Where the sylvan character of the scene changes; where fields give place to hanging woods and they in their turn thin to poverty and obliquity under eternal stress of western winds, a gate, resting by its own weight against a granite post, indicates the limits of agriculture and forestry upon the southern confines of the Moor. Beneath this standpoint Devon’s unnumbered breasts billow to the misty horizon, and dimpling valleys, between the arable lands and higher wealds, are marked by orchards, water meadows and the winding ways of rivers. These, borne aloft, have come from far, and now, with slower current and ampler volume, roam melodiously through pleasant lees, through denes and dingles of sweet flowers, beneath the music of birds and the shadows of great woodlands, to their confluence with the sea. Here, too, lie hamlets and rise crocketed church towers; peat reek sweetens the air; blue doves croon through blue smoke on many a low thatched cot; and life moves in simplicity and apparent peace. The habitations of men glimmer with white-washed walls at fringes of forests, at wind-blown crossways, about small village greens, on lonely roads, by steep hillsides and among sunny combes. Homesteads rise in isolation along the edges of the great central loneliness; whole villages lie in the lap of the hills; and the manifold planes of this spacious scene, whether under flying cloud-shadows or grey rain, midday sunlight or the splendour of summer moons, commingle in one vision, whose particulars only vary to the play of the dawn and sunset lights, to the hands of the roaming elements, to the seasons that bring in turn awakening life and music, high colour-pageants and dying pomps, ultimate sobrieties and snows.

Beyond the gate to the Moor rises a steep road of broken granite and flint. It climbs upward, straight and dogged, into the world of the heather and, pursued a little, reveals the solemn sweep and dip of the circumambient waste. To the skyline tumbles this billowy ocean, and the ripples upon the crest of each mighty wave are granite. Here rise the tors, adorned at this August season with purple ling to their footstools of stone; here subtend wildernesses between the high hills; and the sheep bells jangle upon them, and the red kine bellow from the watercourses. A rook, his feathers blown awry, hops thrice, then ascends heavily; but the kestrel, with greater distinction of flight, glides away from his perch upon a stone, ere he swoops aloft with long reaches, to hang motionless in the air, like a brown star afar off. The moorland world extends in vast, undulating mosaic of olive and dun, thinly veiled by the bloom of the ling and splashed with golden furze and grey granite. The expanse is touched to umber and velvet warmth in sunshine; is enriched with the pure, cool purple of cloud-shadows; is brightened into sheer emerald-green, where springs burst from their peat-moss cradles amid seeding cotton-grass; is lightened throughout its sombre heath tones with glistening sheets of polished fern, where the tracts of the bracken stand under direct sunlight. There is warmth of colour in its breezy interspaces—warmth, won from the ruddiness of ripe rush-heads and manifold grasses all bending and swaying in waves under the wind.

At the junction of two roads, that cross at right angles within a hundred yards of the moor-gate, there stands a blackthorn of venerable shape. It is a deformed, grotesque tree, much bent and shrivelled. Its boughs are coated with close fabric of grey encrustations, but such clothing has failed to protect its carcase against a century of winters and biting winds. In autumn the scanty foliage is still brightened by a meagre crop of fruit; but life crawls with difficulty up the zigzag bones of this most ancient thorn, while each spring its tardy sap awakes less of the tree, and leaves increasing concourse of abrupt and withered twigs to rot above and below the centre of vitality. Beneath this ruin you shall note a slight hillock of green grass, where foxgloves shake aloft their purple pyramids of blossom and a rabbit’s hole lies close beside them. Of artificial barrow or modern burying-place there is no suggestion here; and yet this mound by the highway side conceals a grave; and the story of the human dust within it is the truth concerning one who lived and smarted more than a hundred years ago. Men were of the same pattern then as now, but manners varied vastly; and the Moor-man, who farms upon the grudging boundaries of that great central desert to-day, and curses the winds that scatter his beggarly newtakes with thistledown and fern seed, might wonder at the tales this same wild wind could tell him of past times and of the customs of his ancestors.

Human life on the Moor is still hard enough, but modern methods of softening the rough edges of existence were even less considered in the beginning of the century, when American and French prisoners of war sorrowfully sighed at Prince Town. In those days the natives of the Devonshire highlands endured much hardship and laughed at the more delicate nurture of the townfolk, as the wandering Tuaregs laugh when their softer fellows exchange tent and desert for the green oases of many palms and sweet waters. Then food was rough on Dartmoor and drink was rougher. Cider colic all men knew as a common ill; most beverages were brewed of native herbs and berries; only upon some occasion of rare rejoicing would a lavish goodwife commission “Johnny Fortnight,” the nomad packman, to bring her two or three ounces of genuine Cathay as entertainment for her cronies.

It was rather more than a century ago that one, John Aggett, dwelt within two hundred yards of the thorn-bush already described; and the remains of his cottage, of which the foundation and a broken wall still exist, may yet be seen—a grey ghost, all smothered with nettles, docks and trailing briars. A cultivated patch of land formerly extended around this dwelling, and in that old-world garden grew kale and potatoes, with apple trees, an elder, whose fruit made harsh wine, and sundry herbs, used for seasoning meat or ministering to sickness. No evidence of this cultivation now survives, save only the ruined wall and a patriarchal crab-apple tree—the stock that once supported a choicer scion, long since perished.Here, a mile or two distant from Postbridge in the vale of Eastern Dart, resided John Aggett and his widowed mother. The cottage was the woman’s property; and that no regular rent had to be paid for it she held a lucky circumstance, for John by no means walked in his laborious father’s footsteps. Work indeed he could; and he performed prodigious feats of strength when it pleased him; but it was not in the details of his prosaic trade as a thatcher that he put forth his great powers. Business by no means attracted him or filled his life. As a matter of fact the man was extremely lazy and only when sports of the field occupied his attention did he disdain trouble and exertion. He would tramp for many miles to shoot plovers or the great golden-eyed heath poults and bustards that then frequented the Moor; he cared nothing for cold and hunger on moonlight winter nights when wild ducks and geese were to be slain; and trout-fishing in summer-time would brace him to days of heroic toil on remote waters. But thatching or the thought of it proved a sure narcotic to his energies; and it was not until Sarah Belworthy came into his life as a serious factor that the young giant began to take a more serious view of existence and count the ultimate cost of wasted years.

Man and maid had known one another from early youth, and John very well remembered the first meeting of all, when he was a lanky youngster of eleven, she a little lass of eight. Like the boy, Sarah was an only child, and her parents, migrating from Chagford to Postbridge, within which moorland parish the Aggetts dwelt, secured a cottage midway between the home of the thatcher and the village in the valley below. Soon afterward the children met upon one of the winding sheep tracks that traverse the Moor on every hand. They were upon the same business, and each, moving slowly along, sought for every tress, lock or curl of sheeps’ wool that hung here and there in the thorny clutch of furze and bramble.

The boy stopped, for Sarah’s great grey eyes and red mouth awoke something in him. He felt angry because the blood flowed to his freckled face; but she was cool as the little spring that rose in their path—cool as the crystal water that bubbled up and set a tiny column of silver sand shivering among the red sundews and bog asphodels at their feet.

“Marnin’ to ’e,” said John, who already knew the small stranger by sight.

“Marnin’, Jan Aggett.”

“An’ what might your name be, if I may ax?”

“I be called Sarah, but Sally most times; an’ I be wool-gatherin’ same as you.”

“Hast-a got gude store?”“But little yet.”

“I’ll shaw ’e all the best plaaces, if you mind to let me.”

“Thank ’e, Jan Aggett. My mother’s a gert spinner.”

“An’ my mother’s a gert spinner tu.”

“Not so gert as mine, I reckon.”

“Never was better’n my mother.”

“Mine be better, I tell ’e! Her spins black wool an’ white together into butivul, braave grey yarn; an’ auld Churdles Ash—him what’s got the loom to Widecombe, do buy it for money, wi’ gladness.”

“Ban’t much black wool in these paarts; an’ my mother knits her worsted into clothes for me. But I’ll share what I find with you now.”

“I lay I’ll find a plenty for myself.”

“I lay you will. An’ I’ll shaw ’e wheer the blackberries be in autumn time, an’ wheer the best hurts be got out Laughter Tor way; an’ wheer the properest rexens for cannel-making[10] do graw.”

“Sure you’m a very kind-fashioned bwoy, Jan Aggett.”

“You’d best to call me just ‘Jan,’ like other folks.”

“So I will; an’ you’d best to call me ‘Sally.’”

“Burned if I doan’t then! An’ us’ll be friends.”From that time forward the lonely children became close companions; and when years passed and Sarah ripened to maidenhood, while John brought forth a straw-coloured moustache and thick beard that matched his sandy locks, the pair of them were already regarded by their own generation as surely bound for marriage in due season.

There came an afternoon when the girl had reached the age of eighteen and John was just arrived at man’s estate. They worked together during harvest time, and the thatcher, standing on a stack ladder, watched the girl where she was gleaning and likened her pink sunbonnet to some bright flower nodding over the gold stubbles. Presently she came to him with a bundle of good corn under her arm.

“’Tis long in the straw this year,” she said. “You must thresh it for me when you can and hand me the straw for plaiting. I can sell all the hats an’ bonnets tu, as I’m like to weave. An’ parson do allus give me half a crown each year for a new straw hat.”

John came down from his perch and picked up the little sheaf. Then, the day’s work done, they dawdled up the hill, and Sarah, hot and weary, after toil in great sunshine, sometimes took John’s hand, like a little child, when the road revealed no other person.Up through the lanes from the farm of Cator Court to the higher land they made their way, crossed over the river nigh Dury and passed beside a wall where scabious drew a sky-blue mantle over the silver and ebony lichens of the granite. Pennyworts also raised their little steeples from the interstices of the old wall; briars broke its lines; red berries and black twinkled among the grasses, and dainty cups and purses of ripe seeds revealed their treasures; flowers not a few also blossomed there, while butterflies gemmed the golden ragwort, and bees struggled at many blossoms. A mellow murmur of life gladdened the evening, and the sun, slow sinking behind distant Bellever, warmed the world with rich horizontal light. At a break in the stones dripped a stream in a little dark nest of ferns. Here, too, stood a stile leading into heavy woods, and one sentinel beech tree arose at the corner of a gamekeeper’s path through the preserves. Hither, weary with her labours and desiring a brief rest, Sarah turned, climbed the stile, and sat down beneath the tree. John accompanied her and they reclined in silence awhile where the ripe glory of September sunshine sent a shimmer of ruddy and diaphanous light into the heart of the wood and flamed upon the bole of the great beech. A woodpecker suddenly departed from the foliage above the silent pair. He made off with a dipping, undulatory motion and cheerful laughter, as who should say, “two is company and three none.”

John turned to Sarah and sighed and shook his head while he tickled her hand with a straw from the sheaf. She did not withdraw it, so he came a little nearer and put the straw up her arm; then followed it with two of his own fingers and felt her moist skin under them.

She laughed lazily, and the music fired his heart and sluggish tongue.

“Oh, God, Sally, how long be I to dance upon your beck and call for nought? How long be I to bide this way while you hang back?”

“Us couldn’t be gerter friends.”

“Ess fay, but us could. Wheer do friendship lead to ’twixt men an’ women? Dost hear? I knaw you’m butivul to see, an’ purtiest gal in Postbridge an’ such like; an’ I knaw a man o’ my fortune an’ poor brain power’s got no right—an’ yet, though ’tis bowldacious so to do, I ban’t built to keep away from ’e. I peek an’ pine an’ dwindle for ’e, I do.”

“‘Dwindle,’ dear heart! Wheer’s the signs of that? You’m stronger an’ taller an’ better’n any man on East Dart.”

“Did ’e say ‘better,’ Sally? Did ’e mean it? ’Tis a year since I fust axed ’e, serious as a man, an’ a dozen times ’twixt then an’ now I’ve axed again. I swear I thought as I’d seen love light in them misty eyes of thine, else I’d have troubled ’e less often. But—but—”

“Wouldn’t I have sent ’e away wi’ a flea to your ear when fust you axed, if I’d meant all I said, you silly gawkim?”

Then he put his arm round her and hugged her very close. No artifice restrained the plump natural curves of her waist; her garments were thin and the soft body of her beneath them fired him.

“Give awver! You’m squeezin’ me, Jan!”

“Say it then—say it out—or I’ll hug ’e, an’ hug ’e, an’ hug ’e to death for sheer love!”

“You gert thick-headed twoad! Caan’t ’e read awnly a woman’s words to ’e? Haven’t ’e found out these long months? Didn’t ’e even guess how ’twas when we went christening Farmer Chave’s apple trees down-along by night, an’ I slapped your face for comin’ to me arter you’d been fooling with that slammocking maypole of a gal, Tom Chubb’s darter? You’m blind for all your eyes.”

He gave an inarticulate grunt and poured huge noisy kisses on her hair and face and little ears.

“Christ A’mighty! Sweatin’ for joy I be! To think it—to think you finds the likes o’ me gude enough for ’e! Theer—theer. Hallelujah!”

He shouted and danced with the grace of a brown bear, while she smoothed herself from his salutations and sat up panting after such rough embrace. Then he took out his knife and sought the beech tree behind them. Sunset fires were dying away. Only a starry twinkling of auburn light still caught the high tops of the tallest trees and marked them out against the prevailing shadows of the woods.

“’Tis a deed should be cut on the first bark as meets your eyes after the woman’s said ‘yes’ to ’e,” declared John.

Then, turning to the trunk where lichens painted pale silver patterns on the grey, he set to work, at the height of a man’s heart, and roughly fashioned the letters “S. B.” and “ J. A.” with a scroll around them and a knot beneath to indicate the nature of true love.

“Theer let it bide, sweetheart, for our childer’s childer to see when we’m sleepin’ down-along.”

“Go away with ’e, Jan!”

Presently they moved onward to their homes.

“Braave news for my mother,” said the girl.

“Braaver news for mine,” declared John.

The sun had set and the twilight was in Sarah’s grey eyes as she lifted them to him. Together they passed upward, very slowly, with her head against his shoulder and his arm round her.

“’Tis a pleasant thing seemin’ly to have a huge gert man to love ’e.”“Ess fay, my bird! You’ll live to knaw it, please God.”

From their lofty standpoint spread a wide scene of waning light on a fading world; and above the eastern horizon, through the last roses of the afterglow, imperceptibly stole a round shield of pale pearl. Aloft the sleeping wind-clouds lost their light and turned slate-grey as the misty phantom of the moon gathered brightness, and the western nimbus of sunset faded away.

Then John took his lips from his love’s and gave her the sheaf of gleaned corn and left her at her father’s door, while he tramped on up the hill.

