Part 4

"I’ve knowed all three--Tom Cribb, Tom Spring and that wonder of the world, Tom Sayers," Mr. Shillabeer would say; "all Champions of England and all very friendly to me. And Mr. Spring would have been my second in my affair with Andy Davison, ’the Rooster,’ but he had other business on hand. And now," Mr. Shillabeer would sum up mournfully, "now Cribb be in his grave and Spring in his, and Sayers will fight no more, though still the glory of the nation. But they always called me the ’Devonshire Dumpling’; and when I had my one and only benefit in the Fives Court, Mr. Spring showed, God bless him for it, though only a fortnight after his first mill with Jack Langan."

In person the ’Devonshire Dumpling,’ now a man of sixty, was built on massive lines. He stood six feet two inches, and weighed sixteen stone. His large heavy-jowled face was mild and melancholy; his eyes were brown and calf-like. One nostril had been split and flattened in battle, and the symmetry of his countenance was thereby spoiled. He shaved clean, but under his double chin there sprouted and spread a thick fringe or mat of hair--foxy-grey and red mingled. Tremendous shoulders and arms belonged to Mr. Shillabeer. Sometimes he would perform feats of strength for the pleasure of the bar, and he could always be prevailed upon to discuss two subjects, now both defunct: the prize-ring, and his wife.

Tom Sayers had recently fought John Heenan, and the great records of the Ring were closed. Jem Mace was now champion, and his prowess perhaps revived the moribund sport for a few years; but prize-fighting had passed into the control of dishonest rascals and the fighters were merely exploited by the lowest and most ruffianly types of sporting men. The Ring had perished and many a straight, simple-hearted spirit of the old school regretted the fact, even as Shillabeer did. He was not vain and never hesitated to give the true reasons for his own undistinguished career.

There fell an evening in the bar of ’The Corner House’ when Mr. Shillabeer appeared in a temper unusually brisk and genial. He even cracked a massive joke with Charles Moses, the shoemaker and vicar’s warden. There were present also Simon Snell, David Bowden from Ditsworthy, Ernest Maunder, the village constable, and other persons.

Mr. Moses reproved a certain levity in the leviathan host.

"What’s come to you, ’Dumpling’? A regular three-year-old this evening. But you’m not built for it, my dear. ’Tis like an elephant from a doomshow trying to play the monkey’s tricks."

At this criticism Reuben Shillabeer instantly subsided. He drew beer for Bowden, cast David’s three halfpence into the till and turned to Mr. Moses.

"You’re right. ’Tis for dapper, bird-like men--same as you--to be light and pranksome. I’ve marked that you shoemakers do always take a hopeful view of life. Working in leather dries up the humours of the body and makes all the organs brisk and quick about their business, I believe. Then, as vicar’s warden, you get religion in a way that’s denied to us common men. You’re in that close touch with parson that good must come of it."

"It does," admitted Mr. Moses. "It surely does."

"You can see it in your face, Charles," asserted Mr. Maunder. "Some people might say you had a more religious face than parson’s self--his being so many shades nearer plum-red."

"But it’s not a fault in the man," argued Mr. Shillabeer. "There’s no John Barleycorn in the colour, only nature in him. Yet an unfortunate thing, and certainly lessens his weight in the pulpit with strangers."

"I’m glad that you feel my face to be a good face, Ernest Maunder," replied Mr. Moses. "Only once have I ever had my face thrown in my face, so to speak; and that was by a holy man of all men. In charity, I’ve always supposed him short-sighted. ’Twas the ’revival’ gentleman that put up with you, Shillabeer, a few years agone, and preached in the open air, and drawed a good few to hear him."

"A Wesleyan and a burning light and proud it made me having him here," said the innkeeper. "A saintly soul the man had."

"Well, he met me as he was going to pitch one Sunday morning--me in black, of course, and off to church. ’Friend,’ he said, ’be honest with yourself and with me. Are you saved?’ You could have knocked me down with a feather, folks. ’Saved,’ I said, ’saved! _Me_! Good God A’mighty, man,’ I said, ’you’m talking to the vicar’s warden!’ No doubt he was shocked to think of what he had done; but he didn’t show it. He went his way with never a word of apology neither. But a righteous creature."

