DESPITE frequent tiffs and an occasional battle-royal like that which has just been described, Inman’s influence with his master strengthened as the days went by. However cunning and suspicious a man may be he is in danger of being outwitted if he has no better weapons than a quick temper and a slow brain to oppose to the coolness and acumen of an alert adversary. And when the adversary protests friendship, and, refusing to be provoked, offers indisputable evidences of loyalty and goodwill, the most churlish nature must be affected, as the continual dropping of water will in course of time smoothen the grittiest rock.

Such evidences were too conspicuous to be overlooked for Inman never tired of devising ingenious schemes for crippling the enterprise of the Drakes; and Baldwin stored in his memory an admiration that nothing would have wrung from his lips, as he saw with what subtle ingenuity Inman spread his nets and succeeded in obliterating all traces of his operations. Suspicion there might be, but where concealment was advisable Inman took care there should be no proof. Baldwin reconciled his mind to what was unpalatable in his foreman’s manner because of the Machiavelian service he was rendering to his interests. The one bitter ingredient in the cup of his satisfaction was the knowledge that his competitors—father and son alike—went steadily on their way, undisturbed by all the hindrances that were set in their path.

One day towards the end of April Baldwin summoned Inman to the office. The morning’s letters lay open on the desk, and one of them the master held in his hand and perused a second time with a sullen look.

“There’s something here I don’t like,” he said when the foreman had obeyed his command to close the door. “John Clegg wants me to hold back my payments this month; says he’s hard put to it what wi’ one and another calling their brass in, and very little new money coming forrad; wants me to gi’ three months bills to Johnsons and Greens and put some o’ t’others off a bit. It’s a nasty look wi’ ’t ’at I don’t fancy.”

Inman’s brows contracted. “Is it the first time this has happened?” he asked.

“Nay, there was another some years back,” Baldwin replied, “when he wor for holding me up i’ t’ same way; but there wasn’t so much owing then. It’s been a heavy quarter, has this——”

“How did you go on, on that occasion?” asked Inman, edging his master back to essentials. “It came all right in the end, I suppose?”

“It came all right at t’ time,” explained Baldwin sourly. “I got my back up, and when he saw it he caved in. It wor naught but a try-on; a dodge to diddle me out of a bit o’ interest, I reckon, ’at didn’t come off; and from that day to this all’s gone square. I suppose he thinks I’m getting old and addled now, and he can have another try; damn him.”

“He’ll be having to make provision for paying Drake his money out,” said Inman thoughtfully. “If there’s been one or two more on the same hop—and there may have been for aught we know—he’ll want time to turn round, that’s all.”

“That’s all! is it?” snapped Baldwin. “Then it’s too much! Am I to have my credit ruined to pay them two devils t’ money they’ll use again’ me? I’ll see ’em blaze first! He can try it on wi’ someb’dy else—I aren’t having it!”

“Hadn’t you best go over to see him?” suggested Inman, “and tell him straight out how things stand between you and Drakes? After all, he’s Nancy’s uncle; and when you pointed out that she’d suffer as well as you if the firm got a bad name he’d be sure to see that it ’ud be the best plan to put old Drake off, who’d make no bones about it, but think it was the way Providence was leading him. Then you’d be getting a bit of your own back at t’ same time.”

Baldwin’s eyes showed his satisfaction at this advice, for the strained look gave place to one of cunning; but he suppressed any note of enthusiasm as he replied:

“I should spoil t’ job if I was to see him, for my temper’s that hot it ’ud flame out t’ minute he crossed me; and I couldn’t put it into words same as you. And you being Nancy’s husband, and a friend of his by what you’ve told me, it ’ud come more natural ’at you should see him, pointing out as you say ’at Nancy’s a partner in a manner o’ speaking, and ’at Maniwel’s set on doing her a’ injury. That’s t’ card you want t’ play wi’ John; and happen you’d pull it off where I should mullock it.”

“It’s one of those jobs where they don’t expect a man to take the master’s place,” said Inman with crafty hesitation. “I’d go in a minute if I thought it was the best plan; but will Mr. Clegg like it?”

“Of course he will; and if he doesn’t he can lump it,” replied Baldwin, who knew that he was no match for his foreman in a wordy argument with a man of the world like his banker. “If you hadn’t ha’ been Nancy’s husband it ’ud ha’ been different; but seeing as you are there’s naught more fitting. If you could catch t’ noon train you could be back i’ t’ morning, or maybe to-night.”

“Very well,” said Inman; “but don’t expect me before morning. These are jobs that can’t be hurried, and a bit of time lost is neither here nor there.”

The glamour of spring sunlight was on the landscape as Inman set out upon his six-mile tramp to the station, and even the grey hills looked warm and hospitable, whilst the meadows of the low-lands were a mosaic of rich greens of varied shade. Signs of new and joyous life were everywhere. Yellow celandines and dandelions caught the sunshine on their outspread petals and sparkled in the shadows of the dry walls and river banks. Nor was the eye the only recipient of April’s gifts, for the sweet scents that Nature had released at the coming of spring greeted another sense; the delicate odours of budding trees and the good smell of newly-turned earth. And with all these bounties another equally good—a brave, bracing wind from the heights, sharp and sweet, charged with the power to stimulate and purify. It was a day to make a man shout aloud for very joy of being alive.

