from the river, and when I held you in my arms I knew you'd be my wife or
nobody would."

"Thank the watching Lord 'twas you!" she gasped.

"I waited till I see you come to and knew you'd be all right then; but I
followed you, to see what you was up to, and didn't go home till I saw you
drive away with the doctor. My dog was my joy till that night--a great
mongrel I picked up when I was to Plymouth and kept close of a day. Clever
as Satan at finding fallen birds in the dark, though unfortunately he
didn't find 'em all. But after the happenings I took him back to Plymouth
again on the quiet, and he won't frighten nobody no more."

Then 'twas her turn and she dressed him down properly and gave him all the
law and the prophets, and made him promise on his oath that he'd never do
no more crimes, or kill fur or feather that didn't belong by rights to
him.

And he swore and kept his oath most steadfast.

"I've catched the finest creature as ever harboured in Dean Woods," he
said, "and her word be my law for evermore."

But nobody else heard the truth that Wade was the unknown sinner, for
Millicent felt as her father would have been cruel vexed about it.

They was wed in the summer and Wade found open-air work to his taste not a
mile from their home. But often, good lovers still, they'll go to Hound's
Pool for memory's sake and sit and hear Weaver Knowles working unseen
about his task.

No. IX

THE PRICE OF MILLY BASSETT

Memory, as we old folk know, be the plaything of time, and when trouble
comes and we wilt and reckon life's ended, the years roll unresting on,
and the storm passes, and the dark breaks to grey again, and, may be, even
the sun's self peeps forth once more. For our little wits ain't built to
hold grief for ever, else the world would be a lunatic asylum and not the
tolerable sane and patient place we mostly find it.

It was like that with my friend, Jonas Bird. When his wife died, and left
him and three young childer, his light went out, and though no more than
thirty-five years of age, he felt 'twas the end of the world. He comforted
his cruel sufferings with the thought of a wonnerful tombstone to Sarah
Bird, and there's no doubt that tombstones, though they can't make or mar
the dead, have, time and again, softened the lot of the living. And you
may say that poor Sarah's mark in the churchyard was the subject that
first began to calm Jonas. But it did a lot more than that.

He was a sandy-headed man with old-fashioned whiskers, a long face like a
horse, blue eyes and a wondering expression. In fact, life did astonish
him a good bit, and being a simple soul, most things that happened were
apt to puzzle him. A carpenter by trade, he did very well in that walk of
life and had saved money. But he had long lived for one thing only, and
that was Sarah, and when she dropped sudden and left him with two little
boys and a girl babe, he was more puzzled than ever and went in a proper
miz-maze of perplexity that such things could be.

Everybody liked Jonas, for he was a kindly and well-intending creature,
and his wife had been such another, and a good few women rushed to the
rescue when the blow fell. And his master, a childless man and very fond
of Bird, offered to adopt one of his boys and take the lad off his hands.
But Jonas clung to all three, because, as he truly said, they each had a
good bit of their mother in 'em and he couldn't spare a pinch of Sarah.
And his wife's first and dearest woman friend it was who came to the
rescue at this season and stopped along with Jonas, for the children's
sake and the dead woman's.

Milly Bassett, she was called, and she ministered to the orphaned children
and talked sense to the widow man; and though an old maid here and there
didn't think it a seemly thing for Milly to take up her life under Bird's
roof, the understanding and intelligent sort thought no evil. For of such
a creature as Milly Bassett no evil could be thought.

She was the finest-minded woman ever came out of Thorpe-Michael in my
opinion, and she only had one idol and that was duty, and when Sarah, on
her death-bed, prayed Milly to watch over Jonas and the family till the
poor man recovered from his sorrows and wed again, then Milly promised to
do so. And her promises were sacred in her eyes. And if any was mean
enough to think ill of her for so doing, she'd have said such folk didn't
know her and their opinions were no matter.

A flaxen woman--grey-eyed and generous built--was Milly. She lived with an
old mother who was a laundress, and the old mother took it very ill when
her daughter went to mind the dead woman's little ones; but, as Milly
herself said, there was only one man who needed to be considered before
she went to her holy task, and that was William White.

You see, Miss Bassett had long been tokened to William, and if he'd
objected, it must have put her in a very awkward position with the promise
to a dead woman pulling one way and her duty to a live lover pulling the
other. But it happened that William White was a very good friend to Jonas,
like everybody else, and he didn't see no good reason why for his
sweetheart shouldn't lend a hand at such a sorrowful time.

Moreover, there was a bit of money in it, and Milly's William happened to
be a man whose opinions and principles had never been known to stand
between him and a shilling. So when Jonas insisted on paying Milly Bassett
ten bob a week over and above her keep--all clear profit--William raised
no objection whatever. He weren't a jealous man--quite the contrary--and
his engagement to marry Milly weren't an affair of yesterday. In fact, at
this time, they'd been contracted a good two years, and though the man
felt quite willing to wed when ever Milly was minded to, she'd got her
ideas and she'd made it clear from the very start that not until her
intended could show her four pound a week would she take the step.

And William White, though a good horseman and a champion with the plough
and well thought upon by Farmer Northway, could not yet rise to that
figure, though he went in hope that it might happen. He'd tried round
about on the farms to better his wages, for he was amazing fond of money,
but up to the present nobody seemed to think William was worth more than
three pound ten, or three pound with a cottage.

So Milly waited. She loved William in a temperate sort of way, though
there was points in his character she didn't much hold with; but she'd
given her word to wed him in fullness of time, and she was the sort never
to part from her word for no man. They kept company calm and contented,
with no emotions much to either side, though now-and-a-gain William would
venture to say he thought she might bate her terms and take him for ten
shillings less. But this she weren't prepared to do; and so it stood when
Mrs. Bird died and Milly, who had worshipped the dead woman, came to take
her place till time had worked on Jonas and he was able to look round for
another. For that his Sarah had always wished he should do, well knowing
the poor man couldn't carry on without a spouse.

Jonas was terrible obliged to Milly for coming, and to William for letting
her do so, and he was the soul of goodness in the whole matter and made
William free of his house and saved him the price of many a meal. In fact
William rather exceeded reason in that matter and dropped in at
supper-time too often for decency; but it was his sweetheart and not Jonas
who opened his eyes to his manners and told him there was reason in all
things.

They weren't none too mad in love, as Jonas found out in course of time.
In fact Milly was temperate in all things and had never known to lose her
nerve or temper; while as for William White, he'd got her promise and knew
she was the faithful-unto-death sort and would wait till he could raise
what she considered the proper income for a married woman to begin upon.

The widower soon found out the fashion of sense that belonged to Milly
for, while still in his great grief, he began to talk of spending fifty
pounds of capital on Sarah's grave, and she heard him and advised against.

"As to that," she said, "I knew your dear wife better'n anybody on earth
but yourself, Jonas, and this I will say: if she thought you'd heaved up
fifty pounds' worth of marble stone on her, she wouldn't lie quiet for an
instant moment. You know that modesty was Sarah's passion, and she'd
rather have a pink daisy on her pit and a blackbird pulling a worm out of
the green grass than all the monuments in the stone-cutter's window."

He listened and she ran on:

"Her virtues be in our hearts, and it won't better it to print 'em in the
churchyard; and if I was you and wanted to make heaven a brighter place
for Sarah than it already is, I'd lift up a modest affair and put a bit of
money away to goody for your little ones."

"I dare say that's a very clever thought," admitted Jonas.

"Yes, it is, then," went on Milly. "She didn't help you to be a saver for
vain things like grave-stones that don't bring in no interest to nobody.
And if it was the measurement of your sorrow, I'd say nothing, but 'tis
well known remorse be at the foundation of half the fine monuments widow
men put up to their partners, and you don't need to tell nobody in
Thorpe-Michael what you thought of Sarah and how she was the light of your
house, for we well know it."

"I won't do nothing skimpy, however," said Jonas.

"I'm sure you won't," she answered, "but in the matter of monuments 'tis a
very good rule to wait till the grave be ready to carry 'em; and by that
time the bereaved party have generally settled down to take a sensible
view of the situation."

He nodded, and from that evening he began to see what a fine headpiece
Milly had got to her. In fact she was a very entertaining woman and as
time went on and his childer grew to love her, Jonas was a lot puzzled at
the thoughts that began to move in his brain. He turned to work, which is
a very present help in trouble, and he did overtime and laboured something
tremendous at his bench. In fact, if he'd belonged to a Trades Union,
Jonas would have heard of it to his discredit, for there's nothing the
unions dread more than a man who loves work and does all he knows for the
pride of it plus the extra money. But Jonas was on his own and independent
to all but his conscience--and his master didn't see no sin in paying him
what he was worth.

He'd always been a saver, and his wife had helped him in that respect, but
now his money was no more than dust in the corners of his mind, for there
weren't no eye to brighten when he told of a bit more put by and no tongue
to applaud and tell him what a model sort of man he was. He found,
however, as he came to know Milly Bassett better, that though his good
fortune and prosperity was nothing to her, yet she could praise him for
it. So, little by little, he gave her a peep into his affairs and found
she was one of them rare people who can feel quite a bit of honest
interest in their neighbour's good luck, with no after-clap of sourness,
because their own ain't so bright.

'Twas natural the woman should contrast her horseman with Jonas and wish
he'd got the same orderly sort of mind; but she had the wit to see that it
takes all sorts to make a world, and while William liked money a lot
better than earning it, Jonas liked the earning and didn't set no lustful
store on the stuff itself.

Still money's a power, and there's no doubt 'twas the hidden power of his
purse which presently tempted the carpenter to a most unheard of piece of
work. Never a man less likely to do anything out of the common you might
have thought, yet life worked on him and time and chance prompted until
that everyday sort of chap was finally lifted up to an amazing deed.

Round about a year after his wife died, the thought came to him and
gradually growed till it mastered him and led to a wonderful stroke. And
it showed, if that wanted showing, that you never know what gifts be hid
in anybody, or what the simplest man will rise to in the way of craft,
given the soil to ripe his wits and the prompting to lift him up.

Jonas found himself more and more interested in the love affair of William
and Milly, and having studied the situation in all its bearings and
measured the characters of the man and woman and taken the subject also to
the Throne of Grace, for he was a prayerful creature, he finally
considered that it now lay in his power to make the first move, since that
had to come from him. And the second move would have to be made by William
White; and it all depended upon William whether there remained an opening
left for Jonas, or whether the affair was closed. For he was a most
honourable chap in all things and never one to best a neighbour even if
opportunity offered.

Some men, for example, might have tried to tempt Milly Bassett away from
William and hold out the attractions to be got with such a husband as
Jonas; but no such thought ever darkened the carpenter's mind. He'd
certainly got to a pitch when he dearly wanted Milly, for with his soul at
rest and memory growing fainter, she seemed to reflect all the beauties of
his late partner, along with several of her own; but Jonas well knew that
she was tokened to William and would never leave him for another, but wait
till time cured all. To tempt Milly was out of the question; yet he
couldn't see no particular reason why he shouldn't tempt William, or at
any rate inquire into William's attitude on the subject. And knowing the
horseman exceeding well by now and perceiving that, strictly speaking,
William couldn't be considered in the least worthy of such a wife as
Milly, Jonas went his way and done his dashing deed.

On a day in early spring White was ploughing and Jonas Bird, who'd gone to
Four Ways Farm to measure up for a new pigs' house, took care to come home
along past the field where White was at work. And he knew that at noon
William's horses would have their nose-bags and the ploughman would be
sitting in the hedge eating his dinner. And there he was, in a famous lew
hedge facing the sun, where the childer find the first white violets of
the year.

So Jonas pitched beside the man and said they was well met.

"I've been wanting to meet you all alone this longful time," said Jonas;
"and I'm very wishful to ask you a question, Bill. You mustn't think me
impertinent nor nothing like that. You and me be very good friends and
long may we remain so; but I've took careful note of your character, and
you know me just so well, so you'll understand, please, I be asking in a
very gentlemanly spirit and not for no vulgar curiosity nor nothing like
that."

"My!" said William, "what a lot of talk, Jo! Spit it out. I'll answer any
question you like to ask if I can so do."

"'Tis just this, then, and you go on with your meal," answered Jonas.
"What's the thing you set highest in all the world?"

"Money," said William, and Jonas nodded.

"So I thought," he replied, "and if it had been any other thing, I'd have
left it at that; but as I've got your own word, I may take it that money
comes first."

"First and last and always," answered William. "And hell knows I don't get
my share."

"Money comes first and Milly Bassett second--that would be a fair way to
put it?" asked Jonas.

Well, White thought a minute before he replied. "When you say 'Milly,'" he
began, "you touch a delicate subject, and I ain't none too sure if I
didn't ought to tell you to shut your mouth. But still, I don't deny but
that's about the size of it. Me and Milly have been tokened very near
three years, and perfect love, Jo, on them terms may cast out fear and a
lot else, but it don't get you no forwarder--quite the contrary. Love
don't keep for ever, more than a leg of mutton will, and sometimes it
comes across me it may go a bit stale, if not actually bad. I fear nought
myself, of course, because Milly's a woman of her word and knows no
changing; but that cuts both ways and, while she's so firm as a rock about
my wages and in a manner of speaking puts money before love, then I
sometimes wonder who could blame me for doing the same. We'm very good
friends, and she'll be a damned fine wife, no doubt--when I get her; but,
meantime, things run a little on the cool side and I can't pretend I feel
so furious set in that quarter as I did three year agone. She ain't the
only pebble on the beach, to say it kindly, though a most amazing wonder
and well worth waiting for in reason. But there's others--not a few very
comely creatures as would reckon me along with three ten a week quite good
enough. I can't hide that from myself."

