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Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

E >> Eden Phillpotts >> Children of the Mist




"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 circumstance, but generally
allowed, that humans are the awnly creatures o' God 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 God 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 shillin' 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 God! 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 God
'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 parishioner, 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
passion 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 worship, 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
pronounced, much red blood flow? Or is it a grave? 'T is the fashion 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 recumbent 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
grasshopper, rattling his little kettledrum there, knows nearly as much
of this hoary secret as I do; and the bird, that prunes his wing on the
porphyry, and is gone again. Not till some Damnonian 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 Damnonian 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 God, 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 hardship, 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 nobly
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 assist 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.

There came an evening in mid-September when Will sat at the open hearth
and smoked, with his eyes fixed on a fire of scads.[13] He remained very
silent, and Phoebe, busy about a small coat of red cloth, to keep the
cold from her little son's bones during the coming winter, knew that it
was not one of her husband's happiest evenings. His eyes were looking
through the fire and the wall behind it, through the wastes and
wildernesses beyond, through the granite hills to the far-away edge of
the world, where Fate sat spinning the threads of the lives of his loved
ones. Threads they looked, in his gloomy survey of that night, much
deformed with knot and tangle, for the Spinner cared nothing at all
about them. She suffered each to wind heedlessly away; she minded not
that they were ugly; she spared no strand of gold or silver from her
skein of human happiness to brighten the grey fabric of them. So it
seemed to Will, and his temper chimed with the rough night. The wind
howled and growled down the chimney, uttered many a sudden yell and
ghostly moan, struck with claws invisible at the glowing heart of the
peat fire, and sent red sparks dancing from a corona of faint blue
flame.


[13] _Scad_ = the outer rind of the peat, with ling and grass
still adhering to it.


"Winter's comin' quick," said Phoebe, biting her thread.

"Ess, winter's allus comin' up here. The fight begins again so soon as
ever 't is awver--again and again and again, 'cordin' to the workin'
years of a man's life. Then he turns on his back for gude an' all, an'
takes his rest, wheer theer's no more seasons, nor frost, nor sunshine,
in the world under."

"You'm glumpy, dear heart. What's amiss? What's crossed 'e? Tell me, an'
I lay I'll find a word to smooth it away. Nothin' contrary happened to
market?"

"No, no--awnly my nature. When the wind's spelling winter in the
chimbley, an' the yether's dead again, 't is wisht lookin' forrard. The
airth 's allus dyin', an' the life of her be that short, an' grubbing of
bare food an' rent out of her is sour work after many years. Thank God
I'm a hopeful, far-seem' chap, an' sound as a bell; but I doan't make
money for all my sweat, that's the mystery."

"You will some day. Luck be gwaine to turn 'fore long, I hope. An' us
have got what's better 'n money, what caan't be bought."

"The li'l bwoy?"

"Aye; if us hadn't nothin' but him, theer's many would envy our lot."

"Childer's no such gert blessin', neither."

"Will! How can you say it?"

"I do say it. We 'm awnly used to keep up the breed, then thrawed o' wan
side. I'm sick o' men an' women folks. Theer's too many of 'em."

"But childer--our li'l Will. The moosic of un be sweeter than song o'
birds all times, an' you'd be fust to say so if you wasn't out of
yourself."

"He 'm a braave, small lad enough; but theer again! Why should he have
been pitched into this here home? He might have been put in a palace
just as easy, an' born of a royal queen mother, 'stead o' you; he might
have opened his eyes 'pon marble walls an' jewels an' precious stones,
'stead of whitewash an' a peat fire. Be that baaby gwaine to thank us
for bringing him in the world, come he graw up? Not him! Why should he?"

"But he will. We 'm his faither an' mother. Do 'e love your mother less
for bearin' you in a gypsy van? Li'l Will's to pay us noble for all our
toil some day, an' be a joy to our grey hairs an' a prop to our auld
age, please God."

"Ha, ha!--story-books! Gi' me a cup o' milk; then us'll go to bed."

She obeyed; he piled turf upon the hearth, to keep the fire alight until
morning, then took up the candle and followed Phoebe through another
chamber, half-scullery, half-storehouse, into which descended the
staircase from above. Here hung the pale carcase of a newly slain pig,
suspended by its hind legs from a loop in the ceiling; and Phoebe, many
of whose little delicacies of manner had vanished of late, patted the
carcase lovingly, like the good farmer's wife she was.

"Wish theer was more so big in the sties," she said.

Arrived at her bedside, the woman prayed before sinking to rest within
reach of her child's cot; while Will, troubling Heaven with no petition
or thanksgiving, was in bed five minutes sooner than his wife.

"Gude-night, lad," said Phoebe, as she put the candle out, but her
husband only returned an inarticulate grunt for answer, being already
within the portal of sleep.

A fair morning followed on the tempestuous night, and Winter, who had
surely whispered her coming under the darkness, vanished again at dawn.
The Moor still provided forage, but all light was gone out of the
heather, though the standing fern shone yellow under the sun, and the
recumbent bracken shed a rich russet in broad patches over the dewy
green where Will had chopped it down and left it to dry for winter
fodder. He was very late this year in stacking the fern, and designed
that labour for his morning's occupation.