But let Nature do her utmost—spread her glories like a peacock,—a man’s thoughts may curtain his senses and stifle every emotion except that which is uppermost, so that the hills may clap their hands never so loudly and he will be deaf as the dead to their music. Inman’s thoughts were not of yellow sunlight but of yellow gold; and though he was devising traps as he walked along the road with his eyes on the ground, they were certainly not intended to catch sunbeams. Beyond the curt statement that he was going to Airlee on the firm’s business he had given his wife no explanation of his journey; but it was Nancy’s interests that occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all others, for Nancy’s interests were now his. Baldwin might go to the devil for all he cared; and if a push of his foot could speed him there it should be given with great goodwill, provided always he did not lose his own balance in the act, and that the kick should be from behind. A finer ambassador than Inman could not have been found in all the empire if Baldwin’s object was to save the throne regardless of who should occupy it. “All for my-sen!” A smile flitted across the man’s hard face as the thought occurred to him.

Soon after six o’clock that evening Nancy visited the Cove for the first time since the fatal quarrel with Jagger. She had thought she would never see the place again with pleasure—there had been one hour of bitter repentance when she had vowed that the scene of her folly should have no existence for her in the future—but she was surprised to find her heart warm as she looked upon the great crag and saw the jackdaws wheeling about in the neighbourhood of their nests. The sun would not set for another hour, but its couch was behind the mountains and Mawm would see it no more until the morrow, yet there was a wash of amber on the limestone, and the rock looked genial and friendly. There was something soul-stirring and at the same time strangely soothing in the contemplation of the ponderous cliff that faced unmoved the most violent storms and all the vicissitudes of the years. Cold as it was Nancy sat down on a rock beside the stream, and the rippling water, murmuring like an infant on its mother’s lap, turned her thoughts in another direction and brought the hot blush to her cheeks.

Raising her eyes she became conscious that a man was descending the lower slope a hundred yards away, and her face lost its colour as she recognised Jagger, and saw that she was unobserved. She was not afraid to encounter him, though they had not met in privacy before since her marriage, and had exchanged scarcely a dozen words; rather, her senses were numbed and she watched him incuriously, as if he had been a bird that had dropped down to the river to drink; and when she saw him bend his head and stand motionless, though she knew what his thoughts must be, no emotion of pity or contempt disturbed her, and she experienced no desire to steal away and escape his notice. Her feelings were turned to stone, like the man who stood as rigid as the boulders at his feet.

Even when he wheeled round and came towards her with his eyes still on the ground; when she knew that she must inevitably be discovered, her pulse beat no more quickly; but when he brushed against her dress, and uttered a startled exclamation of recognition as his eyes leaped to her face she smiled.

“I’ve been watching you this last five minutes,” she said in a calm voice, but with the weary intonation of a care-worn woman.

He was much more at a loss for words than she, yet he recovered his self-possession in a moment.

“I’ve never been here since that day,” he began; and the girl nodded.

“Nor me, neither,” she said; “but I’m glad I came.”

“Are you? I was wondering if I hadn’t better have stayed away; if I hadn’t better cross t’ Cove off t’ map and have done with it. It hurts, Nancy! It’ll always hurt!”

“Hurts!” she answered with an emphasis of mockery. “Your hurt is just an empty place, a bit of an ache, same as when you’ve fasted too long. My hurt is a serpent ’at I’ve taken of my own free will and pressed to my bosom, and it bites deeper every day.”

The despair in her voice moved him strongly but hardly more than her calmness. There was no flash in her spirit; but there was strength and a certain stern attractiveness, as there is in the bog; and his heart ached with a sore longing.

“He isn’t unkind to you, is he?” he forced himself to ask, and she laughed contemptuously.

“Unkind? What is it to be unkind?” She looked down contemplatively, as if the question interested her. “Is he unkind?” she repeated in a low voice. “I never thought of that. He doesn’t beat me, if that’s what you mean, except now and again with his tongue and his looks; and two can play at that game.”

“Beat you!” The man’s lips tightened and he spoke through his teeth; “t’ first time ’at I hear ’at he’s laid hands on you I’ll do him in! Beat you! Devil as he is he isn’t black-hearted enough for that!”

“I don’t know that he is a devil,” she replied listlessly; “but he knows how to raise one, and he’s so cold and sure of himself that he makes me scream inside, though he’s never heard me and never will. I’m afraid of him; but he doesn’t know it, and I’m not whining; I’m just telling you how I feel. I’m like a baby in his hands. He’s a man who gets what he wants always. He wanted my money so he took me, same as you must take t’ purse with what’s inside it. And he perhaps wanted a woman, too, and one’s as good as another to such as him.”

“And now he shoves you on one side; makes dirt of you,” said Jagger bitterly. “Can’t I see it in his face? And he’ll take a pride in doing it, and more by half if he thinks it ’ud hurt me, and that you’d care. But that’s more’n I ought to have said.”

