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Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

E >> Eden Phillpotts >> Children of the Mist




In John Grimbal, newly come from South Africa, this scene awakened a
lively satisfaction and delight. It told him that he was home again; and
so did the girl, though it seemed absurd to think that Phoebe had ever
sat upon his knee and heard his big stories, when as yet he himself was
a boy and the world still spread before him unconquered. He mused at the
change and looked forward to bringing himself and his success in life
before those who had known him in the past. He very well remembered who
had encouraged his ambitions and spoken words of kindness and of hope;
who also had sneered, criticised his designs unfavourably, and thrown
cold water upon his projects. John Grimbal meant to make certain souls
smart as he had smarted; but he feared his brother a little in this
connection, and suspected that Martin would not assert himself among the
friends of his youth, would not assume a position his riches warranted,
would be content with too humble a manner of life.

As a matter of fact, the ambition of neither extended much beyond a life
of peace among the scenes of his childhood; but while the younger
traveller returned with unuttered thanksgivings in his heart that he was
privileged again to see the land he loved and henceforth dwell amid its
cherished scenes, the greater energy and wider ambition of his brother
planned a position of some prominence if not power. John was above all
else a sportsman, and his programme embraced land, a stout new
dwelling-house, preserves of game in a small way, some fishing, and the
formation of a new rifle-corps at Chagford. This last enterprise he
intended to be the serious business of life; but his mind was open to
any new, agreeable impressions and, indeed, it received them at every
turn. Phoebe Lyddon awoke a very vital train of thoughts, and when he
left her, promising to come with his brother on the following day to see
the miller, John Grimbal's impressionable heart was stamped with her
pretty image, his ear still held the melody of her voice.

He crossed the stepping-stones, sat down upon the bank to change his
flies, and looked at the home of Phoebe without sentiment, yet not
without pleasure. It lay all cuddled on the bosom of a green hill; to
the west stretched meadows and orchard along the winding valley of the
river; to the east extended more grass-land that emerged into ferny
coombs and glades and river dells, all alive with the light of wild
flowers and the music of birds, with the play of dusky sunshine in the
still water, and of shadows on the shore.

A little procession of white ducks sailed slowly up the river, and each
as it passed twisted its head to peer up at the spectator. Presently the
drake who led them touched bottom, and his red-gold webs appeared. Then
he paddled ashore, lifted up his voice, waggled his tail, and with a
crescendo of quacking conducted his harem into the farmyard. One lone
Muscovy duck, perchance emulating the holy men of old in their
self-communion, or else constrained by circumstance to a solitary life,
appeared apart on a little island under the alders. A stranger in a
strange land, he sat with bent head and red-rimmed, philosophic eyes,
regarding his own breast while sunset lights fired the metallic lustre
of his motley. Quite close to him a dead branch thrust upwards from the
water, and the river swirled in oily play of wrinkles and dimples beyond
it. Here, with some approach to his old skill, the angler presently cast
a small brown moth. It fell lightly and neatly, cocked for a second,
then turned helplessly over, wrecked in the sudden eddy as a natural
insect had been. A fearless rise followed, and in less than half a
minute a small trout was in the angler's net. John Grimbal landed this
little fish carefully and regarded it with huge satisfaction before
returning it to the river. Then, having accomplished the task set by
sudden desire,--to catch a Teign trout again, feel it, smell it, see
the ebony and crimson, the silver belly warming to gold on its sides and
darkening to brown and olive above,--having by this act renewed
sensations that had slept for fifteen years, he put up his rod and
returned to his temporary quarters at the dwelling of Mrs. Blanchard.

His brother was waiting in the little garden to welcome him. Martin
walked up and down, smelled the flowers, and gazed with sober delight
upon the surrounding scene. Already sunset fires had waned; but the high
top of the fir that crowned Rushford Bridge still glowed with a great
light on its red bark; an uprising Whiddon, where it lay afar off under
the crown of Cranbrook, likewise shone out above the shadowed valley.

Martin Grimbal approached his brother and laid his hand upon the
fisherman's arm. He stood the smaller in stature, though of strong
build. His clean-shaved face had burned much darker than John's; he was
indeed coffee-brown and might have been mistaken for an Indian but for
his eyes of ordinary slate-grey. Without any pretension to good looks,
Martin Grimbal displayed what was better--an expression of such frank
benignity and goodness that his kind trusted him and relied upon him by
intuition. Honest and true to the verge of quixotism was this man in all
dealings with his fellows, yet he proved a faulty student of character.
First he was in a measure blinded by his own amiable qualities to acute
knowledge of human nature; secondly, he was drawn away from humanity
rather than not, for no cynic reason, but by the character of his
personal predilections and pursuits.