Well, this was meat and drink to Jonas, but he hid his heart for the
present, though his great excitement made his voice run up till it broke
and he had to begin again--a thing that happened to him sometimes.

"That being so," he said, "that being so, Bill, how would you feel if
anybody was to say: 'Here's good money for changing your future career, if
you ain't too addicted to Milly Bassett to take it?'"

"Money for her?" asked William.

"Money enough to turn your affections into another quarter and let her go
free."

"God's truth, Jo! You've gone and loved her!" shouted William.

"No," answered the carpenter. "By this hand I have not, Bill. I'm not one
to love any created woman as be tokened to another man and well you know
it. To do so would be a wicked thing. But this I may tell you open and
honest: if Milly were a free woman, then I should love her instanter."

"Dammy, Jo! You want to buy her!" said William.

But Jonas shook his head.

"I reverence the woman far, far too much to want any such thing," he said.
"You can't buy and sell females in a Christian land; but this I'll say, if
you can honestly feel that a good dollop of money would recompense you for
losing Milly, things being as they are, then I'm your man. Of course if
you feel money's dross before the thought of her, then I shall well
understand and we won't touch the subject no more. And, in any case, never
a breath must get to her ears else she'd leave my house like a whirlwind,
and quite right to do so. But if you feel that you could make shift with
another fine woman and might tear yourself away from Milly Bassett for a
bit in the bank--_if_ you feel that, William, and only so, then we can go
on talking."

William White laughed and ate a bit of pie that hung on his fork. Then he
drank from his cider runlet. "What a world!" he said.

Jonas didn't answer and let his great thought sink into the man.

Presently William put a nice point. "Needless to ask if you've whispered
any of this to her?"

"God's my judge, Bill."

"Well, there's one thing I'd put afore you, Jo. Suppose we can agree to a
price, what happens if, when your turn comes to offer, she turns you down
and we're both left?"

"A natural question, Bill, and I'd thought of it, for there's no vanity in
me and it might very likely happen. And my understanding of that position
is this: If she says 'No' to me, after you've given her her liberty, then
I've made a bad investment and my feeling would be to cut a loss; but if
on the other hand she says 'Yes,' then I'd go a bit higher."

"A sum down when I've chucked her, and a bit over if you get her."

"When you say a sum down, Bill, you'd better consider of it," explained
Jonas. "A sum down there will certainly be; but if you saw your way to
take the money by instalments, then you'd benefit considerable in the
upshot, because, by instalments, I could pay a good bit more than I could
in a lump."

"I see that," admitted the horseman. "Well, on the general questions, Jo,
I may say that I'll do business. That far I'm prepared to go; but when it
comes to figures, I'd very much like to hear your ideas. This is a bit out
of my experience; but I warn you, you've got to pay money."

"I know that," answered Jonas. "I know that very well indeed. I can't pay
half nor yet a quarter of what she'd be worth to me, for the reason a
king's ransom wouldn't do it; but money I will pay. I'll pay you a hundred
a year for four years, William."

"And interest while 'tis running?" asked the horseman.

"Yes," answered Jonas, "interest while 'tis running."

"That's if you don't get her?"

"No, Bill; that's if I do get her."

White considered. 'Twas very big money, of course, but he tried for a bit
more.

"You must remember that when I throw her over I'm a disgraced man, Jo."

"I wouldn't say that. 'Twill be a shadow on your name for a minute, but
such things fall out every day and be very quickly forgot. Milly's the
only one that matters and I don't think you're the best partner in the
world for her, else I'd never have touched the subject. But if you use
your cleverness and put it to her that 'tis undignified for you both to go
on waiting for ever, she'll very likely see it."

"She might, or again she mightn't."

"She would," declared Jonas. "I ain't watched you and her for a year for
nothing. This ain't going to be the shattering wrench for her you might
think, William."

White knew that very well, but dwelt on his own downfall, and loss. "Make
it five hundred--win or lose," he said at last, "and I'll oblige you."

And Jonas Bird agreed instantly, for at the bottom of his heart he weren't
feeling it no wildgoose chase for him; because, though a simple man in
some ways, he didn't lack caution, and he'd unfolded his feelings pretty
oft to Milly, speaking, of course, in general terms; and he well knew that
she felt high respect for his character and opinions and good position.

Then William spoke.

"If you'd like it in writing, you can have it," he said, "but for my part
I trust you, and I doubt not you trust me, and I'm inclined to think the
less that be put down on paper about it, the better. 'Tis a deed of
darkness, in a manner of speaking, and written documents have often
brought disasters with 'em afterwards, so us had best to trust each other
and sign nought." Jonas agreed to this most emphatic and then they parted.

But it weren't twenty-four hours later before the carpenter felt the deed
was afoot, for he soon saw that Milly had got a weight on her mind. She
said nought, however, till a week was past and then told Jonas,
confidential, that she savoured something in the air.

"There's some people can smell rain," she said, "and others, if they go in
a churchyard, know to a foot when they be walking over their own future
graves; and though I'm not one to meet trouble half-way, it's borne in on
me that I be going to face changes afore long."

"In what direction?" asked Jonas, cunning as a serpent. "God send you
don't mean that William be going to get his rise and take you away?"

"I do not," she said. "Quite the contrary. I mean that William be going to
change his mind about me."

"And would you call that meeting trouble exactly, or contrariwise?" asked
Bird.

"Well," she answered. "Between you and me, I may say that I shall
doubtless get over it; but I'm a good bit hurt, because it had got to be
an understood thing and I little like changes. But there it is: the man's
getting restless and be pruning his wings for flight if I know him."

"'Tis beyond belief that any living man should want to fly from you,"
declared Jonas. "I wouldn't come between lovers for a bag of gold; but in
a case like this, feeling for you as I always have done since you kept
your promise to Sarah with such amazing perfection--feeling that, if you
say the word, I'll talk to William White as no man yet have talked to
him."

"Do nothing," she said. "Let nature take its course with William; and if
it takes him away from me, so be it. I can very well endure to part from
the man and, so like as not, when I'm satisfied that things are so, I
shall tell him I understand, and give him his freedom."

"Such largeness of mind I never heard tell about in a woman," answered
Jonas.

And six weeks later William and Milly were cut loose, without any fuss on
her part but to the undying amazement of Thorpe-Michael. And then Jonas
paid his first instalment at dead of night and got a receipt for the same.

'Twas after that the carpenter's anxieties began. He'd hoped that Milly
would be a lot cast down by this reverse and that he'd fill the gap and
comfort her and support her through the sad affair; but she didn't want no
support. In fact she talked most sensible about being jilted and confessed
that it might be all for the best in the long run. "Nought happens save by
the will of Heaven," she said, "and I can look at it with a good
conscience which be a tower of strength, and I can even go so far as to
tell myself that Daisy Newte may make a better wife for Bill than me; for
that's where his eyes are turning."

"Daisy Newte! Good God--the blindness of the bachelor male!" swore Jonas.

And from that day forward he was at her--respectful, but unsleeping.

His fear was that, now she stood free of a man, her nice feeling would
take her from under his roof and of course there was plenty of women who
pointed this out to Milly Bassett; but in her fine way she despised the
mind that thinks evil for choice and said 'twas a pity that good thoughts
was not put into the human heart instead of bad ones.

She said: "If my character can't rise above Thorpe-Michael, 'tis pity. And
the man, or woman, who could whisper a bad thought against Jonas Bird be
beneath my notice and his'n."

And then he offered for her and she took him; and then, after that, of
course, she left his home till the wedding.

And the carpenter's childer yowled their heads off when she went, and
couldn't very easy be made to understand that Milly was only away for a
few weeks and would soon be back to bide with 'em. William tried hard to
get a bit more cash out of Jonas when he heard the glad news; but, though
feeling kindly to heaven above and earth beneath after his wonnerful
triumph, Milly's future husband felt that with his new calls and doing up
his home and buying poultry for his wife--birds being a thing she doted
on--that William must be content. He paid another fifty down and made it
clear that no more must be counted on for six months. And the horseman
said no more at that time, being a good bit occupied with Daisy Newte by
then. For she was walking with him and very near won. And afore Christmas,
he'd got her.

All went well and everybody wished Jonas joy and Milly luck. 'Twas thought
a very reasonable match, for Bird stood high in the public esteem and the
folk had long since felt that Milly might do much better than William. But
they admired her honesty and the way she'd stuck to him and felt she'd
been richly rewarded. In fact Jonas and Milly were a devoted pair and not
a cloud darkened their wedded life for a good few years.

Then came the fatal affair of the bargain, and though pretty easy about
the instalments till he'd got three children of his own, from that time
forth there's no doubt William began to fret Jonas cruel. Because, you
see, the crafty toad had bargained for interest running, and Jonas, not
understanding these things and guessing such matters was always five per
centum and no more, had agreed to pay it. But this is where William got
the better of him, for White went to a friend of his at Dartmouth and
between them they figured up a very clever scheme which caused Jonas a lot
of inconvenience.

They explained to him the wonderful ways of compound interest, and though
he couldn't see 'em, he had to feel 'em, and he found, as time passed,
that far from paying off William's five hundred, do what he might the
money still piled up against him. There was complications, too, for of
course he had no other secret than this from his wife, and Milly read him
like a book, and after they was wed four years, Jo reached a pitch when he
couldn't conceal his anguish. For presently, puzzling over the figures for
the hundredth time, he came to the fearful conclusion that he'd already
paid William over five hundred pounds, and yet, if White was to be
trusted, there was three figures of money still owing to him by compound
interest.

He had it out with William the next time he got him alone; but the
horseman declared himself as a good bit surprised that a little thing like
cash should fret such a happy and prosperous creature as Jonas Bird.

"Good powers!" he said, "haven't you found out that Milly was worth all
the money in the Bank of England? And then to grouse because you bain't
out of debt for her! Hell!" said William White, "you needn't think I
wouldn't be off the bargain to-morrow and gladly pay you all the money
twice over for Milly back again!"

Because, you see, his Daisy, though a nice girl up to a point, was very
human in some things and had failed, both as a wife and a mother, owing to
her fatal fondness for liquid refreshment. 'Twas a family weakness which
had been kept out of William's knowledge while he was courting; but
marriage and the cares of childer and so on, had woke a thirst in Daisy
that made her difficult. So William weren't in a mood to lighten up for
Jonas, and he said that figures can't lie and the loan must run its
appointed course if it took ten years to do so. He'd got the whip-hand, no
doubt, because it weren't a subject for any other ear, though Jonas, in
his despair, did once think of going to parson with it. But the thought of
laying bare the past and seeing parson's scorn was more than he could
face, and he hid it up.

At last, however, he felt the tax past bearing, for it was making an old
man of him; and then he braced himself and called on his Maker to see him
through and done the wisest thing that ever he had done. In a word, he
told Milly. He told her when they'd gone to bed one Christmas night and
unbosomed his troubled mind. He'd paid William another fifty only the week
night before and, as he presently confessed to Milly, 'twas the last straw
that broke his back and sent him to throw himself on her mercy.

He bade her list, then told the tale from the beginning, told it honest
without straining truth in any particular. And Milly listened and said not
a word till he was done.

"So there it is," finished Jonas--"a choice of evils for me 'twixt
stripping up the past afore your eyes and letting William bleed me to my
dying day seemingly. And knowing you, I reckoned the wisest thing was to
come to you with the naked tale and hide naught. William says figures
can't lie, and he may or may not be right, but I've got it fixed in my
mind that he's making 'em lie; and, be it as it will, he's had enough, and
I'm properly sick of putting big money in his pocket instead of yours,
where all that is mine belongs by right."

Milly kept silent a bit, but he knew by her calm breathing that she
weren't going to throw the house out of windows over it, or make a scene.
In fact, she'd never been known to make a scene in all her life and
weren't likely to begin now.

She spoke at last.

"There's some women would be a good bit put about to hear these things,
Jo," she said, and he granted the truth of it.

"I can't call home one but yourself as wouldn't," he said, "but you are
the top flower in the basket of women at Thorpe-Michael, and have got
intellects and the wit to see 'twas nothing but my great passion for you
as led me into this mess. And though business is business and no man can
ever say I drew back in a bargain, yet I've got a good bit enraged with
William lately, and I feel 'tis more'n time this here compounded interest
come to an end."

"How much have he had?" asked Milly, and Jonas gave her the figures, which
was branded in letters of fire on his mind, so to say.

"Five hundred and seventy-eight," he said, "and still he's got the front
to swear I owe him near two more hundred."

"I've puzzled sometimes where your money was going," she told him, "but,
knowing you, I well understood 'twas safe."

"Thank God you came to the task with your usual high courage and sense,"
he answered. "And thank God, also, that you think none the worse of me.
And don't you imagine I grudge the money itself. On the low level of cash
you was worth the Mint of England ten times over; but the question afore
me is, looking at my deal with William as a money bargain between man and
man, whether he ain't going a bit over and beyond doing me in the eye."

