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Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

E >> Eden Phillpotts >> Children of the Mist




"I was gwaine to write first moment I heard 'e was home. An' I wish I
had, for I caan't tell 'e what I feel. To think of 'e searchin' the wide
world for such a good-for-nought! I thank you for your generous
gudeness, Martin. I'll never forget it--never. But I wasn't worth no
such care."

"Not worth it! It proved the greatest, bitterest grief of all my
life--but one--that I couldn't find you. We grew by cruel stages to
think--to think you were dead. The agony of that for us! But, thank God,
it was not so. All at least is well with you now?"

"All ban't never well with men an' women. But I'm more fortunate than I
deserve to be, and can make myself of use. I've lived a score of years
since we met. An I've comed back to find't is a difficult world for
those I love best, unfortunately."

Thus, in somewhat disjointed fashion, Chris made answer.

"Sit a while and speak to me," replied Martin. "The laddie can play
about. Look at him marching along with that great branch of king fern
over his shoulder!"

"'T is an elfin cheel some ways. Wonnerful eyes he've got. They burn me
if I look at'em close," said Chris. She regarded Timothy without
sentiment and her eyes were bright and hard.

"I hope he will turn out well. Will spoke of him the other day. He is
very fond of the child. It is singularly like him, too--a sort of little
pocket edition of him."

"So I've heard others say. Caan't see it at all myself. Look at the eyes
of un."

"Will believes the boy has got very unusual intelligence and may go
far."

"May go so far as the workhouse," she answered, with a laugh. Then,
observing that her reply pained Martin, Chris snatched up small Tim as
he passed by and pressed him to her breast and kissed him.

"You like him better than you think, Chris--poor little motherless
thing."

"Perhaps I do. I wonder if his mother ever looks hungry towards Newtake
when she passes by?"

"Perhaps others took him and told the mother that he was dead."

"She's dead herself more like. Else the thing wouldn't have falled out."

There was a pause, then Martin talked of various matters. But he could
not fight for long against the desire of his heart and presently
plunged, as he had done five years before, into a proposal.

"He being gone--poor Clem--do you think--? Have you thought, I mean? Has
it made a difference, Chris? 'T is so hard to put it into words without
sounding brutal and callous. Only men are selfish when they love."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

A sudden inspiration prompted his reply. He said nothing for a moment,
but with a hand that shook somewhat, drew forth his pocketbook, opened
it, fumbled within, and then handed over to Chris the brown ruins of
flowers long dead.

"You picked them," he said slowly; "you picked them long ago and flung
them away from you when you said 'No' to me--said it so kindly in the
past. Take them in your hand again."

"Dead bluebells," she answered. "Ess, I can call home the time. To think
you gathered them up!" She looked at him with something not unlike love
in her eyes and fingered the flowers gently. "You'm a gude man, Martin
--the husband for a gude lass. Best to find one if you can. Wish I could
help'e."

"Oh, Chris, there's only one woman in the world for me. Could you--even
now? Could you let me stand between you and the world? Could you, Chris?
If you only knew what I cannot put into words. I'd try so hard to make
you happy."

"I knaw, I knaw. But theer's no human life so long as the road to
happiness, Martin. And yet--"

He took her hand and for a moment she did not resist him. Then little
Tim's voice chimed out merrily at the stream margin, and the music had
instant effect upon Chris Blanchard.

She drew her hand from Martin and the next moment he saw his dead
bluebells hurrying away and parting company for ever on the dancing
water. Chris watched them until they vanished; then she turned and
looked at him, to find that he grew very pale and agitated. Even his
humility had hardly foreseen this decisive answer after the yielding
attitude Chris first assumed when she suffered him to hold her hand. He
looked into her face inquiring and frightened. The silence that followed
was broken by continued laughter and shouting from Timothy. Then Martin
tried to connect the child's first merriment with the simultaneous
change in the mood of the woman he worshipped, but failed to do so.

At that moment Chris spoke. She made utterance under the weight of great
emotion and with evident desire to escape the necessity of a direct
negative, while yet leaving her refusal of Martin's offer implicit and
distinct.