"I've seen father's grave, John," were his first words to his brother.
"It's beside the mother's, but that old stone he put up to her must be
moved and--"

"All right, all right, old chap. Stones are in your line, not mine.
Where's dinner? I want bread, not a stone, eh?"

Martin did not laugh, but shrugged his shoulders in good-tempered
fashion. His face had a measure of distinction his brother's lacked, and
indeed, while wanting John's tremendous physical energy and robust
determination, he possessed a finer intellect and instinct less animal.
Even abroad, during their earlier enterprises, Martin had first provided
brains sufficient for himself and John; but an accident of fortune
suddenly favoured the elder; and while John took full care that Martin
should benefit with himself, he was pleased henceforth to read into his
superior luck a revelation of superior intelligence, and from that
moment followed his own inclinations and judgment. He liked Martin no
less, but never turned to him for counsel again after his own accidental
good fortune; and henceforward assumed an elder brother's manner and a
show of superior wisdom. In matters of the world and in knowledge of
such human character as shall be found to congregate in civilisation's
van, or where precious metals and precious stones have been discovered
to abound, John Grimbal was undoubtedly the shrewder, more experienced
man; and Martin felt very well content that his elder brother should
take the lead. Since the advent of their prosperity a lively gratitude
had animated his mind. The twain shared nothing save bonds of blood,
love of their native land, and parity of ambition, first manifested in
early desires to become independent. Together they had gone abroad,
together they returned; and now each according to his genius designed to
seek happiness where he expected to find it. John still held interests
in South Africa, but Martin, content with less fortune, and mighty
anxious to be free of all further business, realised his wealth and now
knew the limits of his income.

The brothers supped in good spirits and Will Blanchard's sister waited
upon them. Chris was her "brother in petticoats," people said, and
indeed she resembled him greatly in face and disposition. But her eyes
were brown, like her dead father's, and a gypsy splendour of black hair
crowned her head. She was a year younger than Will, wholly wrapped up in
him and one other.

A familiarity, shy on Martin's side and patronising in John, obtained
between the brothers and their pretty attendant, for she knew all about
them and the very cottage in which their parents had dwelt and died. The
girl came and went, answered John Grimbal's jests readily, and
ministered to them as one not inferior to those she served. The elder
man's blue eyes were full of earthy admiration. He picked his teeth
between the courses and admired aloud, while Chris was from the room.

"'Tis wonderful how pretty all the women look, coming back to them after
ten years of nigger girls. Roses and cream isn't in it with their skins,
though this one's dark as a clear night--Spanish fashion."

"Miss Blanchard seems very beautiful to me certainly," admitted Martin.

"I've seen only two maids--since setting foot in Chagford," continued
his brother, "and it would puzzle the devil to say which was best to
look at."

"Your heart will soon be lost, I'll wager--to a Chagford girl, I hope. I
know you talked about flying high, but you might be happier to take a
mate from--well, you understand."

"It's all very well to build theories on board ship about bettering
myself socially and all that, but it's rot; I'll be knocked over by one
of the country witches, I know I shall,--I feel it. I love the sound of
the Devon on their lips, and the clear eyes of them, and the bright
skin. 'Tis all I can do to keep from hugging the women, and that's a
fact. But you, you cold-blooded beggar, your heart's still for the grey
granite and the old ghostly stones, and creepy, lonely places on the
Moor! We're that different, you and me."

Martin nodded thoughtfully, and, the meal being now ended, both men
strolled out of doors, then wandered down to smoke a pipe on Rushford
Bridge and listen to the nightly murmur of the river. Darkness moved on
the face of land and water; twilight had sucked all the colour away from
the valley; and through the deepening monochrome of the murk there
passed white mists with shadowy hands, and peeped blind pale eyes along
the winding water, where its surface reflected the faded west. Nocturnal
magic conjured the least meadow into an unmeasured sea of vapour; awoke
naiads in the waters and dryads in the woods; transformed the solemn
organ music of great beetles into songs of a roaming spirit; set unseen
shapes stirring in the starlight; whispered of invisible, enchanted
things, happy and unhappy, behind the silence.

A man moved from the bridge as the brothers reached it. Then Will
Blanchard, knocking out his pipe and taking a big inspiration, set his
face steadily toward Monks Barton and that vital interview with Miller
Lyddon now standing in the pathway of his life.

