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Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

E >> Eden Phillpotts >> Children of the Mist




"Say the word and do a wise thing," he urged. "Say the word, Mary, an'
think o' me here as master, a-keeping all your damn relations off by
word of command."

She laughed.

"When I be gone you'll see some sour looks, I reckon."

"Nothing doan't matter then; 't is while you 'm here I'd protect 'e
'gainst 'em. Look, see! ban't often I goes down on my knees, 'cause a
man risin' in years, same as me, can pray to God more dignified sittin';
but now I will." He slid gingerly down, and only a tremor showed the
stab his gallantry cost him.

"You 'm a masterful auld shaver, sure 'nough!" said Mrs. Coomstock,
regarding Billy with a look half fish like, half affectionate.

"Rise me up, then," he said. "Rise me up, an' do it quick. If you love
me, as I see you do by the faace of you, rise me up, Mary, an' say the
word wance for all time. I'll be a gude husband to 'e an' you'll bless
the day you took me, though I sez it as shouldn't."

She allowed her fat left hand, with the late Mr. Coomstock's
wedding-ring almost buried in her third finger, to remain with Billy's;
and by the aid of it and the sofa he now got on his legs again. Then he
sat down beside her once more and courageously set his yellow muzzle
against her red cheek. The widow remained passive under this caress, and
Mr. Blee, having kissed her thrice, rubbed his mouth and spoke.

"Theer! 'T is signed and sealed, an' I'll have no drawin' back now."

"But--but--Lezzard, Billy. I do like 'e--I caan't hide it from 'e, try
as I will--but him--"

"I knawed he was t'other. I tell you, forget un. His marryin' days be
awver. Dammy, the man's 'most chuckle headed wi' age! Let un go his way
an' say his prayers 'gainst the trump o' God. An' it'll take un his time
to pass Peter when all 's done--a bad auld chap in his day. Not that I'd
soil your ears with it."

"He said much the same 'bout you. When you was at Drewsteignton, twenty
year agone--"

"A lie--a wicked, strammin', gert lie, with no more truth to it than a
auld song! He 'm a venomous beast to call home such a thing arter all
these years."

"If I did take 'e, you'd be a gude an' faithful husband, Billy, not a
gad-about?"

"Cut my legs off if I go gaddin' further than to do your errands."

"An' you'll keep these here buzzin' parties off me? Cuss 'em! They make
my life a burden."

"Doan't fear that. I'll larn 'em!"

"Theer 's awnly wan I can bide of the whole lot--an' that's my awn
nephew, Clem Hicks. He'll drink his drop o' liquor an' keep his mouth
shut, an' listen to me a-talkin' as a young man should. T'others are
allus yelpin' out how fond they be of me, and how they'd go to the
world's end for me. I hate the sight of 'em."

"A time-servin' crew, Mary; an' Clement Hicks no better 'n the rest,
mark my word, though your sister's son. 'T is cupboard love wi' all. But
money ban't nothin' to me. I've been well contented with enough all my
life, though 't is few can say with truth that enough satisfies 'em."

"Lezzard said money was nothin' to him neither, having plenty of his
awn. 'T was my pusson, not my pocket, as he'd falled in love with."

"Burnish it all! Theer 's a shameful speech! 'Your pusson'! Him! I'll
tell you what Lezzard is--just a damn evil disposition kep' in by skin
an' bones--that's Lezzard. 'Your pusson'!"

"I'm afraid I've encouraged him a little. You've been so backward in
mentioning the subject of late. But I'm sure I didn't knaw as he'd got a
evil disposition."

"Well, 't is so. An' 't is awnly your bigness of heart, as wouldn't
hurt a beetle, makes you speak kind of the boozy auld sweep. I'll soon
shaw un wheer he's out if he thinks you 'm tinkering arter him!"

"He couldn't bring an action for breach, or anything o' that, could he?"

"At his time of life! What Justice would give ear to un? An' the shame
of it!"