"I mind when a scatter of paper twinkled down this river just like them
dead blossoms. Clem thrawed them, an' they floated away to the sea, past
daffadowndillies an' budding lady-ferns an' such-like. 'T was a li'l bit
of poetry he'd made up to please me--and I, fule as I was, didn't say
the right thing when he axed me what I thought; so Clem tore the rhymes
in pieces an' sent them away. He said the river would onderstand. An'
the river onderstands why I dropped them dead blossoms in, tu. A wise,
ancient stream, I doubt. An' you 'm wise, tu; an' can take my answer
wi'out any more words, as will awnly make both our hearts ache."

"Not even if I wait patiently? You couldn't marry me, dear Chris? You
couldn't get to love me?"

"I couldn't marry you. I'm a widow in heart for all time. But I thank
God for the gude-will of such a man as you. I cherish it and 't will be
dear to me all my life. But I caan't come to 'e, so doan't ax it."

"Yet you're young to live for a memory, Chris."

"Better 'n nothing. And listen; I'll tell you this, if 't will make my
'No' sound less hard to your ear. I loves you--I loves you better 'n any
living man 'cept Will, an' not less than I love even him. I wish I could
bring 'e a spark of joy by marryin' you, for you was allus very gude,
an' thought kindly of Clem when but few did. I'd marry you if 't was
awnly for that; yet it caan't never be, along o' many reasons. You must
take that cold comfort, Martin."

He sighed, then spoke.

"So be it, dear one. I shall never ask again. God knows what holds you
back if you can even love me a little."

"Ess, God knaws--everything."

"I must not cry out against that. Yet it makes it all the harder. To
think that you will dedicate all your beautiful life to a memory! it
only makes my loss the greater, and shows the depths of you to me."

She uttered a little scream and her cheek paled, and she put up her
hands with the palms outward as though warding away his words.

"Doan't 'e say things like that or give me any praise, for God's sake. I
caan't bear it. I be weak, weak flesh an' blood, weaker 'n water. If you
could only see down in my heart, you'd be cured of your silly love for
all time."

He did not answer, but picked up her basket and proceeded with her out
of the valley. Chris gave a hand to the child, and save for Tim's
prattle there was no speaking.

At length they reached Newtake, when Martin yielded up the basket and
bade Chris "good-night." He had already turned, when she called him back
in a strange voice.

"Kiss the li'l bwoy, will 'e? I want 'e to. I'm that fond of un. An' he
'peared to take to 'e; an' he said 'By-by' twice to 'e, but you didn't
hear un."

Then the man kissed Tim on a small, purple-stained mouth, and saw his
eyes very lustrous with sleep, for the day was done.

Woman and child disappeared; the sacking nailed along the bottom of
Newtake Gate to keep the young chicks in the farmyard rustled over the
ground, and Martin, turning his face away, moved homewards.

But the veil was not lifted for him; he did not understand. A secret,
transparent enough to any who regarded Chris Blanchard and her
circumstances from a point without the theatre of action, still remained
concealed from all who loved her.




CHAPTER IV

THE END OF THE FIGHT


Will Blanchard was of the sort who fight a losing battle,

"Still puffing in the dark at one poor coal,
Held on by hope till the last spark is out."

But the extinction of his ambitions, the final failure of his enterprise
happened somewhat sooner than Miller Lyddon had predicted. There dawned
a year when, just as the worst of the winter was past and hope began to
revive for another season, a crushing catastrophe terminated the
struggle.

Mr. Blee it was who brought the ill news to Monks Barton, having first
dropped it at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage and announced it promiscuously
about the village. Like a dog with a bone he licked the intelligence
over and, by his delay in imparting the same, reduced his master to a
very fever of irritation.

"Such a gashly thing! Of all fules! The last straw I do think. He's got
something to grumble at now, poor twoad. Your son-in-law; but
now--theer--gormed if I knaw how to tell 'e!"

Alarmed at this prelude, with its dark hints of unutterable woe, Mr.
Lyddon took off his spectacles in some agitation, and prayed to know the
worst without any long-drawn introduction.

