He pulled a sc.r.a.p of paper from his pocket and flung it into her lap.

"I call it 'Spring Rain,'" he said. "Yesterday the world was grey, and I was happy; to-day the world is all gold, and I'm finding life harder and heavier than usual. Read it out slowly to me. It was meant to be read to the song of the river, and never a prettier voice read a rhyme than yours."

Chris smoothed the paper and recited her lover's lyrics. They had some shadow of music in them and echoed Clem's love of beautiful things; but they lacked inspiration or much skill.

"'Neath unnumbered crystal arrows-- Crystal arrows from the quiver Of a cloud--the waters shiver In the woodland's dim domain; And the whispering of the rain Tinkles sweet on silver Teign-- Tinkles on the river.

"Through unnumbered sweet recesses-- Sweet recesses soft in lining Of green moss with ivy twining-- Daffodils, a sparkling train, Twinkle through the whispering rain, Twinkle bright by silver Teign, With a starry shining.

"'Mid unnumbered little leaf-buds-- Little leaf-buds surely bringing Spring once more--song birds are winging; And their mellow notes again Throb across the whispering rain, Till the banks of silver Teign Echo with their singing."

Chris, having read, made customary cheerful comment according to her limitations.

"'T is just like essterday--butivul grawing weather, but 'pears to me it's plain facts more 'n poetry. Anybody could come to the streamside and see it all for themselves."

"Many are far away, pent in bricks and mortar, yearning deep to see the dance of the Spring, and chained out of sight of it. This might bring one glimpse to them."

"An' so it might, if you sold it for a bit of money. Then it could be printed out for 'em like t'other was."

"You don't understand--you won't understand--even you."

"I caan't please 'e to-day. I likes the li'l verses ever so. You do make such things seem butivul to my ear--an' so true as a photograph."

Clem shivered and stretched his hand for the paper. Then, in a moment, he had torn it into twenty pieces and sent the fragments afloat.

"There! Let her take them to the sea with her. She understands. Maybe she'll find a cool corner for me too before many days are pa.s.sed."

Chris began to feel her patience failing.

"What, in G.o.d's name, have I done to 'e you should treat me like this?"

she asked, with fire in her eyes.

"Been fool enough to love me," he answered. "But it's never too late for a woman to change her mind. Leave a sinking ship, or rather a ship that never got properly launched, but, sticking out of its element, was left to rot. Why don't you leave me, Chris?"

She stroked his hand, then picked it up and laid her soft cheek against it.

"Not till the end of the world comes for wan of us, Clem. I'll love 'e always, and the better and deeper 'cause you 'm so wisht an' unlucky somehow. But you 'm tu wise to be miserable all your time."

"You ought to make me a man if anything could. I burn away with hopes and hopes, and more hopes for the future, and miss the paltry thing at hand that might save me."

"Then miss it no more, love; seek closer, an' seek sharper. Maybe gude work an' gude money 's awnly waitin' for 'e to find it. Doan't look at the moon an' stars so much; think of me, an' look lower."

Slowly the beauty of the hour and the sweet-hearted girl at his elbow threw some sunshine into Clement's moody heart. For a little while the melancholy and shiftless dreamer grew happier. He promised renewed activity in the future, and undertook, as a first step towards Martin Grimbal, to inform the antiquary of that great fact which his foolish whim had thus far concealed.

"Chance might have got it to his ears through more channels than one, you would have thought; but he's a taciturn man, asks no questions, and invites no confidences. I like him the better for it. Next week, come what may, I'll speak to him and tell him the truth, like a plain, blunt man."

"Do 'e that very thing," urged Chris. "Say we'm lovers these two year an' more; an' that you'd be glad to wed me if your way o' life was bettered. Ban't beggin', as he knaws, for n.o.body doubts you'm the most book-learned man in Chagford after parson."

Together they followed the winding of the river and proceeded through the valley, by wood, and stile, and meadow, until they reached Rushford Bridge. Here they delayed a moment at the parapet and, while they did so, John Grimbal pa.s.sed on foot alone.

"His house is growing," said Clement, as they proceeded to Mrs.

Blanchard's cottage.

"Aye, and his hearth will be as cold as his heart--the wretch! Well he may turn his hard face away from me and remember what fell out on this identical spot! But for G.o.d's gude grace he'd have been hanged to Exeter 'fore now."

"You can't put yourself in his shoes, Chris; no woman can. Think what the world looked like to him after his loss. The girl he wanted was so near. His hands were stretched out for her; his heart was full of her.

Then to see her slip away."

"An' quite right, tu; as you was the first to say at the time. Who's gwaine to pity a thief who loses the purse he's stole, or a poacher that fires 'pon another man's bird an' misses it?"