He rapped at the farm door and a step came slowly down the stone-paved
passage. Then Billy Blee, the miller's right-hand man, opened to him.
Bent he was from the small of the back, with a highly coloured, much
wrinkled visage, and ginger hair, bleached by time to a paler shade. His
poll was bald and shining, and thick yellow whiskers met beneath a
clean-shorn chin. Billy's shaggy eyebrows, little bright eyes, and long
upper lip, taken with the tawny fringe under his chops, gave him the
look of an ancient and gigantic lion-monkey; and indeed there was not
lacking in him an ape-like twist, as shall appear.

"Hullo! boy Blanchard! An' what might you want?" he asked.

"To see Miller."

"Come in then; we'm all alone in kitchen, him and me, awver our grog and
game. What's the matter now?"

"A private word for Miller's ear," said Will cautiously.

"Come you in then. Us'll do what we may for 'e. Auld heads be the best
stepping-stones young folks can have, understood right; awnly the likes
of you mostly chooses to splash through life on your awn damn silly
roads."

Mr. Blee, whose friendship and familiarity with his master was of the
closest, led on, and Will soon stood before Mr. Lyddon.

The man who owned Monks Barton, and who there prosperously combined the
callings of farmer and miller, had long enjoyed the esteem of the
neighbourhood in which he dwelt, as had his ancestors before him,
through many generations. He had won reputation for a sort of silent
wisdom. He never advised any man ill, never hesitated to do a kindly
action, and himself contrived to prosper year in, year out, no matter
what period of depression might be passing over Chagford. Vincent Lyddon
was a widower of sixty-five--a grey, thin, tall man, slow of speech and
sleepy of eye. A weak mouth, and a high, round forehead, far smoother
than his age had promised, were distinguishing physical features of him.
His wife had been dead eighteen years, and of his two children one only
survived. The elder, a boy toddling in early childhood at the water's
edge, was unmissed until too late, and found drowned next day after a
terrible night of agony for both parents. Indeed, Mrs. Lyddon never
recovered from the shock, and Phoebe was but a year old when her mother
died. Further, it need only be mentioned that the miller had heard of
Will's courting more than once, but absolutely refused to allow the
matter serious consideration. The romance was no more than philandering
of children in his eyes.

"Will--eh? Well, my son, and how can I serve you?" asked the master of
Monks Barton, kindly enough. He recrossed his legs, settled in his
leather chair, and continued the smoking of a long clay pipe.

"Just this, Mr. Lyddon," began Will abruptly. "You calls me your 'son'
as a manner o' speech, but I wants to be no less in fact."

"You ban't here on that fool's errand, bwoy, surely? I thought I'd made
my mind clear enough to Phoebe six months ago."

"Look you here now. I be earnin' eighteen shillings a week an' a bit
awver; an' I be sure of Morgan's berth as head-keeper presently; an' I'm
a man as thinks."

"That's brave talk, but what have 'e saved, lad?" inquired Mr. Blee.

The lover looked round at him sharply.

"I thought you was out the room," he said. "I be come to talk to Miller,
not you."

"Nay, nay, Billy can stay and see I'm not tu hard 'pon 'e," declared Mr.
Lyddon. "He axed a proper question. What's put by to goody in the
savings' bank, Will?"

"Well--five pounds; and 't will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure
'e."

"Fi' puns! an' how far 's that gwaine?"

"So far as us can make it, in coourse."

"Doan't you see, sonny, this ban't a fair bargain? I'm not a hard man--"

"By gor! not hard enough by a powerful deal," said Billy.

"Not hard on youth; but this match, so to call it, looks like mere
moonshine. Theer 's nought _to_ it I can see--both childer, and neither
with as much sense as might sink a floatin' straw."

"We love each other wi' all our hearts and have done more 'n half a
year. Ban't that nothing?"

"I married when I was forty-two," remarked the miller, reflectively,
looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe's fingers.

"An' a purty marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he
continued, "parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet."

"Not but Widow Comstock will have 'e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all
knows that," said the young lover, with great stratagem.

Billy chuckled, and rubbed his wrinkles.

"Time enough, time enough," he answered, "but you--scarce out o'
clouts--why, 't is playin' at a holy thing, that's what 't is--same as
Miss Phoebe, when she was a li'l wee cheel, played at bein' parson in
her night-gownd, and got welted for it, tu, by her gude faither."

"We 'm both in earnest anyway--me and Phoebe."

