Children of the Mist Part 22

"I be patient. It 'mazes me, looking back, to see what I have suffered in my time. But a man's a man, not a post or a holy angel. Us wouldn't hear such a deal about angels' tempers either if they'd got to faace all us have."

"That's profanity an' wickedness."

"'Tis truth. Any fule can be a saint inside heaven; an' them that was born theer and have flown 'bout theer all theer time, like birds in a wood, did ought to be even-tempered. What's to cross'em?"

"You shouldn't say such things!"

Suddenly a light came into his eyes.

"I doan't envy 'em anyway. Think what it must be never to have no mother to love 'e! They 'm poor, motherless twoads, for all their gold crowns an' purple wings."

"Will! whatever will 'e say next? Best go to Clem. An' forget what I spoke 'bout Martin Grimbal an' work. You was wiser'n me in that."

"I s'pose so. If a man ban't wiser 'n his sister, he's like to have poor speed in life," said Will.

Then he departed, but the events of that day were still very far from an end, and despite the warning of Chris, her brother soon stood on the verge of another quarrel. It needed little to wake fresh storms in his breast and he criticised Clement's reticence on the subject of his engagement in so dictatorial and hectoring a manner that the elder man quickly became incensed. They wrangled for half an hour, Hicks in satirical humour, Will loud with a.s.surances that he would have no underhand dealings where any member of his family was concerned. Clement presently watched the other tramp off, and in his mind was a dim thought. Could Blanchard forget the past so quickly? Did he recollect that he, Clement Hicks, shared knowledge of it? "He's a fool, whichever way you look at him," thought the poet; "but hardly such a fool as to forget that, or risk angering me of all men."

Later in the day Will called at a tap-room, drank half a pint of beer, and detailed his injuries for the benefit of those in the bar. He asked what man amongst them, situated as he had been, had acted otherwise; and a few, caring not a straw either way, declared he had showed good pluck and was to be commended; But the bulky Mr. Chapple--he who a.s.sisted Billy Blee in wa.s.sailing Miller Lyddon's apple-trees--stoutly criticised Will, and told him that his conduct was much to blame. The younger argued against this decision and explained, with the most luminous diction at his command, that 'twas in the offering of such a task to a penniless man its sting and offence appeared.

"He knawed I was at low ebb an' not able to pick an' choose. So he gives me a starvin' man's job. If I'd been in easy circ.u.mstances an' able to say 'Yes' or 'No' at choice, I'd never have blamed un."

"Nonsense and stuff!" declared Mr. Chapple. "Theer's not a shadow of shame in it."

"You'm Miller's friend, of coourse," said Will.

"'Tis so plain as a pike, I think!" squeaked a hare-lipped young man of weak intellect who was also present. "Blanchard be right for sartain."

"Theer! If soft Gurney sees my drift it must be pretty plain," said Will, in triumph.

"But as 'tis awnly him that does, lad," commented Mr. Chapple, drily, "caan't say you've got any call to be better pleased. Go you back an' do the job, like a wise man."

"I'd clear the peat out o' Cranmere Pool sooner!" said Will.

And he turned homewards again, wretched enough, yet fiercely prodding his temper when it flagged, and telling himself repeatedly that he had acted as became a man of spirit and of judgment. Then, upon a day sufficiently leaden and dreary until that moment, burst forth sudden splendours, and Will's life, from a standpoint of extreme sobriety in time, instantly pa.s.sed to rare brightness. Between the spot on the highway where Chris met him and his arrival at home, the youth enjoyed half a lifetime of glorious hopes and ambitions; but a cloud indeed shadowed all this overwhelming joy in that the event responsible for his change of fortune was itself sad.

While yet twenty yards from her brother Chris cried the news to him.

"He's dead--Uncle--he went quite sudden at the end; an' he'm to lie to Chagford wi' gran'faither an' gran'mother."

"Dead! My G.o.d! An' I never seed un more! The best friend to me ever I had--leastways I thought so till this marnin'."

"You may think so still."

"Ess, so I do. A kind man inside his skin. I knawed un better'n most people--an' he meant well when he married me, out of pure love to us both."

"He's left n.o.body no money but Mrs. Watson and you."

"If 'tis five pound, 'tis welcome to-day; an' if 'tis five s.h.i.+llin', I'll thank un an' spend it 'pon a ring to wear for un. He was a gude auld blid, an' I'm sorry he's gone."

"Will, Uncle's left 'e a thousand pound!"