"Perhaps he misunderstood. You men jump so at a conclusion."

"Leave that to me. I'll clear his brains double-quick; aye, an' make un
jump for somethin'!"

"Then I suppose it's got to be. I'm yourn, Billy, an' theer needn't be
any long waitin' neither. To think of another weddin' an' another
husband! Just a drop or I shall cry. It's such a supporting thing to a
lone female."

Whether Mrs. Coomstock meant marriage or Plymouth gin, Billy did not
stop to inquire. He helped her, filled Lezzard's empty glass for
himself, and then, finding his future wife thick of speech, bleared of
eye, and evidently disposed to slumber, he departed and left her to
sleep off her varied emotions.

"I'll mighty soon change all that," thought Mr. Blee. "To note a fine
woman in liquor 's the frightfullest sight in all nature, so to say. Not
but what with Lezzard a-pawin' of her 't was enough to drive her to it."

That night the lover announced his triumph, whereon Phoebe congratulated
him and Miller Lyddon shook his head.

"'T is an awful experiment, Billy, at your age," he declared.

"Why, so 't is; but I've weighed the subject in my mind for years and
years, an 't wasn't till Mary Coomstock comed to be widowed that I
thought I'd found the woman at last. 'T was lookin' tremendous high, I
knaw, but theer 't is; she'll have me. She 'm no young giglet neither,
as would lead me a devil's dance, but a pusson in full blooth with ripe
mind."

"She drinks. I doan't want to hurt your feelings; but everybody says it
is so," declared the miller.

"What everybody sez, nobody did ought to believe," returned Mr. Blee
stoutly. "She 'm a gude, lonely sawl, as wants a man round the house to
keep off her relations, same as us has a dog to keep down varmints in
general. Theer 's the Hickses, an' Chowns, an' Coomstocks all a-stickin'
up theer tails an' a-purrin' an' a-rubbin' theerselves against the
door-posts of the plaace like cats what smells feesh. I won't have none
of it. I'll dwell along wi' she an' play a husband's part, an' comfort
the decline of her like a man, I warn 'e."

"Why, Mrs. Coomstock 's not so auld as all that, Billy," said Phoebe.
"Chris has often told me she's only sixty-two or three."

But he shook his head.

"Ban't a subject for a loving man to say much on, awnly truth 's truth.
I seed it written in the Coomstock Bible wan day. Fifty-five she were
when she married first. Well, ban't in reason she twald the naked truth
'bout it, an' who'd blame her on such a delicate point? No, I'd judge
her as near my awn age as possible; an' to speak truth, not so well
preserved as what I be."

"How's Monks Barton gwaine to fare without 'e, Blee?" whined the miller.

"As to that, be gormed if I knaw how I'll fare wi'out the farm. But
love--well, theer 't is. Theer 's money to it, I knaw, but what do that
signify? Nothin' to me. You'll see me frequent as I ride here an'
theer--horse, saddle, stirrups, an' all complete; though God He knaws
wheer my knees'll go when my boots be fixed in stirrups. But a man must
use 'em if theer 's the dignity of money to be kept up. 'T is just wan
of them oncomfortable things riches brings with it."

While Miller Lyddon still argued with Billy against the step he now
designed, there arrived from Chagford the stout Mr. Chappie, with his
mouth full of news.

"More weddin's," he said. "I comed down-long to tell 'e, lest you
shouldn't knaw till to-morrow an' so fall behind the times. Widow
Coomstock 's thrawed up the sponge and gived herself to that
importuneous auld Lezzard. To think o' such a Methuselah as him--aulder
than the century--fillin' the eye o' that full-bodied--"

"It's a black lie--blacker 'n hell--an' if't was anybody but you brought
the news I'd hit un awver the jaw!" burst out Mr. Blee, in a fury.

"He tawld me hisself. He's tellin' everybody hisself. It comed to a
climax to-day. The auld bird's hoppin' all awver the village so proud as
a jackdaw as have stole a shiny button. He'm bustin' wi' it in fact."