His mother trembled before the long-anticipated truth and knew the first place in his heart was gone at last.

“As purty as a pictur in truth,” she said, “but something too taffety [16] for the wife of a day labourer.”

“Not so,” answered the man. “She’m an angel out o’ heaven, an’ she’ll come to be the awnly wife worth namin’ on Dartymoor. For that matter she ban’t feared of a day’s work herself, an’ have awftentimes earned a fourpenny piece ’pon the land.”

CHAPTER II

Throughout the week Samson Belworthy, the father of Sarah, swung a sledge and followed a blacksmith’s calling at Postbridge; upon the day of rest his labours were of a more delicate sort, for he played the bass viol and pulled as good a bow as any musician around about the Moor. This man accepted John as a suitor to his daughter with certain reservations. He had no mind to dismiss Sally into poverty, and bargained for delay until Aggett had saved money, obtained regular occupation, instead of his present casual trade, and arrived at a worldly position in which he could command a cottage and thus offer his wife a home worthy of her.

From desultory application to the business of his dead father—a sort of work in which he had never much distinguished himself—John now turned his face upon the problems of life in earnest, and sought employment under a responsible master. His ambition was to win a place as gamekeeper or assistant keeper on the estates of the manor lord; but he lacked the necessary qualifications in the opinion of those who knew him; being indeed strong enough, courageous enough, and familiar enough with the duties of such a calling, but having an uncertain temper, by nature fiery as his own freckled skin in summer-time. Finally, his physical strength obtained for him daily work and weekly wage at Farmer Chave’s. Into the establishment of Believer Barton he entered, and, as cowman, began a new chapter of his life.

All proceeded prosperously during the autumnal progress of his romance. John gave every satisfaction, was said to have forgotten his way to the sign of the “Green Man” at Postbridge, and certainly developed unsuspected capabilities in the direction of patience and self-control. He toiled amain, attracted his master’s regard and won the red-hot friendship of his master’s son.

This youth, by name Timothy, returning from his apprenticeship to a brewer at Plymouth after futile endeavours to master that profitable business, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, much to the elder’s disappointment. Timothy Chave elected to be a farmer, however, and coming home a fortnight before Christmas, he devoted his days and nights to the pleasure of sport as a preliminary to the tremendous application he promised when the new year should come. He was two years younger than John Aggett and a youth of higher intelligence and finer clay; but he found in John an ideal follower by flood and field. There came a day, one week before the Christmas festival, when for particular reasons Tim desired a heavy bag. John was therefore begged off his farm duties, and the young men, rising by starlight, trod the high land and pressed forward before dawn toward Aggett’s familiar haunts.

Young Chave, a lad of good repute and handsome exterior, had learned his lessons at Blundell’s School, was accounted a very clever youth, and held in much esteem as a traveller and a scholar amidst the natives of Postbridge. His mother spoiled him and fooled him to the top of his bent; his father had been proud of him until the lad’s recent determination to soar no higher than the life of a countryman.

This present excursion bore reference to a special event, as has been said. There were coming from North Devon to Believer Barton, for the holiday season, sundry poor cousins of the Chaves. On Christmas Eve they would arrive, and, as a certain pretty damsel of seventeen was to accompany her elders, Timothy’s generous heart determined that moorland delicacies must await her, if his right arm, long fowling-piece and liver-coloured spaniel could secure them. With this excuse he had won John Aggett away from the cow-byres, and together, as day broke, they passed southward to Dartmeet, held on by Combestone Tor and presently tramped into the lonely and desolate fastnesses of Holne Moor. Here, with cautious passage across half-frozen swamps, the sportsmen sought their game.

To the progress of that day no part of this narrative need be devoted; suffice it that we meet the men again coming homeward under an early, universal twilight and a cold northern wind. In certain marshes, rumoured to send forth warm springs even at dead of frosty nights, John Aggett had found good sport, and now from the servant’s waist-girdle a big bag bulged with two brace of teal, three snipe, two woodcock and a hare. Through the grey promise of coming snow they pushed homeward where the wind wailed a sad harmony in the dead heath, and all the ground was very hard save upon the black bogs that froze not. John was clad as the Kurds and Mountain Syrians to this day; he wore a sheep’s pelt with the hair toward his body, the skin turned out. Arms of like material fitted into this snug vest, and his breeches were similarly fashioned. Timothy, as he faced the north wind booming over a heather ridge, envied Aggett, for his own garments, albeit stout enough, lacked the warmth of the natural skin.

“Colder and colder,” he said, “and the last drop of sloe gin drunk and five good miles before us yet.”“’Tis so; but theer’s Gammer Gurney’s cot down along in a lew place under Yar Tor. If you mind to turn out of the way a bit, ’tis certain she’ll have gude, heartening liquors hid away, though how she comes by the fiery stuff, an’ the tobacco her sells in secret, an’ the frill-de-dills o’ precious silks an’ foreign lace-work ban’t my business to knaw.”

“Good! We’ll pay Gammer a visit. My father gets many a gill of brandy from the old rascal.”

“In league wi’ the Dowl, I doubt.”

“More likely with the smugglers. Plenty of cargoes are run down Teignmouth way, and when they’ve dodged the gaugers and made a good haul, the farther they take their wares inland the better. She pays them well, be sure.”

“She do awften talk ’bout a sailor son, come to think on’t.”

“Ay, many and many a sailor son, I warrant you! My father says her cognac is drink for the gods; yet if they are pleased to make him a Justice of the Peace, then he will adopt different measures with Mother Gurney, for a man’s conscience must be set above his stomach.”

“Her be a baggarin’ auld sarpent for sartain, an’ goeth through the air on a birch broom or awver the sea in a eggshell, an’ many such-like devilries. In times past I judge the likes o’ she would burn for such dark wickednesses; though her did me a gude turn once, I’ll allow.”

While speaking, they had rounded the ragged side of Yar Tor, and then proceeding, passed to the north by some ancient hut circles of the old stone men. Following a wall, where the hill sloped, they found themselves confronted with the bird’s-eye view of a lonely, thatched cottage. Below it the land sank with abruptness; before the entrance extended a square patch of garden. No sign of life marked the spot; but as the men climbed down a pathway through withered fern, they aroused a bob-tailed, blue-eyed sheep-dog which leapt, gaunt and apelike, to the limit of its tether and barked wildly at the intruders. A naked austerity, a transparent innocence and poverty, marked the spot to casual eyes.

“Down these winding ways, or else out of the woods below, come Mother Gurney’s ‘sailor sons’ with their packs and barrels hid under innocent peat and rushes, no doubt,” commented Timothy.

Then John Aggett knocked at the door with a modest tap and young Chave noted that he spat over his left shoulder before doing so.

“’Tis plaguey hard to be upsides wi’ a witch, I do assure ’e; but she’m a wonnerful clever woman, as all in these paarts do very well knaw,” confessed John.

CHAPTER III

Gammer Gurney dwelt quite alone and none had seen the alleged mariner her son, for the occasions of his visits were hidden in nocturnal mystery. Upon one point at least no doubt existed: the dame could vend choicest cognac to a favoured few at a shilling a pint; and those whom it concerned also knew that no such tobacco as that she sold, whether for smoking or chewing, might be otherwise procured nearer than Exeter. There was a whisper, too, of French silks and laces, concerning which the wives of the quality could have told a tale; and gossips of that district were prepared to swear upon the Book how more than once in moments of high excitement Gammer Gurney had uttered words and whole sentences of words in a heathen tongue. Yet, despite her powers and accomplishments, she always went her humble rounds with an old donkey in an older cart. Ostensibly she purchased rags and bones and other waste from farm kitchens; and those who knew not her peculiarities and pitied her lean apparition in its iron pattens, old sunbonnet and “dandy-gorisset” gown, would give her cast-off garments and orts from the table to keep life in her. Others, better informed, well understood what was hidden in the donkey cart, and Gammer came as an honoured if a secret guest to many a great house on the countryside. Indeed half a hundred sea-dogs were her sons, and the smugglers thought a ten-mile tramp over Dartmoor no hardship when the Gammer’s great discretion and the liberality of her prices for matters contraband came to be considered. In addition to these dark practices Mother Gurney was reputed a witch in her own right, but a witch of the better sort—a white wonder-worker, whose marvellous knowledge enabled her to combat the black necromancers that haunted Devon in those days to the detriment of honest folk. Their power of the evil eye; their unpleasant habit of overlooking innocent men and women, was quelled and crushed by Gammer’s stronger if less sinister charms. To gain private ends, she fostered this vulgar opinion concerning her accomplishments; was much rapt in secret studies and claimed wide skill in medicaments and cures by drug and amulet for beast and man. Recoveries, indeed, were laid at her door with frank thankfulness; though whether the moorland herbs and rare simples, ostentatiously plucked at times of old moons and eclipses, were to be thanked so much as that ingredient of strong French brandy which entered into her prescriptions, may be left a matter of conjecture.Upon the door of Gammer Gurney’s mysterious home John Aggett knocked, then a little nut-brown woman opened to him, nodded without affectation of superior parts, and even curtseyed in old-fashioned style at sight of Timothy.

“Your sarvant, young maister,” she said. “Be pleased to step in, an’ you’m welcome, I’m sure, though ’tis the home of poverty. Rest free, if that’s your errand—rest; an’ theer’s a gude cushioned chair to hold ’e tu, though you mightn’t count to find such here.”

The white witch had no peculiarities. She merely suggested a venerable and time-worn body whose life had not lacked tribulations and whose tether must be near at hand. But her dark eyes were very bright and her activity of body was still apparent.

Timothy lolled in the great “grandfather” chair and a red peat glow flamed on his leather gaiters from the fire; John sat near the door with a wandering and uneasy eye, ready to discover mystery and read secrets at every turn. He knew that to ask openly for the cordial he desired had been to make a hole in his manners. He therefore waited for his master to speak.

Gammer Gurney mended the fire and chattered briskly.

“Theer’ll be little more huntin’ ’pon the high Moor ’fore the snaw come. An’ ’tis near now. It be given me to knaw ’bout what fashion weather us may look for by the birds an’ berries, by the autumn colour of leaves, by tokens hid in still waters an’ the callin’ of the cleeves.”

“The reds was in the sky this marnin’,” said John, “a savage, sulky sunrise, I warn ’e.”

“I seed un; an’ a terrible braave sight of snaw unshed in the elements; an’ the airth ripe for it. Gert snaw an’ ice be comin’, wi’ sorrowful deep drifts an’ death to man an’ beast, an’ awfullest floods to follow arter. I’ve knawn this many days an’ laid in store against it.”

Timothy now saw his opportunity.

“And I’m going to add to that store if you’ll let me. There’s a fine hare in the bag.”

“A hare, did ’e say? They’m dark, fanciful beasts, an’ if I was anything but a honest woman, I’d not touch no such thing. But I knaw what I knaw. Wheer did ’e find un?”

“I shot un,” said John, dragging the animal forth. “Her was sittin’ aquott under a tussock nigh Horn’s Cross on Holne Moor.”

“Then ’tis a pure, natural beast wi’ no dark tricks to un, if ’twas theer. A witch hare wouldn’t go in them plaaces. A right hare—sure enough, an’ heavy tu. Thank ’e kindly; an’ if you comes round arter Christmas I’ll cure the skin for ’e, Jan Aggett. ’Twill make a proper cap against the hard weather.”

John scraped and offered respectful thanks; then refreshments became the subject of Timothy Chave’s speech.

“You haven’t a cup of milk by you, mother? I’m thirsty as a fish.”

“Milk—ess fay; but none for you. Ban’t drink for grawed men, if you ax me. But I’ve—well, no call to name it. Yet ’tis a wholesome sort o’ tipple took in reason an’ took hot. You bide here. I’ll be back direckly minute.”

She disappeared through a low door at the side of the kitchen and locked it behind her. In five minutes she returned with the promised refreshment and poured it from a square earthenware crock into two large cups. These she half filled with brandy, then added hot water from a kettle, and finally dropped a lump of yellow candy into each, with mingled spices from a shining black box.

“’Twill do ’e a power o’ gude an’ keep away evil an’ make heroes of ’e,” declared the woman. Then she watched the drinking men, with pleasure in her bright eyes, and shewed that she appreciated their grunts and gurgles of satisfaction.

“Better’n milk?” she said.

“A godlike brew!” declared Timothy; and John, who had waited to see his master drink first before venturing upon the witch’s gift, now gave Gammer Gurney the compliments of the blessed season with all respect, then drained the last drop of his refreshment and scraped out the remaining spice and sugar with his fingers.

“Sure I feels like a mighty man o’ Scripture compared to what I was a bit ago,” he declared, as the spirit moved him.

“You’d make your fortune if you set up a sign in a city and sold that stuff to all buyers,” prophesied Timothy.

“I wants no fortune, Maister Chave. I be here, an auld sawl well thought ’pon an’ wi’in call o’ friends. I tell no tales an’ breed no troubles, an’ what goes in my ear doan’t come out at my mouth wi’ a new shape to it, I assure ’e. No tale-bearer me. Tongue an’ ear strangers—that’s the wise way.”

“You’m wise enough, ma’am; everybody knaws that.”

“Not that I set up for anything above my neighbours, though I may have done ’em a gude service here an’ theer.”

“A many of ’em—Lard, He knaws how many,” declared John, eagerly. “Taake my awn case. Didn’t ’e tell me how to win my maid for a silver sixpence, an’ didn’t I do as you bid an’ worrit her marnin’, noon an’ night till she said the word? An’ didn’t Digory Crampiron, the shepherd, come to ’e ’pon the same cause an’ ax what fashion woman ’twas as he’d best pay court to? An’ didn’t you say her’d be a dark maid? An’ sure enough dark her was; an’ a gude wife an’ mother these many days now.”

“That’s the thing I’d like to hear!” cried Timothy. “Read me riddles, Gammer. Tell me my fate in marriage, and when the girl is coming, and what she’ll be like. Tell me, and I’ll give thee a golden guinea!”

Now it fell out, strangely enough, that the white witch knew certain facts hidden from her questioner—facts that none the less concerned him in some measure. She had that forenoon visited Bellever Barton to find the household of the farm in some confusion. The Christmas guests had arrived three days earlier than they were expected; that circumstance being explained by an opportunity to travel cheaply to Moretonhampstead on a stage-coach, some of whose passengers had failed it. From Moreton to Postbridge was no great matter, and the male travellers had ridden that distance, bringing their luggage on a packhorse and their ladies upon pillions behind them. In the bustle and confusion caused by this premature advent, Gammer Gurney was kept waiting in the buttery—treatment very rarely extended to her dignity. But this delay had not been wasted. A garrulous housekeeper explained circumstances to the old woman and added that one of the newcomers, a girl of a fair face, reserved manners and great good sense, had won Farmer Chave’s heart, and was by him secretly destined for Timothy without that young man’s knowledge. This maiden the Gammer had seen and spoken with before she departed homeward; but as for Tim, he knew nothing of the business. Thus it may be guessed what excellent matter for a prophecy was now at the hand of the white witch. Indeed, she had oftentimes done miracles in the public esteem with less promising material. Nevertheless, this circumspect woman shewed no eagerness to take young Chave at his word.

