"You've something bothering you too, old man. I'm sure of it. G.o.d is aware I don't know much about women myself, but--"

"Oh, dry up that rot! Don't think I'm blind, if you are. Don't deceive yourself. There's a woman-hunger in you, too, though perhaps you haven't found it out yet. What about that Blanchard girl?"

Martin flushed like a schoolboy; his hand went up over his mouth and chin as though to hide part of his guilt, and he looked alarmed and uneasy.

John laughed without mirth at the other's ludicrous trepidation.

"Good heavens! I've done nothing surely to suggest--?"

"Nothing at all--except look as if you were going to have a fit every time you get within a mile of her. Lovers know the signs, I suppose.

Don't pretend you're made of different stuff to the rest of us, that's all."

Martin removed his hand and gasped before the spectacle of what he had revealed to other eyes. Then, after a silence of fifteen seconds, he shut his mouth again, wiped his forehead with his hand, and spoke.

"I've been a silly fool. Only she's so wonderfully beautiful--don't you think so?"

"A gypsy all over--if you call that beautiful."

The other flushed up again, but made no retort.

"Never mind me or anybody else. I want to speak to you about Phoebe, if I may, John. Who have I got to care about but you? I'm only thinking of your happiness, for that's dearer to me than my own; and you know in your heart that I'm speaking the truth when I say so."

"Stick to your gate-posts and old walls and cow-comforts and dead stones. We all know you can look farther into Dartmoor granite than most men, if that's anything; but human beings are beyond you and always were. You'd have come home a pauper but for me."

"D' you think I'm not grateful? No man ever had a better brother than you, and you've stood between me and trouble a thousand times. Now I want to stand between you and trouble."

"What the deuce d' you mean by naming Phoebe, then?"

"That is the trouble. Listen and don't shout me down. She's breaking her heart--blind or not blind, I see that--breaking her heart, not for you, but Will Blanchard. n.o.body else has found it out; but I have, and I know it's my duty to tell you; and I've done it."

An ugly twist came into John Grimbal's face. "You've done it; yes. Go on."

"That's all, brother, and from your manner I don't believe it's entirely news to you."

"Then get you gone, d.a.m.ned snake in the gra.s.s! Get gone, 'fore I lay a hand on you! You to turn and bite _me!_ Me, that's made you! I see it all--your blasted sheep's eyes at Chris Blanchard, and her always at Monks Barton! Don't lie about it," he roared, as Martin raised his hand to speak; "not a word more will I hear from your traitor's lips. Get out of my sight, you sneaking hypocrite, and never call me 'brother' no more, for I'll not own to it!"

"You'll be sorry for this, John."

"And you too. You'll smart all your life long when you think of this dirty trick played against a brother who never did you no hurt. You to come between me and the girl that's promised to marry me! And for your own ends. A manly, brotherly plot, by G.o.d!"

"I swear, on my sacred honour, there's no plot against you. I've never spoken to a soul about this thing, nor has a soul spoken of it to me; that's the truth."

"Rot you, and your sacred honour too! Go, and take your lies with you, and keep your own friends henceforth, and never cross my threshold more--you or your sacred, stinking honour either."

Martin rose from his chair dazed and bewildered. He had seen his brother's pa.s.sion wither up many a rascal in the past; but he himself had never suffered until now, and the savagery of this language hurled against his own pure motives staggered him. He, of course, knew nothing about Will Blanchard's enterprise, and his blundering and ill-judged effort to restrain his brother from marrying Phoebe was absolutely disinterested. It had been a tremendous task to him to speak on this delicate theme, and regard for John alone actuated him; now he departed without another word and went blankly to the little new stone house he had taken and furnished on the outskirts of Chagford under Middledown.

He walked along the straight street of whitewashed cots that led him to his home, and reflected with dismay on this catastrophe. The conversation with his brother had scarcely occupied five minutes; its results promised to endure a lifetime.