"I reckon he is," said Milly. "Five hundred and seventy-eight's enough,
Jo, and I'm proud, in a manner of speaking, you could rise it. I'm very
fortunate in having you for a husband, because the man wasn't born to suit
me better; and I should never have neighboured with William so fine as
what I have done with you. But you was fortunate, too, in finding a chap
as would take cash for what you was so willing to buy."

"I was," he granted. "Providence never done any member of my family such a
turn as it done me when it sent you to my roof; but, outside that,
touching William Bird, I be growing to feel--However, if you say 'Go on
paying, William,' I'll do so very well content; but if, on the other hand,
you reckon that the man's Jewing me and did ought to be spoke to, then
I'll be still better content."

"He shall be spoke to," she answered, "and I'll speak to him. We are very
good friends and I'm sorry for him, because he's drawn a blank; and I've
noticed, now and again, he's looked at me as if he was a good bit vexed we
ever parted. And no doubt he's had queer thoughts and weighed his money
against me and wondered whether it has served him better than what I
should."

"Damn queer thoughts, I'll lay my life," said Jonas. "And I'm sorry for
him, also as a Christian man, because he's quite clever enough to know
what he's lost, and the bitterness no doubt runs into my compound
interest."

"Go to sleep now," she said, "and fret no more. You can leave the rest to
me."

So he blessed her for the wonder she was, and, with the load lifted from
his heart, soon slept like a child.

Milly Bird took an early chance to see William, and what passed between
them would have been very exciting to know and perchance an interesting
side-glance on human nature; but none ever heard it save their Maker; and
not Jonas himself, though he was cruel inquisitive, ever larned no
details.

"'Tis no matter," said Milly to her husband. "We had a tell about it, and
William's all right and won't want no more money. He's a very clever chap
and ain't wishful for nobody to hear tell of his doings in the past, least
of all poor Daisy. So that's that. And there shan't be no ill blood and
there shan't be no more cash, and all friends notwithstanding."

Which fell out just as the remarkable woman ordained it should.

No. X

THE AMBER HEART

The Lord chooses queer tools to do His purpose and we know that the stone
the builders rejected was took by Him to be head of the corner; but in the
case of the amber heart, it might be too much to say that the way that
particular object worked for good was His almighty idea, for the reason,
there was something a bit devious about the whole matter, and you'd be
inclined to think a woman's craft rather than the Everlasting Will was at
the bottom of the business.

And amber ain't a stone, anyhow, for while some people say 'tis sea-gulls'
tears petrified by sea water, and others, equally clever, tell me it comes
out of a whale, yet in either case you couldn't call it a mineral
substance; and let that be as it will, what sea-gulls have got to cry
about is a subject hidden from human understanding, though doubtless
they've got their troubles like all mortal flesh.

Well, there was four of 'em--two maidens and two young men--and James
White, the farmer at Hartland and Mary Jane White his sister, were two,
and Cora Dene, who lived along with her old widow aunt, Mrs. Sarah Dene,
was the third of the bunch, and Nicholas Gaunter, who worked as cowman at
Hartland Farm, came fourth.

And at the beginning of the curious tale James White was tokened to Mrs.
Dene's niece, while his cowman had got engaged to Mary Jane. Folk said
none of 'em was particular well suited, but the thing had fallen out as
such matters will, and there weren't no base of real love behind the
engagements, except in the case of White's sister.

There's no doubt James White loved Cora Dene for her cooking, as well he
might, because she was a wonder in that art. She was also a very pretty
woman, with a headpiece well furnished within as well as beautiful
without, and when she first took James, Cora honestly believed she loved
him and liked the thought of reigning at Hartland. But more than the love
of the couple had gone to the match, because Mrs. Dene, Cora's aunt, was
very wishful for it to happen on the girl's account and meant to make
other arrangements for her own comfort.

She liked Cora very well, you understand, and knew she'd miss her cooking,
if not her pretty face and her commonsense; but she had a great feeling
for a man round her house, which was lonely, and on the moor-edge by the
river, half a mile from Little Silver village, and her ambition was to
engage a married couple who could tend home and garden, poultry and pigs;
because Mrs. Dene, though fairly well to do, was an energetic creature and
liked to be busy and add to her income in a small way.

So when she learned through his sister that James White wanted Cora, she
done her best to help on the match and found the girl not unwilling. In
fact, Cora accepted Jimmy before she knew quite enough about him to do so;
and then, after she got to understand his nature and found he was
merciless about money and cruel close, and grudged a sovereign for a bit
of fun, her heart sank. Because she didn't know that love can't stem a
ruling passion, and ain't very often the ruling passion itself in a male,
and she found, as many other maidens have afore her, that a man's love
affairs don't stand between him and life, or change his character and bent
of mind.

So when she discovered that James was a miser, Cora began to see other
things, because, once there's a spot for doubt to work, the tarnish soon
spreads. James would not buy her a ring, but put five pounds in the bank
for her, which didn't interest Cora much; and that's how it stood with
them; while as to the other pair, the friction was a bit different.

You see, Nicholas Caunter, the cowman, only got interested in his master's
sister when he found she was terrible interested in him. He was very good
looking and a simple, charming sort of a man unconscious of his fine
appearance; and there's no doubt that Mary Jane fell in love with him a
week after he came to Hartland. And, when he found that out, being
heartwhole at the time and poor as a mouse, he couldn't but see that to
wed Mary Jane would be a pretty useful step; because she had her own money
and was a nice enough woman, though not very good-looking.

However, she was healthy and hearty and there was a lot of her, so Nick
told himself it all looked very promising and proper and he started making
love to her, and foxed himself presently that it was the genuine article
and there weren't nobody for him on earth but Mary Jane.

Then, a week after he'd offered for her and she'd wasted no time saying
"Yes," but was in his arms almost afore the words had got out of his
mouth, the young woman brought Nicholas acquainted with Cora Dene, because
she said it was well he should know her brother's future bride.

So there they was--Cora betrothed to James White and Mary Jane White fixed
up with Nicholas Gaunter, though he'd only been at Hartland a month. And
then the trouble began. First, Cora slowly discovered that James was close
as a shut knife; and if she'd been clever enough to read a man's mouth and
eyes, she'd have seen his character stamped upon 'em. But that was the
first secret disturbance; and then Nicholas, he got a painful jar and
found out there was only one girl on earth for him and that was Cora.

He'd never been properly in love till then, and if poor Mary Jane was a
shadow before he met t'other girl, she sank to be less than nothing at all
so soon as Nicky had seen James White's sweetheart the second time.

In a fortnight, from being an easy-going creature, very fond of cows, and
with just an ordinary eye to the main chance, Nicholas Caunter found
himself alive and tingling to the soles of his feet with a passionate
desire for Cora. Everything else in life sank out of sight, and he cussed
Providence good and hard for playing him such a cruel trick, not seeing it
was his own desire for the line of least resistance that had landed him
plighted to Mary Jane.

So you see James and his sister both well content, and reckoning in a dim
way at the back of their minds that each was going to be boss in the
married state, because the money and position was with them. And James had
reached the point when he saw himself married in another six months, after
he'd done the autumn work on his farm and could afford three days'
holiday. He reckoned such a lapse would be largely waste of time, for
money-making was his god; but a honeymoon appeared to be counted upon by
Cora, and he'd yielded reluctantly in that particular. Then Mary Jane, she
hoped to be wedded along with her brother, and counted on a very fine
holiday with Nicholas after, and even thought of going so far as London
for it.

So that's how they stood; and meantime, though Nicholas managed still to
hide his misery from Mary Jane, because they'd only been tokened a
fortnight, his heart, in truth, was long since gone to Cora. As for her,
she stood in perplexity because she liked her close lover less and less
and saw his smallness of vision and lust for the pence with growing hatred
and clearness; while, worse still, she couldn't but see that 'twas all
bunkum about Nicholas caring a straw for Mary Jane.

And far deeper than that she saw, because not only did the maiden discover
that Caunter was thinking a million times more about her than the other
girl; but to her undying amazement she found that Nicholas was working on
her heart very fierce indeed and that, though he played the game to the
best of his powers and respected her engagement and stood up for James
White and said he was a good man, though mean as an east wind and so on,
yet she very well knew what had happened to the pair of 'em, and being a
brave woman and much the cleverest of the four, she faced the situation in
secret and put it to herself in plain English.

Meantime, Cora's aunt was casting about for her own comfort, after the
girl should wed with White, and planning her arrangements without a
thought that clouds were in the sky.

And then came the amber heart into the affair, and to Cora's immense
astonishment James gave her a gift.

Him and his sister had talked on the subject of presents and she'd told
him that 'twas rather a surprise to her that Nicholas hadn't produced no
tokening ring as yet, and James had supported Nicholas in that matter, and
said money was money, and his cowman hadn't got much at best and far too
little anyway to waste ten shillings in sentiment.

"Let him keep his money for the wedding-ring," said James. "That you must
have, though even that's a silly waste in my opinion."

But Mary Jane weren't with him there, and was casting about to give
Nicholas a present herself and so lift him to give her one back; when
James White, down to Ashburton after a very successful sale, happed to
look in a window and see the amber heart.

'Twas just a honey-coloured thing carved to the familiar pattern and a bit
bigger than your thumbnail, and with a thin little silver chain hung to
it. And fired to a rash deed, he thought on Cora and went in the shop and
asked the price.

A hopeful jeweller said he could have it for ten bob, so James took a
chair and cheapened it. He sat there haggling for half an hour; and
finally he got the trinket for six shillings and six pence, and returned
to his hoss and rode home, thinking small beer of himself for a silly
piece of work.

He was a secretive sort of man and didn't whisper his purchase to nobody;
but the next Sunday, when Cora came to Hartland to tea and for a walk on
the moor and a bit of love-making after, James fetched out the prize when
they were alone. It had grown to be high summer time just then, and James
was amazed to see the crop of whortleberries lying ripe for the picking.
They made him forget all about Cora and the amber heart for a bit.

"If us have the childer out here, there's pounds and pounds of the fruit
to be picked and they run a shilling a pint at market," he said. "Pay 'em
twopence a pint for picking, and there's a five pound note for me afore
the summer's over."

Then he was pleased to see his honey bees hard at work in the heather.

"I respect a bee more than most any creature," James told Cora, "because
the insect rises above holidays and works seven days a week all its life
till it drops."

Then he minded the amber heart, and said he doubted not 'twas going to be
an heirloom in the White family, to be handed down from mother to daughter
for generations. And he warned her to take a lot of care of it, and look
cruel sharp that no misfortune ever befell the trash.

Cora thanked him very gratefully and put it on, and he said it looked very
fine and became her well; but he bade her only to wear it on great
occasions, and watch over it very close and jealous.

"There's money there," said James, and she wondered how much, but knew
exceedingly well he hadn't put no great strain on a fat purse when he
bought it.

He ordered her to keep the thing a secret for the present, and she
promised to do so; and then came on the next queer scene of the play, for
meeting with Nicholas down in Little Silver a week later, the man unfolded
his feelings a bit and give Cora a glimpse of his heart. But such were her
own feelings by then that what he hinted at didn't surprise her. In fact,
he told her what a hundred things had told her already. He dwelt on Mary
Jane first, however, and said he was a lot put about in that quarter and
shamed of himself and wishful to give her a bit of a gift for the sake of
peace.

"Such things must be done gradual and decent," he said. "'Tis clear as
light I can't marry her now, because I moved like a blind man and made a
shocking mistake; but I've only been tokened to the woman a month, though
it seems like eternity, and afore I cut loose, I must carry on a bit
longer and let the shock come gradual."

"I know very well how it is with you, Nick," she answered. "Such things
will happen and 'tis very ill-convenient; but, I'm tolerable
understanding, the more so because I'm finding myself in much the same
sort of a mess as you."

They skated on thin ice, of course, and Nicholas found silence the safest
when along with Cora; but they opened out bit by bit, and they both knew
very well by now that they was meant for each other and no other parties
whatsoever.

Then began the craft of Cora, and such was the amazing cleverness of the
woman, doubtless quickened by love, that she worked single-handed, and
whereas a lesser female might have taken Nicholas into her confidence, she
did not, but struck a far-reaching stroke for them both, all unknown by
him. She hoped it might happen as she'd planned for it to do, and reckoned
no great harm would result if it failed; but her arts and her knowledge of
Caunter's habit of mind carried her through and advanced the tricky and
parlous affair a pretty good stage.

Cora knew two or three things now and she fitted 'em together. She knew
the holiday people was apt to picnic round about on famous spots beside
the river, and she knew sometimes they would leave odds and ends behind
'em worth the picking up.

She also knew that Nicholas Caunter would smoke his pipe by the river of
an evening, when he could escape from his sweetheart, and she knew that
poor Mary Jane was worrying a bit about a token of affection from
Nicholas, which he weren't in any great hurry to produce. For, since the
crash, the cowman soon felt less and less disposed to carry on his
pretence, or do aught to encourage the false hopes of Mary Jane.

So, fortified by all these facts, Cora watched out for Nicholas one
evening, saw him coming, and dropped her amber heart in the way where it
would lie under his nose as he came along.

Her only fear was that he'd miss it, and she hid, so close as a hare in
its form, to watch how it might go. But since Nicky's eyes were on the
ground and the sunset light glittered very brave upon the toy, miss it he
did not.