“Best to think twice ’fore you ax me that,” she answered. “’Tis a serious deed, boy, and not to be undertaken in a light spirit. Mind this tu: the truth ban’t always sweet or what our ears are best tuned for hearin’.”

Her respectful manner vanished upon the introduction of this theme. She now spoke as the young man’s superior. Timothy was not frightened from his purpose, however, and screwed his face into solemnity. Then he winked behind Gammer Gurney’s back at John Aggett, who, knowing well how witches have eyes behind and before, doubted not that the action had been observed and was much discomfited in consequence.

“Here’s your guinea, mother; that’ll shew you I’m in solemn earnest upon this matter.”

The wise woman instantly swept up the coin. “If you will, you will,” she said.

As a preliminary to the fortune reading, two rush candles were lighted and the table cleared. Then upon it the sibyl drew a half circle with black charcoal and spread ancient cards round the circumference. Next she set up in the midst a lump of shining quartz, of the sort known as Cornish crystal, and into a natural cup within this stone she poured the black contents of a small, strangely shaped bottle. Now, bidding them be silent and motionless, with impenetrable gravity she went upon her knees beside the table and so remained for a long five minutes. Sometimes she gabbled to herself, sometimes she set her hands upon a conjunction of the outspread cards; but her eyes, as it appeared, never closed for a moment and never for a moment wandered from the little black lake in the quartz discerning-glass.

John, deeply impressed, sat with his mouth open; and even the scholar felt his scepticism waning a trifle.

Presently Gammer Gurney began to talk, and after much moonshine and a whole rigmarole of promises, predictions and cautions, the witch broke off and scanned the crystal with increased intensity.

“Terrible coorious!” she murmured in an audible aside. “No such thing as this ever happened afore, I should judge. What’s the day of the month?”

“Eighteen of December,” said John.

“Exacally so! An’ if—theer! Of all straange fallings-out!”

She gazed blankly at her guest until Timothy, despite his education at Blundell’s, grew a little uncomfortable.

“Well, well, what’s amiss, mother? Out with it for good or ill. What pitfall is waiting for me—an early marriage?”

“A maiden be waitin’ for ’e, Timothy Chave; an’ this very day—a grey-eyed young girl wi’ bright hair an’ cherry lips—this day—by picture an’ by crystal! She’m nearer than the coming snow—she’m at your elbow, man! Ess fay, first young woman as you see an’ speak with come the owl-light—her an’ none other will be your lifelong mate!”

“Merciful to me! ’Tis ’most owl-light now!” gasped John Aggett.

“By St. George, and the dragon too, I’m near my fate then! Up and off, John! I’ll see my bride before nightfall. Come on.”

The woman huddled up her cards, cleaned the table and poured the black liquid into the fire. Timothy was eager to be gone, and now took an abrupt leave of his soothsayer; while as for Gammer Gurney, she stood like one in a dream and regarded Tim with vacant eyes. It was her custom thus to appear elevated in the spirit after exercise of her remarkable gifts. So they left her at her cottage door and started for home at a good pace. The fresh air contributed much to blow superstition out of Timothy’s mind; but his companion continued taciturn and was evidently impressed by what he had seen and heard.

“She gave I goose-flesh down the spine, for all her outlandish fiery drink,” he said.

“You’re a fool, John; an’ I’m a greater. A good guinea wasted.”

Nearing home, they turned off the Moor, passed the cottage of Aggett’s mother, and proceeded along the hill. Then it was that John, desiring to shift the game-bag from his girdle to his shoulder, hung back some forty paces. His fingers were cold and the buckle was stiff; his master therefore gained upon him and, passing the corner of a plantation, went out of sight. Mending his pace to overtake the other, John heard hidden voices, the hour then being dusk; and, a moment later, coming round the corner of the woodlands, he saw Timothy Chave in conversation with a woman. She was clad in scarlet flannel even to the snug hood round her ears, and her figure shone brightly through the gloaming.

He heard words half laughing, half annoyed, in the girl’s uplifted voice.

“Who be glazin’ at then? Make way, caan’t ’e? Do ’e think I be a ghost out the wood?”

“Not a bit of it! A good fairy, more likely. And forgive me; I wanted so much to hear you speak.”

“You’m a very impident chap then, for all your gert gashly gun awver your shoulder!”

The woman passed Timothy light footed, then, turning quickly down a lane, she disappeared, just as John joined his master. The young man was in an extremity of excitement.

“Good God! Did you see her—that red girl? An’ after what the hag said! Her eyes, man! Eyes like stars in the dark and a voice like the wood doves! I came straight upon her peeping out of her red hood, like the queen of pixies! Who is she, John? Who’s her father? And where has she vanished to? Speak if you know. ’Tis a marvellous miracle of a thing that I should meet her in this way. I could swear I was dreaming; yet I’m as much awake as she was alive. Who in the name of wonder is she? Speak if you know.”

“She’m a maiden by the name of Sarah Belworthy, darter o’ Smith Belworthy; an’ she’m tokened to me,” said Aggett, stolidly.

CHAPTER IV

John’s announcement awoke a laugh in the younger man, and Timothy dismissed the subject with a sort of lame apology; but the other remained dumb after his assertion, and few more words passed between them. Aggett, however, burnt within, for the recent incident had caused him infinite uneasiness and alarm. To allay these emotions he hastened to the home of Sarah as soon as his duties at the farm were ended, and there, before her parents, rated her in round terms for speaking to a strange man under the darkness. The girl’s mother heard of what had happened with secret interest; Sarah herself laughed, then cried, and finally made her peace with many promises that no light action in this sort should ever again be brought against her. Of the white witch and the prediction John did not speak; and though he returned to his loft above the cows a comforted man, yet, in the hours of night, fear and foreboding gripped his heart again and frank terror at the shadow of an awful catastrophe made him toss and sweat in the darkness. Twice he rose and prayed childish prayers that his mother had taught him. They were nothing to the purpose, yet he trusted that they might call the Almighty’s attention to him and his difficulties. So he lay awake and scratched his head and puzzled his scanty brains with what the future held hidden.

As for Timothy, the splendid twilight vision of Sarah in her red array was by no means dimmed by the subsequent appearance of his own fair kinswoman. A first fiery love had dawned in him, and the romantic circumstances attending its awakening added glamour to the charm of mystery. Already he almost granted Gammer Gurney a measure of the powers she pretended to. Aggett’s statement had iced his ardour for a while; but a bitter-sweet yearning and unrest grew again after the cowman was gone—grew gigantic to the shutting out of all other things feminine; and Sarah’s grey eyes, not his little cousin’s, were the lamps that lighted Timothy’s midnight pillow.

In the morning he gave himself great store of practical and sensible advice. He told himself that he was too good a sportsman to interfere with another’s game and poach on another’s preserve; and he assured himself that he was too excellent a son to fall in love with a blacksmith’s daughter and sadden his mother’s declining days. He laughed at himself, and, when he met John after breakfast, spoke no more of the incident. He grew self-righteous toward noon and was secretly proud of himself for having withstood the fascination of Sarah Belworthy’s face and voice with such conspicuous ease. He told his conscience that the fancy was already dead; he felt that it would be interesting to meet the girl again; and he assured himself that her image in full, garish daylight must doubtless fall far below the perfection that it suggested half veiled under coming darkness. During that afternoon he marvelled a little at his own restlessness, then sought occupation and decided that it would be well to have his horse’s shoes roughed. He knew under this explicit determination lurked implicit desire to see the father of Sarah Belworthy, but he did not give his mind time to accuse him. He looked to his horse himself; he was very busy and whistled and addressed those he knew about him, as he trotted down to the smithy, feebly trying to deceive himself.

A black cavern gaped out on the grey day, and from within came chime of anvil and hoarse breath of bellows. But it was not the spluttering soft red-hot iron that caught Tim’s eye. A lurid figure appeared and disappeared like magic as each pulse of the bellows woke a flame that lighted up the forge. This vision now gleamed in the blaze, then faded as the fire faded, and Timothy knew it for his pixie queen of the preceding night. Such an unexpected incident unnerved him; for a brief moment he thought of riding on; but he had already drawn rein and now dismounted, his heart throbbing like the fire.

Sarah had brought her father some refreshments from home, and was amusing herself, as she had often done before, with the great leathern bellows, while a lad worked at the anvil and the smith rested from his labour and ate and drank.

Smith Belworthy gloried more than common in two possessions; his daughter and his bass viol. Sometimes he mentioned one first, sometimes the other. To-day, having greeted Tim with great friendship and not forgetting the incident of the previous night, he bid Sarah step forward, much to her mortification, and drew young Chave’s attention to her as though she had been some item in an exhibition.

“My darter, young sir, Sally by name. Theer’s a bowerly maid for ’e! An’ so gude as she’m purty; an’ so wise as she’m gude most times. Awnly eighteen year auld, though all woman, I assure ’e. But tokened, maister—tokened to a sandy-headed giant by name of Jan Aggett—her awnly silly deed, I reckon.”

“The best fellow in the world,” said Timothy.

“Maybe, but who be gude enough for the likes o’ she? My li’l rose of Sharon her be; an’ the husband as I’d have chose should have been somebody, ’stead of nobody. But theer she is, an’ I lay you’ve never seed a purtier piece in all your travels, have ’e now?”

The blacksmith grinned affectionately, held Sarah’s arm in his grimy grip and surveyed his daughter as he had gazed upon some prize beast or a triumph of the anvil.

“Doan’t heed un,” burst out Sally, her grey eyes clouded, and her face as red as her gown. “Never did no girl have such a gert gaby of a faither as me. His wan goose be a royal swan, an’ he do reckon all the countryside must see wi’ his silly eyne an’ think same as him—fond auld man!”

The cold light of day and the forge-glow struck her face alternately as she moved. Young Chave was a man and not a stock or a stone. Therefore he seized the hour and answered her remark.

“You shouldn’t blame your father for telling the truth, young mistress,” he said. “Even though it suit you not to hear it. Yet when ’tis so pleasant and so generally accepted, it might well be agreeable to you.”

“Theer’s butivul scholar’s English,” chuckled Mr. Belworthy; “theer’s high gen’leman’s language, an’ the case in a nutshell!”

Sarah grew shy and uncomfortable. Angry she could not be before Tim’s compliments, and how to answer him without contradicting him she did not know. So she turned to her father instead.

“Be gwaine to eat an’ drink up your food or ban’t ’e, faither?”

“All in gude time. I’ve got to rough the young gen’leman’s horse’s shoes fust.”

“Be in no hurry,” said Tim. “I can wait awhile.”

“I can’t then,” declared Sarah, ungraciously, and so marched off in a fine flutter of mingled emotions.

Mr. Belworthy looked up from the hoof between his knees and winked with great significance at Timothy.

“Kittle cattle—eh? Look at the walk of her! Theer ban’t another girl this side Dartymoor as travels like that. ’Tis light as a bird, an’ you’d doubt if her’d leave a footprint ’pon new-fallen snow.”

“So Diana walked,” declared Tim.

“Did her? A Plymouth maiden, I s’pose?” asked Mr. Belworthy, with simulated indifference.

“No—a goddess of ancient times—just a moonbeam shadow, you know. Not a splendid flesh and blood beauty like your daughter.”

There was no sound but the rasping of the file; then Belworthy spoke again.

“Tokened to a man as’ll never rise much beyond Bellever Barton cow yard—that’s the mischief of it. Her, as might have looked so high, seein’ as the body of her an’ the faace of her be what they be. Not a word ’gainst the chap, mind. Brains is the gift of God, to be given or held back according to His gude pleasure.”

“Such a clever girl, too, I’ll warrant. What did she see in John Aggett, I wonder?”

“Clever in a way, though not so full of wit as my cheel might have been prophesied. Me bein’ generally reckoned a man of might on the bass viol Sundays. But Sally’s just Sally, an’ I wouldn’t change an eyelash of her. Power over musical instruments ban’t given to women-kind, I reckon; though for plain singin’ wi’ other maidens in a plaace o’ worship, she’m a tower o’ strength. An’ she be just a polished corner o’ the temple prayer-times, no matter what gentlefolks comes theer. As to why she took on wi’ Jan, I lay her couldn’t give ’e reasons any more’n me. But so ’tis, an’ though it mayn’t never come to axing out in church, yet lovers be stubborn in their awn conceits. An’ so—you being Farmer Chave’s awn son an’ heir—might, if you was that way minded, up an’ say a word for Jan.”

“So I will then. He’s a right good fellow.”

“’Tis the season o’ herald angels, when hearts are warm, you see. An’ six shillin’ a week do taake a terrible long time to goody. Of course, Jan gets cider, an’ corn at market price tu; yet wi’out offence ’tis tail corn most times an’ not stomachable—stuff as doan’t harden muscle.”

“My father would never give his men tail corn,” cried Timothy, indignantly.

“Wouldn’t he? Then I was wrong. I wouldn’t go against un for all the tin hid on Dartymoor. But theer ’tis. I doan’t see how the man’s gwaine to save against a wife an’ fam’ly unless his wage be bettered. An’ I don’t want to see my darter grow into an auld virgin mumphead while he’s tryin’ to scrape brass enough to give her a home. ’Tis wisht work such waitin’.”

“I’ll not forget John Aggett. He’s a very well-meaning man, and honest, and a splendid shot.”

“So he is then, an’ a gude shot as you say, though I’ll allus be sorry as he brought down my li’l bird.”

“If she loves him, ’twill fall out all right, you know, Belworthy.”

“If love could taake the place o’ victuals an’ a stone cottage an’ a snug peat hearth, it might fall out right; but I’m sorry for the maiden’s love as have got to burn at full pitch o’ heat year arter year wi’ marriage no nearer. ’Tis a withering thing for a girl to love on, knawin’ in her secret heart as each winter doan’t pass awver her for nought but leaves its awn touch o’ coldness an’ greyness. She hides it from the man, o’ course—from everyone else tu, for that matter,—but ’tis with her all the seasons through an’ dims her eye, an’ furrows her smooth young forehead at night-times unbeknawnst to them that love her best.”

