Children of the Mist Part 16

"Not it," declared Billy; "he thought he'd killed un; cracked the neck of un."

"The blow 'pon his faace scatted abroad his left nostril; the fall brawked his arm, not his neck; an' the spurs t' other was wearin' tored his leg to the bone. Doctor's seen un; so tell Grimbal. Theer's pleasure in such payment."

She spoke without emotion, and showed no pa.s.sion against the master of the Red House. When Will had come to her, being once satisfied in her immediate motherly agony that his life was not endangered, she allowed her mind a sort of secret, fierce delight at his performance and its success in the main issue. She was proud of him at the bottom of her heart; but before other eyes bore herself with outward imperturbability.

"You'll keep the gal, I reckon?" she said quietly; "if you can hold hand off Will till he'm on his legs again, I'd thank you."

"I shall do what I please, when I please; an' my poor fule of a daughter stops with me as long as I've got power to make her."

"Hope you'll live to see things might have been worse."

"That's impossible. No worse evil could have fallen upon me. My grey hairs a laughing-stock, and your awn brother's hand in it. He knawed well enough the crime he was committing."

"You've a short memory, Miller. I lay Jan Grimbal knaws the reason if you doan't. The worm that can sting does, if you tread on it. Gude-night to 'e."

"An' how do you find yourself now?" Billy inquired, as his master and he returned to Monks Barton.

"Weary an' sick, an' filled with gall. Was it wrong to make the match, do 'e think, seein' 't was all for love of my cheel? Was I out to push so strong for it? I seem I done right, despite this awful mischance."

"An' so you did; an' my feelin's be the same as yours to a split hair, though I've got no language for em at this unnatural hour of marnin',"

said Billy.

Then in silence, to the bobbing illumination of their lanterns, Mr.

Lyddon and his familiar dragged their weary bodies home.

CHAPTER XI

LOVE AND GREY GRANITE

The lofty central area of Devon has ever presented a subject of fascination to geologists; and those evidences of early man which adorn Dartmoor to-day have similarly attracted antiquarian minds for many generations past. But the first-named student, although his researches plunge him into periods of mundane time inconceivably more remote than that with which the archaeologist is concerned, yet reaches conclusions more definite and arrives at a nearer approximation to truth than any who occupy themselves in the same area with manifold and mysterious indications of early humanity's sojourn. The granite upheaval during that awful revolt of matter represented by the creation of Dartmoor has been a.s.signed to a period between the Carboniferous and Permian eras; but whether the womb of one colossal volcano or the product of a thousand lesser eruptions threw forth this granite monster, none may yet a.s.sert. Whether Dartmoor first appeared as a mighty shield, with one uprising spike in its midst, or as a target supporting many separate bosses cannot be declared; for the original aspect of the region has long vanished, though our worn and weathered land of tors still shadows, in its venerable desolation, those sublimer, more savage glories manifested ere the eye of man or beast existed to receive an image of them.

But the earliest human problems presented by Devon's watershed admit of no sure solution, albeit they date from a time adjacent contrasted with that wherein the land was born. Nature's message still endures for man to read as his knowledge grows; but the records of our primal fellows have grown dim and uncertain as the centuries rolled over them. There exists, however, within the lofty, lonely kingdom of the granite, a chain of human evidences extending from prehistoric ages to the ruined shepherd's cot of yesterday. At many spots a spectator may perceive in one survey the stone ruin of the Danmonian's habitation, and hypaethral temple or forum, the heather-clad debris left by Elizabethan streamers of alluvial tin, the inky peat-ridges from which a moorman has just cut his winter firing. But the first-named objects, with kindred fragments that have similarly endured, chiefly fire imagination. Seen grey at gloaming time, golden through sunny dawns, partaking in those spectral transformations cast upon the moor by the movement of clouds, by the curtains of the rain, by the silver of breaking day, the monotone of night and the magic of the moon, these relics reveal themselves and stand as a link between the present and the far past. Mystery broods over them and the jealous wings of the ages hide a measure of their secret. Thus far these lonely rings of horrent stones and the alignments between them have concealed their story from modern man, and only in presence of the ancient pound, the foundations of a dwelling, the monolith that marked a stone-man's sepulchre, the robbed cairn and naked kistvaen, may we speak with greater certainty and, through the glimmering dawn of history and the records of Britain's earliest foes, burrow back to aboriginal man on Dartmoor. Then research and imagination rebuild the eternal rings of granite and, erecting upon them tall domes of thatch and skins on wattle ribs, conceive the early village like a cl.u.s.ter of gigantic mushrooms, whose cowls are uplifted in that rugged fastness through the night of time. We see Palaeolithic man sink into mother earth before the superior genius of his Neolithic successor; and we note the d.a.m.nonian shepherds flourishing in lonely lodges and preserving their flocks from the wolf, while Egypt's pyramids were still of modern creation, and the stars twinkled in strange constellations, above a world innocent as yet of the legends that would name them. The stone-workers have vanished away, but their labour endures; their fabricated flints still appear, brought to light from barrows and peat-ties, from the burrows of rabbits and the mounds of the antiquary mole; the ruins of their habitations, the theatres of their a.s.semblies and unknown ceremonies still stand, and probably will continue so to do as long as Dartmoor's bosom lies bare to the storm and stress of the ages.