"I'll bust un! An' his news, tu. An' you can say, when you'm axed, 't is
the foulest lie ever falled out of wicked lips."

Billy now took his hat and stick from their corner and marched to the
door without more words.

"No violence, mind now, no violence," begged Mr. Lyddon. "This
love-making 's like to wreck the end of my life, wan way or another,
yet. 'T is bad enough with the young; but when it comes to auld,
bald-headed fules like you an' Lezzard--"

"As to violence, I wouldn't touch un wi' the end of a dung-fork--I
wouldn't. But I'm gwaine to lay his lie wance an' for all. I be off to
parson this instant moment. An' when my banns of marriage be hollered
out next Sunday marnin', then us'll knaw who 'm gwaine to marry Mother
Coomstock an' who ban't. I can work out my awn salvation wi' fear an'
tremblin' so well as any other man; an' you'll see what that
God-forsaken auld piece looks like come Sunday when he hears what's done
an' caan't do nought but just swallow his gall an' chew 'pon it."




CHAPTER VIII

MR. BLEE FORGETS HIMSELF


The Rev. James Shorto-Champernowne made no difficulty about Billy's
banns of marriage, although he doubtless held a private opinion upon the
wisdom of such a step, and also knew that Mrs. Coomstock was now a very
different woman from the sextoness of former days. He expressed a hope,
however, that Mr. Blee would make his future wife become a regular
church-goer again after the ceremony; and Billy took it upon himself to
promise as much for her. There the matter ended until the following
Sunday, when a sensation, unparalleled in the archives of St. Michael's,
awaited the morning worshippers.

Under chiming of bells the customary congregation arrived, and a
perceptible wave of sensation swept from pew to pew at the appearance of
more than one unfamiliar face. Of regular attendants we may note Mrs.
Blanchard and Chris, Martin Grimbal, Mr. Lyddon, and his daughter. Mr.
Blee usually sat towards the back of the church at a point immediately
behind those benches devoted to the boys. Here he kept perfect order
among the lads, and had done so for many years. Occasionally it became
necessary to turn a youngster out of church, and Billy's procedure at
such a time was masterly; but of opinion to-day that he was a public
character, he chose a more conspicuous position, and accepted Mr.
Lyddon's invitation to take a seat in the miller's own pew. He felt he
owed this prominence, not only to himself, but to Mrs. Coomstock. She,
good soul, had been somewhat evasive and indefinite in her manner since
accepting Billy, and her condition of nerves on Sunday morning proved
such that she found herself quite unable to attend the house of prayer,
although she had promised to do so. She sent her two servants, however,
and, spending the time in private between spirtual and spirituous
consolations of Bible and bottle, the widow soon passed into a temporary
exaltation ending in unconsciousness. Thus her maids found her on
returning from church.

Excitement within the holy edifice reached fever-heat when a most
unwonted worshipper appeared in the venerable shape of Mr. Lezzard. He
was supported by his married daughter and his grandson. They sought and
found a very prominent position under the lectern, and it was
immediately apparent that no mere conventional attendance for the
purpose of praising their Maker had drawn Mr. Lezzard and his relations.
Indeed he had long been of the Baptist party, though it derived but
little lustre from him. Much whispering passed among the trio. Then his
daughter, having found the place she sought in a prayer-book, handed it
to Mr. Lezzard, and he made a big cross in pencil upon the page and bent
the volume backwards so that its binding cracked very audibly. Gaffer
then looked about him with a boldness he was far from feeling; but the
spectacle of Mr. Blee, hard by, fortified his spirit. He glared across
the aisle and Billy glared back.

Then the bells stopped, the organ droned, and there came a clatter of
iron nails on the tiled floor. Boys and men proceeded to the choir
stalls and Mr. Shorto-Champernowne fluttered behind, with his sermon in
his hand. Like a stately galleon of the olden time he swept along the
aisle, then reached his place, cast one keen glance over the assembled
congregation, and slowly sinking upon his hassock enveloped his face and
whiskers in snowy lawn and prayed a while.