Timothy doubted not that the blacksmith spoke truth, then he trotted off up the hill, and without set purpose overtook Sarah on her way home. Her voice and the frankness of her face thrilled him as she smiled shyly, her temper gone. Again she chid him for listening to her parent’s nonsense, and he tried to assume a friendly, fatherly manner toward her, and failed. The girl made his blood burn and his hand shake on his horse’s mane. His breath came short, his eyes grew bright, and only with difficulty did he arrest a frantic, reckless petition for a kiss at any cost. Perhaps such an abrupt and volcanic climax had been best; but he restrained himself, swallowed his ardour and became humble before her. Seeing that she preferred this attitude, he sank to servility; then, rating him for wasting his time and her own, she turned away hard by her cottage door, and he, without formal farewell, walked his horse onward all a-dreaming. Sarah, too, was not unmoved, but she hid her emotion and was glad that neither her mother’s nor any other pair of eyes had seen her with young Chave.

Timothy met the third party to that unfolding drama as he proceeded on to the Moor. Then came John Aggett with an anxious face looking out upon the world above his pale beard. The labourer stopped Tim, and in broken sentences—like a child that wrestles to describe new things within his experience but beyond his vocabulary—strove clumsily to express a mental upheaval which he lacked words to display. He made it clear, however, that he was in a great turmoil of mind and much driven by fear of appearances in connection with Gammer Gurney’s predictions of the previous night.

“I be just come from speech with the old woman, and can’t say as ’twas sense or yet nonsense I got out of her. She kept a close watch on her lips, ’peared to me; but her eyes threatened bad things an’ her weern’t at ease. ‘What will happen, will happen,’ she sez to me; an’ at the fust utterance it seemed a deep sayin’, yet, come to think on’t, ’twas a thing known so well to me as she.”

“Why did you go to her?” enquired Timothy, knowing without need of answer.

“’Bout last night. Couldn’t banish it from my head what her said as to your sweetheart. So I went an’ telled her how you met my Sarah an’ axed if that comed in the spell, seein’ the girl were tokened to another man. An’ she said as it might be or might not be, because the spoken word remained an’ was no more to be called back again than last year’s primrosen. Then I axed her what her view of it might be, an’ she up an’ said what I told ’e; ‘What will happen, will happen.’ Arter that I grew hot an’ said any fule knowed so much, an’ she turned round ’pon me like a dog you’ve trod on by mistake, an’ her eyes glinted like shinin’ steel, an’ I reckoned she was gwaine to awverlook me theer an’ then. So I cleared out of it.”

“What happens, happens, because it must. That’s all right enough, John. And things won’t fall out differently because we take thought and pine about ’em.”

“I be keepin’ comp’ny, an’ it may be a sort o’ state as blinds the eyes,” said Aggett, humbly. “I trust ’e in this thing—you’m a gen’leman, an’ wiser’n me, as be a mere zawk for brains alongside you. But theer ’tis, she’m my awn maid, an’ if the ’mazin’ butivul looks of her have fired ’e, then, as you’m a gude man, so I pray you’ll be at trouble not to see her no more. ’Tis very well to say what must fall, must; but the future did ought to be a man’s sarvant, I reckon, not his master.”

“That’s not philosophic, John.”

“Anyway, if theer’s danger in my maid to you, then turn your back upon her. I sez it wi’ all respects as man to master; an’ as man to man, I’ll say more, an’ bid you be a man an’ look any way but that. Ess fay, I sez it, though not worthy to hold a cannel to ’e. An’ what’s more, I trust ’e.”To Timothy’s relief John did not delay for an answer to his exhortation, but proceeded upon his way. So they parted, by curious chance, at that spot where to-day there rise the mound and aged thorn. The Moor was of a uniform and sullen iron colour under a sky of like hue but paler shade. The north wind still blew, but the clouds were lower, denser and heavy with snow. Even as Aggett went down the hill and his rival proceeded upward, there came fluttering out of the grey the first scattered flakes of a long-delayed downfall. They floated singly, wide-scattered on the wind; others followed; here a monstrous fragment, undulating like a feather, capsized in the invisible currents of the air. Then the swarm thickened and hurried horizontally in puffs and handfuls. The clean black edges of the distant Moor were now swept and softened with a mist of falling snow; aloft, thicker and faster, came the flakes, huddling and leaping out of nothingness and appearing as dark grey specks against the lighter sky. Presently indication of change marked the world, and a glimmer of virgin white under on-coming gloom outlined sheep tracks and made ghostly the grey boulders of the Moor. By nightfall the great snow had fairly begun, and blinding blizzards were screaming over the Moor on the wings of a gale of wind.

CHAPTER V

Before the snows melted and the first month of the new year had passed by, John Aggett and his master’s son were friends no more.

Of Timothy it may be recorded that he fought fiercely, then with waning strength, and finally succumbed and lost his battle. By slow degrees his intimacy with Sarah grew. Neither sought the other; but love dragged them together. The man hid it from his small world, or fancied that he did so; the girl blushed in secret and knew that what she had mistaken for love was mere attachment—an emotion as far removed from her affection for Timothy as the bloodless moonbeams from the flush of a rosy sunrise. A time came, and that quickly, when she could deceive herself no longer, and she knew that her life hung on her lover, while the other man was no more than a sad cloud upon the horizon of the future.

Frosts temporarily retarded the thaw, and Timothy and Sarah walked together at evening time in a great pine wood. A footpath, ribbed and fretted with snakelike roots, extended here, and moving along it they sighed, while the breath of the great trees bore their suspirations aloft into the scented silence. One band of orange light hung across the west and the evening star twinkled diamond-bright upon it, while perpendicularly against the splendour sprang the lines of pine trunks, dimmed aloft with network of broken and naked boughs, merging above into a sombre crown of accumulated foliage. Cushions of dead needles were crisp under foot and the whisper of growing ice tinkled on the ear.

“’Tis vain to lie—at least to you an’ to myself. I love ’e, Tim; I love ’e wi’ all my poor heart—all—all of it.”

Her breath left her red lips in a little cloud and she hung her head hopelessly down.

“God can tell why such cruel things happen, dearest. Yet you loved him too—poor chap.”

“Never. ’Tis the difference ’tween thinkin’ an’ knowin’—a difference wide as the Moor. I never knowed love; I never knowed as theer was such a—but this be wicked talk. You’ve winned the solemn truth out o’ me; an’ that must content ’e. I never could ax un to give me up—him so gude an’ workin’ that terrible hard to make a home for me.”

“What will the home be when you’ve got it? Some might think it was better that one should suffer instead of two.”

“I couldn’t leave him, out of pity.”“You must think of yourself, too, Sarah—if not of me. I hate saying so, but when your life’s salvation hangs on it, who can be dumb? John Aggett’s a big-hearted, honest man; yet he hasn’t our deep feelings; it isn’t in him to tear his heart to tatters over one woman as I should.”

“Us can’t say what deeps a man may have got hid in him.”

“Yes, but we can—in a great measure. John’s not subtle. He’s made of hard stuff and sensible stuff. I’ll fathom him at any rate. It must be done. He shall know. God forgive me—and yet I don’t blame myself very much. I was not free—never since you came into my life and filled it up to the brim. He saw the danger. I confess that. He warned me, an’ I bade him fear nothing. I was strong in my own conceit. Then this happened. The thing is meant to be; I know it at the bottom of my being. It was planned at creation and we cannot alter it if we would.”

“’Tis well to say that; but I reckon poor Jan thought the same?”

“I’ll see him; I’ll speak with him man to man. He must give you up. Oh, if I could change places with him and find myself a labourer just toiling to make a home for you, I’d thank the Lord on my knees!”

“I wish I’d never seen either of ’e, for I’ve awnly made the both of ’e wretched men. Better I’d never drawed breath than bring this gert load of sorrow upon you an’ him.”

“You can’t help it; you’re innocent, and the punishment must not fall upon your shoulders. You love me better than Aggett; and that he must know in justice to himself—and us.”

“Then his life be ruined an’ his cup bitter for all time.”

“I don’t think so, Sarah. You misjudge him. And even if this must be so, it is only Fate. I will speak to him to-night.”

“Leave it a little while. I’m fearful to trembling when I think of it. ’Tis I must tell him, not you. ’Tis I must tell him I’m not faithful an’ beg for forgiveness from him. An’ if he struck me down an’ hurted me—if he killed me—I’d say ’twas awnly fair punishment.”

“He never would lift a finger, even in his rage.”

“Jan? Never—never. A fiery soul, but so soft-hearted as a li’l cheel. Ess fay, ’tis from me he should hear it, if he must.”

“It would be better that I should do this.”

Before they reached the stile, that stood under the great beech tree, each loving coward had prayed the other to leave the task alone; and finally both promised to do nothing for a short space. Then into the light they came, and Sarah, glancing upward, saw dim letters and a lovers’ knot like sad eyes staring from the tree trunk.

As a matter of fact, there existed no great need to impress the situation upon John Aggett. The man, if slow-witted, was not blind, and, indeed, agile enough of intellect where Sarah was concerned. For many days he had hesitated to read the change in her. His visits to her had been marked by gloomy fits of taciturnity, by short speeches, abrupt leave-takings, by distrust in his eyes, by rough mumbled sentences she could not catch, by outbursts of affection, by sudden hugs to his heart, by searching, silent scrutiny of her features and numberless reiterations of one question. He never wearied to hear her declare that she loved him; his only peace of mind was in the moments of that assurance daily repeated; and he approached to absolute subtlety in appraisement of Sarah’s voice and vocal inflection as she made answer. Until the present, her affirmation of love had rung truly upon his ear; now he felt a shadow behind the words and steeled himself to the change. Her lips said one thing; her voice and eyes another. He grew slowly to believe the signs and to realise that she loved him no more, or if a little, so little that she did not mind lying to him.

Over this earthquake in his life he brooded bitterly enough, yet the stroke of it, upon first falling, was in some measure broken by his knowledge of Timothy’s interview with Gammer Gurney. A fatalistic resignation arose from this recollection and manifested itself, for the brief space of a week, in John’s attitude to his fate. But as the nature of all he had lost and how he had lost it beat upon his brain, a great agony of reality soon caused him to brush the white witch and her predictions out of the argument; they were factors too trivial to determine the careers of men and women; and thus, from beneath the smoke of his brief apathy appeared a consuming fire, and the man’s passionate nature cried for a speedy and definite end to his torments.

Work upon the land was suspended under frost; but from the great barn in Bellever Barton came daily a hurtling of flails where threshing of barley kept the hands busy for many hours in each brief day. The flails gleamed like shooting stars across the dusty atmosphere of the barn, and when the sunlight entered, a sort of delicate golden cloud hung in the air, only to sink slowly away upon cessation of labour. Timothy Chave, too, laboured here. For something to occupy him he swung a flail with the rest, and made the old hands think better of themselves and their skill within sight of his clumsy efforts. Then it happened that Aggett, awake to an opportunity, suddenly desisted from work, pulled on his coat and accosted his rival. But he spoke for Tim’s ear alone and challenged no general attention.“Set down your drashel an’ come an’ speak wi’ me a minute t’other side the yard.”

“Certainly, John, if you wish it.”

A moment later the meeting that Sarah had dreaded came about; but the results of it were of a sort not to have been anticipated. Aggett went straight to the point of attack and his temper suffered from the outset before the more cultured man’s attitude and command of words.

“You knaw full well what I’ve got to say before I sez it, I judge. I see in your face you know, Timothy Chave.”

“Yes, I do. It’s about Sarah. Things that must happen, must happen. I’m glad you’ve broached this subject, Aggett. Well, it stands thus; we are not our own masters always, unfortunately.”

“You can say that an’ look me in the face calm as a stone, arter what passed between us six weeks ago?”

“Six weeks—is that all?”

“Ess fay, though more like six years to me—six years o’ raging, roasting hell. Why do ’e bide here? Why do ’e take walks along wi’ she—skulking in the woods away from honest eyes like a fox? You’ve lied to me—”

“Don’t speak quite so loud, John. I cannot help the past. It was not my doing. I never sought out Sarah. We are all tools in the hand of Fate or Providence, or whatever you like to call it; we are puppets and must dance to the tune God is pleased to play. We’re not free, any of us—not free to make promises or give undertakings. Doesn’t this prove that we’re slaves to a man? I love Sarah Belworthy with all my heart and soul. That is not a sin. There is nothing in the world for me but her. I’m frank enough to you now; and if I lied before, it was because I thought I could control what was to come. I tried to keep my word. I turned from her path many times. I begged to be allowed to go away from the Moor, but my father would not suffer me to change my mind again. I swear I did my best; but loving is another matter. I might as easily have promised not to breathe as not to love her.”

“Words! An’ her—an’ me—?”

“It’s cursedly hard. God knows I don’t find it easy to answer you. But think: picture yourself in her place. Imagine that you found a woman you loved better than Sarah.”

“’Tis allus lifting of the burden on to other folks’ shoulders wi’ you. I ban’t agwaine to imagine vain things at your bidding. Dost hear me? I want the plain truth in plain speech. But that’s more’n you could give me, I reckon. The question I’ve got to ax, my girl’s got to answer. An’ I call her ‘my girl,’ yet, until I hear from her awn lips she ban’t my girl no more. Then—then—Christ knaws what—”

“If there’s any sort of satisfaction on earth, I’d give it to you. I know better than you can tell me that I’m a weak man. And I’ve hated myself for many days when I thought of you; but there it is—a fact beyond any mending.”

“Get out of her life, if you’re honest, an’ doan’t whine to me ’bout things being beyond mendin’! Go! Turn your back on her an’ let the dazzle of ’e fade out of her eyes an’ out of her mind. You knaw so well as me, that it ban’t beyond mendin’. She promised to marry me ’fore ever she seed the shadow of you; an’ you knawed it from the fust moment you set eyes on her; an’ yet you went on an’ sinked from manhood into this. You’m a whole cowardice o’ curs in the skin o’ one man, damn you!”

“You do right to curse. You will never feel greater contempt for me than I do for myself. I cannot go away. It is impossible—wholly above my strength. And the position is beyond mending, despite what you say—both for Sarah and for me. It is no crime in her to love me; the fault is mine, and if I had sworn on my hope of salvation to you, I should have broken my oath as I did my promise. Measure my punishment—that is all you can do; and I won’t flinch from it.”