Modern man has also fretted the wide expanse, has scratched its surface and dropped a little sweat and blood; but his mansion and his cot and his grave are no more; plutonic rock is the only tablet on which any human story has been scribbled to endure. Castles and manor-houses have vanished from the moorland confines like the cloudy palaces of a dream; the habitations of the mining folk shall not be seen to-day, and their handiwork quickly returns to primitive waste; fern and furze hide the robbed cairn and bury the shattered cross; flood and lightning and tempest roam over the darkness of a region sacred to them, and man stretches his hand for what Nature touches not; but the menhir yet stands erect, the "sacred" circles are circles still, and these, with like records of a dim past, present to thinking travellers the crown and first glory of the Moor. Integral portions of the ambient desolation are they--rude toys that infant humanity has left in Mother Nature's lap; and the spectacle of them twines a golden thread of human interest into the fabric of each lonely heath, each storm-scarred mountain-top and heron-haunted stream. Nothing is changed since skin-clad soldiers and shepherds strode these wastes, felt their hearts quicken at sight of women, or their hands clench over celt-headed spears before danger. Here the babies of the stone-folk, as the boys and girls to-day, stained their little mouths and ringers with fruit of briar and whortle; the ling bloomed then as now; the cotton-gra.s.s danced its tattered plume; the sphagnum mosses opened emerald-green eyes in marsh and quaking bog; and h.o.a.ry granite scattered every ravine and desert valley. About those aboriginal men the Moor spread forth the same horizon of solemn enfolding hills, and where twinkle the red hides of the moor-man's heifers through upstanding fern, in sunny coombs and hawthorn thickets, yesterday the stone-man's cattle roamed and the little eyes of a hidden bear followed their motions. Here, indeed, the first that came in the flesh are the last to vanish in their memorials; here Nature, to whom the hut-circle of granite, all clad in Time's lichen livery of gold and grey, is no older than the mushroom ring shining like a necklace of pearls within it--Nature may follow what course she will, may build as she pleases, may probe to the heart of things, may pursue the eternal Law without let from the pigmies; and here, if anywhere from man's precarious standpoint, shall he perceive the immutable and observe a presentment of himself in those ephemera that dance above the burn at dawn, and ere twilight pa.s.ses gather up their gauze wings and perish.

According to individual temperament this pregnant region attracts and fascinates the human spectator or repels him. Martin Grimbal loved Dartmoor and, apart from ties of birth and early memories, his natural predilections found thereon full scope and play. He was familiar with most of those literary productions devoted to the land, and now developed an ambition to add some result of personal observation and research to extant achievements. He went to work with method and determination, and it was not until respectable acc.u.mulations of notes and memoranda already appeared as the result of his labours that the man finally--almost reluctantly--reconciled himself to the existence of another and deeper interest in his life than that furnished by the grey granite monuments of the Moor. Hide it from himself he could no longer, nor yet wholly from others. As in wild Devon it is difficult at any time to escape from the murmur of waters unseen, so now the steady flood of this disquieting emotion made music at all waking hours in Martin's archaeologic mind, shattered his most subtle theories unexpectedly, and oftentimes swept the granite clean out of his head on the flood of a golden river.