The service began and that critical moment after the second lesson was
reached with dreadful celerity. Doctor Parsons, having read a chapter
from the New Testament, which he emerged from the congregation to do,
and which he did ill, though he prided himself upon his elocution,
returned to his seat as the Vicar rose, adjusted his double eyeglasses
and gave out a notice as follows:

"I publish the banns of marriage between William Blee, Bachelor, and
Mary Coomstock, Widow, both of this parish. If any of you know cause, or
just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in
holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first time of
asking."

There was a momentary pause. Then, nudged by his daughter, who had grown
very pale, Gaffer Lezzard rose. His head shook and he presented the
appearance of a man upon the verge of palsy. He held up his hand,
struggled with his vocal organs and at last exploded these words,
sudden, tremulous, and shrill:

"I deny it an' I defy it! The wummon be mine!"

Mr. Lezzard succumbed instantly after this effort. Indeed, he went down
as though shot through the head. He wagged and gasped and whispered to
his grandson,--

"Wheer's the brandy to?"

Whereupon this boy produced a medicine bottle half full of spirits, and
his grandfather, with shaking fingers, removed the cork and drank the
contents. Meantime the Vicar had begun to speak; but he suffered another
interruption. Billy, tearing himself from the miller's restraining hand,
leapt to his feet, literally shaking with rage. He was dead to his
position, oblivious of every fact save that his banns of marriage had
been forbidden before the assembled Christians of Chagford. He had
waited to find a wife until he was sixty years old--for this!

"You--_you_ to do it! You to get up afore this rally o' gentlefolks an'
forbid my holy banns, you wrinkled, crinkled, baggering auld lizard!
Gormed if I doan't wring your--"

"Silence in the house of God!" thundered Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, with
tones so resonant that they woke rafter echoes the organ itself had
never roused. "Silence, and cease this sacrilegious brawling, or the
consequences will be unutterably serious! Let those involved," he
concluded more calmly, "appear before me in the vestry after divine
service is at an end."

Having frowned, in a very tragic manner, both on Mr. Blee and Mr.
Lezzard, the Vicar proceeded with the service; but though Gaffer
remained in his place Billy did not. He rose, jammed on his hat, glared
at everybody, and assumed an expression curiously similar to that of a
stone demon which grinned from the groining of two arches immediately
above him. He then departed, growling to himself and shaking his fists,
in another awful silence; for the Vicar ceased when he rose, and not
until Billy disappeared and his footfall was heard no more did the angry
clergyman proceed.

A buzz and hubbub, mostly of laughter, ascended when presently Mr.
Shorto-Champernowne's parishioners returned to the air; and any chance
spectator beholding them had certainly judged he stood before an
audience now dismissed from a theatre rather than the congregation of a
church.

"Glad Will weern't theer, I'm sure," said Mrs. Blanchard. "He'd 'a'
laughed out loud an' made bad worse. Chris did as 't was, awnly parson's
roarin' luckily drowned it. And Mr. Martin Grimbal, whose eye I catched,
was put to it to help smilin'."

"Ban't often he laughs, anyway," said Phoebe, who walked homewards with
her father and the Blanchards; whereon Chris, from being in a boisterous
vein of merriment, grew grave. Together all returned to the valley. Will
was due in half an hour from Newtake, and Phoebe, as a special favour,
had been permitted to dine at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage with her husband
and his family. Clement Hicks had also promised to be of the party; but
that was before the trouble of the previous week, and Chris knew he
would not come.

Meantime, Gaffer Lezzard, supported by two generations of his family,
explained his reasons for objecting to Mr. Blee's proposed marriage.

