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Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts

E >> Eden Phillpotts >> Children of the Mist




This culmination resulted from a visit to the spiritual head of Phoebe's
dwelling-place. The Rev. James Shorto-Champernowne, Vicar of Chagford,
made an appointment to discuss the position with Mr. Lyddon and his
daughter. A sportsman of the old type, and a cleric of rare reputation
for good sense and fairness to high and low, was Mr. Shorto-Champernowne,
but it happened that his more tender emotions had been buried with a
young wife these forty years, and children he had none. Nevertheless,
taking the standpoint of parental discipline, he held Phoebe's alleged
engagement a vain thing, not to be considered seriously. Moreover, he
knew of Will's lapses in the past; and that was fatal.

"My child, have little doubt that both religion and duty point in one
direction and with no faltering hands," he said, in his stately way.
"Communicate with the young man, inform him that conversation with
myself has taken place; then he can hardly maintain an attitude of
doubt, either to the exalted convictions that have led to your decision,
or to the propriety of it. And, further, do not omit an opportunity of
well-doing, but conclude your letter with a word of counsel. Pray him to
seek a Guide to his future life, the only Guide able to lead him aright.
I mean his Mother Church. No man who turns his back upon her can be
either virtuous or happy. I mourned his defection from our choir some
years ago. You see I forget nobody. My eyes are everywhere, as they
ought to be. Would that he could be whipped back to the House of
God--with scorpions, if necessary! There is a cowardice, a lack of
sportsmanlike feeling, if I may so express it, in these fallings away
from the Church of our fathers. It denotes a failing of intellect amid
the centres of human activity. There is a blight of unbelief abroad--a
nebulous, pestilential rationalism. Acquaint him with these facts; they
may serve to re-establish one whose temperament must be regarded as
abnormal in the light of his great eccentricity of action. Now farewell,
and God be with you."

The rotund, grey-whiskered clergyman waved his hand; Miller Lyddon and
his daughter left the vicarage; while both heard, as it seemed, his
studied phrases and sonorous voice rolling after them all the way home.
But poor Phoebe felt that the main issues as to conscience were now only
too clear; her last anchor was wrenched from its hold, and that night,
through a mist of unhappy tears, she succumbed, promised to marry John
Grimbal and be queen of the red castle now rising under Cranbrook's
distant heights.

That we have dealt too scantily with her tragic experiences may be
suspected; but the sequel will serve to show how these circumstances
demand no greater elaboration than has been accorded to them.




CHAPTER VII

LIBATION TO POMONA


A WINTER moon threw black shadows from stock and stone, tree and cot in
the valley of the Teign. Heavy snow had fallen, and moor-men, coming
down from the highlands, declared it to lie three feet deep in the
drifts. Now fine, sharp weather had succeeded the storm, and hard frost
held both hill and vale.

On Old Christmas Eve a party numbering some five-and-twenty persons
assembled in the farmyard of Monks Barton, and Billy Blee, as master of
the pending ceremonies, made them welcome. Some among them were aged,
others youthful; indeed the company consisted mostly of old men and
boys, a circumstance very easily understood when the nature of their
enterprise is considered. The ancients were about to celebrate a
venerable rite and sacrifice to a superstition, active in their boyhood,
moribund at the date with which we are concerned, and to-day probably
dead altogether. The sweet poet[2] of Dean Prior mentions this quaint,
old-time custom of "christening" or "wassailing" the fruit-trees among
Christmas-Eve ceremonies; and doubtless when he dwelt in Devon the use
was gloriously maintained; but an adult generation in the years of this
narrative had certainly refused it much support. It was left to their
grandfathers and their sons; and thus senility and youth preponderated
in the present company. For the boys, this midnight fun with lantern and
fowling-piece was good Christmas sport, and they came readily enough; to
the old men their ceremonial possessed solid value, and from the musty
storehouse of his memory every venerable soul amongst them could cite
instances of the sovereign virtue hid in such a procedure.


[2] _The sweet poet._

"Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a Plum, and many a Peare;
For more or lesse fruites they will bring,
As you doe give them Wassailing."

_Hesperides._


"A brave rally o' neighbours, sure 'nough," cried Mr. Blee as he
appeared amongst them. "Be Gaffer Lezzard come?"

"Here, Billy."

"Hast thy fire-arm, Lezzard?"

"Ess, 't is here. My gran'son's carrying of it; but I holds the
powder-flask an' caps, so no ruin be threatened to none."

Mr. Lezzard wore a black smock-frock, across the breast of which
extended delicate and skilful needlework. His head was hidden under an
old chimney-pot hat with a pea-cock's feather in it, and, against the
cold, he had tied a tremendous woollen muffler round his neck and about
his ears. The ends of it hung down over his coat, and the general effect
of smock, comforter, gaitered shanks, boots tied up in straw, long nose,
and shining spectacles, was that of some huge and ungainly bird, hopped
from out a fairy-tale or a nightmare.

"Be Maister Chappie here likewise?" inquired Billy.

"I'm waitin'; an' I've got a fowling-piece, tu."

"That's gude then. I be gwaine to carry the auld blunderbuss what's been
in Miller Lyddon's family since the years of his ancestors, and belonged
to a coach-guard in the King's days. 'T is well suited to
apple-christenin'. The cider's here, in three o' the biggest earth
pitchers us'a' got, an' the lads is ready to bring it along. The Maister
Grimbals, as will be related to the family presently, be comin' to see
the custom, an' Miller wants every man to step back-along arterwards an'
have a drop o' the best, 'cordin' to his usual gracious gudeness. Now,
Lezzard, me an' you'll lead the way."

Mr. Blee then shouldered his ancient weapon, the other veteran marched
beside him, and the rest of the company followed in the direction of
Chagford Bridge. They proceeded across the fields; and along the
procession bobbed a lantern or two, while a few boys carried flaring
torches. The light from these killed the moonbeams within a narrow
radius, shot black tongues of smoke into the clear air, and set the
meadows glimmering redly where contending radiance of moon and fire
powdered the virgin snow with diamond and ruby. Snake-like the party
wound along beside the river. Dogs barked; voices rang clear on the
crystal night; now and again, with laughter and shout, the lads raced
hither and thither from their stolid elders, and here and there jackets
carried the mark of a snowball. Behind the procession a trampled grey
line stretched out under the moonlight. Then all passed like some dim,
magic pageant of a dream; the distant dark blot of naked woodlands
swallowed them up, and the voices grew faint and ceased. Only the
endless song of the river sounded, with a new note struck into it by the
world of snow.

For a few moments the valley was left empty, so empty that a fox, who
had been prowling unsuccessfully about Monks Barton since dusk, took the
opportunity to leave his hiding-place above the ducks' pool, cross the
meadows, and get him home to his earth two miles distant. He slunk with
pattering foot across the snow, marking his way by little regular
paw-pits and one straight line where his brush roughened the surface.
Steam puffed in jets from his muzzle, and his empty belly made him angry
with the world. At the edge of the woods he lifted his head, and the
moonlight touched his green eyes. Then he recorded a protest against
Providence in one eerie bark, and so vanished, before the weird sound
had died.

Phoebe Lyddon and her lover, having given the others some vantage of
ground, followed them to their destination--Mr. Lyddon's famous orchard
in Teign valley. The girl's dreary task of late had been to tell herself
that she would surely love John Grimbal presently--love him as such a
good man deserved to be loved. Only under the silence and in the
loneliness of long nights, only in the small hours of day, when sleep
would not come and pulses were weak, did Phoebe confess that contact
with him hurt her, that his kisses made her giddy to sickness, that all
his gifts put together were less to her than one treasure she was too
weak to destroy--the last letter Will had written. Once or twice, not to
her future husband, but to the miller, Phoebe had ventured faintly to
question still the promise of this great step; but Mr. Lyddon quickly
overruled all doubts, and assisted John Grimbal in his efforts to hasten
the ceremony. Upon this day, Old Christmas Eve, the wedding-day lay not
a month distant and, afterwards the husband designed to take his wife
abroad for a trip to South Africa. Thus he would combine business and
pleasure, and return in the spring to witness the completion of his
house. Chagford highly approved the match, congratulated Phoebe on her
fortune, and felt secretly gratified that a personage grown so important
as John Grimbal should have chosen his life's partner from among the
maidens of his native village.

Now the pair walked over the snow; and silent and stealthy as the
vanished fox, a grey figure followed after them. Dim as some moon-spirit
against the brightness, this shape stole forward under the rough hedge
that formed a bank and threw a shadow between meadow and stream. In
repose the grey man, for a man it was, looked far less substantial than
the stationary outlines of fences and trees; and when he moved it had
needed a keen eye to see him at all. He mingled with the moonlight and
snow, and became a part of a strange inversion of ordinary conditions;
for in this white, hushed world the shadows alone seemed solid and
material in their black nakedness, in their keen sharpness of line and
limit, while things concrete and ponderable shone out a silvery medley
of snow-capped, misty traceries, vague of outline, uncertain of shape,
magically changed as to their relations by the unfamiliar carpet now
spread between them.

The grey figure kept Phoebe in sight, but followed a path of his own
choosing. When she entered the woods he drew a little nearer, and thus
followed, passing from shadow to shadow, scarce fifty yards behind.

Meanwhile the main procession approached the scene of its labours.
Martin Grimbal, attracted by the prospect of reading this page from an
old Devonian superstition, was of the company. He walked with Billy Blee
and Gaffer Lezzard; and these high priests, well pleased at their
junior's attitude towards the ceremony, opened their hearts to him upon
it.

"'T is an ancient rite, auld as cider--maybe auld as Scripture, to, for
anything I've heard to the contrary," said Mr. Lezzard.

"Ay, so 't is," declared Billy Blee, "an' a custom to little observed
nowadays. But us might have better blooth in springtime an' braaver
apples come autumn if the trees was christened more regular. You doan't
see no gert stock of sizable apples best o' years now--li'l scrubbly
auld things most times."

"An' the cider from 'em--poor roapy muck, awnly fit to make 'e thirst
for better drink," criticised Gaffer Lezzard.

"'Tis this way: theer's gert virtue in cider put to apple-tree roots on
this particular night, accordin' to the planets and such hidden things.
Why so, I can't tell 'e, any more 'n anybody could tell 'e why the moon
sails higher up the sky in winter than her do in summer; but so 't is.
An' facts be facts. Why, theer's the auld 'Sam's Crab' tree in this very
orchard we'm walkin' to. I knawed that tree three year ago to give a
hogshead an' a half as near as damn it. That wan tree, mind, with no
more than a few baskets of 'Redstreaks' added."

"An' a shy bearer most times, tu," added Mr. Lezzard.

"Just so; then come next year, by some mischance, me being indoors, if
they didn't forget to christen un! An', burnish it all! theer wasn't
fruit enough on the tree to fill your pockets!"

"Whether 't is the firing into the branches, or the cider to the roots
does gude, be a matter of doubt," continued Mr. Lezzard; but the other
authority would not admit this.

"They 'm like the halves of a flail, depend on it: wan no use wi'out
t'other. Then theer's the singing of the auld song: who's gwaine to say
that's the least part of it?"

"'T is the three pious acts thrawn together in wan gude deed," summed up
Mr. Lezzard; "an' if they'd awnly let apples get ripe 'fore they break
'em, an' go back to the straw for straining, 'stead of these tom-fule,
new-fangled hair-cloths, us might get tidy cider still."

By this time the gate of the orchard was reached; Gaffer Lezzard, Billy,
and the other patriarch, Mr. Chapple,--a very fat old man,--loaded their
weapons, and the perspiring cider-carriers set down their loads.

"Now, you bwoys, give awver runnin' 'bout like rabbits," cried out Mr.
Chapple. "You 'm here to sing while us pours cider an' shoots in the
trees; an' not a drop you'll have if you doan't give tongue proper, so I
tell 'e."

At this rebuke the boys assembled, and there followed a hasty gabbling,
to freshen the words in young and uncertain memories. Then a small
vessel was dipped under floating toast, that covered the cider in the
great pitchers, and the ceremony of christening the orchard began. Only
the largest and most famous apple-bearers were thus saluted, for neither
cider nor gunpowder sufficient to honour more than a fraction of the
whole multitude existed in all Chagford. The orchard, viewed from the
east, stretched in long lines, like the legions of some arboreal army;
the moon set sparks and streaks of light on every snowy fork and bough;
and at the northwestern foot of each tree a network of spidery
shadow-patterns, sharp and black, extended upon the snow.

Mr. Blee himself made the first libation, led the first chorus, and
fired the first shot. Steaming cider poured from his mug, vanished,
sucked in at the tree-foot, and left a black patch upon the snow at the
hole of the trunk; then he stuck a fragment of sodden toast on a twig;
after which the christening song rang out upon the night--ragged at
first, but settling into resolute swing and improved time as its music
proceeded. The lusty treble of the youngsters soon drowned the notes of
their grandfathers; for the boys took their measure at a pace beyond the
power of Gaffer Lezzard and his generation, and sang with heart and
voice to keep themselves warm. The song has variants, but this was their
version--

"Here 's to thee, auld apple-tree,
Be sure you bud, be sure you blaw,
And bring forth apples good enough--
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Pockets full and all--
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Then Billy fired his blunderbuss, and a flame leapt from its bell mouth
into the branches of the apple-tree, while surrounding high lands echoed
its report with a reverberating bellow that rose and fell, and was flung
from hill to hill, until it gradually faded upon the ear. The boys
cheered again, everybody drank a drop of the cider, and from under a
cloud of blue smoke, that hung flat as a pancake above them in the still
air, all moved onward. Presently the party separated into three groups,
each having a gunner to lead it, half a dozen boys to sing, and a
dwindling jar of cider for the purposes of the ceremony. The divided
choirs clashed their music, heard from a distance; the guns fired at
intervals, each sending forth its own particular detonation and winning
back a distinctive echo; then the companies separated widely and
decreased to mere twinkling, torchlit points in the distance.
Accumulated smoke from the scattered discharges hung in a sluggish haze
between earth and moon, and a sharp smell of burnt powder tainted the
sweetness of the frosty night.

