"Done it?"

"Truth."

"It was a cruel, wicked shame; an' the blame's Billy Blee's, an' I've cried my eyes out since I heard what they set you to do; an' I've said what I thought; an' I'm sorry to bitterness about this marnin', dear Will."

"'T is all wan now. I've comed into a mort of money, my Uncle Ford bein'

suddenly dead."

"Oh, Will, I could a'most jump out the window!"

"'T would be easier for me to come up-long."

"No, no; not for the world, Will!"

"Why for not? An' you that lovely, twinklin' in your white gownd, an' me your lawful husband, an' a man o' money! d.a.m.ned if I ain't got a mind to climb up by the pear-tree!"

"You mustn't, you mustn't! Go away, dear, sweet Will. An' I'm so thankful you've forgiven me for being so wicked, dear heart."

"Everybody'll ax to be forgiven now, I reckon; but you--theer ban't nothin' to forgive you for. You can tell your faither I've forgived un to-morrow, an' tell un I'm rich, tu. 'T will ease his mind. Theer, an'

theer, an theer!"

Will kissed his hand thrice, then vanished, and his wife shut her window and, kneeling, prayed out thankful prayers.

As her husband crossed Rushford Bridge, his thought sped backward through the storm and sunshine of past events. But chiefly he remembered the struggle with John Grimbal and its sequel. For a moment he glanced below into the dark water.

"'T is awver an' past, awver an' past," he said to himself. "I be at the tail of all my troubles now, for theer's nought gude money an' gude sense caan't do between 'em."

BOOK II

HIS ENTERPRISE

CHAPTER I

SPRINGTIME

Nature, waking at the song of woodland birds to find herself naked, fashioned with flying fingers such a robe of young green and amber, hyacinth and pearl as only she can weave or wear. A scent of the season rose from mult.i.tudinous "buds, and bells, and stars without a name"; while the little world of Devon, vale and forest, upland and heathery waste, rejoiced in the new life, as it rang and rippled with music and colour even to the granite thrones of the Moor. Down by the margin of Teign, where she murmured through a vale of wakening leaves and reflected asphodels bending above her brink, the valley was born again in a very pageant of golden green that dappled all the grey woods, clothed branch and bough anew, ran flower-footed over the meadow, hid nests of happy birds in every dell and dingle, and spread luxuriant life above the ruin of the year that was gone. A song of hope filled each fair noon; no wasted energy, no unfulfilled intent as yet saddened the eye; no stunted, ruined nursling of Nature yet spoke unsuccess; no canker-bitten bud marked the cold finger of failure; for in that first rush of life all the earthborn host had set forth, if not equal, at least together. The primroses twinkled true on downy coral stems and the stars of anemone, celandine, and daisy opened perfect. Countless consummate, l.u.s.trous things were leaping, mingling, and uncurling, aloft and below, in the mazes of the wood, at the margins of the water.

Verdant spears and blades expanded; fair fans opened and tendrils twined; simultaneous showers of heart-shaped, arrow-shaped, flame-shaped foliage, all pure emerald and translucent beryl, made opulent outpouring of that new life which now pulsed through the Mother's million veins.

Diaphanous mist wreaths and tender showers wooed the Spring; under silver gauze of vernal rain rang wild rapture of thrushes, laughter of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, chime and chatter of jackdaws from the rock, secret crooning of the cushat in the pines. From dawn till dusk the sweet air was winnowed by busy wings; from dawn till dusk the hum and murmur of life ceased not. Infinite possibility, infinite promise, marked the time; and man shared a great new hope with the beasts and birds, and wild violet of the wood. Blood and sap raced gloriously together, while a chorus of conscious and unconscious creation sang the anthem of the Spring in solemn strophe and antistrophe.

As life's litany rises once again, and before the thunder of that music rolling from the valleys to the hills, human reason yearly hesitates for a moment, while hope cries out anew above the frosty lessons of experience. For a brief hour the thinker, perhaps wisely, turns from memory, as from a cloud that blots the present with its shadow, and spends a little moment in this world of opal lights and azure shades. He forgets that Nature adorned the bough for other purpose than his joy; forgets that strange creatures, with many legs and hungry mouths, will presently tatter each musical dome of rustling green; forgets that he gazes upon a battlefield awaiting savage armies, which will fill high Summer with ceaseless war, to strew the fair earth with slain. He suffers dead Winter to bury her dead, seeks the wine of life that brims in the chalices of Spring flowers: plucks blade and blossom, and is a child again, if Time has so dealt with him that for a little he can thus far retrace his steps; and, lastly, he turns once more to the Mother he has forgotten, to find that she has not forgotten him. The whisper of her pa.s.sing in a greenwood glade is the murmur of waters invisible and of life unseen; the scent of her garment comes sweet on the bloom of the blackthorn; high heaven and lowly forget-me-not alike mirror the blue of her wonderful eyes; and the gleam of the sunshine on rippling rivers and dreaming clouds reflects the gold of her hair. She moves a queen who, pa.s.sing through one fair corner of her world-wide kingdom, joys in it.