After three months of this beautiful but disquieting experience, Martin resigned himself to the conclusion that he was in love with Chris Blanchard. He became very cautious and timid before the discovery. He feared much and contemplated the future with the utmost distrust. Doubt racked him; he checked himself from planning courses of conduct built on mad presumptions. By night, as a sort of debauch, in those hours when man is awake and fancy free, he conceived of a happy future with Chris and little children about him; at morning light, if any shadow of that fair vision returned, he blushed and looked round furtively, as though some thought-reader's cold eye must be sneering at such presumption. He despaired of finding neutral ground from which his dry mind could make itself attractive to a girl. Now and again he told himself that the new emotion must be crushed, in that it began to stand between him and the work he had set himself to do for his county; but during more sanguine moods he challenged this decision and finally, as was proper and right, the flood of the man's first love drowned menhir and hut-circle fathoms deep, and demanded all his attention at the cost of mental peace. An additional difficulty appeared in the fact that the Blanchard family were responsible for John Grimbal's misfortune; and Martin, without confusing the two circ.u.mstances, felt that before him really lay the problem of a wife or a brother. When first he heard of the event that set Chagford tongues wagging so briskly, he rightly judged that John would hold him one of the conspirators; and an engagement to Chris Blanchard must certainly confirm the baffled lover's suspicions and part the men for ever. But before those words, as they pa.s.sed through his brain, Martin Grimbal stopped, as the peasant before a shrine. "An engagement to Chris Blanchard!" He was too much a man and too deep merged in love to hesitate before the possibility of such unutterable happiness.

For his brother he mourned deeply enough, and when the thousand rumours bred of the battle on the bridge were hatched and fluttered over the countryside, Martin it was who exerted all his power to stay them. Most people were impressed with the tragic nature of the unfortunate John's disappointment; but his energetic measures since the event were held to pay all scores, and it was believed the matter would end without any more trouble from him. Clement Hicks entertained a different opinion, perhaps judging John Grimbal from the secrets of his own character; but Will expressed a lively faith that his rival must now cry quits, after his desperate and natural but unsuccessful attempt to render Phoebe a widow. The shattered youth took his broken bones very easily, and only grunted when he found that his wife was not permitted to visit him under any pretence whatever; while as for Phoebe, her wild sorrow gradually lessened and soon disappeared as each day brought a better account of Will. John Grimbal vanished on the trip which was to have witnessed his honeymoon. He pursued his original plans with the modification that Phoebe had no part in them, and it was understood that he would return to Chagford in the spring.

Thus matters stood, and when his brother was gone and Will and Phoebe had been married a month, Martin, having suffered all that love could do meantime, considered he might now approach the Blanchards. Ignorantly he pursued an awkward course, for wholly unaware that Clement Hicks felt any interest in Will and his sister beyond that of friendship, Martin sought from him the general information he desired upon the subject of Chris, her family and concerns.

Together the two men went upon various excursions to ancient relics that interested them both, though in different measure. It was long before Martin found courage to bring forth the words he desired to utter, but finally he managed to do so, in the bracing conditions that obtained on Cosdon Beacon upon the occasion of a visit to its summit. By this time he had grown friendly with Hicks and must have learnt all and more than he desired to know but for the bee-keeper's curious taciturnity. For some whim Clement never mentioned his engagement; it was a subject as absent from his conversation as his own extreme poverty; but while the last fact Martin had already guessed, the former remained utterly concealed from him. Neither did any chance discover it until some time afterwards.

The hut-circles on Cosdon's south-eastern flank occupied Martin's pencil. Clement gazed once upon the drawing, then turned away, for no feeling or poetry inspired the work; it was merely very accurate. The sketches made, both men ascended immense Cosdon, where its crown of cairns frets the long summit; and here, to the sound of the wind in the dead heather, with all the wide world of Northern Devon extended beneath his gaze under a savage sunset, Martin found courage to speak. At first Hicks did not hear. His eyes were on the pageant of the sky and paid tribute of sad thought before an infinity of dying cloud splendours. But the antiquary repeated his remark. It related to Will Blanchard, and upon Clement dropping a monosyllabic reply his companion continued:

"A very handsome fellow, too. Miss Blanchard puts me in mind of him."

"They're much alike in some things. But though Chris knows her brother to be good to look at, you'll never get Will to praise her. Funny, isn't it? Yet to his Phoebe, she's the sun to a star."

"I think so too indeed. In fact, Miss Blanchard is the most beautiful woman I ever saw."

Clement did not answer. He was gazing through the sunset at Chris, and as he looked he smiled, and the sadness lifted a little from off his face.

"Strange some lucky fellow has not won her before now," proceeded the other, glancing away to hide the blush that followed his diplomacy.