"I'll come to it fast enough, I warn 'e. To think after years an' years
he didn't knaw the duffer'nce 'twixt a bullock an' a sheep! Well--well!
Of coourse us knawed times was tight, but Jack-o'-Lantern be to the end
of his dance now. 'T is all awver."

"What's the matter? Come to it, caan't 'e?"

"No ill of the body--not to him or the fam'ly. An' you must let me tell
it out my awn way. Well, things bein' same as they are, the bwoy caan't
hide it. Dammy! Theer's patches in the coat of un now--neat sewed, I'll
grant 'e, but a patch is a patch; an' when half a horse's harness is
odds an' ends o' rope, then you knaw wi'out tellin' wheer a man be
driving to. 'T is 'cordin' to the poetry!--

"'Out to elbows,
Out to toes,
Out o' money,
Out o' clothes.'

But--"

"Caan't 'e say what's happened, you chitterin' auld magpie? I'll go up
village for the news in a minute. I lay 'tis knawn theer."

"Ban't I tellin' of 'e? 'Tis like this. Will Blanchard's been mixin' a
bit of chopped fuzz with the sheep's meal these hard times, like his
betters. But now I've seed hisself today, lookin' so auld as Cosdon
'bout it. He was gwaine to the horse doctor to Moreton. An' he tawld me
to keep my mouth shut, which I've done for the most paart."

"A little fuzz chopped fine doan't hurt sheep."

"Just so. 'Cause why? They aint got no 'bibles' in their innards; but
he've gone an' given it same way to the bullocks."

"Gude God!"

"'Tis death to beasts wi' 'bibles.' An' death it is. The things caan't
eat such stuff' cause it sticketh an' brings inflammation. I seed same
fule's trick done wance thirty year ago; an' when the animals weer cut
awpen, theer 'bibles' was hell-hot wi' the awfulest inflammation ever
you heard tell of."

"How many's down? 'Twas all he had to count upon."

"Awnly eight standin' when he left. I could have cried 'bout it when he
tawld me. He 'm clay in the Potter's hand for sartain. Theer's nought
squenches a chap like havin' the bailiffs in."

"Cruel luck! I'd meant to let him be sold out for his gude--but now."

"Do what you meant to. Doan't go back on it. 'Tis for his gude. 'Twas
his awn mistake. He tawld me the blame was his. Let un get on the bed
rock. Then he'll be meek as a worm."

"I doubt it. A sale of his goods will break his heart."

"Not it! He haven't got much as'll be hard to paart from. Stern
measures--stern measures for his everlastin' welfare. Think of the
wild-fire sawl of un! Never yet did a sawl want steadin' worse'n his.
Keep you to the fust plan, and he'll thank'e yet."

Elsewhere two women--his wife and sister--failed utterly in well-meaning
efforts to comfort the stricken farmer. Presently, before nightfall,
Mrs. Blanchard also arrived at Newtake, and Will listened dully with
smouldering eyes as his mother talked. The veterinary surgeon from
Moreton had come, but his efforts were vain. Only two beasts out of
five-and-twenty still lived.

"Send for butcher," he said. "He'll be more use than I can be. The thing
is done and can't be undone."

Chris entered most closely into her brother's feelings and spared him
the expressions of sorrow and sympathy which stung him, even from his
mother's lips, uttered at this crisis. She set about preparing supper,
which weeping Phoebe had forgotten.

"You'll weather it yet, bwoy," Mrs. Blanchard said.

"Theer's a little bit as I've got stowed away for'e; an' come the hay--"

"Doan't talk that way. 'Tis done with now. I'm quite cool'pon it. We
must go as we'm driven. No more gropin' an' fightin' on this blasted
wilderness for me, that's all. I be gwaine to turn my back 'pon it--fog
an' filthy weather an' ice an' snow. You wants angels from heaven to
help 'e, if you're to do any gude here; an' heaven's long tired o' me
an' mine. So I'll make shift to do wi'out. An' never tell me no more
lies 'bout God helpin' them as helps themselves, 'cause I've proved it
ban't so. I be gwaine to furrin' lands to dig for gawld or di'monds. The
right build o' man for gawld-seekin', me; 'cause I've larned patience
an' caan't be choked off a job tu easy."