“She loves you—better’n what she do me? It’s come to that; an’ you ax me to measure your punishment! You pitiful wretch! You know you’m safe enough now. She loves you better’n me. Theer’s your safety. ‘Struth! I could smash your bones like rotten wood, an’ you know it; but she loves you better’n me; an’ who be I to crack her painted china wi’ my rough cloam? I doan’t love her no less—anyways not so little as to bruise you, an’ that you knowed afore you spoke. Get out o’ my sight an’ may worse fall on you than ever I would bring. May the thing you’ve done breed an’ bite an’ sap the heart out of ’e like a canker worm; may it bring thorns to your roses, an’ death to your hopes, an’ storms to your skies; may it fill your cup wi’ gall an’ bend your back afore your time an’ sting you on your death-bed. May it do all that, an’ more, so as you’ll mind this hour an’ know if I’d scatted your lying brains abroad an’ killed ’e, ’twould have been kinder than to let you live!”

“I have deserved your hardest words; but forgive her—now that you yield her up; forgive her if ever you loved her, for the fault was none of hers.”

“You can think for her, can ’e? You can stand between me an’ her to shield her against the man as would have faced fire an’ water an’ all hell’s delights for her ever since she was a li’l dinky maid! You ax me to forgive her—you? Christ A’mighty! she’m a lucky woman to have a man of your metal to stand up for her against me!”

“I didn’t mean that, Aggett; only I feared—”

“Doan’t I love her tu, you smooth-faced fule? Do ’e think one hair of her ban’t so precious to me as to you? Do ’e think because she’ve took your poison I’m mazed tu? I’ve got to live my life wi’out her; I’ve got to bide all my days wi’out her—that’s enough. But she’d have loved me still if she could. Ban’t her sin that you poured magic in her cup; ban’t her sin that she won’t wear glass beads no more now she thinks she’ve found a strong o’ di’monds.”

“You’re a better man than I am, John; you make me see what I’ve done; you make me wish I was dead.”

“Liar! Don’t prate no more to me. I hate the filthy sight of ’e, an’ the sound of thy oily tongue. I’d swing for ’e to-morrow, an’ keep my last breath to laugh with; but for she. Tell her—no, that I’ll do myself. I’ll tell her; an’ no call for you to fear as your fine name will get any hard knocks. I’ll never soil my mouth with it more arter to-day.”

He departed, and the other, in misery and shame, stood and watched him return to the threshing-floor. Yet, as the unhappy spirit who has sacrificed his life to a drug and creeps through shame and contumely back and back to the poison, counting nothing as vital that does not separate him therefrom, so now the man felt that Sarah Belworthy was his own and told himself that his honour, his self-respect, his fair repute were well lost in exchange for this unexampled pearl.

CHAPTER VI

At nightfall John Aggett visited the cottage of the Belworthys, but Sarah was from home for the day and he had a few words with her mother instead. That astute woman was well informed of affairs, and the romance now proceeding had long been the salt of her life, though she pretended no knowledge of it. In common with her husband, she hoped for glory from a possible union between the cot of Belworthy and the homestead of the Chaves. But these ambitions were carefully hidden from sight. All the smith said, when the matter was whispered, amounted to a pious hope that the Lord would look after his own—meaning Sarah; but presently it behooved both parents to stir in the matter, when they learned of the subsequent meeting between their daughter and John Aggett. A very unexpected determination on the girl’s part resulted from that occasion, and the matter fell out in this way.

Before seeing John again, Sally had lengthy speech with her new sweetheart, and he, a little dead to the danger of so doing, detailed at length his conversation with the cowman and explained the complete nature of his rival’s renunciation. This narrative set Timothy in a somewhat sorry light, and the fact that he unconsciously bore himself as a victor added to the unpleasant impression conveyed. Had Tim declared his own sorrow and shame, blamed himself and acknowledged John’s greatness with wholehearted or even simulated praise, the girl had accepted the position more readily; but as it was, young Chave, whose fear of rousing her pity for John rendered him less eloquent upon that theme than he felt disposed to be, by this very reticence and oblivion touching the other’s profound sorrow, awoke that pity he desired to stifle. Indeed, his story moved Sarah unutterably. While her love for Tim was the light of her life, yet at this juncture her nature forced her to turn to the first man, and now she held herself guilty of wickedness in her treatment of him. An instinct toward abstract justice, rare in women, uplifted her in this strait; the stricken man clung to her mind and would not be banished. Even before Timothy’s subsequent abasement and self-accusations, she could not forget the past or live even for an hour in the joy of the present. The very note of triumph in her loved one’s voice jarred upon her. It was, therefore, with feelings painfully mingled and heart distracted by many doubts that Sarah met John Aggett at last.

He was harsh enough—harsh to brutality—and for some subtle reason this attitude moved her to the step he least expected. Softness and kind speech might have sent Sarah weeping to Timothy after all; but the ferocity, despair and distraction of the big flaxen man confirmed her in a contrary course of action. She put her hands into his, cried out that, before God, she was his woman for all time, and that his woman she would remain until the end. John Aggett strangled his reason upon this loving declaration—as many a stronger spirit would have done. He told himself that his gigantic love might well serve for them both; he caressed the wanderer in love and called upon Heaven to hear his thanksgivings. New rosy-fledged hope sprang and soared in his heart at this unhoped blessing, and for a few blissful days light returned to his face, elasticity to his step. He had steeled his soul to part with her; he had told himself the worst of the agony was over, but in reality the girl had come back into his life again before the real grief of his loss had bitten itself into his mind. Now, despite the inner whisper that told him his joy rested on the most futile foundations possible, he took her back as he had resigned her—in a whirlwind of emotion. And he assured himself that, having once yielded her up, neither men nor God could reasonably ask him to do so again.

Mrs. Belworthy it was who first penetrated the false pretence and mockery of the new understanding. Upon the strength of that discovery she communicated in secret with Timothy Chave, and bade him cultivate patience and be of good cheer despite the darkness of appearances. Sarah, indeed, shewed by no sign that she desired to turn from her bargain again; but the emptiness and aridity of these renewed relations could not be hidden. Even John grasped the truth after a fortnight of hollow lovemaking. He tried to reawaken the old romance, to galvanise a new interest into the old hopes and plans; but Sarah’s simulation too often broke down despite her best endeavours. Tears filled her eyes even while she clung most fiercely to him; her parents murmured their regrets that John should persist in ruining her life. Indeed, Mrs. Belworthy did more than murmur; she took an occasion to speak strongly to the cowman; yet he shut his eyes to the truth and blundered blindly on, straining every nerve and racking his brain to discover means whereby Sarah might be won back to the old simple ways, to her former humility of ambition and simplicity of thought. But any restoration of the past conditions was impossible, for her mind had much expanded in Timothy’s keeping; and this fact did Aggett, by slow and bitter stages, at length receive and accept. With heart the sorer for his temporary flicker of renewed happiness, he tore himself from out a fool’s paradise and abandoned hope and Sarah once for all.

“’Tis vain to make believe any more,” he said to her. “God knows you’ve tried your hardest, but you ban’t built to throw dust in a body’s eyes. Your bread’s a-been leavened wi’ tears these many days, an’ your heart’s in arms against the falling out of things. ’Tis natural as it should be so. We’ve tried to come together again an’ failed. Us can do no more now.”

“Leave ’e I won’t; if you beat me away from ’e like a dog, like a dog I’ll come back again.”

“Leave me you must, Sally. I ban’t gwaine to spoil your butivul life for all time wi’ my love, though you come wi’ open arms an’ ax me to. Go to un free, an’ take my solemn word as I’ll rage against him no more. I’ll know you’m happy then; an’ that must be my happiness. I’ll never forget you comed twice to me o’ your own free will.”

“You’m a gude man—a gert saintly man—an’ God knows why I be so pitiful weak that anything born should have come between us, once I’d promised.”

“Many things comes between the bee an’ the butt, the cup an’ the lip, men an’ women folks an’ their hopes o’ happiness. Please God you’ll fare happy wi’ him.”

“I don’t deserve it, if theer’s any justice in the sky.”

“Theer ban’t to my knowledge. Pray God He’ll be gude to ’e—then I’ll forgive the man. An’ the world won’t come to me for his character whether or no.”

She protested and wept; he was firm. For a little hour his lofty mood held and he completed the final act of renunciation before he slept. Knowing full well that Chave would never hear the truth from Sarah, he laid wait for him that night and met him in Postbridge at a late hour.

The men stood side by side in the empty, naked road that here crossed Dart by a pack-saddle bridge. The night was rough and cold but dry, and the wind wailing through naked beeches, the river rattling harshly over its granite bed, chimed in unison with the recent sorrow of Timothy’s heart. When Sarah announced her determination, the youth had threatened self-destruction and foretold madness. Neither one thing nor the other happened, but he was sufficiently miserable and his sufferings had by no means grown blunted on this night as he plodded wearily through the village.

Aggett, moving out of the darkness, recognised his man and spoke.

“Come you here—on to the bridge,” he said abruptly. “Theer us’ll be out o’ the way o’ the world, an’ can sit ’pon the stones an’ I can say what’s to say.”

“There is nothing to talk about between us. If you knew how much I have suffered and am still suffering, you’d spare me more words.”“Aw jimmery! You’m a poor whinin’ twoad—too slack-twisted for any full-grown woman, I should have reckoned. But your luck be in. She comed back to me for duty; now she’m gwaine back to you for love.”

“Does she know her own mind, John?”

“Ess fay, an’ allus did arter you come.”

Now Aggett briefly explained the events of the past fortnight and his own determination concerning Sarah, while the younger man felt his blood wake from its sleep and race again through his veins. His treasure had not been lost and life was worth living yet. He had tact sufficient to make no comments upon the story. He spared John Aggett many words. But he gazed once or twice at the other’s heaving breast and wild eyes and told himself that the cowman was a being altogether beyond his power to understand. Then he crept away as quickly as he could and did not sleep until he had spoken with Sarah. On this occasion his account of events was framed in words of most meek and humble sort. He awarded Aggett full measure of praise, while upon himself he heaped sufficient obloquy, feeling that he could very well afford to do so as a price for this return to paradise.

CHAPTER VII

Now thundered upon John Aggett the full flood of his griefs at highest water-mark. Until this time hopes had alternated with fears, possibilities of recovered joy with the thought of utter loss. Then he had possessed Sarah’s promises and the consciousness that in his hands, not another’s, lay the future. But now John had departed out of her life for good and all, and the great act of self-renunciation was complete. To the highest-minded and noblest soul something in the nature of anti-climax must have followed upon this action. That one capable of so great a deed and such unselfish love possessed ample reserves of self-command and self-control to live his life henceforward on the same high plane by no means followed. Having by his own act insured the highest good for the woman he loved, John Aggett’s subsequent display sank far below that standard and indeed embraced a rule of life inferior to his usual conduct. A supreme unconcern as to what might now await him characterised his actions. As a lighthouse lamp illuminates some horror of sea and stone, so his notable deed shone in a sorry setting, for John Aggett’s existence now sank as much below its usual level of indifferent goodness as his relinquishment of Sarah Belworthy, for love of her, had risen above it. Until the present his attachment to the girl and hope of happiness had made him a hard-working man, and since his engagement he had laboured with the patience of a beast and counted weariness a delight as the shillings in his savings-box increased. Now incentive to further work was withdrawn, he abated his energies, lacking wit to realise that upon sustained toil and ceaseless mental occupation his salvation might depend. His final departure from Bellever Barton was brought about as the result of a curious interview with his master.

To Farmer Chave, young Timothy, now reestablished with Sarah, had come to break the news of his betrothal. But no parental congratulation rewarded the announcement. Mr. Chave knew every man and woman in Postbridge, and was familiar with the fact that the blacksmith’s daughter had long been engaged to his cowman. That his son and heir should favour a labourer’s sweetheart was a galling discovery and provoked language of a sort seldom heard even in those plain-speaking times. Finally the father dismissed his son, bade him get out of sight and conquer his calf-love once and for all or hold himself disinherited. A little later he acted on his own shrewd judgement and held converse with Sarah’s original suitor.

John was milking as the farmer entered his cow-yard, and a flood of sunlight slanted over the low byre roofs and made the coats of the cattle shine ripe chestnut red.

“Evenin’ to ’e, Aggett. Leave that job an’ come an’ have a tell wi’ me. I wants to speak to ’e.”

“Evenin’, maister. I’ll milk `Prim’ dry, ’cause she do awnly give down to me. Milly can do t’others.”

Farmer Chave waited until the cow “Prim” had yielded her store, then he led the way to an empty cow-stall—dark, cool and scented by its inhabitants. Across the threshold fell a bar of light; without, a vast heap of rich ordure sent forth delicate sun-tinted vapour; close at hand the cows stood waiting each her turn, and one with greatly distended udder lowed to the milkmaid.

“Look you here, Jan Aggett, you’m for marryin’, ban’t ’e? Didn’t you tell me when I took you on as a you was keepin’ company wi’ blacksmith’s purty darter?”

“’Twas so, then.”

“Well, I’m one as likes to see my hands married an’ settled an’ getting childer ’cordin’ to Bible command. What’s your wages this minute?”

“You’m on a wrong tack, maister. Sarah Belworthy an’ me be out. Theer’s nought betwixt us more.”

Mr. Chave affected great indignation at this statement.

“’Struth! Be you that sort?”

John reflected a moment before answering. He suspected his master must know the truth, but could not feel certain, for Mr. Chave’s manner suggested absolute ignorance.

“Us changed our minds—that’s all.”

“You say so! When a girl changes her mind theer’s generally another string to her bow. Either that, or she’s tired of waiting for the fust.”

“It might be ’twas so,” said John, falling into the trap laid for him. “A maid like her can’t be expected in reason to bide till such as me can make a home for her. I doan’t blame her.”

“Well, if that’s the trouble, you can go right along to her this night an’ tell her theer’s no cause to keep single after Eastertide. Yeo and his wife do leave my cottage in Longley Bottom come then, an’ instead of raisin’ your wages as I meant to do bimebye, I’ll give ’e the cot rent free. A tidy li’l place tu, I warn ’e, wi’ best part of an acre o’ ground, an’ only half a mile from the village. Now be off with ’e an’ tell the girl.”

Aggett gasped and his eyes dimmed a moment before the splendid vision of what might have been. It took him long to find words and breath to utter them. Then he endeavoured to explain.

“You’m a kind maister, God knows, an’ I’d thank ’e year in an’ year out wi’ the sweat o’ my body for such gudeness. But the thing can’t be, worse luck. Best I tell ’e straight. ’Tis like this: Sally have met another chap—a chap built o’ softer mud than what I be. An’ he’m more to her than me, an’—”

“God A’mighty! An’ you stand theer whining wi’ no more spirit than a auld woman what’s lost her shoe-string! A chap hath kindiddled the maid from ’e? Another man hath stole her? Is that what you mean?”

John grew fiery red, breathed hard and rubbed his chin with a huge fist.