"So am I," replied the miller, sitting up and putting down his pipe; "so
am I in earnest, and wan word 's gude as a hunderd in a pass like this.
You must hear the truth, an' that never broke no bones. You 'm no more
fitted to have a wife than that tobacco-jar--a hot-headed, wild-fire of
a bwoy--"

"A right Jack-o'-Lantern, as everybody knaws," suggested Mr. Blee.

"Ess fay, 'tis truth. Shifting and oncertain as the marsh gallopers on
the moor bogs of a summer night. Awnly a youth's faults, you mind; but
still faults. No, no, my lad, you've got to fight your life's battle and
win it, 'fore you'm a mate for any gal; an' you've got to begin by
fightin' yourself, an' breaking an' taming yourself, an' getting
yourself well in hand. That's a matter of more than months for the best
of us."

"And then?" said Will, "after 'tis done? though I'm not allowin' I'm
anything but a ripe man as I stand here afore you now."

"Then I'd say, 'I'm glad to see you grawed into a credit to us all, Will
Blanchard, and worth your place in the order o' things; but you doan't
marry Phoebe Lyddon--never, never, never, not while I'm above ground.'"

His slow eyes looked calmly and kindly at Will, and he smiled into the
hot, young, furious face.

"That's your last word then?"

"It is, my lad."

"And you won't give a reason?"

"The reason is, 'what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.' I
knawed your faither. You'm as volatile as him wi'out his better paarts."

"Leave him wheer he lies--underground. If he'd lived 'stead of bein' cut
off from life, you'd 'a' bin proud to knaw him."

"A gypsy-man and no better, Will," said Mr. Blee. "Not but what he made
a gude end, I allow."

"Then I'll be up and away. I've spoke 'e fair, Miller--fair an'
straight--an' so you to me. You won't allow this match. Then we'll wed
wi'out your blessin', an' sorry I shall be."

"If that's your tune, my young rascal, I'll speak again! Phoebe's under
age, remember that, and so sure as you dare take her a yard from her awn
door you'll suffer for it. 'Tis a clink job, you mind--a prison
business; and what's more, you 'm pleased to speak so plain that I will
tu, and tell 'e this. If you dare to lift up your eyes to my child
again, or stop her in the way, or have speech with her, I'll set
p'liceman 'pon 'e! For a year and more she 'm not her awn mistress; and,
at the end of that time, if she doan't get better sense than to tinker
arter a harum-scarum young jackanapes like you, she ban't a true Lyddon.
Now be off with 'e an' doan't dare to look same way Phoebe 's walkin',
no more, else theer'll be trouble for 'e."

"Wonnerful language, an' in a nutshell," commented Billy, as, blowing
rather hard, the miller made an end of his warning.

"Us'll leave it theer, then, Mr. Lyddon; and you'll live to be sorry
ever you said them words to me. Ess fay, you'll live to sing different;
for when two 's set 'pon a matter o' marryin', ban't fathers nor
mothers, nor yet angels, be gwaine to part 'em. Phoebe an' me will be
man an' wife some day, sure 's the sun 's brighter 'n the mune. So now
you knaw. Gude night to 'e."

He took up his hat and departed; Billy held up his hands in mute
amazement; but the miller showed no emotion and relighted his pipe.

"The rising generation do take my breath away twenty times a day," said
Mr. Blee. "To think o' that bwoy, in li'l frocks awnly yesterday,
standin' theer frontin' two aged men wi' such bouldacious language!"

"What would you do, Billy, if the gal was yourn?"

"Same as you, to a hair. Bid her drop the chap for gude 'n all. But
theer 's devil's pepper in that Blanchard. He ain't done with yet."

"Well, well, he won't shorten my sleep, I promise you. Near two years is
a long time to the young. Lord knaws wheer a light thing like him will
be blawed to, come two years. Time 's on my side for certain. And Phoebe
's like to change also."

"Why, a woman's mind 's no more 'n a feather in a gale of wind at her
time o' life; though to tell her so 's the sure way to make her
steadfast."

A moment later Phoebe herself entered. She had heard Will depart and
now, in a fever of impatience, crept with bright, questioning eyes to
her father's chair. Whereupon Mr. Blee withdrew in a violent hurry. No
one audibly desired him to do so, but a side-look from the girl was
enough.




CHAPTER III

EXIT WILL


Phoebe's conversation with her father occupied a space of time extending
over just two minutes. He met her eager eyes with a smile, patted her
head, pinched her ear, and by his manner awakened a delicious flutter of
hope in the girl before he spoke. When, therefore, Phoebe learned that
Will was sent about his business for ever, and must henceforth be wholly
dismissed from her mind, the shock and disappointment of such
intelligence came as a cruel blow. She stood silent and thunderstruck
before Miller Lyddon, a world of reproaches in her frightened eyes; then
mutely the corners of her little mouth sank as she turned away and
departed with her first great sorrow.

