Children of the Mist Part 45

"So 'tis a gert thing. Sit down; doan't tramp about. I lay you've been on your feet enough these late hours."

Will obeyed, but proceeded with his theme, and though his feet were still his hands were not.

"Us be faced wi' the upbringing an' edication of un. I mean him to be brought up to a power o' knowledge, for theer's nothin' like it. Doan't you think I be gwaine to s.h.i.+rk doin' the right thing by un', Miller, 'cause it aint so. If 'twas my last fi'-pun' note was called up for larnin' him, he'd have it."

"Theer's no gert hurry yet," declared Billy. "Awnly you'm right to look in the future and weigh the debt every man owes to the cheel he gets.

He'll never cost you less thought or halfpence than he do to-day, an', wi'out croakin' at such a gay time, I will say he'll graw into a greater care an' trouble, every breath he draws."

"Not him! Not the way I'm gwaine to bring un up. Stern an' strict an' no nonsense, I promise 'e"

"That's right. Tame un from the breast. I'd like for my paart to think as the very sapling be grawin' now as'll give his li'l behind its fust lesson in the ways o' duty," declared Mr. Blee. "Theer 's certain things you must be flint-hard about, an' fust comes lying. Doan't let un lie; flog it out of un; an' mind, 'tis better for your arm to ache than for his soul to burn."

"You leave me to do right by un. You caan't teach me, Billy, not bein' a parent; though I allow what you say is true enough."

"An' set un to work early; get un into ways o' work so soon as he's able to wear corduroys. An' doan't never let un be cruel to beastes; an'

doan't let un--"

"Theer, theer!" cried Mr. Lyddon. "Have done with 'e! You speak as fules both, settin' out rules o' life for an hour-old babe. You talk to his mother about taming of un an' grawing saplings for his better bringing-up. She'll tell 'e a thing or two. Just mind the slowness o'

growth in the human young. 'T will be years before theer's enough of un to beat."

"They do come very gradual to fulness o' body an' reason," admitted Billy; "and 't is gude it should be so; 't is well all men an' women 's got to be childer fust, for they brings brightness an' joy 'pon the earth as babies, though 't is mostly changed when they 'm grawed up. If us could awnly foretell the turnin' out o' childern, an' knaw which 't was best to drown an' which to save in tender youth, what a differ'nt world this would be!"

"They 'm poor li'l twoads at fust, no doubt," said Will to his father-in-law.

"Ess, indeed they be. 'T is a coorious circ.u.mstance, but generally allowed, that humans are the awnly creatures o' G.o.d wi' understandin', an' yet they comes into the world more helpless an' brainless, an' bides longer helpless an' brainless than any other beast knawn."

"Shouldn't call 'em 'beastes' 'zactly, seem' they've got the Holy Ghost from the church font ever after," objected Billy. "'T is the differ'nce between a babe an' a pup or a kitten. The wan gets G.o.d into un at christenin', t' other wouldn't have no Holy Ghost in un if you baptised un over a hunderd times. For why? They 'm not built in the Image."

"When all's said, you caan't look tu far ahead or be tu forehanded wi'

bwoys," resumed Will. "Gallopin' down-long I said to myself, 'Theer's things he may do an' things he may not do. He shall choose his awn road in reason, but he must be guided by me in the choice.' I won't let un go for a sailor--never. I'll cut un off wi' a s.h.i.+llin' if he thinks of it."

"Time enough when he can walk an' talk, I reckon," said Billy, who, seeing how his master viewed the matter, now caught Mr. Lyddon's manner.

"Ess, that's very well," continued Will, "but time flies that fast wi'

childer. Then I thought, 'He'll come to marry some day, sure's Fate.'

Myself, I believe in tolerable early marryin's."

"By G.o.d! I knaw it!" retorted Mr. Lyddon, with an expression wherein appeared mingled feelings not a few; "Ess, fay! You'm right theer. I should take Time by the forelock if I was you, an' see if you can find a maiden as'll suit un while you go back-along through the village."

"Awnly, as 'tis better for the man to number more years than the wummon," added Billy, "it might be wise to bide a week or two, so's he shall have a bit start of his lady."

"Now, you'm fulin me! An' I caan't stay no more whether or no, 'cause I was promised to see Phoebe an' my son in the arternoon. Us be gwaine to call un Vincent William Blanchard, arter you an' me, Miller; an' if it had been a gal, us meant to call un arter mother; an' I do thank G.o.d 'bout the wee bwoy in all solemn soberness, 'cause 'tis the fust real gude thing as have falled to us since the gwaine of poor Chris. 'Twill be a joy to my mother an' a gude gran'son to you, I hope."

