"She'd gived me her word 'fore ever Blee axed her. I seed her essterday, to hear final 'pon the subjec', an' she tawld me straight, bein' sober as you at the time, as 't was _me_ she wanted an' meant for to have. She was excited t' other day an' not mistress of herself ezacally; an' the crafty twoad took advantage of it, an' jawed, an' made her drink an'

drink till her didn't knaw what her was sayin' or doin'. But she'm mine, an' she'll tell 'e same as what I do; so theer's an end on 't."

"I'll see Mrs. Coomstock," said the Vicar. "I, myself will visit her to-morrow."

"Canst punish this man for tryin' to taake her from me?"

"Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge. For the present I decline to say more upon the subject. If it were possible to punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling in the house of G.o.d. After an experience extending over forty years, I may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying spectacle."

So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock pa.s.sed through most painful experiences.

To the clergyman, with many sighs and tears, she explained that Mr.

Lezzard's character had been maligned by Mr. Blee, that before the younger veteran she had almost feared for her life, and been driven to accept him out of sheer terror at his importunity. But when facts came to her ears afterwards, she found that Mr. Lezzard was in reality all he had declared himself to be, and therefore returned to him, threw over Mr. Blee, and begged the other to forbid the banns, if as she secretly learnt, though not from Billy himself, they were to be called on that Sunday. The poor woman's ears tingled under Mr. Shorto-Champernowne's sonorous reproof; but he departed at last, and by the time that Billy called, during the same day, she had imbibed Dutch courage sufficient to face him and tell him she had changed her mind. She had erred--she confessed it. She had been far from well at the time and, upon reconsideration of the proposal, had felt she would never be able to make Mr. Blee happy, or enjoy happiness with him.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Coomstock had accepted both suitors on one and the same afternoon. First Gaffer, who had made repeated but rather vague allusion to a sum of three hundred pounds in ready money, was taken definitely; while upon his departure, the widow, only dimly conscious of what was settled with her former admirer, said, "Yes" to Billy in his turn. Had a third suitor called on that event-ful afternoon, it is quite possible Mrs. Coomstock would have accepted him also.

The conversation with Mr. Blee was of short duration, and ended by Billy calling down a comprehensive curse on the faithless one and returning to Monks Barton. He had attached little importance to Lezzard's public protest, upon subsequent consideration and after the first shock of hearing it; but there was no possibility of doubting what he now learned from Mrs. Coomstock's own lips. That she had in reality changed her mind appeared only too certain.

So he went home again in the last extremity of fury, and Phoebe, who was alone at the time, found herself swept by the hurricane of his wrath. He entered snorting and puffing, flung his hat on the settle, his stick into the corner; then, dropping into a seat by the fire, he began taking off his gaiters with much snuffling and mumbling and repeated inarticulate explosions of breath. This cat-like splutter always indicated deep feeling in Mr. Blee, and Phoebe asked with concern what was the matter now.

"Matter? Tchut--Tchut--Theer ban't no G.o.d--that's what's the matter!"

"Billy! How can you?"

"She'm gwaine to marry t'other, arter all! From her awn lips I've heard it! That's what I get for being a church member from the womb! That's my reward! G.o.d, indeed! Be them the ways o' a plain-dealin' G.o.d, who knaws what's doin' in human hearts? No fay! Bunk.u.m an' rot! I'll never lift my voice in hymn nor psalm no more, nor pray a line o' prayer again. Who be I to be treated like that? Drunken auld cat! I cussed her--I cussed her!

Wouldn't marry her now if she axed wi' her mouth in the dirt. Wheer's justice to? Tell me that. Me in church, keepin' order 'mong the d.a.m.n boys generation arter generation, and him never inside the door since he buried his wife. An' parson siding wi' un, I'll wager. Mother Coomstock 'll give un h.e.l.l's delights, that's wan gude thought. A precious pair of 'em! Tchut! Gar!"

"I doan't really think you could have loved Mrs. Coomstock overmuch, Billy, if you can talk so ugly an' crooked 'bout her," said Phoebe.

"I did, I tell 'e--for years an' years. I went down on my knees to the b.i.t.c.h--I wish I hadn't; I'll be sorry for that to my dying day. I kissed her, tu,--s' elp me, I did. You mightn't think it, but I did--a faace like a frost-bitten beetroot, as 't is!"

"Doan't 'e, please, say such horrible things. You must be wise about it.

You see, they say Mr. Lezzard has more money than you. At least, so Mrs.

Coomstock told her nephew, Clement Hicks. Every one of her relations is savage about it."

"Well they may be. Why doan't they lock her up? If she ban't mad, n.o.body ever was. 'Money'! Lezzard! Lying auld--auld--Tchut! Not money enough to pay for a graave to hide his rotten bones, I lay. Oh, 't is enough to--theer, what 's the use of talkin'? Tchut--Tchut!"

At this point Phoebe, fearing even greater extravagances in Mr. Blee's language, left him to consider his misfortunes alone. Long he continued in the profoundest indignation, and it was not until Miller Lyddon returned, heard the news, and heartily congratulated Billy on a merciful escape, that the old man grew a little calmer under his disappointment, and moderated the bitterness and profanity of his remarks.

CHAPTER IX

A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY

Newtake Farm, by reason of Will's recent occupancy, could offer no very considerable return during his first year as tenant; but that he understood and accepted, and the tribulation which now fell upon him was of his own making. To begin with, Sam Bonus vanished from the scene. On learning, soon after the event, that Bonus had discussed Hicks and himself at Chagford, and detailed his private conversation with Martin Grimbal, Blanchard, in a fury, swept off to the loft where his man slept, roused him from rest, threw down the balance of his wages, and dismissed him on the spot. He would hear no word in explanation, and having administered a pa.s.sionate rebuke, departed as he had come, like a whirlwind. Sam, smarting under this injustice, found the devil wake in him through that sleepless night, and had there stood rick or stack within reach of revenge, he might have dealt his master a return blow before morning. As usual, after the lapse of hours, Will cooled down, modified his first fiery indignation, and determined, yet without changing his mind, to give Bonus an opportunity of explaining the thing he had done. Chris had brought the news from Clement himself, and Will, knowing that his personal relations with Clement were already strained, felt that in justice to his servant he must be heard upon the question.

But, when he sought Sam Bonus, though still the dawn was only grey, he found the world fuller for him by another enemy, for the man had taken him at his word and departed. During that day and the next Will made some effort to see Bonus, but nothing came of it, so, dismissing the matter from his mind, he hired a new labourer--one Teddy Chown, son of Abraham Chown, the Inspector of Police--and pursued his way.

Then his unbounded energy led him into difficulties of a graver sort.

Will had long cast covetous eyes on a tract of moorland immediately adjoining Newtake, and there being little to do at the moment, he conceived the adventurous design of reclaiming it. The patch was an acre and a half in extent--a beggarly, barren region, where the heather thinned away and the black earth shone with water and disintegrated granite. Quartz particles glimmered over it; at the centre black pools of stagnant water marked an abandoned peat cutting; any spot less calculated to attract an agricultural eye would have been hard to imagine; but Blanchard set to work, began to fill the greedy quag in the midst with tons of soil, and soon caused the place to look business-like--at least in his own estimation. As for the Duchy, he did not trouble himself. The Duchy itself was always reclaiming land without considering the rights and wrongs of the discontented Venville tenants, and Will knew of many a "newtake" besides this he contemplated. Indeed, had not the whole farm, of which he was now master, been rescued from the Moor in time past? He worked hard, therefore, and his new a.s.sistant, though not a Bonus, proved stout and active. Chris, who still dwelt with her brother, was sworn to secrecy respecting Will's venture; and so lonely a region did the farm occupy that not until he had put a good month of work into the adjacent waste were any of those in authority aware of the young farmer's performance.

A day came when the new land was cleaned, partly ploughed, and wholly surrounded by a fence of split stumps, presently to be connected by wires. At these Chown was working, while Will had just arrived with a load of earth to add to the many tons already poured upon that hungry central patch. He held the tailboard of the cart in his hand and was about to remove it; when, looking up, his heart fluttered a moment despite his st.u.r.dy consciousness of right. On the moor above him rode grey old Vogwell, the Duchy's man. His long beard fluttered in the wind, and Will heard the thud of his horse's hoofs as he cantered quickly to the scene, pa.s.sed between two of the stakes, and drew up alongside Blanchard.

