"It's vain trying to anger me into speaking," answered the other, showing not a little anger the while; "I'm dumb henceforward."

"I hope you'll let your brain influence you towards reason. 'Tis a fool's trick to turn your back on the chance of a lifetime. Better think twice. And second thoughts are like to prove best worth following. You know where to find me at any rate. I'll give you six weeks to decide about it."

John Grimbal waited, hoping that Hicks might yet change his mind before he took his leave; but the bee-keeper made no answer. His companion therefore broke into a sharp trot and left him. Whereupon Clement stood still a moment, then he turned back and, forgetting all about Chris, proceeded slowly homewards to Chagford, deep in thought and heartily astonished at himself. No one could have prompted his enemy to a more critical moment for this great attack; no demon could have sent the master of the Red House with a more tempting proposal; and yet Hicks found himself resisting the lure without any particular effort or struggle. On the one side this man had offered him all the things his blood and brain craved; on the other his life still stretched drearily forward, and nothing in it indicated he was nearer his ambition by a hair's-breadth than a year before. Yet he refused to pay the price. It amazed him to find his determination so fixed against betrayal of Will.

He honestly wondered at himself. The decision was bred from a curious condition of mind quite beyond his power to comprehend. He certainly recoiled from exposure of Blanchard's secret, yet coldly asked himself what unsuspected strand of character held him back. It was not fear and it was not regard for his sweetheart's brother; he did not know what it was. He scoffed at the ideas of honour or conscience. These abstractions had possessed weight in earlier years, but not now. And yet, while he a.s.sured himself that no tie of temporal or eternal interest kept him silent, the temptation to tell seemed much less on this occasion than in the past when he took a swarm of John Grimbal's bees. Then, indeed, his mind was aflame with bitter provocation. He affected a cynical att.i.tude to the position and laughed without mirth at a theory that suddenly appeared in his mind. Perchance this steadfastness of purpose resulted, after all, from that artificial thing, "conscience," which men catch at the impressionable age when they have infantile ailments and pray at a mother's knee. If so, surely reason must banish such folly before another dawn and send him hot-foot at daybreak to the Red House. He would wait and watch himself and see.

His reflections were here cut short, for a shrill voice broke in upon them, and Clement, now within a hundred yards of his own cottage door, saw Mr. Lezzard before him.

"At last I've found 'e! Been huntin' this longful time, tu. The Missis wants 'e--your aunt I should say."

"Wants me?"

"Ess. 'T is wan o' her bad days, wi' her liver an' lights a bitin' at her like savage creatures. She'm set on seein' you, an' if I go home-along without 'e, she'll awnly cuss."

"What can she want me for?"

"She 's sick 'n' taken a turn for the wuss, last few days. Doctor Parsons doan't reckon she can hold out much longer. 'Tis the drink--she'm soaked in it, like a sponge."

"I'll come," said Hicks, and half an hour later he approached his aunt's dwelling and entered it.

Mrs. Lezzard was now sunk into a condition of chronic c.r.a.pulence which could only end in one way. Her husband had been ordered again and again to keep all liquor from her, but, truth to tell, he made no very sustained effort to do so. The old man was sufficiently oppressed by his own physical troubles, and as the only happiness earth now held for him must depend on the departure of his wife, he watched her drinking herself to death without concern and even smiled in secret at the possibility of some happy, quiet, and affluent years when she was gone.

Mrs. Lezzard lay on the sofa in her parlour, and a great peony-coloured face with coal-black eyes in it greeted Clement. She gave him her hand and bid her husband be gone. Then, when Gaffer had vanished, his wife turned to her nephew.