"Mrs. Coomstock be engaged, right and reg'lar, to me," he declared.
"She'd gived me her word 'fore ever Blee axed her. I seed her essterday,
to hear final 'pon the subjec', an' she tawld me straight, bein' sober
as you at the time, as 't was _me_ she wanted an' meant for to have. She
was excited t' other day an' not mistress of herself ezacally; an' the
crafty twoad took advantage of it, an' jawed, an' made her drink an'
drink till her didn't knaw what her was sayin' or doin'. But she'm mine,
an' she'll tell 'e same as what I do; so theer's an end on 't."

"I'll see Mrs. Coomstock," said the Vicar. "I, myself will visit her
to-morrow."

"Canst punish this man for tryin' to taake her from me?"

"Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge. For the
present I decline to say more upon the subject. If it were possible to
punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling
in the house of God. After an experience extending over forty years, I
may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying
spectacle."

So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock
passed through most painful experiences.

To the clergyman, with many sighs and tears, she explained that Mr.
Lezzard's character had been maligned by Mr. Blee, that before the
younger veteran she had almost feared for her life, and been driven to
accept him out of sheer terror at his importunity. But when facts came
to her ears afterwards, she found that Mr. Lezzard was in reality all he
had declared himself to be, and therefore returned to him, threw over
Mr. Blee, and begged the other to forbid the banns, if as she secretly
learnt, though not from Billy himself, they were to be called on that
Sunday. The poor woman's ears tingled under Mr. Shorto-Champernowne's
sonorous reproof; but he departed at last, and by the time that Billy
called, during the same day, she had imbibed Dutch courage sufficient to
face him and tell him she had changed her mind. She had erred--she
confessed it. She had been far from well at the time and, upon
reconsideration of the proposal, had felt she would never be able to
make Mr. Blee happy, or enjoy happiness with him.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Coomstock had accepted both suitors on one and
the same afternoon. First Gaffer, who had made repeated but rather vague
allusion to a sum of three hundred pounds in ready money, was taken
definitely; while upon his departure, the widow, only dimly conscious of
what was settled with her former admirer, said, "Yes" to Billy in his
turn. Had a third suitor called on that event-ful afternoon, it is quite
possible Mrs. Coomstock would have accepted him also.

The conversation with Mr. Blee was of short duration, and ended by
Billy calling down a comprehensive curse on the faithless one and
returning to Monks Barton. He had attached little importance to
Lezzard's public protest, upon subsequent consideration and after the
first shock of hearing it; but there was no possibility of doubting what
he now learned from Mrs. Coomstock's own lips. That she had in reality
changed her mind appeared only too certain.

So he went home again in the last extremity of fury, and Phoebe, who was
alone at the time, found herself swept by the hurricane of his wrath. He
entered snorting and puffing, flung his hat on the settle, his stick
into the corner; then, dropping into a seat by the fire, he began taking
off his gaiters with much snuffling and mumbling and repeated
inarticulate explosions of breath. This cat-like splutter always
indicated deep feeling in Mr. Blee, and Phoebe asked with concern what
was the matter now.

"Matter? Tchut--Tchut--Theer ban't no God--that's what's the matter!"

"Billy! How can you?"

"She'm gwaine to marry t'other, arter all! From her awn lips I've heard
it! That's what I get for being a church member from the womb! That's my
reward! God, indeed! Be them the ways o' a plain-dealin' God, who knaws
what's doin' in human hearts? No fay! Bunkum an' rot! I'll never lift my
voice in hymn nor psalm no more, nor pray a line o' prayer again. Who be
I to be treated like that? Drunken auld cat! I cussed her--I cussed her!
Wouldn't marry her now if she axed wi' her mouth in the dirt. Wheer's
justice to? Tell me that. Me in church, keepin' order 'mong the damn
boys generation arter generation, and him never inside the door since he
buried his wife. An' parson siding wi' un, I'll wager. Mother Coomstock
'll give un hell's delights, that's wan gude thought. A precious pair
of 'em! Tchut! Gar!"

"I doan't really think you could have loved Mrs. Coomstock overmuch,
Billy, if you can talk so ugly an' crooked 'bout her," said Phoebe.