"I quite agree. I listened to him," said Mr. Snell. "I wasn’t saved afore; but I have been ever since."

A labourer laughed.

"You’re safe enough, Simon. It ban’t in you to do nothing wrong."

"I hope not, Timothy Mattacott, but I have my evil thoughts with the worst among you," answered Snell. "I often wish I had more money--and yet a well paid man."

"You leat chaps all get more than you’re worth," said Bowden. "Why, ’tis only when the snow-banks choke the water that you have anything to do, save walk about with your hands in your pockets and your pipes in your teeth."

Mr. Snell had certain miles of Drake’s historic waterway under his control. This aqueduct leads from the upper channels of West Dart and winds onward and downward to Plymouth. Behind Lowery, Simon’s home, it passed, and for a space of two miles was in his care. They argued now upon the extent and gravity of Snell’s task, and all agreed that he was fortunate. Then Mr. Maunder, returning to the point from which conversation had started, bade Reuben explain his unusual hilarity.

"Without a doubt you was above your nature when us first came in, ’Dumpling’--as Moses here pointed out. And if any good fortune have fallen to you, I beg you’ll name it, for there’s not a man in this bar but will be glad to hear about it," declared the policeman.

"Hear, hear, Maunder!" said Mr. Moses; "your good be our good, neighbour."

"Thank you kindly, souls. ’Twas nought, and yet I won’t say that. A letter, in fact, from an old London friend of mine. A very onusual sort of man by the name of Fogo. I may have mentioned him when telling about the old fights."

"Be it the gentleman you call ’Frosty-faced Fogo’?" inquired Mattacott.

"The same," answered Reuben. "’Frosty-faced Fogo’ is in Devonsheer--at Plymouth, if you’ll believe it. There’s a twenty-round spar between two boys there, and Fogo, at the wish of a sporting blade in London, who’s backing one of ’em, be down to see the lad through. And what’s made me so cheerful is just this: that, for the sake of old times, ’Frosty-face’ is coming on here to put up with me for a week, or maybe more. You’ll hear some wonders, I warn ’e. That man’s knowed the cream of the P.R.s and pitched more Rings, along with old Tom Oliver, the Commissary-General, than any other living creature."

"My father must come down for to see him," said David. "There’s nought rejoices him like valour, and he wouldn’t miss the sight of such a character for money."

"All are welcome," declared Shillabeer with restrained enthusiasm. "I shall hope to have a sing-song for Mr. Fogo one night. And he’ll tell you about Bendigo, and Ben Gaunt, and Burke, ’the Deaf ’Un,’ and many of the great mills in the forties. I was the very daps of Ben Gaunt myself--though he stood half an inch higher. We was neither of us in the first rank for science, but terrible strong and gluttons for punishment. Gaunt was Champion in his day, but never to be named alongside Cribb or Dutch Sam or Crawley or Jem Belcher."

"When’s he to be here?" asked Mr. Maunder. "I feel almost as if such a man of war threatens to break the peace by coming amongst us."

"You’re a fool," answered David, bluntly. "A man like you, instead of being in such a mortal dread of peace-breaking, ought to welcome the chance of it now and again. If I was a policeman, I should soon get tired of just paddling up and down through Sheep’s Tor mud, week in, week out, and never have nought to do but help a lame dog over a stile or tell some traveller the way. ’Tis a tame and spiritless life."

"The tamer the better," declared Ernest Maunder, frankly. "I like it tame. ’Tis my business to maintain law and order, and that I will do, Bowden. And to tell me I’m a fool is very disorderly in you, as well you know. I may have my faults, but a fool I’m not, as this bar will bear me out."

"I merely say," returned David, "that if I was a peeler, I should want to earn my money, and have a dash at life, and make a stir, if ’twas only against poachers here and there."

"Shows how little you know about it," answered Maunder. He was a placid, straw-coloured man, with an official mind. "You say ’poachers.’ Well, poachers ban’t my business. Poachers come under a different law, and unless I have the office from headquarters to set out against ’em to the neglect of my beat, I can’t do it. I’m part of a machine, and if I got running about as you say, I should throw the machine out of order."

