Читать книгу The Virgin in Judgment - Eden Phillpotts - Страница 6

CHAPTER VI

THE HOST OF 'THE CORNER HOUSE'

'The Corner House' stood just outside Sheepstor village, and Mr. Reuben Shillabeer--a childless widower--was host of it. His wife had been dead ten years, but he kept her memory green, and so much that happened in the world appeared to remind him sorrowfully of her, that the folk found him depressing. Some air of romance from the past hung about Mr. Shillabeer: he had moved in sporting circles and been a prize-fighter. Though his own record in the ring was not glorious and consisted of five battles and one victory, yet Mr. Shillabeer had known as a friend and equal the giants of the past. In rare moments of cheerfulness he would open his huge palm before the spectator and explain how that hand had shaken the unconquerable and terrible 'rights' of the three immortal 'Toms.'

"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.

A fearful clatter ascended from long-legged fowls roosting on the cart, for their repose was roughly broken. They clucked and cried until Mrs. Stanbury, supposing a fox had descended from the lulls, hastened out to frighten it away.

Then she met Margaret and David--shame-faced, joyous.

"We'm tokened, mother!" cried the man; "and please God, I'll be a dutiful second son to you."

"Thank you for that," she said. "Give you joy, I'm sure. And I'll be proud to have you for a son; and may you never repent your bargain."

She put up her face to his and kissed him; and since he still held Madge by the waist, all three were thus, for an instant, united in a triple caress.

By chance some moments of happy magic in the sky smiled upon this incident, for the grey west broke at its heart above the horizon and little orange feathers of light flashed suddenly along the upper chambers of the air. The Hesperides--daughters of sunset--danced golden-footed on the threshold of evening, and their glimmering skirts swept earth also, set radiance upon Eylesbarrow and hung like a beacon of fire against the deep storm-purple of the east. Thrice this glory waxed and waned; then all light vanished; the colour song was sung; the day died.

Not observing these gracious phenomena upon Night's fringes, the mother, the man and his maiden went in together.

CHAPTER VIII

IN PIXIES' HOUSE

Various interests are served by the great bulk of Sheep's Tor. Not only the colt and the coney prosper here and the vixen finds a place for her cubs, but man also avails himself of the hill in a manner little to be guessed. Battleships, swinging far off to adjust their compasses in Plymouth Sound, use the remote, ragged crown of the tor as a fixed point for determining the accuracy of their instruments; while once, if oral tradition may be respected, the stony bosom of the giant offered hiding in time of stress to a scion of the old Elford clan, lords of the demesne in Stuart days. This king's man, flying for his life from the soldiers of Cromwell, hid himself in a familiar nook; and we may suppose the 'foreigners' tramped Sheep's Tor in vain, and perhaps stamped iron-shod over the rocks under which he lay safe hidden. To-day this cleft, called the Pixies' House, can still be entered. It is of a size sufficient to contain two adults in close juxtaposition; but an inner chamber has fallen, and certain drawings, with which it was alleged the concealed fugitive occupied his leisure, have, if ever they existed, vanished away.

In the very bosom of the great south-facing rocky slope of Sheep's Tor where the lichen-coated slabs and boulders are flung together in magnificent confusion, there may be found one narrow cleft, above which a mass of granite has been split perpendicularly. Chaos of stone spilled here lies all about, and numberless small crannies and chambers abound; but the rift alone marks any possible place of concealment for creature larger than dog or fox; and beneath it, invisible and unguessed, lies the Pixies' House, one of the local sanctities and a haunt of the little people.

Here, two days after Margaret had accepted David Bowden, Bartley Crocker was walking with a gun. His goal lay up the valley and he hoped to shoot some snipe; but circumstances quite altered his intentions.

The day was one of elemental unrest and the clouds rolled tumultuous. They unrolled great planes of shifting gloom and splendour, of accidents of vapour that concealed and of light that illumined. But at mid-day a mighty shadow ascended against the wind and thunder rumbled along the edges of the Moor. The storm-centre spun about a mile off, then it drove in chariots of darkness over Sheep's Tor.

At this moment Bartley remembered the Pixies' House, and, hastening sure-footed over the wild concourse of stones that extended around it, he approached the crevice where it lay.

A woman suddenly caught his eye, and as the breaking storm now promised to be terrific, he called to her and, turning back, joined her.

It proved to be Rhoda Bowden on her way home, and she accepted Bartley's offer of shelter.

"Something pretty bad's coming," she said. "Be the Pixies' House large enough for the both of us? I've got a bit of news you'll be surprised to hear."

"Full large enough--quick--quick--down through there--let me have your hand."