“Ban’t the man I cares a curse for. ’Tis the girl.”

“Rubbishy auld nonsense! ’Tis woman’s play to show ’e the worth of her. They’m built that way an’ think no man can value ’em right unless he sees they’m for other markets so well as his. Do ’e know what that vixen wants ’e to do? Why, she’s awnly waiting for ’e to give t’other chap a damn gude hiding! Then she’ll cuddle round again—like a cat arter fish. I know ’em!”

John’s jaw dropped before this sensational advice. Now he was more than ever convinced that his master knew nothing of the truth. It appeared to him the most fantastic irony that a father should thus in ignorance condemn his son to such a sentence. Then Aggett put a question that shewed quickening of perception.

“If ’twas your own flesh an’ blood, what would ’e say?”

“Same as I be sayin’ now. Burned if I’d blame any man for sticking to his own.”

“It be your son,” declared John, shortly.

“I know it,” answered the other. “That’s why I’m here. You’m not the fule you look, Jan, an’ you know so well as I can tell ’e this match ban’t seemly nohow. I ban’t agwaine to have it—not if the Lard Bishop axed me. An’ I tell you plain an’ plump—me being your master—that you must stop it. The girl’s your girl, an’ you must keep her to her bargain. An’ you won’t repent it neither. Marry her out of hand an’ look to me for the rest. An’ if a word’s said, send him as sez it to me. I’ll soon shut their mouths.”

“Ban’t the folks—’tis her. She do love your son wi’ all her heart an’ soul—an’ he loves her—onless he’s a liar.”

“Drivel! What does he know about love—a moon-blind calf like him? I won’t have it, I tell ’e. He’s gone his awn way to long! Spoiled by his fule of a mother from the church-vamp[70] onward till he’ve come to this bit of folly. It’s not to be—dost hear what I say?”

“I hear. Go your ways, maister, an’ prevent it if you can. I’ll not meddle or make in the matter. Sally Belworthy have chosen, an’ ban’t me as can force her to change her mind.”

“More fule her. An’ between the pair of ’e, she’ll find herself in the dirt. ’Tis in a nutshell. Will ’e take the cottage an’ make her marry you? I lay you could if you was masterful.”

“Never—ban’t a fair thing to ax a man.”

“Best hear me through ’fore you sez it. If you’m against me in this, you can go to hell for all I care. If you won’t help me to keep my son from disgracing me an’ mine, you’m no true man, an’ I doan’t want ’e any more to Bellever Farm. ’Tis a wife an’ a home rent free ’pon wan side, an’ the sack on the other. So you’d best to make choice.”

“I’ll go Saturday.”

“Of all the ninnyhammers ever I saw! You gert yellow-headed cake, can’t you see you’m spoilin’ your awn life? Or was it that t’other side offered ’e better terms? If that’s so, you won’t get ’em, because Tim Chave’ll be a pauper man the day he marries wi’out my leave.”

The farmer stormed awhile longer, but presently he stamped off and Aggett returned to his mother. Then, as he had angered Mr. Chave, so did his own parent enrage him. She protested at his folly, and implored him to carry out his master’s wish while opportunity remained to do so. He was strong against it until the old woman went on her knees to him and wept. Then he lost his temper and cursed the whole earth and all thereon for a cruel tangle that passed the understanding of man to unravel.

Later in the evening he revisited the village and before ten o’clock returned intoxicated to his home.

CHAPTER VIII

From that day forward John Aggett exhibited a spectacle of reckless indifference to circumstances and a manner of life lightened only by occasional returns to sobriety and self-command. As to how it fared with Timothy and Sarah he cared not. Others ceased to speak of the matter in his presence, and thus it happened that he went in ignorance of events for the space of five weeks. During that period he loafed at the “Green Man” Inn until his money was spent, then returned to dwell with his mother.

Meantime Timothy Chave’s romance was prospering ill, despite his rival’s endeavour to make the way easy. Other obstacles now confronted him, and though Sarah was happy and well content to live in the delight of each hour with her lover, Tim found delay less easily borne and struggled to change Mr. Chave’s attitude toward his desires. But it proved useless, and the young man chafed in vain. He assured Sarah that his father was merely an obstinate elder and would surely be won to reason in good time; but the full significance of her engagement with Timothy, as his father viewed it, she did not know and never would have heard from Tim’s lips. There happened, however, an accidental meeting between Sarah and Farmer Chave himself, and this brushed all mystery or doubt from the girl’s mind, opened her eyes to the gravity of Tim’s actions and left her face to face with the truth.

One day Sarah, on foot, with her face set homeward, observed Farmer Chave riding back from Widecombe to Postbridge on a big bay horse. He saw her, too, eyed her narrowly and slackened speed, while she wished the road might open and swallow her from his sight. But there was no escape, so she curtseyed and wished Mr. Chave a very good evening. He returned the salute and seeing, as he believed, a possibility of setting all right on the spot by one great master-stroke, attempted the same.

“Ah, my girl, Belworthy’s darter, ban’t ’e? A peart maid an’ well thought on, I doubt not. Be you gwaine home-along?”

Sarah’s heart fluttered at this genial salutation. “Ess, maister,” she said.

“Then I’ll lighten your journey. I haven’t got the double saddle, but you’m awnly a featherweight an’ can ride pillion behind me an’ save your shoes.”

The mode of travel he suggested was common enough in those days, but such a proposal from Tim’s father frightened Sarah not a little. Her first thought was for herself, her second for her sweetheart, and she nerved herself to refuse the farmer’s offer.

“I’m sure you’m very kind, sir, but—”

“No ‘buts.’ Here’s a stone will make a splendid upping stock, an’ `Sharky’ can carry the pair of us without knowing his load be increased. Up you get! Theer’s plenty of room for my fardels in front o’ the pommel. Us won’t bate our pace for you, I promise. Now jump! Whoa, bwoy! Theer we are. Just put your arms around my flannel waistcoat an’ doan’t be shy. ’Tis well I met ’e, come to think on’t, for I wanted a matter o’ few words.”

Soon they jogged forward, the big horse taking little account of Sarah’s extra weight. At length they crossed Riddon Ridge and passed Dart at a ford, where Sarah had to hold up her toes out of the reach of the river. Then, as they rode along the foothills of Bellever, the farmer spoke suddenly.

“My life’s been wisht of late days along wi’ taking thought for my son Tim. You’ve heard tell of un? You see, ’tis my wish to have un mated wi’ his cousin. But I’m led to onderstand as theer’s a maiden up-long he thinks he likes better; an’ her name’s same as yours, Sarah Belworthy.”

“Oh, Maister Chave, I do love un very dear, I do.”

“So you done to that yellow man, Jan Aggett.”

“’Tweern’t the same. When Maister Timothy comed, I seed differ’nt.”“Doan’t shake an’ tremble. You’ll never have no reason to fear me. Tell me how ’twas. Jan gived ’e up—eh?”

“Ess, he did.”

“Why for?”

“For love of me.”

“Ah! Now that was a brave fashion deed. I allus thought a lot of the man, an’ I’m sorry you’ve sent un to the Devil, wheer they tell me he’s bound of late days.”

“He’m a gude man, an’ I wish to God as something could be done to bring him back in the right road.”

“Ess fay! An’ you’m the one as would have to look the shortest distance to find a way to do it, Sarah. A gude example that man, for all his foolishness since. Loved ’e well enough to leave ’e—for your own gude, he did—eh?”

“God bless him for doin’ it.”

“Why doan’t ’e go back to him?”

“I cannot, I cannot now.”

“Well, man’s love be greater than woman’s by the look of it. What girl would have done same as that man done? What girl would give up a man for love of him, an’ even leave un for his gude? Not one as ever I heard tell of.”

“Many an’ many would for that matter. What’s a sacrifice if your love be big enough?”“Be yours? That’s the question I’d ax ’e.”

Sarah’s heart sank low; Mr. Chave felt her shiver and the hands clasped over his thick waistcoat tremble. Looking down, he saw her fingers peeping out of woollen mittens; and upon one, sacred to the ring, a small gold hoop appeared with a coral bead set therein.

Sarah did not answer the last pointed question, and Farmer Chave continued:—

“I know you’ve promised to be wife to my son some day, an’ I know he’ve taken partickler gude care to hide from you my view of the question. But you must hear it, for your awn sake as well as his an’ mine. I’ve nothin’ against you, Sarah, nothin’, an’ less than nothin’, for I like you well an’ wish to see you so gude as you’m purty an’ so happy as you’m gude; but I know my son for a lad of light purposes an’ weak will an’ wrong ambitions. Ban’t enough iron in un; an’ the maid I’m set on for un have got a plenty backbone to make up for his lack. Her he’s to wed in fulness o’ time, if I’ve any voice left in affairs; an’ if he doan’t, ’tis gude-bye to Bellever for him, an’ gude-bye to more’n that. So theer he stands, Sarah, an’ you’d best to hear what it means. Maybe you thought you was makin’ choice between a labourin’ man an’ a gentleman, between a pauper an’ a young chap wi’ his pockets full o’ money. But ban’t so, I assure ’e. ’Tis the gentleman’ll be the pauper if he marries you; but John Aggett—why, I offered un my cottage in Longley Bottom free o’ rent from the day as your banns was axed in marriage wi’ un to Widecombe Church! That’s the man as gived ’e up for love of ’e. An’ ban’t you so strong as him?”

“Tu gude he was—tu gude for the likes o’ me.”

“Well, as to t’other, though he’s my son, blamed if I think he’s gude enough. But that’s neither here nor theer. The question ban’t what sort of love he’s got for you; but what sort you’ve got for him. Do ’e follow my meanin’? I doan’t storm or rave, you see—tu wise for that. I only bid you think serious whether your feeling for Timothy’s the sort to ruin him, or to save him from ruin. ’Tis a hard choice for ’e, but we’m all faaced wi’ ugly puzzles ’pon the crossways o’ life. Now you know my ’pinions, you’ll do what’s right, or you’m not the girl I think ’e.”

“I must give un up for all time?”

“Best not put it that way. Doan’t drag my rascal of a bwoy in the argeyment. Say to yourself, ‘I must mate him as I promised to mate—him that’s wastin’ his life an’ gwaine all wrong for love o’ me.’ ’Tis plain duty, woman, looked at right. Not that I’d rob ’e of the pleasure of knowin’ you’d done a gert deed if you gived Tim up; but t’other’s the man as you’ve got to think of; an’, if you do this gude thing, ’tis just similar as he done for you. Wi’ Jan Aggett be your happiness wrapped up, if you could see it. An’ Jan’s much more like to go well in marriage harness than my son be, or I doan’t know carater.”

“I’ll try, I’ll try. It’s more than I’ve heart or strength for, but I’ll try, Maister Chave. I’ll try to do right by both of them.”

“Who could say fairer? An’ here’s the lane to blacksmith’s, so I’ll drop ’e. An’ give your faither my respects an’ tell un I want un to-morrow to the farm.”

After Sarah had dismounted the farmer spoke again.

“Take to heart what I’ve said to ’e, an’ remember that to please me won’t be a bad action from a worldly side. Go back to Jan Aggett, Sarah Belworthy; that’s my advice to you, an’ angels from heaven couldn’t give ’e no better, ’cause theer ban’t room for two ’pinions. Now let me hear what metal you’m made of, an’ that afore the week be out. So gude night.”

The man trotted off with knees stiff and elbows at right angles to his body; the girl entered her home; and that night, tossing and turning wearily, thrice she decided to give up her lover and thrice determined to take no definite step until she had again seen and spoken with Timothy. But her heart told her that such a course was of all the weakest. Presently she assured herself that many plans might be pursued and that wide choice of action lay before her. Then John Aggett chiefly occupied her thoughts. To go back to him now appeared absolutely impossible. He had given her up, at a cost even she but dimly guessed, and to return into his troubled life again struck her as a deed beyond measure difficult and dangerous.

Long she reflected miserably on the sorrow of her lot; then, in the small hours of morning and upon the threshold of sleep, Sarah determined to let another judge of her right course of conduct and dictate it to her.

“’Twas the white witch, Gammer Gurney, as foretold Tim would marry me that terrible night,” she thought. “Then ’tis for she to say what I should do an’ what I shouldn’t do. If ’tis ordained by higher things than men-folk as I’m to have Tim, what’s the use o’ weeping ’cause Farmer Chave wishes differ’nt?”

There was a sort of comfort in this philosophy; but her grey eyes closed upon a wet pillow as she slept, to wake with sudden starts and twitches from visions in great aisles of gloom, from dim knowledge of horrors hidden behind storm-clouds, from the murmur of remote callings and threatenings and cries of woe, from all-embracing dread begotten of a heavy heart, and an outlook wholly dreary and desolate.

CHAPTER IX

With morning light Sarah’s decision to visit Gammer Gurney was still strong in her, and she determined to call upon the white witch before another nightfall. It was this enterprise that precipitated affairs and brought their end within sight.

Upon the evening that saw Sarah riding pillion with Farmer Chave, John Aggett had met the curate of Postbridge—one Reverend Cosmo Hawkes. The parson, who was a keen sportsman, came across John upon the Moor and improved his occasion to such good purpose that Aggett’s ears tingled before the man of God had done with him. They returned together, and on the way home Mr. Hawkes, with admirable pertinacity, so hammered and pounded the erring labourer, that he alarmed him into frank regret for his evil ways. The reckless and unhappy young man was steadied by his minister’s forcible description of what most surely awaits all evil livers; and when Mr. Hawkes, striking while the iron was hot, undertook to get Aggett good and enduring work at Ashburton, John promised to comply and to reform his bad courses from that day forth. The decision come to, he spent his last hours of freedom in folly. That night he drank hard, and when deep measures had loosened his tongue, explained to numerous “Green Man” gossips the thing he proposed to do. Afterward, when the overdose of drink in him had turned to poison, hope died again and his mother, listening fearfully at his door, heard him muttering and cursing and growling of death as the only friend left to him. In the morning he was oppressed by the immediate prospect of breathing the same air with Sarah Belworthy no more. He alternated between savage indifference and stubborn fatalism. In the first mood he was minded to depart at once; in the second he felt disposed to seek out Tim Chave and let the brute in him have its fling. He itched for batterings in the flesh. But he visited Postbridge, obtained the letter of introduction from Mr. Hawkes, and then seriously set himself to the task of preparing for departure. He told his mother that he would return within a fortnight, and she rejoiced, feeling his temporary absence a light evil as compared with his present life. But the truth, that he was leaving home not to return, she never suspected. All preliminary matters arranged, John Aggett bade farewell, lifted his bundle and set out, after an early dinner, for Ashburton, and as he passed Sarah Belworthy’s home and saw the straggling village of Postbridge sink into the naked web of the woods, a dark inclination mastered him again and passions that craved outlet in violence clouded down stormily upon his soul. But resolutely he carried his turmoil of thoughts along at the rate of four miles an hour, and quickly passing beside the river southward, approached Yar Tor and the road to Ashburton. Then, as there appeared the spectacle of Gammer Gurney’s cottage, standing in its innocent humility and forlorn loneliness upon the Moor edge, John observed a woman ahead of him and realised that the last familiar face his eyes would rest upon must be Sarah Belworthy’s. Guessing her errand, he slackened his pace that she might reach the cottage and disappear without knowledge of his presence; but as he walked more slowly, so did Sarah, though quite unconscious of the fact her old lover was at hand; and presently, to his astonishment, the girl stopped altogether, hesitated, and sat down by the wayside on a boulder. A determination not to avoid her now influenced Aggett. He approached, and, as he reached her and stood still, Sarah grew very pale and shewed some fear.