Phoebe's earliest frantic thought had been to fly to Will, but she knew
such a thing was impossible. There would surely be a letter from him on
the following morning hidden within their secret pillar-box between two
bricks of the mill wall. For that she must wait, and even in her misery
she was glad that with Will, not herself, lay decision as to future
action. She had expected some delay; she had believed that her father
would impose stern restrictions of time and make a variety of conditions
with her sweetheart; she had even hoped that Miller Lyddon might command
lengthened patience for the sake of her headstrong, erratic Will's
temper and character; but that he was to be banished in this crushing
and summary fashion overwhelmed Phoebe, and that utterly. Her nature,
however, was not one nourished from any very deep wells of character.
She belonged to a class who suffer bitterly enough under sorrow, but the
storm of it while tearing like a tropical tornado over heart and soul,
leaves no traces that lapse of time cannot wholly and speedily
obliterate. On them it may be said that fortune's sharpest strokes
inflict no lasting scars; their dispositions are happily powerless to
harbour the sustained agony that burrows and gnaws, poisons man's
estimate of all human affairs, wrecks the stores of his experience, and
stamps the cicatrix of a live, burning grief on brow and brain for ever.
They find their own misery sufficiently exalted; but their temperament
is unable to sustain a lifelong tribulation or elevate sorrow into
tragedy. And their state is the more blessed. So Phoebe watered her
couch with tears, prayed to God to hear her solemn promises of eternal
fidelity, then slept and passed into a brief dreamland beyond sorrow's
reach.

Meantime young Blanchard took his stormy heart into a night of stars.
The moon had risen; the sky was clear; the silvery silence remained
unbroken save for the sound of the river, where it flowed under the
shadows of great trees and beneath aerial bridges and banners of the
meadow mists. Will strode through this scene, past his mother's cottage,
and up a hill behind it, into the village. His mind presented in turn a
dozen courses of action, and each was built upon the abiding foundation
of Phoebe's sure faithfulness. That she would cling to him for ever the
young man knew right well; no thought of a rival, therefore, entered
into his calculations. The sole problem was how quickest to make Mr.
Lyddon change his mind; how best to order his future that the miller
should regard him as a responsible person, and one of weight in affairs.
Not that Will held himself a slight man by any means; but he felt that
he must straightway assert his individuality and convince the world in
general and Miller Lyddon in particular of faulty judgment. He was very
angry still as he retraced the recent conversation. Then, among those
various fancies and projects in his mind, the wildest and most foolish
stood out before him as both expedient and to be desired. His purpose in
Chagford was to get advice from another man; but before he reached the
village his own mind was established.

Slated and thatched roofs glimmered under moonlight, and already the
hamlet slept. A few cats crept like shadows through the deserted
streets, from darkness into light, from light back to darkness; and one
cottage window, before which Will Blanchard stood, still showed a candle
behind a white blind. Most quaint and ancient was this habitation--of
picturesque build, with tiny granite porch, small entrance, and
venerable thatches that hung low above the upper windows. A few tall
balsams quite served to fill the garden; indeed so small was it that
from the roadway young Blanchard, by bending over the wooden fence,
could easily reach the cottage window. This he did, tapped lightly, and
then waited for the door to be opened.

A man presently appeared and showed some surprise at the sight of his
late visitor.

"Let me in, Clem," said Will. "I knawed you'd be up, sitting readin'
and dreamin'. 'T is no dreamin' time for me though, by God! I be corned
straight from seeing Miller 'bout Phoebe."

"Then I can very well guess what was last in your ears."

Clement Hicks spoke in an educated voice. He was smaller than Will but
evidently older. Somewhat narrow of build and thin, he looked delicate,
though in reality wiry and sound. He was dark of complexion, wore his
hair long for a cottager, and kept both moustache and beard, though the
latter was very scant and showed the outline of his small chin through
it. A forehead remarkably lofty but not broad, mounted almost
perpendicularly above the man's eyes; and these were large and dark and
full of fire, though marred by a discontented expression. His mouth was
full-lipped, his other features huddled rather meanly together under the
high brow: but his face, while admittedly plain even to ugliness, was
not commonplace; for its eyes were remarkable, and the cast of thought
ennobled it as a whole.

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