Upon this scene arrived John Grirnbal and his sweetheart. They stood for
a while at the open orchard gate, gazed at the remote illumination, and
heard the distant song. Then they returned to discussion of their own
affairs; while at hand, unseen, the grey watcher moved impatiently and
anxiously. The thing he desired did not come about, and he blew on his
cold hands and swore under his breath. Only an orchard hedge now
separated them, and he might have listened to Phoebe's soft speech had
he crept ten yards nearer, while John Grimbal's voice he could not help
hearing from time to time. The big man was just asking a question not
easy to answer, when an unexpected interruption saved Phoebe from the
difficulty of any reply.

"Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you
glum, my dear. Is it so? Haven't you forgot him yet?"

As he spoke an explosion, differing much in sound from those which
continued to startle the night, rang suddenly out of the distance. It
arose from a spot on the confines of the orchard, and was sharp in
tone--sharp almost as the human cries which followed it. Then the
distant lights hastened towards the theatre of the catastrophe. "What
has happened?" cried Phoebe, thankful enough to snatch conversation away
from herself and her affairs.

"Easy to guess. That broken report means a burst gun. One of those old
fools has got excited, put too much powder into his blunderbuss and
blown his head off, likely as not. No loss either!"

"Please, please go and see! Oh, if 'tis Billy Blee come to grief,
faither will be lost. Do 'e run, Mr. Grimbal--Jan, I mean. If any grave
matter's failed out, send them bwoys off red-hot for doctor."

"Stop here, then. If any ugly thing has happened, there need be no
occasion for you to see it."

He departed hastily to where a distant galaxy of fiery eyes twinkled and
tangled and moved this way and that, like the dying sparks on a piece of
burnt paper.

Then the patient grey shadow, rewarded by chance at last, found his
opportunity, slipped into the hedge just above Grimbal's sweetheart, and
spoke to her.

"Phoebe, Phoebe Lyddon!"

The voice, dropping out of empty air as it seemed, made Phoebe jump, and
almost fall; but there was an arm gripped round her, and a pair of hot
lips on hers before she had time to open her mouth or cry a word.

"Will!"

"Ess, so I be, alive an' kicking. No time for anything but business now.
I've followed 'e for this chance. Awnly heard four day ago 'bout the fix
you'd been drove to. An' Clem's made it clear 't was all my damn silly
silence to blame. I had a gert thought in me and wasn't gwaine to write
till--but that's awver an' done, an' a purty kettle of feesh, tu. We
must faace this coil first."

"Thank God, you can forgive me. I'd never have had courage to ax 'e."

"You was drove into it. I knaw there's awnly wan man in the world for
'e. Ban't nothin' to forgive. I never ought to have left 'e--a
far-seein' man, same as me. Blast him! I'd like to tear thicky damned
fur off you, for I lay it comed from him."

"They were killing me, Will; and never a word from you."

"I knaw, I knaw. What's wan girl against a parish full, an' a blustering
chap made o' diamonds?"

"The things doan't warm me; they make me shiver. But now--you can
forgive me--that's all I care for. What shall I do? How can I escape it?
Oh, Will, say I can!"

"In coourse you can. Awnly wan way, though; an' that's why I'm here. Us
must be married right on end. Then he's got no more power over 'e than a
drowned worm, nor Miller, nor any."

"To think you can forgive me enough to marry me after all my wickedness!
I never dreamed theer was such a big heart in the world as yourn."

"Why, we promised, didn't us? We'm built for each other. I knawed I'd
only got to come. An' I have, at cost, tu, I promise 'e. Now we'll be
upsides wi' this tramp from furrin paarts, if awnly you do ezacally what
I be gwaine to tell you. I'd meant to write it, but I can speak it
better as the chance has come."

Phoebe's heart glowed at this tremendous change in the position. She
forgot everything before sight and sound of Will. The nature of her
promises weakened to gossamer. Her first love was the only love for her,
and his voice fortified her spirit and braced her nerves. A chance for
happiness yet remained and she, who had endured enough, was strong in
determination to win it yet at any cost if a woman could.