“More than I ought to let you say,” she replied, “but for this once you shall say what you like and that must end it. It was here we fell out, and it’s here I’ll tell you that I know it was my fault. I meant to make it up with you; I’d thought about nothing else for hours on end; but there’s something—I don’t know what it is, if it isn’t fate—that pulls one way when we pull another, and pulls harder than us. And then I was mad with you because you took me at my word; and he came along and I married him whilst I was sore—married him at a Registry; no service or anything.”

He had never taken his eyes from her face; never sought to interrupt her during this recital. One foot he had raised and placed on the rock where she was sitting; and pity softened the deep lines on his forehead as the evening light mellows the harsh brows of Gordel.

“Nay, Nancy,” he said sorrowfully; and at the sound of her name, or perhaps at the tender note in his voice, the blood surged to her face again; “you mustn’t blame yourself, or anyway you mustn’t take all the blame. Father warned me, but I was too big a fool to heed him. I came that afternoon on purpose to make friends wi’ you, and it wasn’t fate but just hot temper ’at ruined all. It’s changed my nature, Nancy. When father brought word ’at you were married something fell like a thunderbolt i’ my head and has rested on my heart ever since; but I’m a different man—whether I’m better or worse I don’t fairly know.”

“Yes, you’re changed,” she said, “and so am I; but the thunderbolt that fells one tree lets more air in for that next to it. It’s me that’s crushed, not you. You’ll make your way, I can see, for this mishap has put ginger into you, and I shall be glad to see you get on. But James’ll move heaven and earth to ruin you: there’s naught so sure as that; and he’s a cleverer headpiece than you, Jagger.”

“He can soon have that,” said Jagger with a new note of modesty that was entirely free from sulkiness; “but he’s welcome to do his worst as far as I’m concerned. What’s it matter to me what he does? When we opened t’ new shop I was all for making money; but I’ve learned a hard lesson since then, and I know now ’at money can’t buy t’ best things. I don’t care whether we get on or we don’t so long as we can pay our way, and there’s little fear o’ that; but work’s life, and good work’s luxury—all t’ luxury I care about now, and Inman can’t ruin a man ’at builds on them foundations.”

“He’ll try to,” she answered.

“Let him try!” he answered. “He can shove as he likes but he’ll never shift t’ Cove—there’s some things too strong even for him. I’m on t’ old man’s side, Nancy, though I’m only a watcher. It’s a game between God and t’ devil; and as long as my father lives I’ll back ’at Inman doesn’t come out on top. Anyway, I’m walking t’ straight road, and he’s welcome to do his worst.”

“You sound like Hannah!”

She looked up as she spoke, and the sorrow he saw in her eyes—a sorrow shot through with yearning and pain—stabbed him to the heart and caused him to lose control. Before she could guess his purpose he had stooped and kissed her on the lips, and for a moment or two she yielded without protest. The next she rose to her feet and pushed him gently away.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “If he knew he’d kill you; but whether he knows or he doesn’t it isn’t walking t’ straight road that you talk about. But it’s the first and last time, and there’s been nobody to see and tell tales, so there’s no harm done. Only, never again, remember! I’m his wife, and I’ll be no other man’s sweetheart.”

He bent his head at the rebuke; and she brightened as love and pity stirred in her heart at the sight of his face.

“Tell your father I miss him, Jagger; and grannie too. I could like to call in and see ’em; but it wouldn’t do. There’s no man’s word has the same weight with me as your father’s, and you can tell him I took his advice and bought stock with most o’ the money I had with Uncle John. Baldwin doesn’t know because uncle made me promise not to tell him. It was easier than I’d thought on to get round uncle, but I’ve always been able to manage him better’n most folks, and he’s paid me out bit by bit until I haven’t above five hundred with him now, and I’m letting that stop.”

“Father’s never said aught o’ this to me,” said Jagger. “Was he uneasy about the money, or what?”

“Not that I know of; but he knew I was. I can’t tell how it is; but I’ve never been quite comfortable about Uncle John myself. There seems to be money enough, and yet he always looks worried.”

“It’s a funny thing,” said Jagger, “’at them ’at have too much seem as badly worried as them ’at have too little. I’ll tell father what you say.”

“And Jagger! Ask Hannah to come to see me, I know she’ll scorn me; but she’s a good heart and when she knows mine’s nearly broken she’ll not bear malice. Tell her I want a friend and I haven’t one.”

“Yes, you have,” he said, “you’ve that, anyway!”

“Poor Jagger!” she replied in a low voice. “What a mess we’ve made of it! I’m going now. Don’t follow till I’m out of sight.”

She turned away as she spoke and walked quickly up the hill with the darkness gathering around her, and never once looked back. When she had passed through the gate on to the road Jagger also moved away, but in the other direction. Until his form mingled with the shadows on the hillside there was silence in the glen; then a young girl rose cautiously on the farther side of the wall and looked round before she sought the path Nancy had taken.

It was Polly Marsden—Swithin’s granddaughter who had been there all the time, disappointed of the company she had expected.

“It wasn’t my fault if I heard ’em,” she said to herself, perhaps to quieten the too rapid beating of her heart. “What are ears for if not to hear with?”