"I did, I tell 'e--for years an' years. I went down on my knees to the
bitch--I wish I hadn't; I'll be sorry for that to my dying day. I kissed
her, tu,--s' elp me, I did. You mightn't think it, but I did--a faace
like a frost-bitten beetroot, as 't is!"

"Doan't 'e, please, say such horrible things. You must be wise about it.
You see, they say Mr. Lezzard has more money than you. At least, so Mrs.
Coomstock told her nephew, Clement Hicks. Every one of her relations is
savage about it."

"Well they may be. Why doan't they lock her up? If she ban't mad, nobody
ever was. 'Money'! Lezzard! Lying auld--auld--Tchut! Not money enough to
pay for a graave to hide his rotten bones, I lay. Oh, 't is enough
to--theer, what 's the use of talkin'? Tchut--Tchut!"

At this point Phoebe, fearing even greater extravagances in Mr. Blee's
language, left him to consider his misfortunes alone. Long he continued
in the profoundest indignation, and it was not until Miller Lyddon
returned, heard the news, and heartily congratulated Billy on a merciful
escape, that the old man grew a little calmer under his disappointment,
and moderated the bitterness and profanity of his remarks.




CHAPTER IX

A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY


Newtake Farm, by reason of Will's recent occupancy, could offer no very
considerable return during his first year as tenant; but that he
understood and accepted, and the tribulation which now fell upon him was
of his own making. To begin with, Sam Bonus vanished from the scene. On
learning, soon after the event, that Bonus had discussed Hicks and
himself at Chagford, and detailed his private conversation with Martin
Grimbal, Blanchard, in a fury, swept off to the loft where his man
slept, roused him from rest, threw down the balance of his wages, and
dismissed him on the spot. He would hear no word in explanation, and
having administered a passionate rebuke, departed as he had come, like a
whirlwind. Sam, smarting under this injustice, found the devil wake in
him through that sleepless night, and had there stood rick or stack
within reach of revenge, he might have dealt his master a return blow
before morning. As usual, after the lapse of hours, Will cooled down,
modified his first fiery indignation, and determined, yet without
changing his mind, to give Bonus an opportunity of explaining the thing
he had done. Chris had brought the news from Clement himself, and Will,
knowing that his personal relations with Clement were already strained,
felt that in justice to his servant he must be heard upon the question.
But, when he sought Sam Bonus, though still the dawn was only grey, he
found the world fuller for him by another enemy, for the man had taken
him at his word and departed. During that day and the next Will made
some effort to see Bonus, but nothing came of it, so, dismissing the
matter from his mind, he hired a new labourer--one Teddy Chown, son of
Abraham Chown, the Inspector of Police--and pursued his way.

Then his unbounded energy led him into difficulties of a graver sort.
Will had long cast covetous eyes on a tract of moorland immediately
adjoining Newtake, and there being little to do at the moment, he
conceived the adventurous design of reclaiming it. The patch was an acre
and a half in extent--a beggarly, barren region, where the heather
thinned away and the black earth shone with water and disintegrated
granite. Quartz particles glimmered over it; at the centre black pools
of stagnant water marked an abandoned peat cutting; any spot less
calculated to attract an agricultural eye would have been hard to
imagine; but Blanchard set to work, began to fill the greedy quag in the
midst with tons of soil, and soon caused the place to look
business-like--at least in his own estimation. As for the Duchy, he did
not trouble himself. The Duchy itself was always reclaiming land without
considering the rights and wrongs of the discontented Venville tenants,
and Will knew of many a "newtake" besides this he contemplated. Indeed,
had not the whole farm, of which he was now master, been rescued from
the Moor in time past? He worked hard, therefore, and his new assistant,
though not a Bonus, proved stout and active. Chris, who still dwelt with
her brother, was sworn to secrecy respecting Will's venture; and so
lonely a region did the farm occupy that not until he had put a good
month of work into the adjacent waste were any of those in authority
aware of the young farmer's performance.

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