The question was not asked with the least idea of its enormous significance. Grimbal had no notion that any mystery hung over that autumn time during which he made love to Phoebe and Will was absent from Chagford. He doubted not that for the asking he could learn how Will had occupied himself; but the subject did not interest him, and he never dreamed the period held a secret. The sudden consternation bred in Hicks by this question astounded him not a little. Indeed, each man amazed the other, Grimbal by his question, Hicks by the att.i.tude which he a.s.sumed before it.

"I'm sure I haven't the least idea," he answered; but his voice and manner had already told Grimbal all he cared to learn at the moment; and that was more than his wildest hopes had even risen to. He saw in the other's face a hidden thing, and by his demeanour that it was an important one. Indeed, the bee-keeper's hesitation and evident alarm before this chance question proclaimed the secret vital. For the present, and before Clement's evident alarm, Grimbal dismissed the matter lightly; but he chose to say a few more words upon it, for the express purpose of setting Hicks again at his ease.

"You don't like your future brother-in-law?"

"Yes, yes, I do. We've been friends all our lives--all our lives. I like him well, and am going to marry his sister--only I see his faults, and he sees mine--that's all."

"Take my advice and shut your eyes to his faults. That's the best way if you are marrying into his family. I've got cause to think ill enough of the scamp, as you know and everybody knows; but life's too short for remembering ill turns."

A weight rolled off Clement's heart. For a moment he had feared that the man knew something; but now he began to suspect Grimbal's question to be what in reality it was--casual interrogation, without any shadow of knowledge behind it. Hicks therefore breathed again and trusted that his own emotion had not been very apparent. Then, taking the water, he shot a thin shower into the air, an operation often employed to hasten swarming, and possibly calculated to alarm the bees into apprehension of rain.

"Do wasps ever get into the hives?" asked Mr. Grimbal abruptly.

"Aye, they do; and wax-moths and ants, and even mice. These things eat the honey and riddle and ruin the comb. Then birds eat the bees, and spiders catch them. Honey-bees do nothing but good that I can see, yet Nature 's pleased to fill the world with their enemies. Queen and drone and the poor uns.e.xed workers--all have their troubles; and so has the little world of the hive. Yet during the few weeks of a bee's life he does an amount of work beyond imagination to guess at."

"And still finds time to steal from the hives of his fellows?"

"Why, yes, if the sweets are exposed and can be tasted for nothing. Most of us might turn robbers on the same terms. Now I can take them, and a splendid swarm, too--finest I've seen this year."

The business of getting the glittering bunch of bees into a hive was then proceeded with, and soon Clement had shaken the ma.s.s into a big straw b.u.t.t, his performance being completely successful. In less than half an hour all was done, and Hicks began to remove his veil and shake a bee or two off the rim of his hat.

John Grimbal rubbed his cheek, where a bee had stung him under the eye, and regarded Hicks thoughtfully.

"If you happen to want work at any time, it might be within my power to find you some here," he said, handing the bee-master five shillings.

Clement thanked his employer and declared he would not forget the offer; he then departed, and John Grimbal returned to his farm.

CHAPTER VII

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE

Billy Blee, who has appeared thus far as a disinterested spectator of other people's affairs, had yet his own active and personal interests in life. Them he pursued, at odd times, and in odd ways, with admirable pertinacity; and as a crisis is now upon him and chance knits the outcome of it into the main fabric of this narrative, Billy and his actions command attention.

Allusion has already been made, and that frequently, to one Widow Coomstock, whose attractions of income, and the ancillary circ.u.mstance of an ample though elderly person, had won for her certain admirers more ancient than herself. Once b.u.t.t-woman, or s.e.xtoness, of Chagford Church, the lady had dwelt alone, as Miss Mary Reed, for fifty-five years--not because opportunity to change her state was denied her, but owing to the fact that experience of life rendered her averse to all family responsibilities. Mary Reed had seen her sister, the present Mrs. Hicks, take a husband, had watched the result of that step; and this, with a hundred parallel instances of misery following on matrimony, had determined her against it. But when old Benjamin Coomstock, the timber merchant and coal-dealer, became a widower, this ripe maiden, long known to him, was approached before his wife's grave became ready for a stone.

To Chagford's amazement he so far bemeaned himself as to offer the s.e.xtoness his hand, and she accepted it. Then, left a widow after two years with her husband, Mary Coomstock languished a while, and changed her methods of life somewhat. The roomy dwelling-house of her late partner became her property and a sufficient income went with it. Mr.

Coomstock's business had been sold in his lifetime; the money was invested, and its amount no man knew, though rumour, which usually magnifies such matters, spoke of a very handsome figure; and Mrs.

Coomstock's lavish manner of life lent confirmation to the report. But though mundane affairs had thus progressed with her, the woman's marriage was responsible for very grave mental and moral deterioration.

Prosperity, and the sudden exchange of a somewhat laborious life for the ease and comfort of independence, played havoc with Widow Coomstock. She grew lax, gross in habit and mind, self-indulgent, and ill-tempered.

When her husband died her old friends lost sight of her, while only those who had reason to hope for a reward still kept in touch with her, and indeed forced themselves upon her notice. Everybody predicted she would take another husband; but, though it was now nearly eight years since Mr. Coomstock's death, his widow still remained one. Gaffer Lezzard and Billy Blee had long pursued her with varying advantage, and the latter, though his proposals were declined, yet saw in each refusal an indication to encourage future hope.