She saw him pick it up with a good bit of interest and then his eyes
roamed about; but there was nought in sight of him but the river and some
fragments of paper and a burned-out fire, where holiday folk had took
their tea. So away he went with the amber heart in his trouser pocket, and
after he was gone Cora came forth well pleased with the adventure; because
she knew all was tolerable safe now, and reckoned the next stage would
happen next day as she had foretold to herself. Which it did do.

She met Nicky after work hours and he was full of his find and very
wishful for Cora to take it. But that weren't her purpose by no means.

"No, Nick," she said. "This fix we be in wants a power of careful thought
and management, and we've got to go slow. You ain't a very downy man and
can't see much beyond the point of your beautiful nose; but I can, and
I'll ask you to go on as you are going for a bit and leave the future to
me."

"I'd trust you with my life," he said, and then she told him what he was
to do.

"You give this thing to Mary Jane," directed the devious woman. "You
needn't be telling you picked it up and that 'tis no more than a
come-by-chance, because then she'd set no store upon it. But just say 'tis
a gift for her, and she'll be pleased and axe no questions."

Of course Nicholas couldn't see the point; but Cora just told him to trust
her and do what she said.

"You leave the future to me," she told him. "I know a lot more about this
than what you do, and if there's one thing above all else it is for you to
trust me. You'll do a mighty sight more than you think you're doing when
you give that rubbish to Mary Jane."

Well, he felt with a woman like Cora Dene, his strong suit was to obey and
not argue, for he understood now, by a sure instinct, that such a creature
was a tower of strength if she loved a man, and had best be let alone to
work out her plans in her own way. And he presented the amber heart to
Mary Jane and endured her joy and her kisses, though his heart sank under
'em and he puzzled all night to know how such a stroke was going to work
for good. And if he'd known the proper tempest that had to rage afore
there was peace, doubtless his pluck would have quailed under it.

And the very next morning, so proud as punch, Mary Jane came to breakfast
with her amber heart flashing under her chin, and when James sat down to
his meal, the first thing he catched sight of was his gift to Cora on his
sister's bosom.

His eyeballs jingled no doubt and he put down his knife and fork and
stared as if he'd seen a spectrum instead of the homely shape of Mary Jane
behind the teapot.

"What--what in thunder be that hanging round your neck?" he asked.

"A little momentum from Nick," she answered lightly. "He gave it to me
yesterday and was wishful for me to let him see me wear it."

"Caunter gave you that?" he said. "Let me look at it."

Well, she was a bit surprised, of course, to see James tighten up and set
his jaws as he was wont to do before ugly news; but she put it down to
astonishment and no more and handed the heart and the chain to James. She
knew nought about his gift to Cora, and so when he dropped it, after
squinting close at it, and said: "My God in heaven, 'tis the same!" then
Mary Jane felt proper amazement.

"The same what?" she asked.

"The same treasure that I gave Cora for a heirloom," he answered, his jaws
like a rat-trap.

"You gave Cora!" gasped Mary Jane. "What stuff are you telling?"

And then the woman in her conquered, because she knew the value of things
as well as another.

"And a treasure it ain't any way," went on Mary Jane, "because a few
shillings would buy it. But Nicholas is poor and 'tis the thought behind
that I value."

"Damn the thought behind!" thundered out James. "It weren't his to give,
you silly owl. This was my gift to Cora Dene, and not a month ago,
neither."

"Nonsense!" she answered. "There might be fifty like it."

But he knew better, because he'd marked the thing very close when he
bought it, and there was a stain in the amber which had knocked off two
bob.

He said no more but ate his poached eggs and cleaned up the plate after
with a piece of bread, according to his habit. Then he drank his tea, and
ten minutes later he was off on his pony to old Mrs. Dene's house to have
a tell with his sweetheart. And nobody ever went to the woman of his
choice in such a foaming passion as Jimmy White that fine morning.

There was another outlet for Cora's remorseless and far-reaching
activities at this time besides James, for the woman had an uncanny power
of looking far ahead and, while she'd planned the affair of the amber
heart outside her home, she was also working very hard within it. Her
purpose there was to please her aunt as never she'd pleased her until that
time; and for two reasons.

Cora well knew that there was going to come a fearful strain on Mrs.
Dene's goodwill, and was anxious to plan her own life after the crash had
fallen, because she little doubted Mrs. Dene would cast her out. Indeed,
she reckoned on it. But over and beyond that was the time to come, and
Cora had so behaved of late that she meant the old woman should feel the
gap when she was gone. Because a sudden upheaval and parting will oft be
the only adventure to bring a thing home to anybody, and it isn't until
the even, pleasant everyday life comes to an end and a thousand hateful
problems call to be solved, that some people know their luck and realise
their good time was in the present, though they were always waiting for
the good time to come in the future.

And Cora had been giving her aunt a very fine time indeed, which is easy
if anybody makes a god of their food and you happen to be a peerless cook.
She was a heaven-born hand at food, was Cora, and Mrs. Dene, loving her
food next to her hope of salvation, revelled in her niece's kitchen art.
In fact, Cora went from strength to strength in that particular; and a
thousand other things she'd done during the last month to endear herself
to her aunt.

Her craft was to plant in old Sarah Dene's mind the picture of a helpmate
very much out of the common; and she done so, and on the night before
James White came along, Cora's aunt had gone so far as to admit it would
be a dark day for her when the girl was wed and had took her many gifts to
Hartland.

So that's how it stood when Jimmy lighted off his pony, and two minutes
later he was holding the amber heart under his sweetheart's astonished
eyes.

"Good morning, James," she said. "You'm early."

"What's this?" he asked, wasting no words in politeness.

She was a play-actor to the roots of her being, Cora was, and she started
and stared.

"Not another, my dear man, surely?" she asked.

"No," he answered. "Not another. But what I'd like to know is, where be
yours?"

"In your hand, thank God," she answered, and put out her fingers to take
it; but he wasn't giving it back to her no more.

He commanded her to tell him how it come about that his gift to her--a
sacred heirloom evermore--come to be on his sister's neck that morning,
and she marvelled at a tale so strange and wondered what the world was
coming to.

"I'll tell you the truth," she said--suspicious words in Jimmy's ear,
because, to market or elsewhere, he'd often noted that when a fellow
creature begins a tale like that, truth be often the one thing lacking.
But Cora's story sounded as if there weren't much wrong, and perhaps
another sort of man might have believed her.

"I broke my word and I own it," she told him. "I was so proud of the
necklace that I couldn't but wear it, James, for I wanted the holiday
people to see it round my neck, and the other girls to see it too. And,
coming home from gathering whortles for a pie for my aunt--which she
dearly loves--I found to my undying grief as I'd dropped the precious
trophy somewhere. And back along I went and hunted till dusk and dewfall,
and drowned myself with tears; and for two whole days I couldn't gather
pluck to tell you the fearful news. I've lost pounds of solid flesh
fretting and be so weak as a goose-chick about it; but I was coming to
confess my sins to-day. And now you rise up, like the sun over a cloud,
and turn my sorrow into joy, I'm sure."

"You needn't think so," he said, "because there's a lot more in this than
meets the eye, and I doubt you're lying."

She stared at that.

"I should hope all's well that ends well, James," she answered him, "and
no call for no such insult as that. What was lost be found, such as it is,
and I'm very wishful to know where Mary Jane picked it up."

"She didn't pick it up at all," he answered. "'Twas Nicholas Caunter--his
gift to her."

"What a world!" exclaimed Cora. "So Nicholas found it! Or, since you think
I'm lying, perhaps you'll say 'twas me gave it to him, because your sister
thought 'twas more than time she had a present off him?"

"How he came by it I've yet to find out," answered the man, "and if that's
true and you thought to hoodwink Mary Jane and me also by a trick like
that, then you're a bad lot and not worth your keep to any man. But all
that matters to me be this: you disobeyed me on your own showing and
risked a valuable jewel, messing about on the moor for vanity, or some
worse reason. And them that be careless of a lover's wishes before
marriage won't care a cuss for 'em after. In a word, I've done with you.
This is the last of a lot of pin-pricks you've given me lately, and I've
caught ideas and opinions from you during the past month that made me ask
myself some difficult questions. It's off, you understand."

'Twas true she'd been saying things to shake up James pretty frequent; but
this was better than her highest hopes, of course. She hid her joy,
however, and put her apron up to her eyes and shook her slim shoulders a
bit; then, as he was going, she told him a thing that astonished him.

"Whether or no," said Cora, "the amber heart, trash though it is, be mine,
not yours, James, and I'll thank you to return it to the lawful owner.
Since you be going to say 'good-bye,' we'll part friends, but thicky
necklace is mine, whatever your godless intentions."

He glared at her, stuffed the toy in his pocket and went back to his pony
without a word. But she followed him down the pathway and smiled at him as
he mounted, and even dared to rub the pony's nose, for she'd often been
suffered to ride the creature herself.

"If you won't give me the amber heart, Jimmy, I'll have you up for
breach," she said. And then he let fall a few crooked words and drove his
heels into the beast and galloped off in a proper fury of rage, cussing
the whole sex to hell and Cora Dene in particular.

With that she went in and told her aunt the tale; but now she was all
shame and grief, and after she'd given the details and said how James
White had cast her off, she vowed that her last day on earth had dawned.

"I'd call on the hills to cover me if they would do so," sobbed Cora. "But
as they will not, I'll call on the river, and I'll go and drown myself
to-night, for I can't face Little Silver no more after this downfall."

And Mrs. Dene, who had always thought a lot of James White and been proud
of the match, weren't particular helpful, nor yet comforting. In fact, she
was very disappointed about it and lost her temper with Cora. So the
bedraggled maiden went out of her sight and looked as never she'd looked
before. And on the evening of that day, under cover of darkness, she met
Nick Caunter and heard his news.

"'Tis in a nutshell and all very shameful, but very convenient," said
Nicholas. "White faced me about the amber heart after dinner, and axed me
where I'd bought it, and, took unawares, I said at Moreton. Then he told
me I was a liar and could clear out of Hartland at the end of my month.
And then I owned up that I'd found the blessed thing on the moor and
thought it would sound better in Mary Jane's ear if I said I'd bought it.
Then he flattened me out by telling me 'twas his gift to you, and the
whole trick had been planned by us both, as an insult to him and his
sister. Then I looked at Mary Jane and found, to my great thankfulness,
she was in a mood to believe James; and then I went out of their sight
that instant moment, before she had time to relent. I packed my bag and I
cleared, and I ain't going back again, neither."

She was very pleased indeed, Cora was.

"You couldn't have done no better," she said. "You couldn't have carried
on cleverer than that if I'd advised you. 'Tis a very sad affair for
everybody, I'm sure, but better be troubled for a week than for a
lifetime. Now you go to Moreton and put up the banns and leave the rest to
me, if you please."

"What a day!" he said. "If I didn't know you, I should reckon you was
going mad along of so much plotting. How can I put up the banns--me out of
work and not a job in sight? And where will you stand with Mrs. Dene when
she hears that White have thrown you over?"

"Don't waste your time axing questions," she answered. "I want your
address in Moreton and that's all there is to it for a fortnight till
after we be wed. You've got enough money to carry on, because you can draw
out your twenty-five pounds from the Post Office Savings Bank; and I can
draw out my fifteen, and that's forty. And don't you look for no work,
unless it's jobbing work, but leave the future in my keeping till we meet
again."

With that they praised the Lord for all His mercies and the man went on
his way, to tramp to Moreton and Cora returned home. But the river ran at
the bottom of her aunt's garden and she popped down and dipped in it,
clothes and all, before she returned to Mrs. Dene.

The old woman was sitting up in a bit of a stew, because the hour grew
late and she minded what her niece had threatened. In fact, she was
half-inclined to go down to the police-station when the girl came in,
soaking from head to heel, and told her story.

"I flinged myself in, as I ordained to do," she said, "and by the wisdom
of God a man was passing and heard the splash and saved me. 'Twas Nicholas
Caunter, the cowman at Hartland, who fought for my life, and he made me
promise faithful I wouldn't go in no more. So I've got to live after all,
Aunt Sarah."

"In that case, you'd best to unray and get out of them clothes and go to
bed," said the old woman, hiding her relief, "else you'll very likely die
in earnest--and no great loss if you did."

So Cora went to her chamber after a busy day; but she was one of them
terrible clear-minded women who work when they work and sleep when they
sleep, and she never had a better night's rest.

Two days later came news of where Nicholas was stopping; and there also
arrived for Cora a little box left by a farm-hand from Hartland. There
wasn't no letter with it, but Cora found herself disappointed in a way,
because she rather liked the thought of fetching James White up for breach
if it could be done; and the fact that he had so far shunned the prospect
of the law as to send her back the trinket showed that he was fearful too.
Because James White had a proper dread of lawyers.

And then came the last fine act but one of her make-believe, and when Mrs.
Dene had swallowed the pill and begun to see that, but for the shame,
she'd be a lot better with Cora than without, and set to work to make her
niece bide along with her and live it down, the girl vowed that such a
thought was beyond belief and she couldn't face Little Silver as a forlorn
woman passed over and disgraced.

"I'll go to Moreton," she said, "and find honest work; and as the world's
crying out for cooks, with a hand like mine, no doubt I'll struggle in
somewhere and make new friends; but to stop here all forlorn without a
man's courage and strength to defend me, be asking too much. And I never
shall forget your goodness and loving-kindness, Aunt Sarah; and the Lord
won't forget 'em either. I'll always pray for you in my prayers, and I'll
always pray for that poor chap, Nicholas Caunter, as saved me alive,
because when it got to Mr. White's ears as he'd done so and kept me from a
watery death, him and his sister turned against poor Nicholas and threw
him over, and he's a wanderer on the face of the earth this minute, though
such a clever, big-hearted soul as him be sure to find a warm welcome
somewhere, I hope."