"Marnin', Mr. Vogwell! Fine weather, to be sure, an' gude for the peat next month; but bad for roots, an' no mistake. Will 'e have a drink?"

Mr. Vogwell gazed sternly about him, then fixed his little bright eyes on the culprit.

"What do this mean, Will Blanchard?"

"Well, why not? Duchy steals all the gude land from Venwell men; why for shouldn't us taake a little of the bad? This here weern't no gude to man or mouse. Ban't 'nough green stuff for a rabbit 'pon it. So I just thought I'd give it a lick an' a promise o' more later on."

"'A lick an' a promise'! You've wasted a month's work on it, to the least."

"Well, p'raps I have--though ban't wasted. Do 'e think, Mr. Vogwell, as the Duchy might be disposed to give me a hand?"

Will generally tackled difficulties in this audacious fashion, and a laugh already began to brighten his eye; but the other quenched it.

"You fool! You knawed you was doin' wrong better'n I can tell you--an'

such a plaace! A babe could see you 'm workin' awver living springs. You caan't fill un even now in the drouth, an' come autumn an' rain 't will all be bog again."

"Nothing of the sort," flamed out Will, quite forgetting his recent a.s.sertion as to the poverty of the place. "Do 'e think, you, as awnly rides awver the Moor, knaws more about soil than I as works on it?

'Twill be gude proofy land bimebye--so good as any Princetown way, wheer the prison men reclaim, an' wheer theer's gra.s.s this minute as carries a bullock to the acre. First I'll plant rye, then swedes, then maybe more swedes, then barley; an', with the barley, I'll sow the permanent gra.s.s to follow. That's gude rotation of crops for Dartymoor, as I knaw an'

you doan't; an' if the Duchy encloses the best to rob our things[11], why for shouldn't we--"

[11] _Things_ = beasts; sheep and cattle.

"That'll do. I caan't bide here listenin' to your child's-talk all the marnin'. What Duchy does an' doan't do is for higher 'n you or me to decide. If this was any man's work but yours I'd tell Duchy this night; but bein' you, I'll keep mute. Awnly mind, when I comes this way a fortnight hence, let me see these postes gone an' your plough an' cart t' other side that wall. An' you'll thank me, when you've come to more sense, for stoppin' this wild-goose chase. Now I'll have a drop o'

cider, if it's all the same to you."

Will opened a stone jar which lay under his coat at hand, and answered as he poured cider into a horn mug for Mr. Vogwell--

"Here's your drink; but I won't take your orders, so I tell 'e. d.a.m.n the Duchy, as steals moor an' common wheer it pleases an' then grudges a man his toil."

"That's the spirit as'll land 'e in the poorhouse, Will Blanchard," said Mr. Vogwell calmly; "and that's such a job as might send 'e to the County Asylum," he added, pointing to the operations around him. "As to d.a.m.ning Duchy," he continued, "you might as well d.a.m.n the sun or moon.

They'd care as little. Theer 'm some varmints so small that, though they bite 'e with all their might, you never knaw it; an' so 't is wi' you an' Duchy. Mind now, a fortnight. Thank 'e--so gude cider as ever I tasted; an' doan't 'e tear an' rage, my son. What's the use?"

"'Twould be use, though, if us all raged together."

"But you won't get none to follow. 'Tis all talk. Duchy haven't got no bones to break or sawl to lose; an' moormen haven't got brains enough to do aught in the matter but jaw."

"An' all for a royal prince, as doan't knaw difference between yether an' fuzz, I lay," growled Will. "Small blame to moormen for being radical-minded these days. Who wouldn't, treated same as us?"

"Best not talk on such high subjects, Will Blanchard, or you might get in trouble. A fortnight, mind. Gude marnin' to 'e."

The Duchy's man rode off and Will stood angry and irresolute. Then, seeing Mr. Vogwell was still observing him, he ostentatiously turned to the cart and tipped up his load of earth. But when the representative of power had disappeared--his horse and himself apparently sinking into rather than behind a heather ridge--Will's energy died and his mood changed. He had fooled himself about this enterprise until the present, but he could no longer do so. Now he sat down on the earth he had brought, let his horse drag the cart after it, as it wandered in search of some green thing, and suffered a storm of futile indignation to darken his spirit.