"If you awnly knawed the half I've suffered before they forced me, you'd
forgive," she said. His frank pardon she could hardly realise. It seemed
altogether beyond the desert of her weakness.

"Let that bide. It's the future now. Clem's told me everything. Awnly
you and him an' Chris knaw I'm here. Chris will serve 'e. Us must play a
hidden game, an' fight this Grimbal chap as he fought me--behind back.
Listen; to-day fortnight you an' me 'm gwaine to be married afore the
registrar to Newton Abbot. He 'm my awn Uncle Ford, as luck has it, an'
quite o' my way o' thinkin' when I told him how 't was, an' that Jan
Grimbal was gwaine to marry you against your will. He advised me, and
I'm biding in Newton for next two weeks, so as the thing comes out right
by law. But you've got to keep it still as death."

"If I could awnly fly this instant moment with 'e!"

"You caan't. 'T would spoil all. You must stop home, an' hear your banns
put up with Grimbal, an' all the rest of it. Wish I could! Meat an'
drink 't would be, by God! But he'll get his pay all right. An' afore
the day comes, you nip off to Newton, an' I'll meet 'e, an' us'll be
married in a wink, an' you'll be back home again to Monks Barton 'fore
you knaw it."

"Is that the awnly way? Oh, Will, how terrible!"

"God knaws I've done worse 'n that. But no man's gwaine to steal the
maid of my choosin' from me while I've got brains and body to prevent
it."

"Let me look at you, lovey--just the same, just the same! 'Tis glorious
to hear your voice again. But this thin coat, so butivul in shaape, tu!
You 'm a gentleman by the look of it; but 't is summer wear, not
winter."

"Ess, 'tis cold enough; an' I've got to get back to Newton to-night. An'
never breathe that man's name no more. I'll shaw 'e wat 's a man an'
what ban't. Steal my true love, would 'e?--God forgive un, I
shaan't--not till we 'm man an' wife, anyway. Then I might. Give 'e up!
Be I a chap as chaanges? Never--never yet."

Phoebe wept at these words and pressed Will to her heart.

"'Tis strength, an' fire, an' racing blood in me to hear 'e, dear,
braave heart. I was that weak without 'e. Now the world 's a new plaace,
an' I doan't doubt fust thought was right, for all they said. I'll meet
'e as you bid me, an' nothin' shall ever keep me from 'e now--nothing!"

"'T is well said, Phoebe; an' doan't let that anointed scamp kiss 'e
more 'n he must. Be braave an' cunnin', an' keep Miller from smelling a
rat. I'd like to smash that man myself now wheer he stands,--Grimbal I
mean,--but us must be wise for the present. Wipe your shiny eyes an'
keep a happy faace to 'em, an' never let wan of the lot dream what's hid
in 'e. Cock your li'l nose high, an' be peart an' gay. An' let un buy
you what he will,--'t is no odds; we can send his rubbish back again
arter, when he knaws you'm another man's wife. Gude-bye, Phoebe dearie;
I've done what 'peared to me a gert deed for love of 'e; but the sight
of 'e brings it down into no mighty matter."

"You've saved my life, Will--saved all my days; an' while I've got a
heart beating 't will be yourn, an' I'll work for 'e, an' slave for 'e,
an' think for 'e, an' love 'e so long as I live--an' pray for 'e, tu,
Will, my awn!"

He parted from her as she spoke, and she, by an inspiration, hurried
towards the approaching crowd that the trampled marks of the snow where
she had been standing might not be noted under the gleam of torches and
lanterns.

John Grimbal's prophecy was happily not fulfilled in its gloomy
completeness: nobody had blown his head off; but Billy Blee's
prodigality of ammunition proved at last too much for the blunderbuss of
the bygone coach-guard, and in its sudden annihilation a fragment had
cut the gunner across the face, and a second inflicted a pretty deep
flesh-wound on his arm. Neither injury was very serious, and the general
escape, as John Grimbal pointed out, might be considered marvellous, for
not a soul save Billy himself had been so much as scratched.

With Martin Grimbal on one side and Mr. Chapple upon the other, the
wounded veteran walked slowly and solemnly along. The dramatic moments
of the hour were dear to him, and while tolerably confident at the
bottom of his mind that no vital hurt had been done, he openly declared
himself stricken to death, and revelled in a display of Christian
fortitude and resignation that deceived everybody but John Grimbal.
Billy gasped and gurgled, bid them see to the bandages, and reviewed his
past life with ingenuous satisfaction.

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