“You, Jan! An’ settin’ forth ’pon a journey by the look of it. Wheer be gwaine?”

“Out of this, anyway.”

“For long?”

“Can’t say as to that. I ban’t myself of late days—not my own man as I used to be. God knows wheer my changed temper’s like to drive me in the end.”

“’Tis the same with me, Jan. I doan’t know my duty no clearer now than afore. I’m torn to pieces one way an’ another, an’ theer won’t be much left o’ me worth any man’s love come bimebye. Sometimes I think I’ll run right away next giglet-market[84] to Okehampton, come Our Lady’s Day, an’ hire myself out to the fust as axes, an’ never set eyes on this place more.”

“Ban’t ’e happy yet, then? What more do ’e want?”

“My love’s a curse wheer it falls. I loved ’e an’ brought ’e to bad ways; an’ Tim—I’ve set his nearest an’ dearest against un. I seed Farmer Chave essterday, an’ he urged me by the Book to give un up.”

“’Struth! He said that, did he? But you didn’t fall in wi’ it, I reckon, else you wouldn’t be here now?”

“’Tis all to difficult for the likes o’ me. What’s a poor maiden to do? If I takes Tim, he’ll be a ruined man, ’cordin’ to his father.”

“’Twas a mean, cowardly trick to threaten ’e.”

“But plain truth—I could see that. A terrible tantara theer’ll be in Bellever if he braves the anger of Farmer. I’ve prayed an’ prayed—Lard He knows how I’ve prayed—‘pon it, but—”

“Prayers won’t help ’e; leastways, they didn’t me. I’ve lifted up far-reachin’ prayers in my time, I promise you, Sarah,—the best I could; but never no answer,—never so much as a Voice in the night to help a chap.”

“You done right to pray an’ you was led right, though you didn’t know it. An’ you’m well thought of for what you’ve done still, despite your fallin’ away arterward.”

“Never mind ’bout me. I be gwaine far ways off, an’ so like’s not us’ll never set eyes ’pon each other more. For me, I’d so soon end all as not. But for mother I should have got out of it afore now, for I ban’t feared o’ dyin’, an’ would go out o’ hand this minute. But you? Can’t the man help ’e? Do he know your fix? What the devil be he made of? Sugar?”

“He doan’t know yet that I’ve spoken wi’ his faither. An’ he’ve been careful to hide that his folks was against me. I s’pose ’tis natural they should be so.”

“Ess—not knowin’ you.”

“An’ in my gert quandary I was gwaine in to Mother Gurney here. She’s juggled wi’ my life afore, seemin’ly, an’ if any knows what’s to be the end of it, ’tis her, I should think. I want to hear what’s right an’ proper. I’m so weary of my days as you. Life an’ love be gall-bitter this way. Oh, Jan, can’t ’e say nought to comfort me? ’Tis more’n I can bear.”

She was hysterical, and he flung down his bundle and sat beside her and tried to bring some peace to her spirit. His heart was full for her and he spoke eagerly. Then he saw the gold and coral on her finger and stopped talking and put his elbows on his knees and his big sandy head down on his hands.

“’Twas what you done, ’twas same as what you done,” she said. “You left me for love of me; why can’t I leave Tim for love of him?”

“’Tis axin’ a woman to much.”

A long silence reigned. Wind-blown ponies stamped and snorted close at hand, and from a window in the neighbouring cottage a sharp eye watched the man and woman. Gammer was counting the chances of a customer, possibly two.

Fired with a glimmer of the hope that can never perish while the maid is free, John Aggett argued the advantages of obedience to Farmer Chave. He felt himself base in this, but Sarah was under his eyes, within reach of his arm. Her hot tears were on his hand.

“’Tis for you I be thinkin’, though you might say ’twas two words for myself an’ but one for you. I wants your sorrow turned into joy, Sally, if it’s a thing can be done. Leave me out—theer—now I’m not thinkin’ for myself at all. Leave me out, an’ leave him out, an’ bide a maid till the right man finds ’e. I lay he haven’t crossed your path yet. Give young Chave up for your own sake, if not his, an’ look life in the face again free.”

He continued fitfully in this strain, quenching his own dim hope remorselessly as he spoke, and she, hearing little save the drone of his voice, occupied herself with her own thoughts. Her emotions toward John Aggett had never much changed. Her love for Tim, being a feeling of different quality, had left her temperate if sincere regard for John unmoved. Possibly his own action in the past had rendered her more kindly disposed to him than before. There certainly existed in her mind a homespun, drab regard for him, and circumstances had not changed it.

Now as he strengthened her determination to give up her lover for her lover’s good, and despite the bitterness of her spirit before the sacrifice, she could find some room in her mind for the man before her. To-day the presence of Sarah awoke the finest note in John. His first dim hope was extinguished; he soared above it, resolutely banished any personal interest in the problem now to be solved, and assumed that Sarah had similarly obliterated him from all considerations of the future. But it was not so.

Presently the girl declared her mind to be made up and promised that she would break off her engagement. For a moment the other showed hearty satisfaction, then his forehead grew wrinkled.

“One thing mind,” he said. “My name must not crop up no more in this. Ban’t that I fear anything man can do, but theer’ll be no weight to what you sez onless you make it clear ’tis your own thought. ’Tis you I care about—an’ ’tis him you care about. I be gude as gone a’ready. ’Twas mere chance throwed us together, an’ none need know ’bout it.”

She was silent awhile, then put her hand out to him.

“I do owe you more’n ever a maid owed a man, I reckon.”

He took and held the hand extended.

“You cannot help what’s past and gone. Just call me home to your mind now an’ again—that’s all I ax ’e. Now I must be movin’, for I’ve got long ways to go to-day.”

Even in her misery she took a mournful pleasure in her power to command.

“Sit down an’ bide till I bid you go,” she said.

He obeyed, resumed the seat from which he had risen and tied and untied his bundle, but did not speak.“If us could call back a year an’ begin livin’ all over again, Jan.”

He looked down at her, puzzled.

“A man would give his soul to go back a bit sometimes; but that’s about the awnly thing God A’mighty’s self can’t do, I reckon. ’Tis more’n His power to give back essterday.”

“He can do it His own way. He can help us poor unhappy creatures to forget.”

“So can a pint of old ale; not but them around about a man mostly looks to it that the raw of sorrow shan’t heal tu quick for want of callin’ to mind.”

“Jan, I’m gwaine to give him up. I have given him up for all time. I shall allus love him, Jan, because I must. But that is all. An’ you—you mustn’t go out into the world an’ wander ’pon the airth an’ maybe never come home no more through fault of mine. Ban’t fair as two men should break theer hearts an’ have theer days ruined for one worthless woman. What I am, I am; what I felt for you, Jan, I feel—no more, no less. ’Tisn’t I loved you less than I always did, but him more. If ’tis unmaidenly so to say, rebuke me, Jan.”

Thus she deliberately came into his life again for the third time, and he was overwhelmed. And yet his answer was one of almost savage fierceness. Joy shook him, too,—a sort of incredulous joy, as when one dreams rare things, yet knows that one dreams. The mingled emotions of the time upset his self-control, induced a sort of tense excitation and rendered his voice indistinct, hollow, mumbling as that of a man drunken or cleft in palate.

“That! That! You say that to me—arter all these long, long days! To come back now! God in Heaven, what a puppet dance ’tis! Now here, now theer—be your heart so light as thistledown? I doan’t know wheer I stand; I’m mazed as a sheep this minute. An’ you’d come back to me now?”

“I would, Jan. I will.”

“An’ live man an’ wife to the li’l lew cot offered us by the gudeness of Farmer?”

“No, not that. I couldn’t do that. You’ve a heart soft enough to understand. I’ll go with ’e, wheer you be gwaine—ay, this very day I will. But I can’t bide here. I must get away from—from mother, an’ faither, an’ all. Then us can send a packet to ’em from far off. Anywheer but Postbridge, Jan.”

“You’m in honest, sober, Bible earnest, Sarah?”

“God’s my witness, I be.”

“Then He’s my witness, tu, that I stand here a new man—an’ not shamed o’ the crumbs from t’other’s table. You to come back! ’Tis more’n my deserts—such a drunken swine as I’ve been since—”

He paused a moment, then his manner changed suddenly and he gripped the girl’s arm so hard and glared so wildly that Gammer Gurney from her window feared a serious quarrel and nearly rushed out to separate them.

“Mind this, then,” he said, with harsh intensity. “Mind this, now; you’m my whole life again,—body, an’ bones, an’ blood, an’ soul,—from this moment onwards. Theer’s gwaine to be no more changing now—no more altering your mind—or, by Christ, I won’t answer for myself. I ban’t so strong o’ will as I was, an’ since you’ve comed to me of your own free will, mine you’ll be till death ends it; an’ Lard help them as try to keep us apart now. Lard help ’em an’ deliver ’em from me. You’ve come, an’ I trust ’e—trust ’e same as I trust the sun to rise. But if you throw me over again, I’ll— No matter to speak on that. Awnly I’ll be true as steel to ’e; an’ you must play your part an’ look over your shoulder no more. You’ve spoke out o’ your heart, me out o’ mine; so let it be.”

She was alarmed at this outburst, uttered with almost brutal energy and in loud accents. But it served its purpose and impressed her vacillating spirit with the impossibility of any further changes.

“We’ve been up an’ down, him an’ me, full long enough,” continued Aggett. “Now, thanks be to a just God as I’d nearly forgot, you’ve come back to me an’ I could crow like a marnin’ cock to think it. An’ now what’ll please ’e to do? Will ’e come along o’ me this minute?”

“Ess—no—not now; but to-night I might. I must go home an’ put together a few things an’ pack up others. I can send along to home for my li’l box later.”

“To-night, then. An’, come next Sunday, us’ll be axed out in church at Ashburton straightway. Come to think, ’twould be better for you to bide along wi’ your folk until I be ready for ’e a week or two hence.”

“No—I—” She was going to confess that she could not trust herself, but feared his eyes.

“Why for not?”

“I won’t stop here without you. I’ll come. They can hear the truth after I have gone.”

“To-night, then,” he said.

“Wheer shall I meet ’e to?”

“By the beech—you know. Through the woods be the nearest road for us. To the gert beech, wheer I set our letters in a love knot. No better place. Theer I’ll come, an’ theer I’ll count to see ’e when the moon rises over the hill. An’ doan’t ’e keep me waitin’—not a moment, not the atom of a moment! I’ve gone through enough, an’ my brain spins yet to think o’ the past. Suffer more I can’t—no more at all. You’ll be sorry to your dying day if you’m late. Better never come than that. My head be full o’ strange things at this wonnerful happy happening,—strange things,—but I’ll say no more than bid you be to the beech by moon-rise, if ’tis true that you love me an’ not false. Be theer—or you’ll awnly repent it once, Sarah, an’ that’s so long as you do live arter.”

He exhibited little love now and less tenderness. It almost appeared that a mind long familiar with darkness was unable to accept and understand the light suddenly shed upon it. A note of impending catastrophe sounded in his words, seemed shadowed in his wild eyes.

“You fright me,” said Sarah. “You doan’t take me as I hoped you would. You ban’t your old self, yet. How should you be for that matter? ’Tis only poor second-hand goods I’m bringing to ’e.”

“Not so. ’Tis what I had first promise of. I’ll be all a man can be to ’e—all I should be. Forgive me for harsh words; but I be dazed wi’ this gert come-along-o’-it. I’ve been sore let for many days, an’ ’twill take time to make me see wi’ the old eyes when the brains in my head grow sweet an’ cool again, an’ the poison works out of ’em.”

They talked a little while longer, then the white witch from her chamber window saw them turn and together retrace their steps.

CHAPTER X

That highest hope, long abandoned, should thus suddenly return within his reach, staggered John Aggett, and went far to upset the man’s mental equilibrium. Indeed, it had been but a little exaggeration to describe his mind as, for the time, unhinged. The splendour of his changed position dazed him. Joy and bewilderment strove for mastery, and from a medley of poignant sensations was bred the passionate desire of possession, and a wild hunger to secure for his own what had been withheld so long.

Sarah Belworthy, for her part, experienced great turbulence of conflicting fears. Her mind was fixed, yet had something in it of absolute terror, as she reflected upon the recent interview. She had offered herself to him as a sudden inspiration; and now, retracing that fevered scene, John Aggett’s frenzy of demeanour alarmed her much, for it was a revelation of the man she had not encountered until then. Presently an answer came to her puzzled mind—a solution of a sort that made the blood surge hotly to Sarah’s face. Could it be that she had offered herself where she was wanted no more? Had John’s chivalry alone been responsible for his ready undertaking to receive her back? She nearly screamed in the silence of her little chamber at this thought; she desisted from her labour of preparation and flung herself upon her bed in secret shame. But reason quickly banished the fear. She remembered the man’s intoxication of joy, his delirious thanksgiving. She felt her bosom sore where he had hugged her to himself and praised the God of Justice. Next she retraced his subsequent display of passion, his extravagant utterances and threats. She realized very fully that he held the pending crisis as one of vital magnitude and knew that he was strung to a pitch far beyond any that previous experience of him had exhibited or revealed to her. She determined to give him no cause for further excitement and so returned to her work, wondering the while what this ingredient of fear might be that had entered into her emotions concerning him.

Anon her thoughts passed to the other man, and the last struggle began. For his own salvation she was leaving him, but with natural human weakness she much desired that he should know of her great sacrifice in the time to come. That Timothy should pursue his life in ignorance of the truth after she had departed was a terrible thought to Sarah; but, since to see him again appeared out of the question, there remained a possibility that he would deem her faithless and worthless to the end. She knelt and prayed that the nature of the thing she had done might be revealed to him in fulness of time; and then her mind grew active in another direction and she marvelled why she had thrown herself back into her first lover’s arms and not taken his advice to remain free of both. Her feelings toward Aggett eluded all possibility of analysis or understanding. She fled from them to the task of setting her small possessions in order and packing her basket for the forthcoming departure.