Well, Mrs. Dene, who was broke down by now and terrible wishful for Cora
to stay, pleaded with her in vain to do so; but the girl went on cooking
to a marvel, and excelling in surprises, and being a proper angel in the
house for a fortnight; and then crying oceans of tears, she packed her
belongings, and Farmer Maitland, the widower, carried her off to Moreton
in his market cart on market day.

'Tis said he offered her marriage before they were halfway up Merripit
Hill and out of sight of her native village; but he was unsuccessful, and
afore noon Cora found herself in the arms of Nicholas Caunter. Two days
after, the day being Sunday, him and her were married and off to Ashburton
for a bit of a honeymoon. And then, when their united money was down to
ten pounds, Cora struck her last stroke.

She waited and watched the _Moreton Trumpet_, the paper her aunt took up,
and then come the expected advertisement telling how Mrs. Sarah Dene of
Little Silver was wishful to employ a man and his wife; and on the day
after it appeared, off she went along with Nicholas in a hired trap and
drove into the village so bold as need be.

Then Cora left her husband at the 'Three Travellers' and walked down to
Mrs. Dene, and found her aunt sitting helpless afore a score of letters
from married folk all very wishful to join her.

Cora told her news and how she'd found and married Nicholas; and then she
brought peace and order and hope into her aunt's heart, according to her
custom; and the sight of her awakened a great hope in Mrs. Dene, though it
sank again when she grasped that Cora was no more a free creature, but
given over to the keeping of a man.

And then, of course, the old woman said exactly what her niece knew she
would say. Cora had looked through the applications and didn't feel too
hopeful about any of 'em.

"The first thing is the cooking," she declared. "A bad cook's going to
shorten your life, Aunt Sarah, and my mind always sinks when I think of
it. You're thinner than when I saw you last, for that matter, and I'm
going to make one of my mutton pies for you this day before I say
'good-bye.'"

And then--a world of anxiety in her eyes--Mrs. Dene wondered if 'twas in
the power of possibility that Nicholas Caunter would see his way to come
to her if all she'd got was left to Cora in the hereafter, under her will.

And the young woman stared with amazement, and declared no such thought as
that had ever crossed her mind.

"Wonders never cease with me," she said, "but Nicky's all for foreign
parts, I'm afraid, and a State-aided passage to Canada. I've begged him to
think twice, I may tell you, because the sea between you and me is a very
cruel thought; but since you want a man and his wife, which was always
your ambition, and since I should certainly lengthen your days if I was to
bide along with you, and be happier far than I should be anywhere else on
earth, I'll strive with my husband about it and try my bestest to change
his plans."

So she went for Nicholas and he came along. Of course, he couldn't
play-act like his wife; but she'd schooled him pretty well, and he came
out with flying colours and sacrificed his hopes of Canada so that Cora
and her aunt shouldn't be parted.

It worked very well indeed, and the old woman had five more happy years
afore a tremendous Christmas dinner finished her.

And then Cora came by the house and three hundred a year.

You'd think, in your worldly wisdom, that such a woman as her might have
been rather doubtful as a wife, and was like to trade on her fatal
cleverness when up against the changes and chances of married life; but no
such thing was ever reported against Cora Caunter. She loved Nick and ran
straight in double harness, and brought the man four very fine childer.
And the eldest girl wears the amber heart to chapel on Sundays; because,
as Cora told Nicholas, 'tis no use having a heirloom if you don't let the
people see it.

As for James White, one dose of romantics was enough for him and he never
went courting no more; but Mary Jane found a very good husband and left
Hartland along with him after marriage. She quarrelled with James about
the wedding-breakfast because she wanted for him to pay, but he would not.

No. XI

THE WISE WOMAN OF WALNA

When farmer Badge died, his widow kept on at Walna, and some people
thought the world of her, same as I always did, but some was a bit
frightened, because of her great gifts. Charity Badge certainly did know a
terrible lot more than every-day folk, which was natural in the daughter
of a white witch; but she weren't no witch herself--neither black nor
white--and, as she often said to me: "'Tis only my way of putting two and
two together that makes the difference between me and the other women
round about these parts."

Walna was a poor little bit of a place up the Wallabrook Valley, and when
Charity died it all went to pieces, for there was none to take it again.
Tramps slept there till the roof fell in, and then the hawks and owls took
it over; but fifty years agone she flourished and did pretty well there,
one way and another, though 'twas more by the people that visited her for
her wisdom than anything she made out of the tumble-down farm. More'n a
cow or two she never had no cattle, and the last sheep to Walna went to
pay for farmer Badge's coffin.

I was a maiden then and worked for Mrs. Badge, so I comed to see a lot
about her and marked her manner of life. Half the things she did was
thought to be miracles by the Postbridge people, yet if you saw the
workings of 'em from inside, you found that, after all, they was only
built on common sense. Still, I'll grant you that common sense itself is a
miracle. 'Tis only one in a million ever shows it; and that one's pretty
near sure to be a woman.

Charity was a thin, brown creature--birdlike in her ways, with quick
movements, quick hands, and quick eyes. She never had no childer, and
never wanted none. In fact, she was pretty well alone in the world after
her husband died. There was a lot of Badges, of course, and still are; but
she never had no use for them, nor them for her.

And now I'll tell the story of Sarah White and Mary Tuckett and Peter
Hacker, the master of Bellaford.

Sarah was a lone creature up fifty year old, and she come along to Mrs.
Badge one fine day with a proper peck of troubles. She crept down the path
to Walna from Merripit Hill, like a snail with a backache, and weren't in
no case at all for merriment; yet the first thing she heard as she come in
was laughter; and the first thing she seed was pretty Mary Tuckett sitting
on Mrs. Badge's kitchen table, swinging her legs, and eating bits of raw
rhubarb out of a pie as my mistress was trying to make.

Mary was a beauty, and a bit too fond of No. 1, like most of that sort.

"'Tis too bad," she said to the new-comer, "ban't it too bad, Mrs. White?
Here's Charity, well known for the cleverest woman 'pon Dartymoor, won't
tell me my fortune or look in her crystal for me, though I be offering her
a two-shilling piece to do so."

"You go along," said Charity. "Don't you waste no more of my time, and let
your fortune take care of itself. It don't want a wise woman to tell the
fortune of such a lazy, good-for-nought as you."

Then Mary went off laughing, and poor Mrs. White began her woes.

"I could have told that woman something as would have changed her laughter
to tears," she began. "But time enough for that. Can you list to me for an
hour, Charity? I'm in cruel trouble, look where I will, and if there's any
way out, I'll be very glad to pay good money to know it."

"Let me put the paste 'pon this here pie, then I'll hear what you've got
to grumble at," answers the wise woman; and five minutes later she sat
down and folded her hands and shut her eyes and heard what Sarah had got
to tell.

"When my husband was alive, he worked for Peter Hacker's father at
Bellaford, and lived in a little cottage on a newtake field a mile from
Bellaford Farm. Old Hacker often said to my husband that when he'd paid
rent for fifty year for the cottage, he'd let him have it for his own.
'Twas common knowledge that he intended to do it. But now, with my husband
dead in his grave--and he died just six months after he'd paid his
fiftieth year of rent, poor soul!--Peter Hacker have told me that the
cottage ban't to be mine at all, and that 'tis all rubbish, and not a
contract. I tell him that the ghost of my poor Thomas will turn his hair
grey for such wickedness; but you know Peter Hacker. Hard as the nether
millstone, and cruel as winter--with women. Very different, though, if a
brave man beards him. Now he's dunning me for two years' rent, and even
when I told him all that hangs on my keeping the cottage, he won't change
or hold to the solemn promise his father made my husband. In fact, he'll
turn me out at midsummer."

"And what do hang on your keeping the house?" asked Charity.

Mrs. White sniffed and cooled her tearful eyes with her handkercher.

"Johnny French hangs on it," she said, "We'm keeping it close till next
autumn, but he wants for to marry me, and we'm both lonely souls, and
we've both lost a good partner; and so it falls out very suent and
convenient like that we should wed. But now he hears tell as I ban't to
have the cottage, he's off it. He won't hear of marrying if there's no
cottage. So the fag end of my life's like to be ruined one way or
another."

"Let's see," says Charity, in her slow, quiet way. "Firstly, Peter
Hacker's dunning you for two years' rent and will turn you out if you
don't pay it; and secondly, he refuses to be bound by what his father
promised your Thomas long years afore you married; and thirdly, you'm
tokened to old Johnny French; but he won't take you if you're not to have
the cottage free gratis and for ever."

"That's how 'tis; and, as if all this misfortune wasn't enough I've just
heard of the death of my only brother, Nathan Coaker, in Ireland."

"That terrible handsome man, as had all the girls by the ears in
Postbridge afore he went off?"

"Yes--only thirty-five--killed steeple-chasing. He was a huntsman, you
know, and a great breaker of hosses. And now one's broke him. Dead and
buried, and nought for me but his watch and chain and a bill from his
undertaker. It happened in Ireland three weeks ago; and I've only heard
tell to-day; and I thought if Mary Tuckett knowed, 'twould soon have
turned her laughter into tears, for she was cruel fond of him, and wept an
ocean when he went. In fact, they was tokened on the quiet unknown to her
father, and Nathan hoped to marry her some day and little knew she'd
forgot all about her solemn promise."

"I'm very sorry for you. I'll think about this. It don't look hopeful, for
Peter Hacker's very hard all through where women are concerned. There's no
milk of human kindness in him, and he don't like me. He thinks--poor
fool--that I overlooked his prize bullock, that died three days afore
'twas to start to the cattle show."

"He might be tenderer, for he's only human, after all," said Mrs. White.
"He's courting that very girl that was here a minute agone. In fact, they
be plighted, I believe. It do make me bitter when I think upon it, for my
poor Nathan's sake. She had sworn to marry my brother, remember, for
Nathan told me so, and, no doubt, he counted upon it to the end of his
days. But out of sight out of mind with her sort. Peter's riches have made
her forget Nathan's beautiful face. And now he's in his grave."

"Stop!" says Charity. "You'm running on too fast. Let me think a minute.
There's a lot here wants sifting. Let's come to business, my dear, and
stick to the point. You want your cottage and you want Johnny French. What
will you give me if I get your cottage for 'e out of Peter?"

Mrs. White was known to have saved a little bit, or, rather, her late
husband had for her. He was a lot older than her, and had thought the
world of her.

"I'll give 'e a five-pound note," she said at last.

"And what if I get Johnny French up to the scratch also?"

"If you do one, you'll do t'other," said Sarah. "He depends on the
cottage, and won't take me without it, but be very willing to have both
together. Still, I'll meet you gladly if there's anything you can do, and
the day I'm wed I'll give you another five-pound note, Charity. And well
you'll have earned it, I'm sure."

"So much for that then. And now, what like was your brother? Let's talk of
him," said Mrs. Badge. "I'm awful sorry for you--'tis a great loss and a
great shock. Horsemanship do often end that way."

Sarah was a thought surprised that t'other should shift the conversation
so sudden; but she felt pretty full of her dead brother and was very well
content to talk about him.

"A flaxen, curly man, with a terrible straight back, and a fighting nose
and blue eyes. He hunted the North Dartmoor Hounds and every girl in these
parts--good-looking and otherwise--was daft about him. They ran after him
like sheep. There was a terrible dashing style to him, and he knowed the
way to get round a female so well as you do the way to get round a corner.
They worshipped him. Just a thought bowed in the legs along of living on
hosses. A wonder on hossback, and very clever over any country. Great at
steeple-chasing also, but too heavy for the flat--else he'd been a jockey
and nothing else. And he would have married Mary Tuckett years ago if her
father had let him. But old Tuckett hated Nathan worse than sin and dared
Mary to speak with him or lift her eyes to him if they met. So away he
went to Ireland; but not before that girl promised to wait for ever, if
need be."

They talked a bit longer; then Mrs. Badge said a deep thing.

"Look here: don't tell nobody that your brother be dead for the minute.
Keep it close, and if you must tell about it, come up here and tell me.
I'll listen. But not a word to anybody else until I give the word."

"Mayn't I tell Johnny French?"

"Not even him," declared Mrs. Badge. "Not a single soul. I've got a reason
for what I say. And now be off, Sarah, and let me think a bit."

With that Mrs. White started; but she hadn't reached the tumble-down gate
of Walna--in fact, 'twas the head of an old iron bedstead stuck there and
not a gate at all--when Charity called after her.

"Go brisk and catch up that girl Mary Tuckett," she said. "Tell her, on
second thoughts--for her good and not for mine--that I'll do what she
wants. Go clever and brisk, and you'll over-get her afore she's home
again."

So Mrs. White trotted off, and very soon found Mary looking over a hedge
and helping a young man to waste his time, according to her usual custom
when there was a coat about.

But Sarah gave her message, and fifteen minutes later Mary was back along
with Mrs. Badge.