But she accepted no help and soon crawled through the aperture into shelter. Then Bartley, taking two caps off the nipples of his gun, thrust it in after Rhoda and followed swiftly to avoid the onset of the storm.

They had acted with utmost speed and Rhoda was now aghast to find the exceeding propinquity of Mr. Crocker. He could hardly have been closer. She moved uneasily. It occurred to her that he ought to have surrendered the Pixies' House to her and himself found shelter elsewhere. The idea, however, had not struck him.

"Can't you make a little more room?" she asked, breathing rather hard.

"I wish I could, but it's impossible. I forgot you were such a jolly big girl," he answered.

She set her teeth and waited for the outer darkness to lighten. The thunder roared and exploded in a rattle overhead; they heard the hiss and hurtle of the ice and water; while at intervals the entrance of their shelter was splashed along its rough edges with glare of lightning.

"Better here than outside," said Bartley; but Rhoda began to doubt it. It seemed to her that he came nearer and nearer. At last she asked him to get out and let her pass.

"Can't stand this no more," she said, "I'm being choked. I'd sooner suffer the storm than this."

"You don't want to go out, surely!"

"Yes, I do."

The lightning showed him her face very close to his, and he saw her round cheek, lovely ear and bright, hard eyes with a wild look in them, like something caught in a trap. The storm shouted to the hills and cried savagely against the granite precipices; it leapt over the open heaths and roared into the coombes and valleys. The waste was all a dancing whiteness of hail, jewelled ever and anon by the lightning.

Already the heart of conflict had passed and it grew lighter to rearward.

"You must wait a bit yet. Your people would never forgive me if I let you go into this."

She pushed forward, then strained back horrified, for she had accidentally pressed his face with her cheek. But Bartley was not built to stand that soft, firm appulse of woman's flesh without immediate ignition.

"I must have one if I swing for it!" he said. Then he put his arms round her and kissed her.

He expected an explosion and found himself not disappointed. The thunder-storm outside was mild to the woman-storm within when Crocker thrust his caress upon this girl. She started back as though he had stamped a red-hot iron upon her face.

"You loathsome, godless wretch!" she shrieked out, and her voice broke the rocky bounds of earth and leapt into the storm. Thence frantically she followed it and trampled heavily on the amorous sportsman as she did so.

"I could tear the skin off my face!" she cried; and her words came deep and fierce and shuddering. "You coward! I'd sooner be struck by the lightning than have suffered it!"

She departed, running like a frightened child, and he crawled out after her and rubbed his bruised shins. Her nailed shoe had stamped on his hand, torn it and made it bleed; but his wound was light to hers. He was back in the shelter presently, laughing and smoking his pipe while the weather cleared; but she sobbed and panted homeward under the sob and pant of the storm. She felt unclean; every instinct of her nature rebelled against this touch of male lips. She magnified the caress into a mountain of offence; she held up her cheek that the rain which followed the hail might wash it and purge it from this man's hateful blandishment. Passion got hold of her violated soul, and she would gladly have called down fire from the cloud upon Crocker.

He, meantime, waited a while, and wondered what thing it was she had meant to tell him. As yet none at Sheepstor knew of Margaret's engagement, the great subject in Rhoda's mind; but though he did not learn it from her, chance and his own act put the information into Bartley's hand within that hour. This reverse with David's sister altered his intentions and turned him towards another woman. He suddenly longed for a sight of Margaret, and, abandoning the thought of snipe, decided to go to Coombeshead and see her instantly. A still larger resolve lurked behind. Now bright weather-gleams of blue and silver opened their eyes to windward; the storm had gathered up its skirts of rack and flame into the central moor; a thousand gurgling rivulets leapt over the grass; the hail melted; the ponies turned head to wind again and went on grazing, while their wet sides steamed in a weak tremor of sunlight.

Bartley stepped forth, shouldered his gun and whistled to his dog, which had taken refuge near at hand and gone to sleep in a hole. Then he started over the Moor to his destination and his great deed.

Margaret was at home and came out to see him. His greeting amazed her, for it differed by much from what she expected. The girl doubted not that her friend had heard the news and had come to offer his congratulations; but he had not heard it, and he came to offer himself.

Mr. Crocker had toyed with this achievement for six weeks; and now the storm, and Rhoda, and certain uneasiness begot of Rhoda, and a general vague desire for something feminine as different as possible from Rhoda, together with other emotions and sensations too numerous to define, all affirmed his resolve.

He wasted no time, for he was full of desire for Madge and honestly believed that she cared for him. And in answer to his abrupt but impassioned plea, she assured him that she did care for him and that his welfare was no small thing to her.