Sarah could not write, and she was unable therefore to leave any message for her parents. Their anxiety must endure for the space of a day and night, but might then be allayed. She pictured herself dictating a letter to the scrivener at Ashburton, and wondered what she should put in it.

As the time approached and the day died, the vision of Timothy grew clearer and more clear. She saw his grief and indignation, his sorrow and dismay; she knew every line in his face which would contract, every furrow that would be deepened, at this event; and she speculated drearily upon his course of action and shivered at the possibility of a meeting between the men. Her distraction did not obscure the drift of John’s last words, or blind her to the importance of keeping tryst at the beech, for he had made it clear that some disaster must overtake them if she delayed her coming beyond the rising of the moon. It wanted twenty minutes to eight when Sarah started to meet the partner of her future life; and as her destination was only a short half-mile distant, she allowed ample time to reach it.

Meantime Aggett had passed down the hill five minutes sooner. It was a night of broken clouds. Rapid motion in the direction of the zenith seemed imparted to the stars, as scattered vapour, driven before a light northwesterly breeze, passed across them. With ascending movement, the moon would presently mount a silvery stairway of clouds and pass swimming upward across one scattered tract of darkness to the next. The nocturnal world beneath was full of soft light and sweet spring scent. Nature’s busy fingers moved about those duties men see not in the act. From umbels of infant chestnut leaves she drew the sheaths, loosed the folds of primroses and wood anemones, opened the little olive-coloured buds of the woodbine’s foliage, liberated the chrysoprase spears of the wild arums from the dry earth. A fern owl whirred and wheeled about a blackthorn tree that stood alone near Aggett’s cottage door. Green leaves now clothed it, where a few weeks earlier blossoms had made the tree snow white. The spring green of field and forest and hedgerow looked wan under the increasing light of the eastern horizon; valleyward a mist, born of recent rain, wound sinuously and shimmered opalescent, while above all loomed a background of night-hidden Moor. Viewed at this distance the waste returned no spark or twinkle from the sky, but extended, darkly and gigantically, along the horizon and made the upper chambers of the air shine out the brighter for its own dimensionless obscurity.

John Aggett passed from the embrace of the night wind into the denser atmosphere of the woods beneath. A stream brawled beside him and ran before the cottage of the Belworthys. Here he dawdled a moment, half in hope to meet Sarah; but he felt confident that she was in reality before him and would be waiting ere now at the beech. Proceeding downward, he passed a young man leaning against a gate. The youth stood quite motionless, and over his shoulder Aggett observed widespreading grass-lands. Upon the expanse of dim green, parallel bars of faint light between equal tracts of gloom indicated that a roller had been passed regularly over the field to better its promise of future hay.

The man turned, and John, knowing the other for Timothy Chave, guessed that he awaited a companion. Instant rage set his blood racing; the veins in his neck and forehead bulged; the muscles of hand and arm hardened, but he kept in shadow and passed upon the farther side of the road where the stream ran. Timothy said “good night” in the voice of one who does not recognise him to whom he speaks; but Aggett returned no answer and, satisfied that he had not been recognised, soon passed out of earshot. His mind was now darker than the shadows of the pine trees, fuller of brooding whispers than their inky tops; but he fought against foreboding with the full strength of his will, set presentiment of evil behind him, and lifted his voice and spoke aloud to cheer himself.

“Her’ll be down-along; her’ll surely be down-along, dear heart, waitin’ for me. She knows nought about the chap standin’ theer. It can’t be. She’m strong set to follow, for ’tis the road of her own choosin’.”

He proceeded to the spot where Sarah had first promised herself to him. The beech bole shone ghost grey; as yet no copper-coloured bud-spike had opened and aloft the thickening traceries, still spotted by a few seed-cases of last year’s mast, shewed in wonderful black lace-work against the silver sky. Sarah Belworthy was not visible, and Aggett felt a mighty dread tightening at his stomach, like hands. He threw down his bundle and stick. Then he listened awhile, only to hear the jolt and grind of a wood-sledge proceeding down the hill. He looked about him, calculated that it yet wanted ten minutes to moon-rise, then struck a light with a flint, puffed it into flame and sought idly for the initials and lover’s knot that he had set upon the beech. His work had suffered little since its first completion; but now it vanished, for, upon some sudden whim, the man fetched out his knife, obliterated the inscription with a few heavy gashes, pared all away, and left nothing but a raw white blaze upon the bark. His own downcast condition puzzled him. Now, albeit within five minutes of his triumph, now, while each moment was surely bringing Sarah to him on tripping feet, he grew more morose and ill at ease. It was the thought of the other standing at the gate. Once more John talked to himself aloud to cheer his spirit. “Curse the fule—standin’ so stark as a mommet[100] to fright pixies. Her won’t stop for him—never. Her’ll come; her’s promised.”

He repeated the words over and over again like a parrot; but a voice, loud as his own, answered him and mocked him out of the darkness. His life and its futility reeled before him, like phantasmagoria upon the night. He stamped and swore to disturb the visions; but as he waited and listened for Sarah’s coming, the past took visible shape again and summoned pictures of days gone by, when he went wool-gathering with little Sally on the Moor. No sound broke the silence, no footfall gladdened his heart. And then there floated out the moon over the black billows of the horizon. Very slowly its silver ascended into the sky and rained splendour upon the nocturnal earth. The hour of moon-rise was numbered with time past and the world rolled on.

Great floods of passion drowned the man. He flung himself upon the earth and beat the young green things with his clenched hands. The smell of bruised primroses touched his nostrils and in the spirit he saw Sarah Belworthy again bearing a great nosegay of them. She moved beside him through a bygone April; her laugh made music through the spring woods; her lips were very red; and round her girl’s throat hung a little necklace of hedge-sparrow’s eggs, blue as the vernal sky.

Aggett arose, rubbed the earth from his knuckles and began to tighten the thong he wore about his waist. But the leather under his hands suddenly challenged his mind, and he took off the belt and examined it.

“Her never loved me—never—never,” he said to the night. “To leave me arter what I said—to leave me now knowin’—’Tis enough. I be tired—I be weary of the whole earth. Her lied to me through it all; but I won’t lie to she.”

He flung down the belt, then picked it up again and removed a little bag that was fastened to it and contained a few shillings in silver. This he placed beside his bundle. Then he flung the long snaky coil of the girdle upon the ground and stood staring at it.

Elsewhere, Sarah, hastening down the hill five minutes after John had noted Timothy at the gate of the hayfield, similarly saw and recognised him. His presence reminded her of a fact entirely forgotten during the recent storm and stress. He was there by appointment and eager to hear the first rustle of his sweetheart’s approach. Now her heart flogged at her breast and she felt her knees weaken. But she kept steadily on with averted face and instinct quick to find concealment in every shadow. She drew her hood about her and walked upon the grass by the wayside.

The man heard and turned, waking from a reverie. He saw his sweetheart even as she passed him by.

“Sally! It is Sally!” he cried.

She did not answer, though his voice shook her to the well-springs of her life; and he, supposing that she was about some lover’s pretty folly, laughed joyously and came after her. Then she hastened the more, and he did likewise.

“A starlight chase! So be it, sweetheart; but you’ll have to pay a heavy penalty when I catch you!”Still she could not speak; then, perceiving that he must speedily overtake her, she found her tongue.

“For Christ’s sake, doan’t ’e follow me! ’Tis life—life an’ death. Ban’t no time for play. Turn back, Tim, turn back if you ever loved me.”

Her tone alarmed him and he hesitated a moment, then came steadily on again, calling to Sarah to stop.

“Tell me what’s amiss—quick—quick, dear one! Who should help you in the whole world but your Tim?”

Now her quick brains had devised a means of possible escape. The stream that ran by the road here passed immediately under a high hazel hedge, and the bank had been torn down by cattle at one point. Upon the other side of this gap extended a narrow meadow at the fringe of young coppice woods. Once within this shelter Sarah felt she might be safe. But there was not a moment to lose, for Tim had now approached within fifteen yards of her. A thousand thoughts hastened through the girl’s mind in those fleeting moments, and not the least was one of indignation against her pursuer. She had bid him stay in the name of Christ, yet he paid no heed, but blundered on, dead to consequences, ignorant of the awful evil for which he might be responsible if he restrained her. To leap the stream was Sarah’s first task—a feat trifling by day, but not so easy now that night had sucked detail from the scene and banished every particular of the brook’s rough course. Here its waters chattered invisible; here they dipped under young grasses and forget-me-nots; here twinkled out only to vanish again, engulfed by great shadows. The girl sped upon her uneven way, marked the gap ahead and in her haste, mistaking for light a grey stone immediately before her at a little bend in the stream, leapt forward, struck her feet against granite, and, falling, spread her hands to save herself. But, despite this action, her forehead came violently against the stone and her left foot suffered still more severely. She struggled to recover and rise, while her basket tumbled into the stream, scattering small, precious possessions on the water. With a desperate effort Sarah actually regained her feet, but only to lose consciousness and be caught up in Tim Chave’s arms as she fell again.

Then it was her pursuer’s turn to suffer; though rapid action relieved him of some anxiety and occupied his mind. The place was very lonely, the girl apparently dead. For half an hour he sought to revive her; then she opened her eyes and lifted them to the moon; and by slow stages of broken thoughts took up the thread of her life again.

“Thank God—thank God, my darling! If you only knew what I have endured! I thought you had killed yourself and the terror of it has made me grow old. What, in Heaven’s name, were you doing to run from me like that?”

She put up one hand to her head and uttered a shivering sigh, but as yet lacked the power to speak. Beneath her hair was a terrible bruise, and she felt that something stabbed her eyes and made them flash red fiery rings into the cold silver of the moonlight.

“Speak,” he said, “just one little word, my treasure—just one word, so that I may know my life has come back to me.”

Then she spoke, slowly at first, with increased speed as her memory regained clearness.

“No—no—no. Not to Tim—not back to Tim. I remember. I fell running away from ’e. You sinned a gert sin to come arter me when I bade ’e in Christ’s name to let me abide. Help me now—now ’fore ’tis to late. ’Tis the least you can do an’ theer’s a man’s life hanging to it for all I know. Say nothin’; ax nothin’; help me—help me quick to go to un.”

“To whom, Sarah? You’re dreaming, lovey. Who should I take you to—your father? But I’m here—Timothy—an’ thank God I was. What frightened you so? Like a moonbeam you went and nearly broke your neck and my heart together—‘pon my honour you did.”“Help me,” she said. “Give over talkin’, for it ban’t the time. You’ll know how ’twas some day. I’ve prayed solemn as you should know. Let me go down-along quick—quicker’n lightning—or it may be too late. Wheer’s my basket gone? I had a li’l basket. An’ allus b’lieve I loved ’e—b’lieve it to the end of the world.”

“As if I ever doubted it! Now let me carry you right home, my little wounded bird. The sooner the better.”

“No, I tell ’e. Help me to my feet—now this instant minute, if you doan’t want me to go mad! Theer’s things hid—terrible things! I must go. He won’t wait for me; he swore it. Down to the gert beech he bides—Jan—Jan Aggett! Oh, help me, my own love; help me, Tim, for my body’s weak an’ I can’t rise up without ’e.”

“To him—help you to him!”

“I mean it. I can’t tell you nothin’. For the love of the Lard, doan’t talk no more. Oh, if I thwart un!”

She struggled desperately, like a trapped animal that sees dog or man approaching; and he helped her to stand, though now he scarcely knew what he did. Then the pang of a dislocated bone in her foot pierced the girl and she cried aloud and sank back breathless and faint with pain.

“I can’t go to un, so you must. Hasten, hasten, if ever you loved me, an’ mend the gert wrong you’ve done by bringing me to this. Speed down to the beech at the corner o’ the woods an’ tell Jan Aggett what have fallen out. Never mind me; my foot ban’t no account; but Jan—him—tell un I’m here against my will. Shout aloud through the peace o’ the night as you’m coming to un from me.”

Still he hesitated until her voice rose in a high-pitched shriek of impatience and she tore her hair and beat her breast. Then he departed and even ran as she screamed to him to go faster.

Once fairly started, Timothy made the best of his way to Postbridge for a doctor and man’s aid to carry Sarah to her home. At the dripping well beside the stile he stopped a moment and shouted his rival’s name till the woods echoed; but no answer came and he ran on, gasping, to the village.

Fifteen minutes later Timothy returned to the hill with a medical man and two labourers. Investigation proved that Sarah Belworthy had not been very gravely injured, though her mind was evidently suffering from some serious shock. She asked for Aggett on Tim’s return and, being assured that he had left the beech tree before her messenger reached it, she relapsed into silence. Soon the slight dislocation in her foot was reduced and she lay in comfort on the pallet that she had thought to press no more.

CHAPTER XI

A small boy, playing truant from his dame’s school, discovered the nature of John Aggett’s final action. The lad, seeking for those elements of mystery and adventure never absent from a wood, found both readily enough, where a great beech stood at the precincts of the pine forest. First a bundle in a red handkerchief with a stout stick lying beside it made the explorer peep fearfully about for the owner. Then he found him; and the small boy’s eyes grew round, his hair rose under his cap and his jaw fell. Lifted but a few inches above his head, and hanging by the neck from a great limb of the beech, was a man weary of waiting for a woman who could not keep her word.

In the earth they laid John Aggett, at the junction of cross-roads not far from his mother’s home; and they handled his clay roughly and, cutting a blackthorn stake from the tree by his cottage door, buried the man with old-time indignities and set no mark upon his grave.

For two years Sarah and Timothy were strangers after that night; then Farmer Chave passed to his ancestors and Tim found himself lord of Bellever Barton and a free man. In course of time he won the girl back—indeed little effort was needed to do so. Their wedded life is not recorded and may be supposed to have passed peacefully away. A son’s son now reigns in the place of his yeoman fathers; and his grandparents lie together under the grass of Widecombe churchyard. There, for fifty years an antique monument has risen above them, and a fat cherub puffed at a posthorn; but to-day gold lichens threaten to obliterate the manifold virtues of Timothy Chave and his lady as set forth on slanting stone.

And the other man rests lonely under the sloe tree; for its green wood grew and flourished to the amazement of those who set it there. Yet the purple harvest of that haggard and time-fretted thorn men still bid their children leave upon the bough; for the roots of it wind in the dust of the unholy dead, and to gather the flower or pluck the fruit would be to beckon sorrow.