"Think twice. Bad luck doan't dog a man for ever. An' Phoebe an' the
childer."

"My mind's made up. I figured it out comin' home from Moreton. I'm away
in six weeks or less. A chap what's got to dig for a livin' may just as
well handle his tools where theer's summat worth findin' hid in the
land, as here, on this black, damned airth, wheer your pick strikes fire
out o' stone twenty times a day. The Moor's the Moor. Everybody knaws
the way of it. Scratch its faace an' it picks your pocket an' breaks
your heart--not as I've got a heart can be broken."

"If 'e could awnly put more trust in the God of your faithers, my son.
He done for them, why shouldn't He do for you?"

"Better ax Him. Tired of the fam'ly, I reckon."

"You hurt your mother, Will, tellin' so wicked as that."

"An' faither so cruel," sobbed Phoebe. "I doan't knaw what ever us have
done to set him an' God against us so. I've tried that hard; an' you've
toiled till the muscles shawed through your skin; an' the li'l bwoy took
just as he beginned to string words that butivul; an' no sign of another
though't is my endless prayer."

"The ways of Providence--" began Mrs. Blanchard drearily; but Will
stopped her, as she knew he would.

"Doan't mother--I caan't stand no more on that head today. I'll dare
anybody to name Providence more in my house, so long as 'tis mine.
Theer's the facts to shout out 'gainst that rot. A honest, just,
plain-dealin' man--an' look at me."

"Meantime we're ruined an' faither doan't hold out a finger."

"Take it stern an' hard like me. 'Tis all chance drawin' of prize or
blank in gawld diggin'. The 'new chums,' as they call 'em, often finds
the best gawld, 'cause they doan't knaw wheer to look for it, an' goes
pokin' about wheer a skilled man wouldn't. That's the crooked way things
happen in this poor world."

"You wouldn't go--not while I lived, sure? I couldn't draw breath
comfortable wi'out knawin' you was breathin' the same air, my son."

"You'll live to knaw I was in the right. If fortune doan't come to you,
you must go to it, I reckon. Anyways, I ban't gwaine to bide here a
laughing-stock to Chagford; an' you'm the last to ax me to."

"Miller would never let Phoebe go."

"I shouldn't say 'by your leave' to him, I promise'e. He can look on an'
see the coat rottin' off my back in this desert an' watch his darter
gwaine thin as a lath along o' taking so much thought. He can look on at
us, hisself so comfortable as a maggot in a pear, an' see. Not that I'd
take help--not a penny from any man. I'm not gwaine to fail. I'll be a
snug chap yet."

The stolid Chown entered at this moment.

"Butcher'll be up bimebye. An' the last of em's failed down," he said.

"So be it. Now us'll taake our supper," answered his master.

The meal was ready and presently Blanchard, whose present bitter humour
prompted him to simulate a large indifference, made show of enjoying his
food. He brought out the brandy for his mother, who drank a little with
her supper, and helped himself liberally twice or thrice until the
bottle was half emptied. The glamour of the spirit made him optimistic,
and he spoke with the pseudo-philosophy that alcohol begets.

"Might have been worse, come to think of it. If the things weren't
choked, I doubt they'd been near starved. 'Most all the hay's done, an'
half what's left--a load or so--I'd promised to a chap out Manaton way.
But theer't is--my hand be forced, that's all. So time's saved, if you
look at it from a right point."

"You'm hard an' braave, an' you've got a way with you 'mong men. Faace
life, same as faither did, an' us'll look arter Phoebe an' the childer,"
said Chris.

"I couldn't leave un," declared Will's wife. "'T is my duty to keep
along wi'un for better or worse."

"Us'll talk 'bout all that later. I be gwaine to act prompt an' sell
every stick, an' then away, a free man."

"All our furniture an' property!" moaned Phoebe, looking round her in
dismay.