Ted Chown chanced to be away for a week's holiday, so Will entered his
farmyard early. The variable weather of his mind rarely stood for long
at storm, but, unlike the morning, he had awakened in no happy mood.

A child's voice served for a time to smooth his brow, now clouded from
survey of a broken spring in his market-cart; then came the lesser Will
with a small china mug for his morning drink. Phoebe watched him
sturdily tramp across the yard, and the greater Will laughed to see his
son's alarm before the sudden stampede of a belated heifer, which now
hastened through the open gate to join its companions on the hillside.

"Cooshey, cooshey won't hurt 'e, my li'l bud!" cried Phoebe, as Ship
jumped and barked at the lumbering beast. Then the child doubled round a
dung-heap and fled to his father's arms. From the byre a cow with a full
udder softly lowed, and now small Will had a cup of warm milk; then,
with his red mouth like a rosebud in mist and his father's smile
magically and laughably reproduced upon his little face, he trotted back
to his mother.

A moment later Will, still milking, heard himself loudly called from the
gate. The voice he knew well enough, but it was pitched unusually high,
and denoted a condition of excitement and impatience very seldom to be
met with in its possessor. Martin Grimbal, for it was he, did not
observe Blanchard, as the farmer emerged from the byre. His eye was bent
in startled and critical scrutiny of a granite post, to which the front
gate of Newtake latched, and he continued shouting aloud until Will
stood beside him. Then he appeared on his hands and knees beside the
gate-post. He had flung down his stick and satchel; his mouth was
slightly open; his cap rested on the side of his head; his face seemed
transfigured before some overwhelming discovery.

Relations were still strained between these men; and Will did not forget
the fact, though it had evidently escaped Martin in his present
excitement.

"What the deuce be doin' now?" asked Blanchard abruptly.

"Man alive! A marvel! Look here--to think I have passed this stone a
hundred times and never noticed!"

He rose, brushed his muddy knees, still gazing at the gate-post, then
took a trowel from his bag and began to cut away the turf about the base
of it.

"Let that bide!" called out the master sharply. "What be 'bout, delving
theer?"

"I forgot you didn't know. I was coming to see you on my way to the
Moor. I wanted a drink and a handshake. We mustn't be enemies, and I'm
heartily sorry for what I said--heartily. But here's a fitting object to
build new friendship on. I just caught sight of the incisions through a
fortunate gleam of early morning light. Come this side and see for
yourself. To think you had what a moorman would reckon good fortune at
your gate and never guessed it!"

"Fortune at my gate? Wheer to? I aint heard nothin' of it."

"Here, man, here! D' you see this post?"

"Not bein' blind, I do."

"Yet you were blind, and so was I. There 's excuse for you--none for me.
It's a cross! Yes, a priceless old Christian cross, buried here head
downward by some profane soul in the distant past, who found it of size
and shape to make a gate-post. They are common enough in Cornwall, but
very rare in Devon. It's a great--a remarkable discovery in fact, and
I'm right glad I found it on your threshold; for we may be friends again
beside this symbol fittingly enough--eh, Will?"

"Bother your rot," answered the other coldly, and quite unimpassioned
before Martin's eloquence. "You doubted my judgment not long since and
said hard things and bad things; now I take leave to doubt yours. How do
'e knaw this here 's a cross any more than t' other post the gate hangs
on?"

Martin, recalled to reality and the presence of a man till then
unfriendly, blushed and shrank into himself a little. His voice showed
that he suffered pain.

"I read granite as you read sheep and soil and a crop ripening above
ground or below--it's my business," he explained, not without
constraint, while the enthusiasm died away out of his voice and the fire
from his face. "See now, Will, try and follow me. Note these very faint
lines, where the green moss takes the place of the lichen. These are
fretted grooves--you can trace them to the earth, and on a 'rubbing,' as
we call it, they would be plainer still. They indicate to me incisions
down the sides of a cross-shaft. They are all that many years of
weathering have left. Look at the shape too: the stone grows slightly
thinner every way towards the ground. What is hidden we can't say yet,
but I pray that the arms may be at least still indicated. You see it is
the base sticking into the air, and more's the pity, a part has gone,
for I can trace the incisions to the top. God knows the past history of
it, but--"

"Perhaps He do and perhaps He doan't," interrupted the farmer. "Perhaps
it weer a cross an' perhaps it weern't; anyway it's my gate-post now,
an' as to diggin' it up, you may be surprised to knaw it, Martin
Grimbal, but I'll see you damned fust! I'm weary of all this bunkum
'bout auld stones an' circles an' the rest; I'm sick an' tired o'
leavin' my work a hunderd times in summer months to shaw gaping fules
from Lunnon an' Lard knaws wheer, them roundy-poundies 'pon my land.
'Tis all rot, as every moorman knaws; yet you an' such as you screams if
us dares to put a finger to the stone nowadays. Ban't the granite ours
under Venwell? You knaw it is; an' because dead-an'-gone folk,
half-monkeys belike, fashioned their homes an' holes out of it, be that
any cause why it shouldn't be handled to-day? They've had their use of
it; now 'tis our turn; an 'tis awnly such as you be, as comes here in
shining summer, when the land puts on a lying faace, as though it didn't
knaw weather an' winter--'tis awnly such as you must cry out against us
of the soil if we dares to set wan stone 'pon another to make a wall or
to keep the blasted rabbits out the young wheat."

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