"We've known each other ever since we was dinky boy and girl to infant school together; and I, with my managing ways, would oft blow your li'l nubby nose when it wanted it," she said, looking at him with shining eyes and in a mood emotional. "But with my David--yes, my David he is--well, 'twas love, dear Bartley, and we'm tokened. And I'm glad 'twas left for me to tell you, though 'tis terrible strange it should fall out at such a minute as this."

He stared and stammered and wished her joy. He was disappointed, but not by any means crushed to the earth. It only occurred to him that no other woman's lips would that day destroy the flavour of Rhoda Bowden's.

"Then what becomes of me?" he said; but not as though there were no answer to the question.

"You'll get a better far," she replied.

"But you--you to go into that silent family--all so stern and proper. Think twice afore 'tis too late, Madge."

"I love them all," she answered. "But silent they surely are. I took my dinner along with them yesterday and, if it hadn't been for Dorcas and me, they'd have gone without a word spoken from grace afore meat to thanksgiving after."

"Dorcas is cheerful enough."

"I like her--best after David," said Madge, a little nervously, as though she talked treason.

Then Mr. Crocker told of the storm and his companion in the Pixies' House.

"Like a damned fool, just because her cheek happened to touch mine, I kissed her."

"Bartley!"

"Well you may stare. Lord knows what come over me to do it; but I got hell for my fun, and so like as not your David will have a bit more to say later on. Him and Rhoda are the wide world to each other. I suppose you know that?"

Margaret's face clouded, but she was loyal.

"Rhoda's a splendid woman, Bartley."

"She is. Now that you won't take me, I believe I shall have a dash at her. But 'twill be a long year afore she forgives this day's work."

He left Margaret soon afterwards and his depression of spirit steadily gained upon him as he returned home. At 'The Corner House' he stopped and drank a while; then he got back to his mother and took a gloomy pleasure in shocking her pride with his news.

Nanny Crocker was sewing at the kitchen table when he returned, and his Aunt Susan brought a belated meal to him hot from the oven.

He looked at the food and then spoke.

"Can't eat," he said. "I've had a full meal to-day a'ready."

"Was you in the storm?" asked Susan. "In the midst of all that awful lightning, with thunder-planets falling and a noise in the elements like the trump of Doom.--If the cat haven't chatted in the pigs' house! Her always brings six, so no doubt that's the number."

"I've just come from asking Margaret Stanbury to marry me," said Bartley, showing no interest in the kittens. "That's what I meant when I said I've had a full meal."

"At last!" cried Nanny Crocker. "Well, well, well--and what a day to choose, my dear! God bless you both, I'm sure. She's a lucky girl and we must set to work now to teach her more than she's been able to learn at home. Rise up and kiss me, my son."

Bartley obeyed with a sort of sardonic smile under his skin. His mother kissed him fervently and sighed.

"You didn't ask twice, I lay," said Susan.

"No," he answered, "I didn't."

"'Tis a terrible pity her mother's such a chuckle-headed, timid creature," declared Nanny. "Not a word against her after to-day, of course. But I'm sorry she haven't got larger intellects and don't believe a little less."

"When is it to be, Bartley?" asked his aunt. "You're not the sort to wait long, I reckon."

"It isn't to be," he answered. "You two silly old souls run on so, and can't imagine any woman turning up her nose at me. But unfortunately other people haven't such a good opinion."

"Won't have you!" gasped his parent. "A Stanbury won't take a Crocker!"

"Madge Stanbury won't take this Crocker--which is all that matters."

"The chit!" said Nanny.

"The ninnyhammer!" cried Aunt Susan.

"The sensible girl," answered Bartley. "She's found somebody better--a man as stands to work and will make a finer fashion of husband than ever I should."

"How you can sit there and talk in that mean spirit passes me!" answered his mother. "Have a greater respect for yourself, and let that girl see to her dying day what a fool she's been."

"Who is it? I suppose you got that much out of her?" asked Bartley's aunt.

"It's David Bowden from Ditsworthy, and they've been tokened two days, so, you see, I was a bit behind the fair."

"Nobody would blame her for changing her mind yet now you've offered yourself," declared Susan.

"She's no wish to change. She likes me very well as a friend--always have since she used to blow my nose for me in infant school--but she likes him a long sight better--well enough to wed."

"She'll change yet--mark me," foretold his aunt.

"My son have got his self-respect, I believe, Susan, and, change or not change, he'll never give her another chance, I should hope. 'Tis done, and to her dying day she'll rue it--as she well deserves. To put that rough rabbit-catcher afore--however, I thank God she did--I thank God she did; and I shall thank Him in person on my knees this night. Never, never was such an empty giglet wench heard of. A merciful escape without a doubt; for a fool only breeds fools."

"I may be her brother-in-law if I can't be her husband," said Bartley; and then he departed and left the indignant and wounded old women to wonder what he might mean.