II

"I've changed my mind about 'e, Mary," said the wise woman. "I'm terrible
unwilling to tell young people concerning the future as a rule--for why?
Because the future of most people be cruel miserable, and it knocks the
heart out of the young to hear of what's coming; but you'm a sensible
girl, and don't want to go through life blind. And another thing is this:
'tis half the battle to be fore-warned; and a brave man or woman can often
beat the cards themselves, and alter their own fate--if they only know it
in time."

After all this rigmarole Charity Badge bade Mary take a seat at the table.
Then she drawed the blind, and lighted a lamp; and then she fetched out a
pack of cards and her seeing-crystal. 'Twas all done awful solemn, and
Mary Tuckett without a doubt felt terrible skeered even afore t'other
began. Then Mrs. Badge poured a drop of ink into her crystal--some said
'twas only the broken bottom of an old drinking glass; but I don't know
nothing about that. Next she dealt out the cards, and fastened on the Jack
o' hearts and the Jack o' oaks,[1] and made great play with 'em. And,
after that, she sat and gazed upon the crystal with all her might, and
didn't take her eyes off of it for full five minutes.

    [1] Oaks--Clubs.

"Now list to me, Mary Tuckett," she says, "and try to put a bold face on
what be coming, for there's trouble brewing for 'e--how much only you
yourself can tell."

With that she read out the fortune.

"There's a dark, rich man after you, Mary. He's fierce as a tiger, and the
folk don't like him, but he's good at bottom, and he'll make you a proper
husband. But there's another chap who have more right to you according to
the cards, and I see him in the crystal very plain. He's flaxen curled
with a straight back and a fighting nose, and blue eyes. Very great at
horsemanship seemingly, and he'll have you for a wife, so sure as death,
unless something happens to prevent it. He's on the way to you this
minute. He's the Jack o' hearts; and t'other man's Jack o' oaks. Now hold
your breath a bit while I look in the crystal and see what happens.

"Good powers!" cried the girl, creaming with terror down her spine. "'Tis
Nathan Coaker as you be seeing! I thought he'd forgot me a year agone!"

"Hush! Don't be talking. No, he ain't forgot you by the looks of it. Quite
the contrary."

Mary went white as curds, and sat with her hands forced over her heart to
hear what the wise woman would see next.

"Them men will meet!" she said, presently. "There! They crash together and
fight like dragons! There'll be murder done, but which beats t'other I
can't tell yet. The picture's all ruffled with waves. That means the
future's to be hid--even from me. But one thing is only too clear;
there'll be a gashly upstore and blood spilled when Jack o' oaks meets
Jack o' hearts; and the end of it so far as you be concerned is that
you'll have no husband at all, I'm afeared--poor girl."

So that was the end of the fortune-telling, and Mary wept buckets, and
Mrs. Badge reminded her of the florin but wouldn't take it.

"No," she said, "money like that be nought in such a fix as you find
yourself. The thing is to help you if I can. I don't want to know no
names. 'Tis better I should not; but 'tis clear there's a fair, poor man
coming here to marry you; and there's a dark, rich man also wants to do
so. Now maybe I can help. Which of 'em is it you want to take? Don't tell
me no names. Just say dark or pale."

"The d-d-d-dark one," sobs out Mary. "I thought 'twas all off with the
pale one years ago, and I wouldn't marry him for anything
n-n-n-now--specially if he's so poor as when he went."

"And what'll you do for me if I can save you from him? I don't say I can,
for 'tis a pretty stiff job; but I might do so if I took a cruel lot of
trouble."

"I'll give you everything I've got, Charity--everything!" cries the girl.

"I'm afraid that ban't enough, my dear. Will you give me ten pound the day
you'm married to the dark one? That's a fair offer; and if I don't
succeed, I'll ax for nothing."

The girl jumped at that, and said she thankfully would do so; and Mrs.
Badge bade her keep her mouth close shut--knowing she would not--and let
her go. Poor Mary went off expecting to meet Nathan Coaker at every step
o' the road, and little knowing that the poor blid was sleeping his last
sleep in a grave in foreign parts to Ireland.

The very same evening she met Peter Hacker himself; and though he was a
chap without much use for religion, yet, like a good few other godless
men, he believed in a good bit more than he could understand, and hated to
spill salt, or see a single pie, and wouldn't have cut his nails on a
Friday for a king's ransom.

She told him that her old sweetheart, Nathan Coaker, was coming back, and
that blood would be spilled, and that the wise woman didn't know for
certain whether 'twas his blood or Nathan's. She wept a lot, and told him
about Coaker, and what a strong, hard chap he was, and how he had the
trick to ride over a woman's heart and win 'em even against their wills.
And altogether she worked upon the mind of Peter Hacker so terrible, that
he got into a proper sweat of fear and anger--but chiefly fear. And the
next day--unknown to Mary--he rode up along to Walna, and had a tell with
Charity Badge on his own account.

Peter began in his usual way with women. He blustered a lot, and talked
very loud and stamped his foot and beat his leg with his riding-whip.

"What's all this here tomfoolery you've been telling my girl?" he says. "I
wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it--frightening
an innocent female into fits. You ought to know better."

Of course Charity did know better, and she knowed Peter and his character
inside out as well.

She looked at him, calm as calm, and smiled.

"I wish 'twas tomfoolery, Mr. Hacker. I wish from my heart that the things
I see didn't happen; but they always do, if the parties ban't warned in
time; though now and again, when a sensible creature comes to me and hears
what's going to overtake 'em, they can often escape it--as we can escape a
storm if we look up in the sky and know the signs of thunder and lightning
soon enough."

"'Tis all stuff and rubbish, I tell you," he said, "and I won't have it!
Fortune-telling be forbidden by law, and if I hear any more about you and
your cards and your crystal, I'll inform against you."

"You'd better be quick and do it, then, master," she answers him, still
mild and gentle, "for I'm very sorry to say there's that be going to
happen to you, as will spoil your usefulness for a month of Sundays or
longer; and that afore a fortnight's out. Of course, if you don't believe
what I know too well to be the truth, then you'll go your rash way and
meet it; but so sure as Christmas Day be Quarter Day, I'm right, and
you'll do far wiser to look after your own affairs than to trouble about
mine. And now I'll wish you good evening."

She made to go in, for Hacker was sitting on his horse at her very door;
but that weren't enough for him. His cowardly heart was shaking a'ready.

"Don't you go," he said. "I'll onlight and hear more of this."

He dismounted and came in the house; and Charity Badge bade me go out of
the kitchen, where I was to work, and leave 'em together, but I catched
what came after through the keyhole.

"Now," he said. "It lies in a nutshell. My Mary was tokened in a sort of
childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker--a horse-stealer or little
better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your
bit of glass and pretended to see--"

"Stop!" cried Charity, putting on her grand manner and making her eyes
flash like forked lightning at the man. "How do you dare to talk about
'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither list to
you, nor help you now. Go to your death--and a good riddance. You to talk
about 'pretending' to me!"

He caved in at that, and grumbled and growled, but she'd hear nought more
from him till he'd said he was sorry, and that so humbly as he knowed how.

"Now you can go on again," she said, "but be civil, or I'll not lift a
finger to aid you."

"'Tis like this," he went on. "It do look as if that man, Nathan Coaker,
was coming back."

"That's so. I never seed the fellow myself, but his name certainly was
Nathan Coaker, and Mary called him home in a minute from my picture in the
crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't;
and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll overmaster such
a man as you by force of arms. No woman can resist him. I guess he's made
his fortune and be coming in triumph to marry her."

"She's going to marry me, however."

"So you think."

The man began to grow more and more cowed afore her cold, steady eyes, and
the scorn in her voice.

"The strongest will win," he said.

"Yes," she answered him, "that's true without a doubt--so the cards
showed."

"And what's stronger than money?" he axed.

"A man in a righteous rage," she replied; "and a charge of heavy shot with
gunpowder behind 'em."

"Lord save us! You don't mean he'd lie in a hedge for me?"

"He'd do anything where his own promised woman was concerned," she said.
"But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face
in the open street, and hammer you to death for coming between him and
her."

"She's my side."

"Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again. He's well
knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon."

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

"'Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can't be kept away."

"For your sake it is, without a doubt--a thousand pities," admitted
Charity. "She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make--and a
thrifty--but she won't trust herself if that man's curly hair and blue
eyes turn up here again."

"Is it to be done--can we keep him off--pay him off--bribe him--anything?"

"Now you talk sense. There's very few things can't be done in this world,
Mr. Hacker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the
same way. Man's strength and woman's wit together--what's ever been known
to stand against 'em?"

"Help me, then," he said.

"Me! You want me to help--with my 'tomfoolery'?"

She roasted him proper for a bit, then came to business.

"I can't work for nought, and since 'tis the whole of your future life
that depends upon it, I reckon you'll be generous. If I succeed I shall
look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I'll ax for
nothing. Still, I do believe I may be able to get you out of this, though
'twill call for oceans of trouble."

He tried to haggle, but she'd none of that--wouldn't bate her offer by a
shilling. So he came to it.

"Thirty pound I must have the day you marry Mary," she said. "And now tell
me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker. The more I
understand the better chance shall I have of keeping him off your throat."

With that Peter explained how t'other fellow was the young brother of Mrs.
Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one of his tenants; but
he didn't mention the row about Sarah's cottage.

Mrs. Badge then took up the story, and made it look as clear as daylight.

"My gracious!" she said, "why now you can see how the crash be coming!
'Tis a terrible poor look-out for you every way. Sarah's writ to him, of
course, to say as you won't let her have the cottage your father
faithfully promised to her husband, and Coaker's coming over with
threatenings and slaughters about that job. And then, as if that weren't
enough, he'll find what a crow he's got to pluck with you on his own
account about Mary."

"The more comes out, the more it looks as if he'd better be kept away,"
said Mr. Hacker.

"And the harder it looks to do it," added Charity. "You lie low, anyway.
The next step is for me. I'll see Sarah and tell her that you've changed
your mind about the cottage--to call it a cottage, for 'tis no better than
a pig's lew house. You'll give it her, of course, for her life and the
life of that man French, as she wants to marry. That's the first step."

"Why should I?"

"What a fool you are! Why, for two reasons I should think. Firstly,
because your father promised her husband; secondly, because 'tis half the
way to keeping Nathan Coaker in Ireland. If she lets him know as you be
going to do the rightful thing, he'll have no more quarrel with you, since
he don't know about you and Mary. Then, what you've got to do is to hurry
on the match with her; and when you'm once married, 'tis all safe. Very
like you'll not have to offer the man a penny after all."

"You'd best see Mrs. White to-morrow then," said Peter.

"I'll see her this very night," answered the wise woman. "In kicklish
matters of this kind an hour may make all the difference for good or evil.
To-night I'll tell her that the house is hers on condition that her
brother Nathan don't come from Ireland this side o' Christmas; and she'll
bless your name and do her best to keep him away altogether. In fact, I
wouldn't be surprised if she succeeded, and it might even happen that when
he comes to know of your marriage and hears that 'tis over and done, that
he'll give up the thought of coming at all, and you'll get out of it with
credit and a whole skin."

Peter thanked her a lot, and she was as good as her word, and went to see
Widow White that very same evening.

She didn't put it to Sarah quite like she'd promised; but she explained
that Mr. Hacker was quite a reasonable man in some ways, even where
females were concerned, and that he had undertaken to let Sarah keep her
house so long as she and Mr. French should live. Which, of course, was all
that Mrs. White or her Johnny cared about.

"Hacker naturally thinks that your brother is still living," explained
Charity. "And mind you take mighty good care not to tell him 'tisn't so.
The longer he supposes that Nathan is alive, the better for us all. And
what you've got to say presently be this--that so soon as you told Nathan
'twas all right about the cottage, he changed his mind about coming to
Postbridge for the present."

"'Twill be a lie," said Mrs. White.

"'Twill be a white lie, however," answered Charity; "and 'twill help a
good many people out of a hobble and do harm to none; so I advise you to
tell it."

And Sarah did tell it--with wonderful, far-reaching results, I'm sure; for
it meant that she had her cottage for life; and that she had Johnny French
for life also; and it meant that Mary married Peter Hacker afore the next
Christmas and went honeymooning to London town for a week with the man;
and it meant that, unbeknownst each to t'others, Sarah and Mary and Peter
gived my mistress the money they promised her. So Charity Badge came out
of the maze with flying colours, you might say, not to mention fifty
golden pounds, all made out of her own head.

And many such like things she did, though never did they fetch such a
dollop of money again.

No. XII

THE TORCH

In my opinion there's hardly an acre of Dartmoor as wouldn't set forth a
good tale, if us could only go back along into time and get hold of it.
Anyway, there's a 'mazing fine thing to be told about Vitifer Farm; and
you don't want to go back far, neither, for it all happened but ten year
ago.

Vitifer is one of the "tenement" farms and don't belong to the Duchy; and
Furze Hill farm, which adjoins Vitifer, be likewise land handed down from
father to son from generations forgot. The "tenements" are scattered over
Dartmoor, mostly in the valleys of East and West Dart; but Vitifer and
Furze Hill stood together half a mile distant from the famous Vitifer tin
mine that lies in the wild ground west of Hameldon. And Joe Gregory farmed
Vitifer when this fearful thing fell out, and his brother Amos Gregory was
master at Furze Hill.