"What for do you want to speak to the man like that?" asked Mattacott, who was the policeman’s friend. "You Bowdens all think yourselves so much above the common people--God knows why for. One would guess you was spoiling for a fight yourself. Well, I daresay, the ’Dumpling’ here could find somebody at your own weight as wouldn’t fear a set to with you."

"Why not you?" said Bowden. "When you like, Mattacott."

"What a fiery twoad ’tis! Why, you’m a stone heavier than me, and years younger."

Mr. Shillabeer regarded David with some professional interest.

"You’m a nice built chap, but just of that awkward weight ’twixt light and middle. In the old days I knowed some of the best bruisers you could wish to see were the same; but ’twas always terrible difficult to get ’em a job, because they was thought too light for the heavies and too heavy for the lights. But Dutch Sam in his day, and Tom Sayers in his, showed how eleven-stone men, and even ten-stone men, can hit as hard as anything with a fist. As for you, Bowden, you’ve a bit of the fighting cut--inclined to be snake-headed, though your forehead don’t slope enough. But you’re a thought old now."

"Not that I want to fight any man without a cause," said David. "If there’s a reason, I’d fight anything on two legs--light or heavy--but not for fun. And I hope you men--Mattacott and Ernest Maunder--haven’t took offence where none was meant."

"Certainly not," declared Mr. Maunder. "I’ll take anything afore I take offence. ’Tis my place to keep the peace, and if I don’t set an example of it, who should? Twice only in my life have I drawed my truncheon in the name of the Queen, and I hope I’ll never have no call to do it thrice. Have a drink, David; then I must be going."

But Bowden declined with thanks, and the company soon separated.

When he was alone, fired by the prospect of seeing his old friend once more, Reuben Shillabeer took a damp towel and, visiting each in turn, polished up the portraits of a dozen famous pugilists which hung round the walls of his bar. Where sporting prints of race-horses and fox-hunting are generally to be met with, Mr. Shillabeer had a circle of prize-fighters; and now he rubbed the yellow stains of smoke off the glasses that covered them, so that the stern, but generally open and often handsome countenances of the fighting giants looked forth from their grimy frames. Before a print of the famous ’Tipton Slasher’ Mr. Shillabeer paused, and thoughtfully stroked his battered nose.

"Ah, Bill Perry," he said, "if I’d been ten year younger--"

Then having extinguished two oil lamps, the old man retired and left his gallery of the great in darkness.

*CHAPTER VII*

*DENNYCOOMBE WOOD*

Of dingles under Dartmoor there is none so fair as Dennycoombe. Here wood and water, rock and heath, wide spaces and sweet glens mingle together, and make a theatre large enough for the pageant of the seasons, a haunt small enough to be loved as a personal possession and abiding treasure. Dennycoombe tends upward to Coombeshead, and the little grey farmhouse of Bartholomew Stanbury dominates the scene, and stands near the apex of the valley. At this hour, after noon in early December, a croft or two made light on the hill, where green of turnips and glaucous green of swedes ran parallel, and black tilled earth also broke the medley of the waste. Then winked out the farm from twin dormer windows--a thing of moorstone colour, yet splashed as to the lintel-post with raw whitewash, so that it should be seen in the darkness of moonless nights. Beneath, through a bottom of willow scrub, furze and stunted oak, the Dennycoombe stream tumbled and rattled to join Meavy far below. A single ’clapper’ of granite spanned this brook for foot-passengers; while above it, under heathery banks, the rivulet crossed a cart-track at right angles, and widened there to make a ford.

Over these small waters at this hour came Margaret from her home; and though the day lacked for sunshine, her heart was full of it, because now she went to meet the man she loved best on earth, at a place she loved best of earth.

There are words that light a lamp in the heart and wake in the mind images of good things, with all the colour and life, the loveliness and harmony proper to them. There are syllables whose chance utterance unlocks all the gates of the mind; floods the spirit with radiance; lifts to delight, if the fair thought belongs as much to the future as the past; but throbs chastened through the soul if the fragrant memory is appropriated by the past alone.