"All--to the leastest bit o' cracked cloam."

"A forced sale brings nought," sighed Damaris.

"Theer's hunderds o' pounds o' gude chattels here, an' they doan't go
for a penny less than they 'm worth. Because I'm down, ban't no reason
for others to try to rob me. If I doan't get fair money I'll make a fire
wi' the stuff an' burn every stick of it."

"The valuer man, Mr. Bambridge, must be seen, an' bills printed out an'
sticked 'pon barn doors an' such-like, same as when Mrs. Lezzard died,"
said Phoebe. "What'll faither think then?"

Will laughed bitterly.

"I'll see a few's dabbed up on his awn damned outer walls, if I've got
to put 'em theer myself. An' as to the lists, I'll make 'em this very
night. Ban't my way to let the dust fall upon a job marked for doin'.
To-night I'll draw the items."

"Us was gwaine to stay along with 'e, Will," said his mother.

"Very gude--as you please. Make shake-downs in the parlour, an' I'll
write in the kitchen when you'm gone to bed. Set the ink an' pen an'
paper out arter you've cleared away. I'm allowed to be peart enough in
matters o' business anyway, though no farmer o' course, arter this."

"None will dare to say any such thing," declared Phoebe. "You can't do
miracles more than others."

"I mind when Ellis, to Two Streams Farm, lost a mort o' bullocks very
same way," said Mrs. Blanchard.

"'Tis that as they'll bring against me an' say, wi' such a tale in my
knawledge, I ought to been wiser. But I never heard tell of it before,
though God knows I've heard the story often enough to-day."

It was now dark, and Will, lighting a lantern, rose and went out into
the yard. From the kitchen window his women watched him moving here and
there; while, as he passed, the light revealed great motionless, rufous
shapes on every hand. The corpses of the beasts hove up into the
illumination and then vanished again as the narrow circle of lantern
light bobbed on, jerking to the beat of Will's footsteps. From the
window Damaris observed her son make a complete perambulation of his
trouble without comment. Then a little emotion trembled on her tongue.

"God's hand be lifted 'gainst the bwoy, same as 't was 'gainst the
patriarch Job seemin'ly. Awnly he bent to the rod and Will--"

"He'm noble an' grand under his sorrows. Who should knaw but me?" cried
Phoebe. "A man in ten thousand, he is, an' never yields to no rod. He'll
win his way yet; an' I be gwaine to cleave to un if he travels to the
other end o' the airth."

"I doan't judge un, gal. God knaws he's been the world to me since his
faither died. He'm my dear son. But if he'd awnly bend afore the
A'mighty breaks him."

"He's got me."

"Ess, an' he'm mouldin' you to his awn vain pride an' wrong ways o'
thinking. If you could lead un right, 't would be a better wife's
paart."

"He'm wiser'n me, an' stronger. Ban't my place to think against him.
Us'll go our ways, childern tu, an' turn our backs 'pon this desert. I
hate the plaace now, same as Will."

Chris here interrupted Phoebe and called her from the other room.

"Wheer's the paper an' ink to? I be setting out the things against Will
comes in. He axed for 'em to be ready, 'cause theer's a deal o'
penmanship afore him to-night. An' wheer's that li'l dictionary what I
gived un years ago? I lay he'll want it."




CHAPTER V

TWO MIGHTY SURPRISES


Will returned from survey of his tribulation. Hope was dead for the
moment, and death of hope in a man of Blanchard's character proved
painful. The writing materials distracted his mind. Beginning without
interest, his composition speedily absorbed him; and before the task was
half completed, he already pictured it set out in great black or red
print upon conspicuous places.

"I reckon it'll make some of 'em stare to see the scholar I am,
anyways," he reflected.

Through the hours of night he wrote and re-wrote. His pen scratched
along, echoed by an exactly similar sound from the wainscots, where mice
nibbled in the silence. Anon, from the debris of his composition, a
complete work took shape; and when Phoebe awoke at three o'clock,
discovered her husband was still absent, and sought him hurriedly, she
found the inventory completed and Will just fastening its pages together
with a piece of string. He was wide awake and in a particularly happy
humour.