"Go home, go home," said Mr. Lyddon. "Get along with 'e this minute, an'

tell your wife I'm greatly pleased, an' shall come to see her mighty soon. Let us knaw every day how she fares--an'--an'--I'm glad as you called the laddie arter me. 'Twas a seemly thought."

Will departed, and his mind roamed over various splendid futures for his baby. Already he saw it a tall, straight, splendid man, not a hair shorter than his own six feet two inches. He hoped that it would possess his natural wisdom, augmented by Phoebe's marvellous management of figures and accounts. He also desired for it a measure of his mother's calm and stately self-possession before the problems of life, and he had no objection that his son should reflect Miller Lyddon's many and amiable virtues.

He returned home, and his mother presently bid him come to see Phoebe.

Then a sudden nervousness overtook Will, tough though he was. The door shut, and husband and wife were alone together, for Damaris disappeared.

But where were all those great and splendid pictures of the future?

Vanished, vanished in a mist. Will's breast heaved; he saw Phoebe's star-bright eyes peeping at him, and he touched the treasure beside her--oh, so small it was!

He bent his head low over them, kissed his wife shyly, and peeped with proper timidity under the flannel.

"Look, look, Will, dearie! Did 'e ever see aught like un? An' come evenin', he 'm gwaine to have his fust li'l drink!"

CHAPTER II

THE KNIGHT OF FORLORN HOPES

The child brought all a child should bring to Newtake, though it could not hide the fact that Will Blanchard drifted daily a little nearer to the end of his resources. But occasional success still flattered his ambition, and he worked hard and honestly. In this respect at least the man proved various fears unfounded, yet the result of his work rarely took shape of sovereigns. He marvelled at the extraordinary steadiness with which ill-fortune clung to Newtake and cursed when, on two quarter-days out of the annual four, another dip had to be made into the dwindling residue of his uncle's bequest. Some three hundred pounds yet remained when young Blanchard entered upon a further stage of his career,--that most fitly recorded as happening within the shadow of a granite cross.

After long months of absence from home, Martin Grimbal returned, silent, unsuccessful, and sad. Upon the foundations of facts he had built many tentative dwelling-places for hope; but all had crumbled, failure crowned his labours, and as far from the reach of his discovery seemed the secret of Chris as the secrets of the sacred circles, stone avenues, and empty, hypaethral chambers of the Moor. Spiritless and bitterly discouraged, he returned after such labours as Will had dreamed not of; and his life, succeeding upon this deep disappointment, seemed far advanced towards its end in Martin's eyes--a journey whose brightest incidents, happiest places of rest, most precious companions were all left behind. This second death of hope aged the man in truth and sowed his hair with grey. Now only a melancholy memory of one very beautiful and very sad remained to him. Chris indeed promised to return, but he told himself that such a woman had never left an unhappy mother for such period of time if power to come home still belonged to her. Then, surveying the past, he taxed himself heavily with a deliberate and cruel share in it. Why had he taken the advice of Blanchard and delayed his offer of work to Hicks? He told himself that it was because he knew such a step would definitely deprive him of Chris for ever; and therein he charged himself with offences that his nature was above committing. Then he burst into bitter blame of Will, and at a weak moment--for nothing is weaker than the rare weakness of a strong man--he childishly upbraided the farmer with that fateful advice concerning Clement, and called down upon his head deep censure for the subsequent catastrophe. Will, as may be imagined, proved not slow to resent such an attack with heart and voice. A great heat of vain recrimination followed, and the men broke into open strife.

Sick with himself at this pitiable lapse, shaken in his self-respect, desolate, unsettled, and uncertain of the very foundations on which he had hitherto planted his life, the elder man existed through a black month, then braced himself again, looked out into the world, set his dusty desk in order, and sought once more amidst the relics of the past for comfort and consolation. He threw himself upon his book and told himself that it must surely reward his pains; he toiled mightily at his lonely task, and added a little to man's knowledge.

Once it happened that the Rev. Shorto-Champernowne met Martin. Riding over the Moor after a visit to his clerical colleague of Gidleigh, the clergyman trotted through Scorhill Circle, above northern Teign, and seeing a well-known paris.h.i.+oner, drew up a while.

"How prosper your profound studies?" he inquired. "Do these evidences of aboriginal races lead you to any conclusions of note? For my part, I am not wholly devoid of suspicion that a man might better employ his time, though I should not presume to make any such suggestion to you."

