Children of the Mist Part 29

Now Charles Coomstock did not love his cousin Clement. Indeed, none of those who had, or imagined they had, any shadow of right to a place in Mary Coomstock's will cared much for others similarly situated; but the little wheelwright was by nature a spreader of rumours and reports--an intelligencer, malignant from choice. He treasured this a.s.sertion, therefore, together with one or two others. Sam, now at his third gla.s.s, felt his heart warm to Will. He would have fought with tongue or fist on his behalf, and presently added to the mischief he had already done.

"To shaw 'e, neighbours, just the man he is, I may tell 'e that a larned piece like Martin Grimbal ackshually comed all the way to Newtake not long since to ax advice of un. An' 'twas on the identical matter of this same Hicks. Mr. Grimbal wanted to give un some work to do, 'bout a book or some such item; an' Will he ups and sez, 'Doan't,' just short an'

straight like that theer. 'Doan't,' he sez. 'Let un shaw what's in un first'; an' t'other nodded when he said it."

Having now attested his regard for the master of Newtake, Sam jogged off. He was pleased with himself, proud of having silenced more than one detractor, and as his little brain turned the matter over, his lips parted in a grin.

Coomstock meanwhile had limped into the cottage where Clement lived with his mother. He did not garble his news, for it needed no artistic touch; and, with nice sense of his perfect and effective instrument, he realised the weapon was amply sharp enough without whetting, and employed the story as it came into his hand. But Mr. Coomstock was a little surprised and disappointed at his cousin's reserve and self-restraint. He had hoped for a hearty outburst of wrath and the a.s.surance of wide-spreading animosity, yet no such thing happened, and the talebearer presently departed in some surprise. Mrs. Hicks, indeed, had shrilled forth a torrent of indignation upon the sole subject equal to raising such an emotion in her breast, for Clem was her only son. The man, however, took it calmly, or appeared to do so; and even when Charles Coomstock was gone he refused to discuss the matter more.

But had his cousin, with Asmodeus-flight, beheld Clement during the subsequent hours which he spent alone, it is possible that the wheelwright had felt amply repaid for his trouble. Not until dawn stole grey along the village street; not until sparrows in the thatch above him began their salutation to the morning; not until Chagford rookery had sent forth a harmonious mult.i.tude to the hills and valleys did Clement's aching eyes find sleep. For hours he tossed and turned, now trembling with rage, now prompted by some golden thread in the tangled mazes of his mind to discredit the thing reported. Blanchard, as it seemed, had come deliberately and maliciously between him and an opportunity to win work. He burnt to know what he should do; and, like a flame of forked light against the sombre background of his pa.s.sion, came the thought of another who hated Blanchard too. Will's secret glowed and gleamed like the writing on the wall; looking out, Hicks saw it stamped on the dark earth and across the starry night; and he wished to G.o.d that the letters might so remain to be read by the world when it wakened.

Finally he slept and dreamed that he had been to the Red House, that he had spoken to John Grimbal, and returned home again with a bag of gold.

When his mother came to call him he was lying half uncovered in a wild confusion of scattered bed-clothes; and his arms and body were jerking as a dog's that dreams. She saw a sort of convulsion pinch and pucker his face; then he made some inarticulate sounds--as it were a frantic negation; and then the noise of his own cry awakened him. He looked wildly round and lifted his hands as though he expected to find them full.

"Where is it? Where is it? The bag of money? I won't--I can't--Where is it, I say?"

"I wish I knawed, lovey. Dream-gawld, I'm afeared. You've bin lying cold, an' that do allus breed bad thoughts in sleep. 'Tis late; I done breakfast an hour ago. An' Okehampton day, tu. Coach'll be along in twenty minutes."

He sighed and dragged the clothes over himself.

"You'd best go to-day, mother. The ride will do you good, and I have plenty to fill my time at home."

Mrs. Hicks brightened perceptibly before this prospect. She was a little, faded woman, with a brown face and red-rimmed, weak eyes, washed by many years of sorrow to the palest nondescript colour. She crept through the world with no ambition but to die out of the poorhouse, no prayer but a pet.i.tion that the parish might not bury her at the end, no joy save in her son. Life at best was a dreary business for her, and an occasional trip to Okehampton represented about the only brightness that ever crept into it. Now she bustled off full of excitement to get the honey, and, having put on a withered bonnet and black shawl, presently stood and waited for the omnibus.