Meanwhile, and at the identical hour of this tremendous rupture, Chris Blanchard, well knowing that the morrow would witness Phoebe's secret marriage to her brother, walked down to see her. It happened that a small party filled the kitchen of Monks Barton, and the maid who answered her summons led Chris through the pa.s.sage and upstairs to Phoebe's own door. There the girls spoke in murmurs together, while various sounds, all louder than their voices, proceeded from the kitchen below. There were a.s.sembled the miller, Billy Blee, Mr. Chapple, and one Abraham Chown, the police inspector of Chagford, a thin, black-bearded man, oppressed with the cares of his office.

"They be arranging the programme of festive delights," explained Phoebe.

"My heart sinks in me every way I turn now. All the world seems thinking about what's to come; an' I knaw it never will."

"'T is a wonnerful straange thing to fall out. Never no such happened before, I reckon. But you 'm doin' right by the man you love, an' that's a thought for 'e more comfortin' than gospel in a pa.s.s like this. A promise is a promise, and you've got to think of all your life stretching out afore you. Will's jonic, take him the right way, and that you knaw how to do--a straight, true chap as should make any wife happy.

Theer'll be waitin' afterwards an' gude need for all the patience you've got; but wance the wife of un, allus the wife of un; that's a butivul thing to bear in mind."

"'T is so; 't is everything. An' wance we'm wed, I'll never tell a lie again, an' atone for all I have told, an' do right towards everybody."

"You caan't say no fairer. Be any matter I can help 'e with?"

"Nothing. It's all easy. The train starts for Moreton at half-past nine.

Sam Bonus be gwaine to drive me in, and bide theer for me till I come back from Newton. Faither's awnly too pleased to let me go. I said 't was shopping."

"An' when you come home you'll tell him--Mr. Lyddon--straight?"

"Everything, an' thank G.o.d for a clean breast again."

"An' Will?"

"Caan't say what he'll do after. Theer'll be no real marryin' for us yet a while. Faither can have the law of Will presently,--that's all I knaw."

"Trust Will to do the right thing; and mind, come what may to him, theer's allus Clem Hicks and me for friends."

"Ban't likely to be many others left, come to-morrow night. But I've run away from my own thoughts to think of you and him often of late days.

He'll get money and marry you, won't he, when his aunt, Mrs. Coomstock, dies?"

"No; I thought so tu, an' hoped it wance; but Clem says what she've got won't come his way. She's like as not to marry, tu--there 'm a lot of auld men tinkering after her, Billy Blee among 'em."

Sounds arose from beneath. They began with harsh and grating notes, interrupted by a violent hawking and spitting. Then followed renewal of the former unlovely noises. Presently, at a point in the song, for such it was, half a dozen other voices drowned the soloist in a chorus.

"'T is Billy rehearsin' moosic," explained Phoebe, with a sickly smile.

"He haven't singed for a score of years; but they've awver-persuaded him and he's promised to give 'em an auld ballet on my wedding-day."

"My stars! 't is a gashly auld noise sure enough," criticised Phoebe's friend frankly; "for all the world like a stuck pig screechin', or the hum of the threshin' machine poor faither used to have, heard long ways off."

Quavering and quivering, with sudden painful flights into a cracked treble, Billy's effort came to the listeners.

"'Twas on a Monday marnin'

Afore the break of day, That I tuked up my turmit-hoe An' trudged dree mile away!"

Then a rollicking chorus, with rough music in it, surged to their ears--

"An' the fly, gee hoppee!

The fly, gee whoppee!

The fly be on the turmits, For 't is all my eye for me to try An' keep min off the turmits!"

Mr. Blee lashed his memory and slowly proceeded, while Chris, moved by a sort of sudden mother-instinct towards pale and tearful Phoebe, strained her to her bosom, hugged her very close, kissed her, and bid her be hopeful and happy.

"Taake gude heart, for you 'm to mate the best man in all the airth but wan!" she said; "an', if 't is awnly to keep Billy from singing in public, 't is a mercy you ban't gwaine to take Jan Grimbal. Doan't 'e fear for him. There'll be a thunder-storm for sartain; then he'll calm down, as better 'n him have had to 'fore now, an' find some other gal."