"Ban't you never comin' to bed? 'T is most marnin'," she said.

"Just comin'. What a job! Look here--twelve pages. I be surprised myself
to think how blamed well I've got through wi' it. You doan't knaw what
you can do till you try. I used to wonder at Clem's cleverness wi' a
pen; but I be purty near so handy myself an' never guessed it!"

"I'm sure you've made a braave job of it. I'll read it fust thing
to-morrow."

"You shall hear it now."

"Not now, Will; 't is so late an' I'm three paarts asleep. Come to bed,
dearie."

"Oh--if you doan't care--if it's nought to you that I've sit up all
night slavin' for our gude--"

"Then I'll hear it now. Coourse I knaw 't is fine readin'. Awnly I
thought you'd be weary."

"Sit here an' put your toes to the heat."

He set Phoebe in the chimney corner, wrapped his coat round her, and
threw more turf on the fire.

"Now you'm vitty; an' if theer's anything left out, tell me."

"I lay, wi' your memory, you've forgot little enough."

"I lay I haven't. All's here; an' 't is a gert wonder what a lot o' gude
things us have got. They did ought to fetch a couple o' hunderd pound at
least, if the sale's carried out proper."

"They didn't cost so much as that."

"By Gor! Didn't they? Well, set out in full, like this here, they do
sound as if they ought to be worth it. Now, I'll read 'em to see how it
all sounds in spoken words."

He cleared his throat and began:

"'Sale this day to Newtake Farm, near Chagford, Dartmoor, Devonshire.
Mr. William Blanchard, being about to leave England for foreign parts,
desires to sell at auction his farm property, household goods, cloam,
and effects, etc., etc., as per items below, to the best bidder. Many
things so good as new.' How do 'e like that, Phoebe?"

"Butivul; but do 'e mean in all solemn seriousness to go out England? 'T
is a awful thought, come you look at it close."

"Ess, 't is a gert, bold thing to do; but I doan't fear it. I be gettin'
into a business-like way o' lookin' 'pon life of late; an' I counts the
cost an' moves arter, as is the right order. Listen to these items set
out here. If they 'm printed big, wan under t'other, same as I've wrote
'em, they'll fill a barn door purty nigh!"

Then he turned to his papers.

"'The said goods and chattels are as follows, namely,'--reg'lar lawyer's
English, you see, though how I comed to get it so pat I caan't tell. Yet
theer 'tis--'namely, 2 washing trays; 3 zinc buckets; 1 meat preserve; 1
lantern; 2 bird-cages; carving knife and steel (Sheffield make)--'"

"Do'e judge that's the best order, Will?"

"Coourse 't is! I thought that out specially. Doan't go thrawin' me from
my stride in the middle. Arter 'Sheffield make,' 'half-dozen knives and
forks; sundry ditto, not so good; hand saw; 2 hammers; 1 cleaver;
salting trendle; 3 wheelbarrows--'"

"Doan't forget you lent wan of 'em to Farmer Thackwell."

"No, I gived it to un, him bein' pushed for need of wan. It slipped my
memory. '2 wheelbarrows.' Then I goes on, 'pig stock; pig trough; 2
young breeding sows; 4 garden tools; 2 peat cutters; 2 carts; 1 market
trap; 1 empty cask; 1 Dutch oven; 1 funnel; 2 firkins and a cider jib;
small sieve; 3 pairs new Bedford harrows; 1 chain harrow (out of
repair).' You see all's straight enough, which it ban't in some sales.
No man shall say he's got less than full value."

"You'm the last to think of such a thing."

"I am. It goes on like this: '5 mattocks; 4 digging picks; 4 head
chains; 1 axe; sledge and wedges; also hooks, eyes, and hasps for hard
wood.' Never used 'em all the time us been here. '2 sets of trap
harness, much worn.' I ban't gwaine to sell the dogs--eh? Us won't sell
Ship or your li'l terrier. What do 'e say?"

"No. Nobody would buy two auld dogs, for that matter."

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