Her son dwelt with his thoughts that day, and for him there was no peace or pleasure. Full twenty times he determined to visit Newtake at once and have it out with Will; but his infirmity of purpose acted like a drag upon this resolution, and his pride also contributed a force against it. Once he actually started, and climbed up Middledown to reach the Moor beyond; then he changed his mind again as new fires of enmity swept through it. His wrongs rankled black and bitter; and, faint under them, he presently turned and went home shivering though the day was hot.

CHAPTER VI

A SWARM OF BEES

Above Chagford rise those lofty outposts of Dartmoor, named respectively Nattadown and Middledown. The first lies nearer to the village, and upon its side, beneath a fir wood which crowns one spur, spread steep wastes of fern and furze. This spot was a favourite one with Clement Hicks, and a fortnight after the incidents last related he sat there smoking his pipe, while his eyes roved upon the scene subtended before him. The hill fell abruptly away, and near the bottom glimmered whitewashed cots along a winding road. Still lower down extended marshy common land, laced with twinkling watercourses and dotted with geese; while beyond, in many a rise and fall and verdant undulation, the country rolled onwards through Teign valley and upwards towards the Moor. The expanse seen from this lofty standpoint extended like a mighty map, here revealing a patchwork of multicoloured fields, here exhibiting tracts of wild waste and wood, here beautifully indicating by a misty line, seen across ascending planes of forest, the course of the distant river, here revealing the glitter of remote waters damaskeened with gold. Little farms and outlying habitations were scattered upon the land; and beyond them, rising steadily to the sky-line, the regions of the Moor revealed their larger attributes, wider expanses, more savage and abrupt configurations of barren heath and weathered tor. The day pa.s.sed gradually from gloom to brightness, and the distance, already bathed in light, gleamed out of a more sombre setting, where the foreground still reflected the shadows of departing clouds, like a picture of great sunshine framed in darkness. But the last vapours quickly vanished; the day grew very hot and, as the sky indicated noon, all things beneath Clement's eyes were soaked in a splendour of June sunlight. He watched a black thread lying across a meadow five miles away. First it stretched barely visible athwart the distance green; in half an hour it thickened without apparent means; within an hour it had absorbed an eighth part at least of the entire s.p.a.ce. Though the time was very unusual for tilling of land, Hicks knew that the combined operations of three horses, a man, and a plough were responsible for this apparition, and he speculated as to how many tremendous physical and spiritual affairs of life are thus wrought by agents not visible to the beholder. Thus were his own thoughts twisted back to those speculations which now perpetually haunted them like the incubus of a dream. What would Will Blanchard say if he woke some morning to find his secret in John Grimbal's keeping?

And, did any such thing happen, there must certainly be a mystery about it; for Blanchard could no more prove how his enemy came to learn his secret than might some urban stranger guess how the dark line grew without visible means on the arable ground under Gidleigh.

From these dangerous thoughts he was roused by the sight of a woman struggling up the steep hill towards him. The figure came slowly on, and moved with some difficulty. This much Hicks noted, and then suddenly realised that he beheld his mother. She knew his haunt and doubtless sought him now. Rising, therefore, he hastened to meet her and shorten her arduous climb. Mrs. Hicks was breathless when Clement reached her, and paused a while, with her hand pressed to her side, before she could speak. At length she addressed him, still panting between the syllables.

"My heart's a pit-pat! Hurry, hurry, for the Lard's sake! The bees be playin'[9] an' they'll call Johnson if you ban't theer directly minute!"

[9] _Playing_ = swarming.

Johnson, a thatcher, was the only other man in Chagford who shared any knowledge of apiarian lore with Clement.

"Sorry you should have had the journey only for that, mother. 'Twas so unlikely a morning, I never thought to hear of a swarm to-day. I'll start at once, and you go home quietly. You're sadly out of breath.

Where is it?"

"To the Red House--Mr. Grimbal's. It may lead to the handlin' of his hives for all us can say, if you do the job vitty, as you 'm bound to."

"John Grimbal's!"

Hicks stood still as though this announcement had turned him into stone.

"Ess fay! Why do 'e stand glazin' like that? A chap rode out for 'e 'pon horseback; an' a bit o' time be lost a'ready. They 'm swarmin' in the orchard, an' n.o.body knaws more 'n the dead what to be at."

"I won't go. Let them get Johnson."

"'Won't go'! An' five shillin' hangin' to it, an' Lard knaws what more in time to come! 'Won't go'! An' my poor legs throbbin' something cruel with climbin' for 'e!"