"I've sent for you, Clem Hicks, for more reasons than wan. I be gwaine down the hill fast, along o' marryin' this cursed mommet[12] of a man, Lezzard. He lied about his money--him a pauper all the time; and now he waits and watches me o' nights, when he thinks I'm drunk or dreamin' an'

I ban't neither. He watches, wi' his auld, mangy poll shakin', an' the night-lamp flingin' the black shadow of un 'gainst the bed curtain an'

shawin' wheer his wan front tooth sticks up like a yellow stone in a charred field. Blast un to h.e.l.l! He'm waitin' for my money, an' I've told un he's to have it. But 'twas only to make the sting bite deeper when the time comes. Not a penny--not a farthing--him or any of 'em."

[12] _Mommet_ = scarecrow.

"Don't get angry with him. He's not worth it. Tell me if I can help you and how. You'll be up and about again soon, I hope."

"Never. Not me. Doctor Parsons be to blame. I hate that man. He knawed it was weakness of heart that called for drink after c.o.o.nistock died; an' he let me go on an' on--just to gain his own dark ends. You'll see, you'll see. But that reminds me. Of all my relations you an' your mother's all I care for; because you'm of my awn blood an' you've let me bide, an' haven't been allus watchin' an' waitin' an' divin' me to the bottle. An' the man I was fule enough to take in his dotage be worst of all."

"Forget about these things. Anger's bad for you."

"Forget! Well, so I will forget, when I ve told 'e. I had the young man what does my business, since old Ford died, awver here last week, an'

what there is will be yourn--every stiver yourn. Not the business, of course; that was sold when c.o.o.nistock died; but what I could leave I have. You expected nothin,' an' by G.o.d! you shall have all!"

She saw his face and hastened to lessen the force of the announcement in some degree.

"Ban't much, mind, far less than you might think for--far less. Theer's things I was driven to do--a lone woman wi'out a soul to care. An' wan was--but you'll hear in gude time, you'll hear. It concerns Doctor Parsons."

"I can't believe my senses. If you only knew what happened to me this morning. And if you only knew what absolute paupers we are--mother and I. Not that I would confess it to any living soul but you. And how can I thank you? Words are such vain things."

"Ban't no call to thank me. 'Tis more from hatred of t' others than love of you, when all's said. An' it ban't no gert gold mine. But I'd like to be laid along wi' Coomstock; an' doan't, for G.o.d's love, bury Lezzard wi' me; an' I want them words on auld George Mundy's graave set 'pon mine--not just writ, but cut in a slate or some such lasting thing. 'Tis a tidy tomb he've got, wi' a cherub angel, an' I'd like the same. You'll find a copy o' the words in the desk there. My maid took it down last Sunday. I minded the general meaning, but couldn't call home the rhymes.

Read it out, will 'e?"

Clement opened the desk, and found and read the paper. It contained a verse not uncommon upon the tombstones of the last rural generation in Devon:

"Ye standers-by, the thread is spun; All pomp and pride I e'er did shun; Rich and poor alike must die; Peasants and kings in dust must lie; The best physicians cannot save Themselves or patients from the Grave."

"Them's the words, an' I've chose 'em so as Doctor Parsons shall have a smack in the faace when I'm gone. Not that he's wan o' the 'best physicians' by a mighty long way; but he'll knaw I was thinking of him, an' gnash his teeth, I hope, every time he sees the stone. I owe him that--an' more 'n that, as you'll see when I'm gone."

"You mustn't talk of going, aunt--not for many a day. You're a young woman for these parts. You must take care--that's all."

But he saw death in her face while he spoke, and could scarcely hide the frantic jubilation her promise had awakened in him. The news swept him along on a flood of novel thoughts. Coming as it did immediately upon his refusal to betray Will Blanchard, the circ.u.mstance looked, even in the eyes of Hicks, like a reward, an interposition of Providence on his behalf. He doubted not but that the bulk of mankind would so regard it.

There arose within him old-fashioned ideas concerning right and wrong--clear notions that brought a current of air through his mind and blew away much rotting foliage and evil fruit. This sun-dawn of prosperity transformed the man for a moment, even awoke some just ethical thoughts in him.

His reverie was interrupted, for, on the way from Mrs. Lezzard's home, