

"I’m terrible sorry to hear you tell this about her. She keeps such a stiff upper lip before the world and looks out with such cheerful eyes, that I never guessed ’twas quite as bad. Yet now you say it, I mind the signs."

"Keep out of it, however, and go away. You can’t do no good if Rhoda won’t have you."

"Don’t be sure of that. I was a lot of use once. I might again."

Mrs. Stanbury was mildly surprised.

"Seeing David’s good sense and patience, I won’t say ’tis impossible to do anything. But David be David, and even if he had the will to alter, how can he do it, more’n the leopard his spots? There’s nothing you can put your hand upon and say ’there’s the evil’; and yet ’tis clear enough. They’ve drifted apart through having no family. ’Tis all said in that word."

Mr. Crocker sighed and felt a moment of real sorrow.

"If she’d married me," he said, "’twould have saved us both a lot of bother."

The other did not answer and they proceeded some distance silently.

Then he turned the conversation to Mrs. Stanbury herself.

"This is telling on you too. You’re not all you might be, I’m sure. I wish it was in my power to do you a good turn."

"Like you to say it. Many have to thank you for a good turn. But ’tis outside human strength to help me. I’ve run against the Powers of Darkness; I’ve heard Crazywell tell how my husband is to go inside the year."

"Does he believe it?"

"I don’t know. He won’t talk about it. He’s very careful of hisself, and he gets a bit short if I run on about it; so we’ve agreed to let the matter drop. All the same it’s aged him, and God knows how many years it has took off my life."

Mr. Crocker was interested.

"I only heard about it from David. There may be some sort of explanation."

"How can there be? ’Tis like a thunderbolt hung over us. Bart’s the only one who takes no account of it."

"It might be him just so likely as his father," said the man. "Why are you so positive ’twas your husband the voice meant? They’re both called ’Bartholomew.’"

Mrs. Stanbury stood still, stared at him, and then sank down suddenly in the hedge.

"But--but that can’t surely be? The one’s ’Bart’ always," she gasped out.

"To other people; but if this was some magic thing from another world, you couldn’t expect it to care about nicknames."

"Oh, my God! where do we all stand now?" cried out Mrs. Stanbury. "Nobody ever thought of that afore!"

"One person did, if not others; and that person’s Jane West," he answered. "I saw her a bit ago and asked her--out of kindness to Bart--why she held off and didn’t take him. I know only too well what ’tis to be hanging about with your heart telling you not to take ’no’ for an answer and your head telling you that you’re a fool. And Jane said that, so far as it went, she’d decided between Mattacott and Stanbury. ’But,’ she said, ’though I’m addicted to Bart and like him very well, ’tis no use taking the man if he’m going to die afore next Christmas.’ ’Twas only by the merest chance she and Bart didn’t hear the voice themselves, for they went up to Princetown shopping that very afternoon, and nothing but the fog made ’em go round by road."

But Mrs. Stanbury heard none of these words. She had never connected this catastrophe with her son; neither had Bart himself done so. Jane West, however, inspired thereto by Mr. Mattacott, perceived the real significance of the situation, and she proposed to wait until time showed whether father or son was to fall. Now Mrs. Stanbury was herself faced with this hideous complication, and it struck her almost as harshly as the original blow had done. Her weak mind whirled; she became incoherent and spoke without sense.

"Leave it, for God’s sake," urged the man. "You’ll go mad at this gait. One thing be just as absurd as t’other. Some innocent fool saw your husband through the fog and shouted to him--perhaps just wished him a merry season or some such thing--and then went on his way and thought no more of it. Be sure you’ll hear the truth soon or late, and you’ll live to see your men as well and hearty next January as they are now."

"You mean kindly to say these things," she answered. "But ’tis vain, and you’ll know it afore the year’s gone."

"Well, give God Almighty a chance," he urged. "’Tis you will be dead, not them, if you go on so."

They reached ’Meavy Cot’ and found Margaret. Her mother sat down, took off her bonnet and rested, while Madge stood a few minutes at the gate with Mr. Crocker before he started homeward.

"Try and cheer her up," he said. "’Tis that damned nonsense about the voice at Crazywell. She’ll fret herself into her grave over it if this goes on."

They discussed the matter for a while; then Madge spoke of Bartley himself.

"Don’t know what to be at," he said. "My life’s stuck for the minute. I can’t ask her again yet, and I’m not going till I have. Just once more. But the thing is to know what to be doing meantime--how to get a bit forwarder. How is she?"

"She’s all right--silenter than ever to me, though. Sometimes I think she’s judging me rather hardly and don’t reckon I’m a very good wife for David."

"I’m sure that can’t be. She’s a long way too sensible to imagine any such nonsense."

"She may be right, all the same. I don’t know what it is; I wouldn’t even name it to anybody but you and mother; but sometimes I feel as if there was a door between me and David, and sometimes he tries to open it, and I’m sure I’m always trying to, but it keeps shut."

"Stuff!" he repeated. "You’re such a parcel of nerves, Madge--like poor Mrs. Stanbury. You mustn’t let yourself think such things. David’s wrapped up heart and soul in you, and if ’tisn’t his way to show all he feels, that’s only to say he’s a Bowden. They are built on that fashion. You must try and look at life more with his eyes. He’s a rare man and I envy him his tremendous power of sticking to a thing till he’s got through with it. His ideas are big, not little; I can see that, and you ought to see it. You and me are a bit too much alike there, and ’tis our luck not to be rated at our real value in consequence. But we mustn’t repay in the same coin. Because David don’t quite understand you, and Rhoda don’t understand me, we, who are nimbler-witted than them, mustn’t be cross. They may not see the truth of us and all the virtues that we’ve got--and we’ve both got a rare lot in my opinion--but we do see the truth of them, and so we must be patient with their characters."

It was a new light to the woman, and she perceived the wisdom under his jesting manner.

"If he’d only let me into his secrets!" she said.

"You must be content with mine," he answered. "David lets you into his good fortune and tells you when he’s drawn a prize. But the bother and battle he keeps to himself."

"He doesn’t," she answered. "I’d forgive that. But he tells Rhoda. Again and again I’ve known them to break off a subject when I came along--as if I was a baby."

"Try to think ’tis out of their kindness they do it."

"I have tried; but I know different. David don’t believe in me--that’s the bitterness of my life in a word, Hartley. He don’t trust me like he trusts Rhoda."

"Then tell him so. Let him see what he’s losing by keeping you out. And I believe, come to think of it, that might be good advice to myself too. With Rhoda I mean. How would it be if I took a bit of counsel with her, Madge--asked her advice, like David does, and treated her like a man instead of a girl? Would that work?"

She considered.

"It would work, no doubt, as far as her being civil went. If you asked her questions, she’d answer ’em; and if you asked her opinion she’d give it. Whether ’twould lead to anything further, I can’t tell. We’ve drifted apart a bit of late, and I see it clear enough without seeing the reason for it. However, I daresay I’m to blame too. No doubt I don’t look at life from their point of view all I might. But I wish--I wish to God she’d take you--as much for my sake as her own."

The woman’s unusual bitterness impressed him.

"Follow my advice and have a good talk with David. Thresh it out and open his eyes a bit. If you see from his point of view, as you will now, then ’tis but fair he should see from yours; and if he can’t see your side single-handed, then you must help him. We’ll meet again afore long and I’ll tell you what comes of my new idea. Perhaps we shall both be lucky!"

He left her and she returned to her mother.

Mrs. Stanbury was absorbed in the dreadful new problems raised by Bartley Crocker’s theory of the voice. She explained these complications to Margaret, and her daughter strove to comfort her without success.

*CHAPTER V*

*END OF A ROMANCE*

Rhoda Bowden was walking over Yennadon Down, a broad tract of common above the gorges of Meavy. Great spaces stretched beneath her and a still higher and mightier wilderness heaved upward beyond the river and the forests to the east. There Ringmoor extended, and its lone miles basked in unclouded sunshine. Beneath lay Sheepstor and Meavy, each crowned by a church tower; while beyond rolled out long leagues of Devon to the margins of the sea. But Rhoda’s eyes were on the ground and she moved with less than her usual steady purpose. An empty cartridge met her glance and some small grey object that fluttered in the mouth of it led her to stop and pick up the fragment. The cartridge was old and weather-worn; the live creature that had found this convenient receptacle was a large and dusky moth. For a moment Rhoda felt interested, then, perceiving that this insect had laid many eggs within the empty cartridge, she shuddered slightly and flung the moth and its nursery away; because maternity on such a scale seemed loathsome to her even in an insect.

She was on her way to Buckland of the Monks with a message from David, and she welcomed the long and lonely day promised by this task, for not a few matters lay heavy on her mind. Rhoda’s responsibilities were growing beyond power of control.

But the anticipated hours of reflection were largely curtailed, for when she returned to the highway nigh Dousland Barn, a light cart overtook her and the driver was Simon Snell. His face indicated the most profound surprise. He smiled, hesitated, gave her ’good-morning,’ proceeded on his way, then changed his mind again, pulled up and alighted.

"What a terrible coorious thing as me and you should both be bound out along like this--on the very same day too!" he said.

"So ’tis then, and I hope you’re well. Us haven’t met this longful time."

"I was coming over one Sunday this summer," he declared; "but now will do just so well. I be going out to Vartuous Lady Mine to spend the day along with my brother James and his wife. You might not have heard me tell much about him, perhaps? I’ve took a day off--by permission, of course--and I’m carrying ’em a gift, because they’m not very well-to-do, I’m sorry to say."

"I’m going to Buckland Monachorum for David."

"Well, I never! What could have falled out better? I very nearly drove by you; because I said to myself, ’Perhaps it might be too pushing in me to offer to give her a lift.’ But I’m very glad I didn’t, and I hope you’ll accept of a seat till I leave your road. ’Tis a fainty sort of day, with thunder offering, in my opinion."

"Thank you, I should be very glad if you’ve got room."

"Room enough. I’m taking my brother half a pig as we killed last week, and his wife a bunch of they white Mary lilies, what grow to a miracle in our garden. People stop and stare at ’em. And if you’ll sit alongside me--if it isn’t making too bold--"

She ascended and they proceeded together.

"There’ll be a thunderstorm afore long, as you say," she remarked.

"I quite agree. And how be you faring? You’m looking purty middling; and I be purty middling, and so’s my mother, thank God, though she was into her seventy-fourth year last month."

"I’m all right."

"I ban’t too close to you, I hope?"

She shook her head. She felt comfortable and easy with him, as usual, but her heart beat no quicker for his voice or the inquiring gaze of his great mild eyes.

"My brother was married afore I comed acquainted with you. He’s a gamekeeper and his wife has a child every second year. For my part I think they’re unlucky; but their way is to trust the Lord to look after the childer. But I’m not sure. By the same token you might not know that you’ve got another nephew. Your sister, Mrs. Screech, had a son yesterday betwixt six and seven of the evening. Screech comed in to smoke a pipe when ’twas all over. A very clever job, I hear, and the child to be called after your father."

"I don’t want to know nothing about it, thank you."

"Beg pardon, I’m sure."

He was silenced for some time. Then he observed that Rhoda had a finger tied up.

"I do hope as you haven’t hurt yourself," he said.

"Nothing at all. A dog bit through when he was playing."

"They will, and yet mean no harm."

She considered with herself whether this man could be of any use to her, and she decided that he could not. It was in any case almost impossible to state her difficulties. She found it hard to put them into words even in thought, where an idea, though it cannot live away from the symbols of words, yet develops without any coherent sentences and reasoned speech. To tell to another what was in her mind had as yet been beyond her power; and to mention the difficulty to Mr. Snell, even if possible, must have proved a futile task. Her instinct assured her that his mind was no more built to speak wisdom on sex questions than her own. She reflected thus, while he, employed upon a different matter, wondered vaguely if he might arrange another walk with her; whether it was worth while to do so; and whether, even if she accepted the invitation, he really desired such a thing.

Presently she uttered a generality which bore obliquely upon his own ideas.

"What a terrible difficult world it do seem to become, if you’m married! And even if you’m thrown much against married people, you can’t escape it. If you care a lot about folk, you’m bound to feel for ’em, I suppose."

"I quite agree--never heard a truer word," he said. "’Tis the worst of being fond of people that, if they get in a mess, it makes you feel uncomfortable. You can’t escape from that."

"The fewer we care about, the more peace we have, seemingly."

"Exactly so. I’ve thought that very thought, and I’ve often thanked God that, after my mother, and my brother, and my brother’s wife, and one of my nephews, there’s nobody in the world I should shed a tear for if they was took."

She nodded, and he suddenly perceived that this was one of the speeches wherein he had failed of perfect tact. Yet to modify it needed some courage.

"I should say one other--one other, if I may make so bold," he added.

She did not answer and he considered before continuing. Then he decided that he could not leave the matter there. Yet he was cautious.

"You mustn’t think the worse of me for it. I don’t mean anything by it to cause you any uneasiness. But you’re the one, Miss Rhoda. I should certainly be very vexed if anything happened to you."

"Thank you, I’m sure, Mr. Snell."

"Don’t," he said. "These things don’t merit thanks. I’ve never told a lie, and so I won’t hold my reason back. I think a lot of your character: that’s why I should be sorry if harm happened to you."

"We’ve understood each other very well, I believe."

"Very well indeed; and you’ve taught me a lot about the female sex. And, but for you, I don’t suppose I should ever have knowed anything at all about them. I may tell you, owing to your large understanding, that I’ve often considered about the sense of marrying. But I’m sure I don’t know. When you look round--the heart sinks."

"Yes, it does."

Mr. Snell did look round, and the beautiful woman roused some faint, feeble flicker of his anæmic passion.

"I grant you that the wedded state as shown by other people--and yet I won’t go so far as Bartley Crocker do."

"How far’s that then?"

"Mind, don’t you say it against him. I’ve no wish to be thought a tale-bearer. But, in open speech at the bar of Shillabeer’s public-house, he said that though you hear of happy marriages, you never see them. Now that’s too far-reaching--eh?"

"Not much. He’s not far out, I reckon."

"Well, you know better than me; but, begging pardon for mentioning her again, your own sister is as happy as a bird. And I really don’t say it’s impossible to be happy with a home of your own."

"The right ones never meet. I’d warn every man and woman against it for my part."

With this speech Rhoda quite extinguished the paltry flicker in Mr. Snell’s broad bosom. He looked rather frightened. He stroked his beard. At heart he felt a sort of relief that even the shadow of disquiet was now banished in the light of her plain statement.

"If that’s your opinion, ’tis no part for a common man like me to say a word against it," he answered. "Sometimes--I won’t deny it--I’ve thought, in uplifted moments, that the married state with such a meek nature as mine--and then again, however--"

"I speak what I know; but nobody can be sure they’re right, I suppose. What do you think about it?" asked Rhoda. But why she gave him this loophole she knew not. Her interest in Mr. Snell was at a low ebb to-day, and her own thoughts filled her spirit to the exclusion of all else. Still she was always content with him. He appeared to her to be a sensible and responsible man whose opinion was better worth having than that of most people.