Now, urged thereto by whispers that Mr. Lezzard had grown the richer by three hundred pounds on the death of a younger brother in Australia, Billy determined upon another attack. He also was worth something--less indeed than three hundred pounds; though, seeing that he had been earning reasonably good wages for half a century, the fact argued but poor thrift in Mr. Blee. Of course Gaffer Lezzard's alleged legacy could hardly be a sum to count with Mrs. Coomstock, he told himself; yet his rival was a man of wide experience and an oily tongue: while, apart from any question of opposition, he felt that another offer of marriage might now be made with decorum, seeing that it was a full year since the last.

Mr. Blee therefore begged for a half-holiday, put on his broadcloth, blacked his boots, anointed his lion-monkey fringe and scanty locks with pomatum, and set forth. Mrs. Coomstock's house stood on the hill rising into the village from Chagford Bridge. A kitchen garden spread behind it; in front pale purple poppies had the ill-kept garden to themselves.

As he approached, Mr. Blee felt a leaden weight about his newly polished boots, and a distinct flutter at the heart, or in a less poetical portion of his frame.

"Same auld feeling," he reflected. "Gormed if I ban't gettin' sweaty 'fore the plaace comes in sight! 'Tis just the sinkin' at the navel, like what I had when I smoked my first pipe, five-and-forty years agone!"

The approach of another man steadied Billy, and on recognising him Mr.

Blee forgot all about his former emotions and gasped in the clutch of a new one. It was Mr. Lezzard, evidently under some impulse of genial exhilaration. There hung an air of aggression about him, but, though he moved like a conqueror, his gait was unsteady and his progress slow. He had wit to guess Billy's errand, however, for he grinned, and leaning against the hedge waved his stick in the air above his head.

"Aw, Jimmery! if it ban't Blee; an' prinked out for a weddin', tu, by the looks of it!"

"Not yourn, anyway," snapped back the suitor.

"Well, us caan't say 'zactly--world 's full o' novelties."

"Best pull yourself together, Gaffer, or bad-hearted folks might say you was bosky-eyed.[10] That ban't no novelty anyway, but 't is early yet to be drunk--just three o'clock by the church."

[10] _Bosky-eyed_ = intoxicated.

Mr. Blee marched on without waiting for a reply. He knew Lezzard to be more than seventy years old and usually regarded the ancient man's rivalry with contempt; but he felt uneasy for a few moments, until the front door of Mrs. Coomstock's dwelling was opened to him by the lady herself.

"My stars! You? What a terrible coorious thing!" she said.

"Why for?"

"Come in the parlour. Theer! coorious ban't the word!"

She laughed, a silly laugh and loud. Then she shambled before him to the sitting-room, and Billy, familiar enough with the apartment, noticed a bottle of gin in an unusual position upon the table. The liquor stood, with two gla.s.ses and a jug of water, between the Coomstock family Bible, on its green worsted mat, and a gla.s.s shade containing the stuffed carca.s.s of a fox-terrier. The animal was moth-eaten and its eyes had fallen out. It could be considered in no sense decorative; but sentiment allowed the corpse this central position in a sorry scheme of adornment, for the late timber merchant had loved it. Upon Mrs. Coomstock's parlour walls hung Biblical German prints in frames of sickly yellow wood; along the window-ledge geraniums and begonias flourished, though gardeners had wondered to see their luxuriance, for the windows were seldom opened.

"'It never rains but it pours,'" said Widow Coomstock. She giggled again and looked at Billy. She was very fat, and the red of her face deepened to purple unevenly about the sides of her nose. Her eyes were bright and black. She had opened a b.u.t.ton or two at the top of her dress, and her general appearance, from her grey hair to her slattern heels, was disordered. Her cap had fallen off on to the ground, and Mr. Blee noticed that her parting was as a broad turnpike road much tramped upon by Time. The room smelt stuffy beyond its wont and reeked not only of spirits but tobacco. This Billy sniffed inquiringly, and Mrs. Coomstock observed the action. "'Twas Lezzard," she said. "I like to see a man in comfort. You can smoke if you mind to. Coomstock always done it, and a man's no man without, though a dirty habit wheer they doan't use a spittoon."

She smiled, but to herself, and was lost in thought a moment. He saw her eyes very bright and her head wagging. Then she looked at him and laughed again.

"You'm a fine figure of a man, tu," she said, apropos of nothing in particular. But the newcomer understood. He rumpled his hair and snorted and frowned at the empty gla.s.ses.

"Have a drop?" suggested Mrs. Coomstock; but Billy, of opinion that his love had already enjoyed refreshment sufficient for the time, refused and answered her former remark.

"A fine figure?--yes, Mary Coomstock, though not so fine for a man as you for a woman. Still, a warm-blooded chap an' younger than my years."

"I've got my share o' warm blood, tu, Billy."

It was apparent. Mrs. Coomstock's plump neck bulged in creases over the dirty sc.r.a.p of white linen that represented a collar, while her ma.s.sive bust seemed bursting through her apparel.

"Coourse," said Mr. Blee, "an' your share, an' more 'n your share o'

brains, tu. He had bad luck--Coomstock--the worse fortune as ever fell to a Chaggyford man, I reckon."

"How do 'e come at that, then?"

"To get 'e, an' lose 'e again inside two year. That's ill luck if ever I seen it. Death's a envious twoad. Two short year of you; an' then up comes a tumour on his neck unbeknawnst, an' off he goes, like a spring lamb."

"An' so he did. I waked from sleep an' bid un rise, but theer weern't no more risin' for him till the Judgment."

"Death's no courtier. He'll let a day-labourer go so peaceful an'