Dennycoombe Wood meant much to this woman. In spring and summer, in autumn and winter, she knew it and cherished it always. And now she saw it with the larches feathering to a still grey sky, their crests of pale amber spread transparently upon the darker heart of the underwood beneath them. Grey through the last of the foliage thrust up a network of bough and branch; here a cluster of blue-green firs melted together and massed upon the forest; here dark green pines, straight-limbed, lifted their pinnacles all fringed with russet cones. A haze of the larch needles still aloft washed the whole wood delicately and shone against the inner gloom of it. Round the spinney edge stood beeches with boles of mottled silver, and their remaining foliage set the faint gold of the forest in a frame of copper. Lower still, under broken banks, lay the auburn brake; and great stones, in the glory of their mosses, glimmered like giant emeralds out of the red water-logged tangle of the fern. The hill fell steeply beneath Dennycoombe Wood, and there were spaces of grass and many little blunt whitethorns, now naked, that spattered the slope with patches of cobweb grey.

All was cast together in the grand manner of a forest edge; and all was kneaded through by the still, gentle light of a sunless and windless December hour before dusk. The place of the sun, indeed, appeared behind a shield of pearl that floated westerly and sank upon the sky; but light remained clear and colourless; tender, translucent grey swept the firmament, and scarcely a darker detail of cloud floated upon it. The day was a tranquillity between two storms, of which one had died at dawn and the other was to waken after midnight.

Nothing had influenced Margaret towards Elias Bowden’s eldest son but her own heart. She had known now for some time that two men loved her, and she felt a certain affection for both; but the regard for Bartley was built on their likeness in temper; the love for David arose out of their differences. Hartley’s weakness, which in some measure was her own, attracted Madge towards him; but David’s strength--a quality quite different to any that she possessed--drew her forcibly into his arms. When she found that he loved her, the other man suffered a change and receded into a region somewhat vague and shadowy. Friendly she felt to Bartley Crocker and eager to serve him and advance his welfare, but the old dreams were dead. She had thought of him as a husband, in the secret places of her heart, long before he thought of her--or of anybody--as a wife; but now that his mind was seriously turned in her direction and he began to long for her, the time was past and his sun had set upon a twilight of steadfast friendship that could never waken again into any warmer emotion. Madge liked him, and the years to come showed how much; but she never loved him.

The tryst was a great stone under a holly tree, and through the stillness, over a sodden mat of fallen leaves, she came and found David waiting. He had not heard her, and he did not see her, for his back was turned and he sat on the stone, his chin in his hands, very deep in thought. His hat was off and his hair was brushed up on end. He wore velveteens and gaiters, and had made some additions to his usual week-day toilet in the shape of a collar, a tie and a white linen shirt. The collar appeared too tight and once he tugged at it and strained his neck. For a little while Margaret watched him, then she came forward and stood by him and put out her hand. He jumped up, hot and red; then, for a long time, he shook the small hand extended to him. As he did so, she blushed and felt an inclination to weep.

His slow voice steadied her emotion and calmed them both.

"Sit here, if not too hard for ’e. ’Tis dry fern. I found it a bit ago."

She mounted the stone with help from his arm. Then he sat beside her.

"I think it terrible kind of you to be here," he said. "To come here for to listen to a great gawkim like me."

"You’re not a gawkim. You’re the wittiest chap this side of the Moor. Leastways my father always says so."

"Very kind of him. There’s no man I’d sooner please. Well--well--’tis a thing easily said and yet-- However, all the same, I wouldn’t say it to-day if I hadn’t axed you to come here, for I had a fore-token against it yesterday."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"A white rabbit. You’ll laugh, but your mother wouldn’t. And my father have a great feeling against ’em, though he can’t explain it, and grows vexed if anybody says anything. Not on the warren; but over on the errish[#] down to Yellowmead I seed it."

[#] _Errish_ = Stubble.

"I care nothing for that--at least--" She stopped doubtfully.

"If you don’t care, more won’t I. Then here goes. Can you hear it? Can a rare maiden like you let a rough chap like me offer to marry her? For that’s what I’ve axed you to come here about."

She was silent and he spoke again.

"Could you? There’s things in my favour as well as things against me."

"There’s nothing, nothing against you, David."

"Then you’ll take me!"

"And proud and happy to."