"You may be right; but one is generally unwise to stamp on his ruling pa.s.sion if it takes him along an intellectual road. These cryptic stones are my life. I want to get the secret of them or find at least a little of it. What are these lonely rings? Where are we standing now? In a place of wors.h.i.+p, where men prayed to the thunder and the sun and stars?

Or a council chamber? Or a court of justice, that has seen many a doom p.r.o.nounced, much red blood flow? Or is it a grave? 'T is the fas.h.i.+on to reject the notion that they represent any religious purpose; yet I cannot see any argument against the theory. I go on peeping and prying after a spark of truth. I probe here, and in the fallen circle yonder towards Cosdon; I follow the stone rows to Fernworthy; I trudge again and again to the Grey Wethers--that shattered double ring on Sittaford Tor. I eat them up with my eyes and repeople the heath with those who raised them. Some clay a gleam of light may come. And if it does, it will reach me through deep study on those stone men of old. It is along the human side of my investigations I shall learn, if I learn anything at all."

"I hope you may achieve your purpose, though the memoranda and data are scanty. Your name is mentioned in the _Western Morning News_ as a painstaking inquirer."

"Yet when theories demand proof--that's the rub!"

"Yes, indeed. You are a knight of forlorn hopes, Grimbal," answered the Vicar, alluding to Martin's past search for Chris as much as to his present archaeologic ambitions. Then he trotted on over the river, and the pedestrian remained as before seated upon a rec.u.mbent stone in the midst of the circle of Scorhill. Silent he sat and gazed into the lichens of grey and gold that crowned each rude pillar of the lonely ring. These, as it seemed, were the very eyes of the granite, but to Martin they represented but the cloak of yesterday, beneath which centuries of secrets were hidden. Only the stones and the eternal west wind, that had seen them set up and still blew over them, could tell him anything he sought to know.

"A Knight of Forlorn Hopes," mused the man. "So it is, so it is. The gra.s.shopper, rattling his little kettledrum there, knows nearly as much of this h.o.a.ry secret as I do; and the bird, that prunes his wing on the porphyry, and is gone again. Not till some d.a.m.nonian spirit rises from the barrow, not till some chieftain of these vanished hosts shall take shape out of the mists and speak, may we glean a grain of this buried knowledge. And who to-day would believe ten thousand d.a.m.nonian ghosts, if they stirred here once again and thronged the Moor and the moss and the ruined stone villages with their moonbeam shapes?

"Gone for ever; and she--my Chris--my dear--is she to dwell in the darkness for all time, too? O G.o.d, I would rather hear one whisper of her voice, feel one touch of her brown hand, than learn the primal truth of every dumb stone wonder in the world!"

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING THE GATE-POST

So that good store of roots and hay continue for the cattle during those months of early spring while yet the Moor is barren; so that the potato-patch prospers and the oats ripen well; so that neither pony nor bullock is lost in the shaking bogs, and late summer is dry enough to allow of ample peat-storing--when all these conditions prevail, your moorman counts his year a fat one. The upland farmers of Devon are in great measure armed against the bolts of chance by the nature of their lives, the grey character of even their most cheerful experiences and the poverty of their highest ambitions. Their aspirations, becoming speedily cowed by ill-requited toil and eternal hards.h.i.+p, quickly dwarf and shrink, until even the most sanguine seldom extend hope much beyond necessity.

Will grumbled, growled, and fought on, while Phoebe, who knew how n.o.bly the valleys repaid husbandry, mourned in secret that his energetic labours here could but produce such meagre results. Very gradually their environment stamped its frosty seal on man and woman; and by the time that little Will was two years old his parents viewed life, its good and its evil, much as other Moor folks contemplated it. Phoebe's heart was still sweet enough, but she grew more selfish for herself and her own, more self-centred in great Will and little Will. They filled her existence to the gradual exclusion of wider sympathies. Miller Lyddon had given his grandson a silver mug on the day he was baptised, though since that time the old man held more aloof from the life of Newtake than Phoebe understood. Sometimes she wondered that he had never offered to a.s.sist her husband practically, but Will much resented the suggestion when Phoebe submitted it to him. There was no need for any such thing, he declared. As for him, transitory ambitions and hopes gleamed up in his career as formerly, though less often. So man and wife found their larger natures somewhat crushed by the various immediate problems that each day brought along with it. Beyond the narrow horizon of their own concerns they rarely looked, and Chagford people, noting the change, declared that life at Newtake was tying their tongues and lining their foreheads. Will certainly grew more taciturn, less free of advice, perhaps less frank than formerly. A sort of strangeness shadowed him, and only his mother or his son could dispel it. The latter soon learnt to understand his father's many moods, and would laugh or cry, show joy or fear, according to the tune of the man's voice.