The Duchy had long desired the land, for 'tis Duchy's rule to snap up the
tenement farms as they fall in the market, and indeed few will soon remain
in private possession; but for the minute the two brothers--middle-aged
bachelors both--held on where their forefathers had worked before them
time out of mind, and it looked almost as though they was going to be the
last of the ancient name to resist the over-lord of Dartmoor; for men come
and men go; but Duchy lasts for ever and, no doubt, will have all it wants
to the last rood afore many years be past.

One of the next generation, however, still stood for the Gregory race, and
he was a nephew to Joe and Amos. A third brother they had, but him and his
wife were dead, and their only son lived with Joe and was thought to be
his heir. Ernest Gregory he was called, and few thought he'd make old
bones, for the young man was pigeon-breasted and high-coloured and coughed
a good bit when first he came up from the "in country" to the Moor.

Along with his uncle, however, he put on flesh and promised better. Fair
and gentle he was--a quiet, timid sort of chap, who kept pretty much to
himself and didn't neighbour with the young men and maidens. He was said
to be vain behind his silence and to reckon himself a good deal cleverer
than us Merripit people; but I never found him anything but well behaved
and civil spoken to his elders, and I went so far sometimes as to ask his
Uncle Amos why for he didn't like the man. Because the master of Furze
Hill never did care about Ernest, though Joe Gregory, with whom the young
fellow lived at Vitifer, thought very highly of him indeed.

And Amos confessed he hadn't got no deep cause to dislike his nephew.

"To be plain, 'tis a woman's reason and no more," admitted Amos. "Ernest
have got a glide in his eye, poor chap, and God knows that's not a fault,
and yet I never can abide that affliction and it would put me off an angel
from heaven if the holy creature squinted."

It was a silly prejudice of the man, and in time I think he got it under
and granted that you did ought to judge a person by their acts and not by
their eyes; but human nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I
for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't
trust one of they humped people--man or woman--with anything that belonged
to me. The broadest-minded of us have got a weak spot like that somewhere
and hate some harmless thing if 'tis only a spider.

But, after he'd been along at Vitifer five years, I don't think a living
soul felt anything but kindly to Ernest, and when it was rumoured that
he'd got brave enough to go courting Sarah White from Postbridge,
everybody wished him luck, including his uncles--especially Amos himself;
for Joe's younger brother was very friendly to the Postbridge Whites, and
them who thought they knew, always said how he'd offered for Jenny White
twenty-five years before and might very like have won her if she hadn't
loved the water-keeper on East Dart better and married him instead.

Then happened the wondrous mystery of Joe Gregory. 'Twas just before
Christmas--rough stormy weather and not much doing on the high
ground--when Joe set out early one morning for Exeter to see his lawyers.
He'd done very well that year--better than Amos--and he was taking a
matter of one hundred and fifty pounds in cash to Exeter for his man of
business to invest for him. And Ernest drove him in to Ashburton, at
cocklight of a stormy day, and was going in again that evening to meet his
uncle and fetch him home.

All went well, and at the appointed time Joe's nephew set out once more
with a light trap and a clever horse, after dark, to meet the evening
train. And no more was heard till somewhere about ten o'clock of that
night. Then Amos Gregory, just finishing his nightcap and knocking out his
pipe to go to bed, much to his astonishment heard somebody banging on the
front door of Furze Hill. Guessing it was some night-foundered tramp, he
cussed the wanderer to hell; but cussing was only an ornament in his
speech, for a tenderer creature really never lived, and he wouldn't have
turned a stray cat from his door that fierce night, let alone a human.

It weren't no tramp, however; it proved to be his nephew Ernest, and the
young man was clad in his oilskins and dripping with the storm rain and so
frightened as a rabbit.

In a word, he'd been to Ashburton and waited for the appointed train, only
to find his uncle hadn't come back by it. And so he bided, till the last
train of all, and still Joe hadn't turned up. So Ernest drove home, hoping
to find a telegram had come meanwhile and been brought up from Merripit
post office. But there weren't no telegram; and now he was properly feared
and had come over to Amos to know what did ought to be done.

First thing to do, in the opinion of Amos, was to pour a good dollop of
gin down Ernest's neck; then, when the shaking chap had got a bit of fight
in him, he explained that till the morn they were powerless to take
action.

"I know his lawyer, because Cousins and Slark be my lawyers also," said
Amos; "and they always was the family men of business, so if us hear
nought when the post office opens to-morrow, we'll send off a telegram to
them; and if they've got nothing to say, then we must tell the police."

Ernest was a good bit down-daunted and said he felt cruel sure evil had
over-got his uncle, and Amos didn't like it neither, for a more orderly
man than Joe Gregory and one more steadfast in doing what he promised
couldn't easily be found. However, they had to suffer till morning, and
Ernest went back to Vitifer, which stood not quarter of a mile away.

Morning brought no letter nor yet telegram, so Amos went down to Merripit
post office and sent a wire off to the Exeter lawyers axing for news of
his brother; and he waited till an answer came down. It ran like this:

_Mr. Gregory spent an hour with us yesterday and left at four o'clock to
catch down train._

                                                     _Cousins and Slark._

Well, that showed there was something wrong, and Amos felt he was up
against it. He never let the grass grow under his feet, and in twenty
minutes he was riding to Ashburton, to catch a train for Exeter. And afore
he went, he directed Ernest to tell the police that his uncle was missing.
So hue and cry began from that morning, and the centre of search was
Exeter, because from there came the last sure news of the man. The lawyers
made it clear that Joe was all right when he left them. He'd handed over
his money to be invested, and he'd put a codicil to his will, which, of
course, the lawyers didn't divulge to Amos. Then he'd gone off very
cheerful and hearty to buy a few things afore he catched his train. But
from that moment not a whisper of Joe Gregory could be heard. He wasn't a
noticeable sort of chap, being small with an everyday old face and
everyday grey whiskers; and nobody to the railway stations at Exeter or
Totnes, where he would change for the Ashburton line, had seen him to
their knowledge. Yet in the course of the next few days, when his
disappearance had got in the papers, three separate people testified as
they'd met Joe that evening, and Ernest Gregory was able to prove they
must have seen right. The first was a tobacconist's assistant at Exeter,
who came forward and said a little, countrified man had bought two wooden
pipes from him and a two-ounce packet of shag tobacco; and he said the
little man wore a billycock hat with a jay's blue wing feather in it. And
a barmaid at Newton Abbot testified that she'd served just such a man at
the station after the train from Exeter had come in, about five-thirty,
and afore it went out. She minded the jay's feather in his hat, because
she'd asked the customer what it was, and he'd told her. And lastly a
porter up at Moretonhampstead said that a small chap answering to the
description had got out of the Newton train to Moreton, which arrived at
Moreton at fifteen minutes after six. But he'd marked no jay's feather in
the man's hat and only just noticed him, being a stranger, as went out of
the station with half a dozen other travellers and gave up his ticket with
the rest. The tickets was checked, and sure enough, there were two from
Exeter to Moreton; but while Ernest could prove the jay's feather to be in
his uncle's hat, neither he nor anybody else could give any reason why Joe
should have gone to Moreton instead of coming home. He might have left the
train for a drink at Newton, where there was time for him to do so; but he
would have gone back to it no doubt in the ordinary course. Asked if he
came in alone for his drink, the barmaid said he did so and was prepared
to swear that nobody spoke to him in the bar but herself. And he'd gone
again afore the down train left. But at Totnes, where Joe was known by
sight and where he ought to have changed for Ashburton, none had seen him.

The police followed the Moreton clue, but nobody there reported sight of
Joe on the night he disappeared. He'd got a friend or two at Moreton; but
not one had fallen in with him since the autumn ram fair, when he was over
there with his nephew for the day.

The law done all in its power; the down lines were searched from Newton,
and Amos Gregory offered a reward of fifty pounds for any news of his lost
brother; but not a speck, or sign, of Joe came to light. A month passed
and the nine days' wonder began to die down a bit.

I met Amos about then, and we was both on horseback riding to Ashburton,
and he told me that he was bound for the lawyers, to make inquiry of how
the law stood in the matter and what he ought to do about Vitifer Farm.

"My nephew Ernest, is carrying on there," he told me, "and he's a good
farmer enough and can be trusted to do all that's right; but there's no
money to be touched and I must find out if they'll tell me what have got
to be done and how the law stands."

He was a lot cut up, for him and his brother had always been very good
friends; and he was troubled for his nephew also, because Ernest had lost
his nerve a good deal over the tragedy.

"He's taking on very bad and can't get over it," said Amos to me. "The
natural weakness of his character have come out under this shock, and the
poor chap be like a fowl running about with its head off. He never had
more wits than please God he should have, and this great disaster finds
him unmanned. He will have it his uncle's alive. He's heard of men losing
their memory and getting into wrong trains and so on. But I tell him that
with all the noise that's been made over the country, if Joe was living,
though he might be as mad as a hatter, 'tis certain by now we should have
wind of him."

"Certain sure," I said. "He's a goner without a doubt, and 'twill take a
miracle ever to get to the bottom of this."

I was reminded of them words a fortnight later, for it did take a miracle
to find the shocking truth. In fact you may say it took two. And one
without the other might just as well not have happened. And 'tis no good
saying the days of miracles be passed, because they ban't.

I heard later that the lawyers let Amos read his brother's will and got a
power of attorney for him to act and carry on. And the will left Vitifer
Farm to Amos, on the condition that he would keep on his nephew Ernest. It
was four year old; and the codicil, that Joe wrote the day he disappeared,
ordained that when Amos died, Vitifer shouldn't be sold to Duchy, but
handed down to the next generation of the Gregorys in the shape of Ernest.

Well, Amos had no quarrel with that, and when he went home, he asked his
nephew if he'd known about the codicil, and he said he had not. And when
he learned of his uncle's kind thought for him, he broke down and wept
like a child, till Amos had to speak rough and tell him to keep a stiff
upper lip and bear himself more manly.

"If you be going to behave like a girl over this fearful loss, I shan't
have no use for you at Vitifer," Amos warned the young chap. "You must
face this very sad and terrible come-along-of-it same as I be doing. And
you must show me what you're good for, else I may do something you won't
like. This tragedy reminds me, Ernest," he said, "that I haven't made my
own will yet, and as you be my next-of-kin, if your poor uncle have gone
home, that means you'll inherit Furze Hill also in course of time and be
able to run a ring fence round both places. But that remains to be seen;
and if you are going to show that you haven't got manhood enough to face
the ups and downs of life, then I shall turn elsewhere for one to follow
me and young Adam White, my godson, may hap to be the man."

He gave his nephew a bit more advice and told him he'd best to go on
courting the maiden, Sarah White, to distract his mind.

"For you're the sort," said Amos, "that be better with a strong-willed
woman at your elbow in my opinion, and if Sally takes you, I shall be glad
of it."

So Ernest bucked up a bit from that day forth, and no doubt the fact that
he was to have Vitifer in the course of nature, decided Sarah, for she
agreed to wed the young man ten days afterwards, and Amos was pleased, and
decided that the wedding should fall out next Easter.

Ernest Gregory, as we all marked, was a changed man from that hour; for
though he was built to feel trouble very keen, he hadn't the intellects to
feel it very deep, and in the glory of winning Sarah, he beamed forth
again like the sun from a cloud. And nobody blamed him, because, whether
your heart be large or small, a dead uncle, however good he was, can't be
expected to come between a man and the joy of a live sweetheart, who has
said "Yes" to him.

II

Then came a night of stars, and once again Amos Gregory was shook up to
his heels by somebody running in hot haste with news just as the farmer
was about to go to bed. And once more it was his nephew, Ernest, who
brought the tale.

"I've found a wondrous pit in the rough ground beyond Four Acre Field," he
said. "I came upon it this afternoon, rabbiting, and but for the blessing
of God, should have falled in, for the top's worn away and some big stones
have fallen in. 'Tis just off the path in that clitter of stone beside the
stile."

The young man was panting and so excited that his words tripped each
other; but his uncle didn't see for the minute why he should be, and spoke
according.

"My father always thought there was a shaft hole there," answered Amos,
"and very likely there may be, and time have worn it to the light, for
Vitifer Mine used to run out into a lot of passages that be deserted now,
and there's the famous adit in Smallcumbe Goyle, half a mile away, to the
west, long deserted now; and when I was a child, me and my brothers often
played in the mouth of it. The place was blocked years ago by a fall from
the roof. But why for you want to run to me with this story at such an
hour, Ernest, I can't well say. Us ought to be abed, and Sarah will soon
larn you to keep better hours, I reckon. You're a lot too excitable and I
could wish it altered."

But the man's nephew explained. "That ain't all, Uncle Amos," he went on,
"for I found Uncle Joe's hat alongside the place! There it lies still and
little the worse--blue jay feather and all. But I dursn't touch it for
fear of the law, and seeing it just after I'd found the hole, filled me
with fear and terror. Because it looks cruel as if Uncle had pretty near
got home that fatal night, and coming across by the field path in the
dark, got in the rough and went down the pit."

Well, Amos had reached for his boots you may be sure before Ernest was to
the end of his tale, and in five minutes he'd put on his coat and gone out
with Ernest to see the spot.

Their eyes soon got used to the starlight, and by the time they reached
the field called Four Acre, Amos was seeing pretty clear. In one corner
where a field path ran from a stile down the side, was a stony hillock
dotted with blackthorns and briars and all overgrown with nettles, and in
the midst of it, sure enough, time and weather had broke open a hole as
went down into the bowels of the earth beneath. And beside this hole,
little the worse for five weeks in the open, lay Joe Gregory's billycock
hat.