"All the same, I doubt he would have made a better husband for Phoebe Lyddon than ever your brother will."

His sweetheart gasped at criticism so unexpected.

"You--you to say that! You, Will's awn friend!"

"It's true; and you know it as well as anybody. He has so little common sense."

But Chris flamed up in an instant. Nothing the man's cranky temper could do had power to irritate her long. Nothing he might say concerning himself or her annoyed her for five minutes; but, upon the subject of her brother, not even from Clem did Chris care to hear a disparaging word or unfavourable comment. And this criticism, of all others, levelled against Will angered her to instant bitter answer before she had time to measure the weight of her words.

"'Common sense'! Perhaps you'll be so kind as to give Will Blanchard a li'l of your awn--you being so rich in it. Best look at home, and see what you can spare!"

So the lovers' quarrel which had been steadily brewing under the sunshine now bubbled over and lowered thunder-black for the moment, as such storms will.

Clement Hicks, perfectly calm now that his sweetheart's temper was gone, marched off; and Chris, slamming the cottage door, vanished, without taking any further leave of him than that recorded in her last utterance.

CHAPTER II

NEWTAKE FARM

Clement Hicks told the truth when he said that Mrs. Blanchard fell something short of her usual sound judgment and sagacity in the matter of Will's enterprise. The home of childhood is often apt enough to exercise magic, far-reaching attraction, and even influence a mind for the most part unsentimental. To Damaris the thought of her son winning his living where her father had done so was pleasant and in accordance with eternal fitness. Not without emotion did she accompany Will to Newtake Farm while yet the proposed bargain awaited completion; not without strange awakenings in the dormant recesses of her memory did Will's mother pa.s.s and pa.s.s again through the scenes of her earliest days. From the three stone steps, or "upping stock," at the farmhouse door, whereat a thousand times she had seen her father mount his horse, to the environment of the farmyard; from the strange, winding staircase of solid granite that connected upper and lower storeys, to each mean chamber in Newtake, did Mrs. Blanchard's eyes roam thoughtfully amid the ghosts of recollections. Her girl's life returned and the occasional bright days gleamed forth again, vivid by contrast with the prevailing grey. So active became thought that to relieve her mind she spoke to Will.

"The li'l chamber over the door was mine," she said; "an' your poor uncle had the next. I can just mind him, allus at his books, to his faither's pride. Then he went away to Newton to join some lawyer body an' larn his business. An' I mind the two small maids as was my elder sisters and comed betwixt me an' Joel. Both died--like candles blawed out roughly by the wind. They wasn't made o' the stuff to stand Dartymoor winters."

She paused for a few moments, then proceeded:

"Theer, to west of the yard, is a croft as had corn in it wan year, though 'tis permanent gra.s.s now, seemin'ly. Your faither corned through theer like a snake by night more'n wance; an' oftentimes I crept down house, shivering wi' fear an' love, to meet him under moonlight while the auld folks slept. Tim he'd grawed to a power wi' the gypsy people by that time; but faither was allus hard against un. He hated wanderers in tents or 'pon wheels, or even sea-gwaine sailor-men--he carried it that far. Then comed a peep o' day when Tim's bonny yellow caravan 'peared around the corner of that windin' road what goes all across the Moor. At the first stirring of light, I was ready an' skipped out; an', to this hour, I mind the last thing as touched me kindly was the red tongue of the sheep-dog. He ran a mile after the van, unhappy-like; then Tim ordered un away, an' he stood in the white road an' held up his paw an'

axed a question as plain as a human. So Tim hit un hard wi' a gert stone, an' he yelped an' gived me up for lost, an' bolted home wi' his tail between his legs an' his eye thrawed back full of sadness over his shoulder. Ess fay! I can see the dust puffin' up under his pads in the grey dawn so clear as I can see you."

Again she stopped, but only for breath.

"They never answered my writings. Faither wouldn't an' mother didn't dare. But when I was near my time, Timothy, reckoning they'd yield then if ever, arranged to be in Chagford when I should be brought to bed. Yet 'twas ordained differ'nt, an' the roundy-poundy, wheer the caravan was drawed up when the moment corned, be just round theer on Metherill hill, as you knaws. So it happened right under the very walls of Newtake. In the stone circle you comed; an' by night arterwards, sweatin' for terror, your gran'mother, as had heard tell of it, sneaked from Newtake to kiss me an' press you to her body. Faither never knawed till long arter; an' though mother used to say she heard un forgive me on his death-bed, 'twas her awn pious wish echoing in her awn ears I reckon.

But that's all awver an' done."