"Lord! How easy after all," he said--more to himself than to her. "And here I’ve been stewing over this job for two months, and sleeping ill of nights, and fretting. Yet, you see, ’twas the work of a moment. Thank you, thank you very much indeed for marrying me, Madge. I’ll make you the best husband I know how. I must tell you all about the plans I’ve built up in hope you would say ’yes’--hundreds of ’em. And you’ll have to help now."

He was amazingly collected and calm. He told her how he proposed a house for them far from other dwellings, where they would have peace from the people and privacy and silence. He had found such a place on the upper waters of Meavy, where stood a ruin that might easily be restored and made a snug and comfortable home. He meant to breed ponies and sheep. The suggestion was that Rhoda joined them and looked after the dogs. He could hardly get on without her, and she would certainly be very miserable away from him.

"She reckons that no woman living be good enough for you," said Margaret, faintly. Her voice showed her heart was hungry, empty. She had expected a meal and it was withheld.

David laughed.

"To be frank, she do."

"And no man living good enough for herself."

"As to that, the right one will come along in time. She shan’t marry none but the best. She likes you well, Madge, as well as she may; but she hasn’t got hold of the idea of me married yet. Now she’ll jolly soon have to do it. There’s five hundred pound has come to me, you must know, under the will of my mother’s brother who died back-along. It’s goodied a bit since and us’ll have some sheep and you’ll have a nice little lot of poultry. And Sir Guy will rebuild the ruin. It is all his ground. And now you’ve said ’yes,’ I shall ask ’em to begin. When can you come to see the place?"

"So soon as ever you like," she said. "I hope ’tisn’t too far away from everybody."

"Not so far as I could wish; but far enough. The ruins be old miners’ works; and we’ll have a shippen and a dog-kennel and all complete, I promise you."

For a long time he talked of his hopes and plans, but she came not directly into them. It seemed that her help was hardly vital to the enterprise. At last she brought the matter back to the present; and she spoke in tones that might have touched the stone she sat on.

"I’ll try so hard to make you a good wife, David."

He started and became dimly conscious of the moment and the mighty thing that had happened to him in it.

"I know that right well. Too good for me every way. Too gentle and soft and beautiful. I’ll be tremendous proud of you, Madge. And I’ll do my share, and work early and late for you, and lay by for you, and lift you up, perhaps, in ten years or so to have a servant of your own, and a horse and trap of your own, and everything you can wish."

"I wish for you to love me always, always, always--nothing but that."

"And so I shall, and the best love be what swells the balance at the bank quickest. Now I know you can take me, I feel as if I should like to get up off this rock this instant moment and go away and begin working like a team of horses for ’e."

"Don’t go away yet. Think what this is to me--so much, much more than it can be to you."

"’Tis everything in the world to me," he said solemnly. "You little know how you’ve been on my mind. My folk will tell you now, no doubt, how it has been with me. That glowering and glumping I’ve been--not a word to throw at man or woman. But they’ll see a different chap to-night!"

She put out her hand timidly. Would he never touch her? Was she never to put her face against his?

Love reigned in his plans, and the little things that he had thought of surprised her; but there came no arm round her, no fierce caress, no hot storm of kisses. He talked hopefully--even joyfully, with his eyes upon her face; but there was no sex-light in their brightness; while hers were dreamy with love and dim with unshed tears.

"I must get back-along with the great news now," he said. "And it will be well if we’re moving. Coarse weather’s driving up again. I’ll see you home first."

"You’ll come in and tell mother?"

"Must I?"

"Yes," she answered. "You’ve got to obey me now, you dear David. I wish it."

"Then off we go."

He helped her down like a stranger and talked of crops as they returned to Coombeshead. Rhoda was better at figures than he was. He hoped that Margaret was good at figures. She said waywardly that she was not, and he regretted it but felt sure that she would soon learn.

A rain-laden dusk descended over Eylesbarrow as they returned, and through, the gloaming the white lintel and door-posts of the farm stared like an eye.

Silence fell between them, and during its progress some touch of nature woke in David. After they had crossed the stream and reached a rush-clad shed where a cart stood, he spoke in a voice grown muddy and gruff.

"Come in here a minute," he said, "afore we go on, Madge. I want--I want--"

She turned and they disappeared.

"I want to kiss you," he said.