Amos fetched a box of matches out of his pocket, struck one and looked at
the hat. Then he peered down into the black pit alongside, and, as he did
so, he felt a heavy push from behind, and he was gone--falling down into
darkness and death afore he knew what had happened. And in that awful
moment, such a terrible strange thing be man's mind, it weren't fear of
death and judgment, nor yet horror of the smash that must happen when he
got to the bottom, that gripped Gregory's brain: it was just a feeling of
wild anger against himself, that he'd ever been such a fool as to trust a
man with a glide in his eye!

In the fraction of time as passed, while he was falling, his wits moved
like lightning, and he saw, not only what had happened, but why it had
happened. He saw that Ernest Gregory knew all about Joe and had probably
done him in five weeks ago; and he saw likewise that now it was his turn
to be murdered. Then Vitifer and Furze Hill would both belong to the young
man. All this Amos saw; and he felt also a dreadful, conquering desire to
tell the people what had happened and be revenged; and he told himself
that his ghost should come to Merripit if he had to break out of hell to
come, and give his friends no rest till they was laid upon the track of
his nephew.

All that worked through his brain in an instant moment, like things happen
in a dream, and then he was brought up sudden and fell so light that he
knew he weren't dead yet, but heard something crack at the same moment.
And then Amos discovered he was on a rotten landing-stage of old timber,
with the shaft hole above him and a head, outlined against the stars,
looking down, and another hole extending below. He was, in fact, catched
half-way to his doom and hung there with the devil above and the unknown
deep below and hung up on the mouldering wood. He heard Ernest laugh then,
and the sound was such as none had ever heard from him before--more like a
beast's noise than a man's. Then his head disappeared and Amos was just
wondering what next, when his nephew came to the hole again and dropped a
great stone. It shot past the wretched chap where he hung, just touching
his elbow, and then Amos, seeing he was to be stoned to make sure, called
upon God to save him alive. He pressed back against the pit side, while
the crumbling timber gave under him and threatened to let him down any
moment, but the action saved his life, for the time being, for as he
moved, down came another stone and then another. Where the joists of the
stage went in, however, was a bit of cover for the unfortunate chap--just
enough to keep him clear of the danger from above, and there he stuck,
pressed to the rock like a lichen, with great stones going by so close
that they curled his hair. All was black as pitch and the young devil up
over had no thought that his poor uncle was still alive. Amos uttered no
sound, and presently, his work done as he thought, Ernest began the next
job and Gregory heard him making all snug overhead. Soon the ray of
starlight was blotted out and the pit mouth blocked up with timber first
and stones afterwards; and Amos doubted not that his young relation had
made the spot look as usual and blocked it so as nothing less than the
trump of Doom would ever unseal it again.

And even if that weren't so, he knew he could never climb up the five and
twenty feet or more he'd fallen. Indeed, at that moment the poor chap
heartily wished he was at the bottom so dead as a hammer and battered to
pulp and out of his misery. For what remained? Nought but a hideous end
long drawn out. In fact he felt exceeding sorry for himself, as well he
might; but then his nature came to the rescue, and he told himself that
where there was life there was hope; and he turned over the situation with
his usual pluck and judgment and axed himself if there was anything left
that he might do, to put up a fight against such cruel odds.

And he found there was but one thing alone. He couldn't go up and he felt
only too sure the only part of him as would ever get out of that living
grave was his immortal soul, when the end came; but he reckoned it might
be possible to get down. The only other course was to bide where he was,
wait till morning, and then lift his voice and bawl in hope some fellow
creature might hear and succour. But as the only fellow being like to hear
him was his nephew, there didn't seem much promise to that. He waited
another half hour till he knew his murderer was certainly gone home; then
he lighted matches and with the aid of the last two left in his box
scanned the sides of the pit under him. They were rough hewn, and given
light he reckoned he could go down by 'em with a bit of luck and the Lord
to guide his feet. Then he considered how far it might be to the bottom,
and dropped a piece of stone or two, and was a good bit heartened to find
the distance weren't so very tremendous. In fact he judged himself to be
about half-way down and reckoned that another thirty feet or thereabout
would get him to the end. He took off his coat then and flung it down; and
next he started, with his heart in his mouth, to do or die.

Amos Gregory promised himself that nought but death waited for him down
beneath, and he was right enough for that matter. How he got down without
breaking his neck he never could tell, but the pit sloped outward from
below and he managed to find foothold and fingerhold as he sank gingerly
lower and lower. A thousand times he thought he was gone. Then he did fall
in good truth, for a wedge of granite came out in his hand; but to his
great thankfulness, he hadn't got to slither and struggle for more than a
matter of another dozen feet, and then he came down on his own coat what
he'd dropped before him. So there he was, only scratched and torn a bit,
and like a toad in a hole, he sat for a bit on his coat and panted and
breathed foul air. 'Twas dark as a wolf's mouth, of course, and he didn't
know from Adam what dangers lay around him; but he couldn't bide still
long and so rose up and began to grope with feet and hands. He kicked a
few of the big stones that Ernest Gregory had thrown down, as he thought
atop of him; and then he found the bottom of the hole was bigger than he
guessed. And then he kicked a soft object and a great wonder happened.
Kneeling to see what it might be, he put forth his hand, touched a
clay-cold, sodden lump of something, and found a sudden, steady blaze of
light flash out of it. He drew back and the light went out. Then he
touched again and the light answered.

By this time Amos had catched another light in his brain-pan and knowed
too bitter well what he'd found. He groped into the garments of that poor
clay and found the light that he'd set going was hid in a dead man's
breast pocket. Then he got hold of it, drew out an electric torch and
turned it on the withered corpse of his elder brother. There lay Joe and
the small dried-up carcase of him weren't much the worse seemingly in that
cold, dry place; but Amos shivered and went goose-flesh down his spine,
for half the poor little man's face was eat away by some unknown beast.

Joe's brother sat down then with his brains swimming in his skull, and for
a bit he was too horrified to do ought but shiver and sweat; and then his
wits steadied down and he saw that what was so awful in itself yet carried
in its horror just that ray of hope he wanted now to push him on.

His instinct was always terrible strong for self-preservation, and his
thoughts leapt forward; and he saw that if a fox had bit poor dead Joe,
the creature must have come from somewheres. Of course a fox can go where
a man cannot, yet that foxes homed here meant hope for Amos; and there
also was the blessed torch he'd took from his dead brother's breast.

He nerved himself and felt all over the poor corpse and found Joe's purse
and his tobacco pouch and the two pipes he was reported to have bought at
Exeter; and doubtless he'd bought the electric torch also, for Amos knew
that his brother possessed no such thing afore. But there it was: he'd
been tempted to buy the toy, and though it couldn't bring him back to
life, there was just a dog's chance it might save his brother's. Amos knew
the thing wouldn't last very long alight, so he husbanded it careful and
only turned it on when his hands couldn't tell him what he wanted to know.

At first it seemed as though there weren't no way out; but with the help
of the light, he found at last a little, low tunnel that opened out of the
hole; and then he found another opposite to it. And the one he reckoned
must run up under Vitifer into the thickness of the hill; while t'other
pointed south. Then, thinking upon the lay of the land, Amos reckoned the
second might be most like to lead to the air. And yet his heart sank a
minute later, for he guessed--rightly as it proved--that the south tunnel
was that which opened into a cave at Smallcumbe Goyle, near half a mile
down under. A place it was where he'd often played his games as a child;
but that ancient mine adit was well known to be choked by a heavy fall of
rock fifty yards from the mouth, so it didn't look very hopeful he'd win
through. However his instinct told him the sole chance lay there; for
t'other channel, if pursued, could only lead to the heart of the hill. He
set out according and after travelling twenty yards with bent head found
the roof of the tunnel lift and went on pretty steady without adventures
for a few hundred yards. 'Twas very evil air and he doubted if he'd keep
his head much longer; but with the torch light to guide his feet, he
staggered forward conscious only of one thing, and that was a great and
growing pain in his elbow. That's where the first stone had grazed him
that his nephew had thrown down the pit, and he stopped and found he was
cut to the bone and bleeding a lot. The loss vexed him worse than the
pain, for he knew very well you can't lose blood without losing strength,
and he couldn't tell yet whether it might not be within his strength to
save him at the other end. So he slit a piece off the tail of his shirt
and tied it above his elbow so tight as he was able. Then he held on, but
knew too well he was getting spent. For a man well over fifty year can't
spend a night of that sort and find himself none the worse for it.

A bit farther forward there was a little more to breathe, and as the
tunnel dropped, he felt the air sweeter. And that put a pinch more hope
into him again. It was up and down with him and his mind in a torment, but
at last he tried not to think at all, and just let his instinct to fight
for life hold him and concentrated all his mind and muscle upon it. Yet
one thought persisted in his worst moments: and that was, that if he
didn't come through, his nephew wouldn't be hanged, but enjoy the two
farms for his natural life; and the picture of that vexed Amos so terrible
that without doubt 'twas as useful to help him as a bottle of strong
waters would have been.

On he went, and then he had a shock, for the torch was very near spent and
began to grow dimmer; so he put it out to save the dying rays against when
he might need them. And he slowed down and rested for half an hour, then
refreshed, he pushed slowly on again.

And things happened just as he expected they would do; for after another
spell, he was brought up short and he found the way blocked and knew that
he stood a hundred feet and no more from the mouth of the tunnel in a
grass-grown valley bottom among the rocks outside. But he might as well
have been ten miles away, and too well he knew it. The air was sweet here,
for where foxes can run, air can also go; but outlet there was none for
him, though somewhere in the mass of stone he doubted not there was a
fox-way. He turned on the torch then and shifted a good few big stones and
moved more; but he saw in half an hour the job was beyond his powers and
that if he'd been Goliath of Gath he couldn't have broke down that curtain
of granite single-handed.

He'd found a pool of water and got a drink and he'd satisfied his mind
that his elbow bled no more, and that was all the cheer he had, for now
his torch went out for good and with its last gleam he'd looked at his
watch and seen that it was half after two in the morning. Night or day,
however, promised to be all the same for Amos now, and he couldn't tell
whether daylight would penetrate the fall of stone when it came, or if the
rock was too heavy to allow of it. And in any case a gleam of morning
wouldn't help him, for the Goyle was two good miles from Merripit village,
and a month might well pass before any man went that way. Nor would Amos
be the wiser if a regiment of soldiers was marching outside. So it looked
as if chance had only put off the evil hour, and he sat down on a stone
and chewed a bit of tobacco and felt he was up against his end at last.
Weariness and chill as he grew cold acted upon the man, and afore he knew
it he drew up his feet, rested his head on his sound arm, and fell into
heavy sleep. For hours he slumbered and woke so stiff as a log. But the
sleep had served him well and he found his mind active and his limbs
rested and his belly crying for food.

He poked about and at last saw something dim that thrust out of the dark
on the ground, and then it got brighter, and he marked low down, no higher
than his knee, a blue ghost of light shooting through some cleft among the
stones. It waxed until he could put down his watch and read the hands by
it. And he found it was past six o'clock.

He set to work at the rocks again presently, but surrounded by darkness he
didn't know where to begin and knew that a hungry man, with nought but his
two hands, could make no great impression on all that stone; but he turned
where the ray came through and putting his head to the earth, found there
was a narrow channel out to the daylight, and wished he could take shape
of a badger and so get through.

Time dragged and hope waned. But the water proved a source of strength,
and Amos knew a man can hold out a long time if water ban't denied. His
life passed through his mind with all its ups and downs, and he found time
to be thankful even in all his trouble that he was a bachelor without wife
or child to mourn him. And then his thoughts ran on to the great mystery
there would be and the hunt after him; and he saw very clear indeed that
all would go just as it done before, and the police would never find a
trace, and Ernest Gregory would weep his eyes out of his head very near
and offer a reward so large that everybody would say he was an angel
barring the wings.

Amos was dwelling on what his nephew would get in the next world, to make
up for his fun in this one, and marvelling in his simple mind that the
wicked could flourish like the green bay tree and nothing be done against
'em by Providence, when that happened to fill his mind very full of his
own affairs again.

He was sitting with his eyes on the shaft of daylight under the stones,
when suddenly it went out and for a moment disappeared. But then, like a
cork out of a bottle, something emerged, and Amos saw a long red thing
sneak through and drop, panting, on its side not three yards from him. And
well he knew what it was, even if the reek hadn't told him. 'Twas a hunted
fox that had saved its brush--not for the first time belike--in the old
tin mine working, and that meant more to the man than a sack of diamonds
just then. He moved and the fox, little thinking to find an enemy on that
side of the barrier, jumped to his feet and galloped up the passage so
hard as he could pelt; while Amos strained his ears to the hole and
prepared to lift his voice and have the yell of his life for salvation
when the moment arrived.

How long the fox had stood afore hounds he couldn't tell; but long or
short, they'd run him to the rocks for certain, and then the prisoned man
would hear 'em and try to make the hunters hear him if he could. Hounds
met at Dart Meet that day, and Gregory doubted not they'd found a fox as
was had took 'em up East Dart and then away to the Vitifer mine district,
where he knew he was safe.

And in ten minutes he heard hounds and in five minutes more they was got
within a few yards of him, yelping and nosing t'other side of the granite.
He guessed the huntsman would soon be with 'em at the cave mouth and