"I--I'm not going there--not to that man. I have reason."

"O my gude G.o.d!" burst out the old woman, "what'll 'e do next? An'

me--as worked so hard to find 'e--an' so auld as I am! Please, please, Clem, for your mother--please. Theer's bin so little money in the house of late days, an' less to come. Doan't, if you love me, as I knaws well you do, turn your back 'pon the scant work as falls in best o' times."

The man reflected with troubled eyes, and his mother took his arm and tried to pull him down the hill.

"Is John Grimbal at home?" he asked.

"How shude I knaw? An' what matter if he is? Your business is with the bees, not him. An' you've got no quarrel with him because that Blanchard have. After what Will done against you, you needn't be so squeamish as to make his enemies yourn."

"My business is with the bees--as you say, mother," he answered slowly, repeating her words.

"Coourse 'tis! Who knaws a half of what you knaw 'bout 'em? That's my awn braave Clem! Why, there might be a mort o' gude money for a man like you at the Red House!"

"I'll go. My business is with the bees. You walk along slowly, or sit down a while and get your breath again. I'll hurry."

She praised him and blessed him, crying after him as he departed,--"You'll find all set out for 'e--veil, an' gloves, an' a couple of bee-b.u.t.ts to your hand."

The man did not reply, but soon stumbled down the steep hill and vanished; then five-and-twenty minutes later, with the implements of his trade, he stood at the gate of the Red House, entered, and hastened along the newly planted avenue.

John Grimbal had not yet gone into residence, but he dwelt at present in his home farm hard by; and from this direction he now appeared to meet the bee-keeper. The spectacle of Grimbal, stern, grave, and older of manner than formerly, impressed Hicks not a little. In silence, after the first salutation, they proceeded towards an adjacent orchard; and from here as they approached arose an extravagant and savage din, as though a dozen baited dogs, each with a tin kettle at his tail, were madly galloping down some stone-paved street, and hurtling one against the other as they ran.

"They can stop that row," said Hicks. "'Tis an old-fashioned notion that it hurries swarming, but I never found it do so."

"You know best, though beating on tin pots and cans at such a time's a custom as old as the hills."

"And vain as many others equally old. I have a different method to hurry swarming."

Now they pa.s.sed over the snows of a million fallen petals, while yet good store of flowers hung upon the trees. June basked in the heart of the orchard and a delicious green sweetness and freshness marked the moment. Crimson and cream, all splashed with sunlight, here bloomed against a sky of summer blue, here took a shade from the new-born leaves and a shadow from branch and bough. To the eye, a mottled, dimpled glory of apple-blossom spread above grey trunks and twisted branches, shone through deep vistas of the orchard, brightened all the distance; while upon the ear, now growing and deepening, arose one sustained and musical susurration of innumerable wings.

"You will be wise to stay here," said Hicks. He himself stopped a moment, opened his bag, put on his veil and gloves, and tucked his trousers inside his stockings.

"Not I. I wish to see the hiving."

Twenty yards distant a play of light and glint and twinkle of many frantic bees converged upon one spot, as stars numerically increase towards the heart of a cl.u.s.ter. The sky was full of flying insects, and their wings sparkled brightly in the sun; though aloft, with only the blue for background, they appeared as mere dark points filling the air in every direction. The swarm hung at the very heart of a little glade.

Here two ancient apple-trees stood apart, and from one low bough, stretched at right angles to the parent stem, and not devoid of leaves and blossoms, there depended a grey-brown ma.s.s from which a twinkling, flashing fire leaped forth as from gems bedded in the matrix. Each transparent wing added to the dazzle under direct sunlight; the whole agglomeration of life was in form like a bunch of grapes, and where it thinned away to a point the bees dropped off by their own weight into the gra.s.s below, then rose again and either flew aloft in wide and circling flight or rushed headlong upon the swarm once more. Across the iridescent cl.u.s.ter pa.s.sed a gleam and glow of peac.o.c.k and iris, opal and mother-of-pearl; while from its heart ascended a deep murmur, telling of tremendous and acc.u.mulated energy suddenly launched into this peaceful glade of apple-blossom and ambient green. The frenzy of the moment held all that little laborious people. There was none of the concerted action to be observed at warping, or simultaneous motion of birds in air and fishes in water; but each unit of the shining army dashed on its own erratic orbit, flying and circling, rushing hither and thither, and sooner or later returning to join the queen upon the bough.