She, the sovereign of the universe, reigns here too, over the buds and the birds, and the happy, unconsidered life of weald and wold. Each busy atom and unfolding frond is dear to her; each warm nest and hidden burrow inspires like measure of her care and delight; and at this time, if ever, we may think of Nature as forgetting Death for one magic moment, as sharing the wide joy of her wakening world, as greeting the young mother of the year's hopes, as pressing to her bosom the babes of Spring with many a sunny smile and rainbowed tear.

Through the woods in Teign Valley pa.s.sed Clement Hicks and his sweetheart about a fortnight after Lawyer Ford had been laid to rest in Chagford Churchyard. Chris talked about her brother and the great enterprise he had determined upon. She supported Will and spoke with sanguine words of his future; but Clement regarded the project differently.

"To lease Newtake Farm is a fool's trick," he said. "Everybody knows the last experiments there. The place has been empty for ten months, and those who touched it in recent years only broke their hearts and wasted their substance."

"Well, they weern't such men as Will. Theer's a fitness about it, tu; for Will's awn gran'faither prospered at Newtake; an' if he could get a living, another may. Mother do like the thought of Will being there somehow."

"I know it. The sentiment of the thing has rather blinded her natural keen judgment. Curious that I should criticise sentiment in another person; but it 's like my cranky, contrary way. Only I was thinking of Will's thousand pounds. Newtake will suck it out of his pocket quicker than Cranmere sucks up a Spring shower."

"Well, I'm more hopeful. He knows the value of money; an' Phoebe will help him when she comes up. The months slip by so quickly. By the time I've got the cobwebs out of the farm an' made the auld rooms water-sweet, I dare say theer'll be talk of his wife joining him."

"You going up! This is the first I've heard of it."

"I meant to tell 'e to-day. Mother is willing and I'm awnly tu glad. A man's a poor left-handed thing 'bout a house. I'd do more 'n that for Will."

"Pity he doesn't think and do something for you. Surely a little of this money--?"

"Doan't 'e touch on that, Clem. Us had a braave talk 'pon it, for he wanted to make over two hundred pound to me, but I wouldn't dream of it, and you wouldn't have liked me tu. You 'm the last to envy another's fair fortune."

"I do envy any man fortune. Why should I starve, waiting for you, and--?"

"Hush!" she said, as though she had spoken to a little child. "I won't hear no wild words to-day in all this gude gold sunshine."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n everything!" he burst out. "What a poor, impotent wretch He's made me--a thing to bruise its useless hands beating the door that will never open! It maddens me--especially when all the world's happy, like to-day--all happy but me. And you so loyal and true! What a fool you are to stick to me and let me curse you all your life!"

"Doan't 'e, doan't 'e, Clem," said Chris wearily. She was growing well accustomed to these ebullitions. "Doan't grudge Will his awn. Our turn will come, an' perhaps sooner than we think for. Look round 'pon the sweet fresh airth an' budding flowers. Spring do put heart into a body.

We 'm young yet, and I'll wait for 'e if 't is till the crack o' doom."

"Life's such a cursed short thing at best--just a stormy day between two nights, one as long as past time, the other all eternity. Have you seen a mole come up from the ground, wallow helplessly a moment or two, half blind in the daylight, then sink back into the earth, leaving only a mound? That's our life, yours and mine; and Fate grudges that even these few poor hours, which make the sum of it, should be spent together.

Think how long a man and woman can live side by side at best. Yet every Sunday of your life you go to church and babble about a watchful, loving Maker!"

"I doan't know, Clem. You an' me ban't everybody. You've told me yourself as G.o.d do play a big game, and it doan't become this man or that woman to reckon their-selves more important than they truly be."

"A great game, yes; but a cursed poor game--for a G.o.d. The counters don't matter, I know; they'll soon be broken up and flung away; and the sooner the better. It's living h.e.l.l to be born into a world where there's no justice--none for king or tinker."

"Sit alongside of me and smell the primrosen an' watch thicky kingfisher catching the li'l trout. I doan't like 'e in these bitter moods, Clem, when your talk's all dead ashes."

He sat by her and looked out over the river. It was flooded in sunlight, fringed with uncurling green.

"I'm sick and weary of life without you. 'Conscious existence is a failure,' and the man who found that out and said it was wise. I wish I was a bird or beast--or nothing. All the world is mating but you and me.

Nature hates me because I survive from year to year, not being fit to.

The dumb things do her greater credit than ever I can. The--"

"Now, I'll go--on my solemn word, I'll go--if you grumble any more!

Essterday you was so different, and said you'd fallen in love with Miss Spring, and pretended to speak to her and make me jealous. You didn't do that, but you made me laugh. An' you promised a purty verse for me. Did 'e make it up after all? I lay not."

"Yes, I did. I wasted two or three hours over it last night."

"Might 'e get ten shillings for it, like t' other?"

"It's not worth the paper it's on, unless you like it. Your praise is better than money to me. n.o.body wants any thoughts of mine. Why should they?"

"Not when they 'm all sour an' poor, same as now; but essterday you spoke like to a picture-book. Theer's many might have took gude from what you said then."