"What! You'm jokin'."

"Solemn truth. 'Tis in mother's letter."

A rush of joy lighted up the young man's face. He said not a word; then his eyes grew moist.

"To think as he could have loved a daft fule like me so well as that!

Me--that never done nothin'--no, not so much as to catch a dish of trout for un, now an' again, when he was here."

"You couldn't, bein' water-keeper."

"What matter for that? I ought to have poached for un, seein' the manner of man he was."

He kept silence for a while, then burst out--

"I'll buy the braavest marble stone can be cut. n.o.body shall do it but me, wi' doves or anchors or some such thing on it, to make it a fine sight so long as the world goes on."

"Theer's plenty room 'pon the auld slate, for that matter," said Chris.

"d.a.m.n the auld slate! The man shall have white marble carvings, I tell 'e, if I've got to spend half the money buying 'em. He b'lieved in me; he knawed I'd come to gude; an' I'm grateful to un."

During the evening Will was unusually silent and much busied with thought. He knew little of the value of money, and a thousand pounds to his mind represented possibilities wholly beyond the real power of that sum to achieve. Chris presently visited the vicarage, and after their supper, brother and sister sat late and discussed the days to come. When the girl retired, Will's thoughts for a moment concerned themselves with the immediate past rather than the future; and then it was that he caught himself blankly before his own argument of the morning. To him the force of the contention, now that his position was magically changed, appeared strong as before. A little sophistry had doubtless extricated him from this dilemma, but his nature was innocent of it, and his face grew longer as the conclusion confronting him became more clear. From his own logic--a mysterious abstraction, doubtless--he found it difficult to escape without loss of self-respect. He still held that the deed, impossible to him as a pauper, might be performed without sacrifice of dignity or importance by a man of his present fortune. So the muddle-headed youth saw his duty straight ahead of him; and he regretted it heartily, but did not attempt to escape from it.

Ten minutes later, in his working clothes, he set out to Monks Barton, carrying an old horn lantern that had swung behind his father's caravan twenty years before. At the farm all lights were out save one in the kitchen; but Will went about his business as silently as possible, and presently found the spade where he had flung it, the barrow where he had overthrown it in the morning. So he set to work, his pipe under his nose, his thoughts afar off in a golden paradise built of Uncle Ford's sovereigns.

Billy Blee, whose attic window faced out upon the northern side of the farm, had gone to bed, but he was still awake, and the grunt of a wheelbarrow quickly roused him. Gazing into the night he guessed what was doing, dragged on his trousers, and hurried down-stairs to his master.

The miller sat with his head on his hand. His pipe was out and the "night-cap" Phoebe had mixed for him long ago, remained untasted.

"Guy Fawkes an 'angels! here's a thing! If that Jack-o'-lantern of a bwoy ban't back again. He'm delvin' theer, for all the world like a hobgoblin demon, red as blood in the flicker of the light. I fancied't was the Dowl hisself. But 't is Blanchard, sure. Theer's some dark thought under it, I'll lay, or else he wants to come around 'e again."

His master doubted not that Billy was dreaming, but he went aloft and looked to convince himself. In silence and darkness they watched Will at work. Then Mr. Blee asked a question as the miller turned to go.

"What in thunder do it mean?"

"G.o.d knaws, I doan't. The man or bwoy, or whatever you call un, beats me. I ban't built to tackle such a piece as him. He's took a year off my life to-day. Go to your bed, Billy, an' let un bide."

"Gormed if I wouldn't like to slip down an' scat un ower the head for what he done to me this marnin'. Such an auld man as me, tu! weak in the hams this ten year."

"But strong in the speech. Maybe you p.r.i.c.ked him with a bitter word, an'--theer, theer, if I ban't standin' up for the chap now! Yet if I've wished un dead wance, I have fifty times since I first heard tell of un.

Get to bed. I s'pose us'll knaw his drift come to-morrow."

Mr. Lyddon and Billy retired, and both slept ere Will Blanchard's work was done. Upon its completion he sought the cold nocturnal waters of the river, and then did a thing he had planned an hour before. Entering the farmyard, he flung a small stone at Phoebe's window in the thatch, then another. But the first had roused his wife, for she lay above in wakefulness and sorrow. She peeped out, saw Blanchard, knew him in the lantern light, and opened the window.

"Will, my awn Will!" she said, with a throbbing voice.

"Ess fay, lovey! I knawed you'd sleep sweeter for hearin' tell I've done the work."