Here, by all experience and reason, and in the natural sequence of events Clement Hicks might have been expected to make his confession and rejoice in his prize, but for some cause, from some queer cross-current of disposition, he shut his mouth upon the greatest fact of his life. He answered, indeed, but his words conveyed a false impression. What sinister twist of mind was responsible for his silence he himself could not have explained; a mere senseless monkey-mischief seemed to inspire it. Martin had not deceived him, because the elder man was unused to probing a fellow-creature for facts or obtaining information otherwise than directly. Clement noted the false intonation and hesitation, recollected his sweetheart's allusion to Martin Grimbal, and read into his companion's question something closely akin to what in reality lay behind it. His discovery might have been expected to hasten rather than r.e.t.a.r.d the truth, and a first impulse in any man had made the facts instantly clear; but Clement rarely acted on impulse. His character was subtle, disingenuous, secretive. Safe in absolute possession, the discovery of Martin's attachment did not flutter him. He laughed in his mind; then he pictured Chris the wife of this man, reviewed the worldly improvement in her position such a union must effect, and laughed no more. Finally he decided to hold his peace; but his motives for so doing were not clear even to himself.

"Yes," he answered, "but she's not one to give her hand without her heart."

These words, from Martin's point of view, embraced a definite a.s.surance that Chris was free; and, as they walked homewards, he kept silence upon this thought for the s.p.a.ce of half an hour. The uneasy hopes and black fears of love circled him about. Perhaps his timorous mind, in some moods, had been almost relieved at declaration of the girl's engagement to another. But now the tremendous task of storming a virgin heart lay ahead of him, as he imagined. Torments unfelt by those of less sensitive mould also awaited Martin Grimbal. The self-a.s.sertive sort of man, who rates himself as not valueless, and whose love will not prevent callous calculation on the weight of his own person and purse upon the argument, is doubtless wise in his generation, and his sanguine temperament enables him to escape oceans of unrest, hurricanes of torment; but self-distrust and humility have their value, and those who are oppressed by them fall into no such pitiable extreme as that too hopeful lover on whose sanguine ear "No" falls like a thunderbolt from red lips that were already considered to have spoken "Yes." A suitor who plunges from lofty peaks of a.s.sured victory into failure falls far indeed; but Martin Grimbal stood little chance of suffering in that sort as his brother John had done.

The antiquary spoke presently, fearing he must seem too self-absorbed, but Clement had little to say. Yet a chance meeting twisted the conversation round to its former topic as they neared home. Upon Chagford Bridge appeared Miller Lyddon and Mr. Blee. The latter had been whitewashing the apple-tree stems--a course to which his master attached more importance than that pursued on Old Christmas Eve--and through the gathering dusk the trunks now stood out livid and wan as a regiment of ghosts.

"Heard from your brother since he left?" Mr. Lyddon inquired after evening greetings.

"I cannot yet. I hope he may write, but you are more likely to hear than I."

"Not me. I'm nothing to un now."

"Things will come right. Don't let it prey on your mind. No woman ever made a good wife who didn't marry where her heart was," declared Martin, exhibiting some ignorance of the subject he presumed to discuss.

"Ah! you was ag'in' us, I mind," said the miller, drawing in. "He said as much that terrible night."

"He was wrong--utterly. I only spoke for his good. I saw that your daughter couldn't stand the sight of him and shivered if he touched her.

It was my duty to speak. Strange you didn't see too."

"So easy to talk afterwards! I had her spoken word, hadn't I? She'd never lied in all her life afore. Strange if I _had_ seen, I reckon."

"You frightened her into falsehood. Any girl might have been expected to lie in that position," said Clement coolly; then Mr. Blee, who had been fretting to join the conversation, burst into it unbidden.

"Be gormed if I ban't like a cat on hot bricks to hear 'e! wan might think as Miller was the Devil hisself for cruelty instead o' bein', as all knaws, the most muty-hearted[4] faither in Chagford."

[4] _Muty-hearted_ = soft-hearted.

"As to that, I doan't knaw, Billy," declared Mr. Lyddon stoutly; "I be a man as metes out to the world same measure as I get from the world.

Right is right, an' law is law; an' if I doan't have the law of Will Blanchard--"

"There's little enough you can do, I believe," said Hicks; "and what satisfaction lies in it, I should like to know, if it's not a rude question?"

The old man answered with some bitterness, and explained his power.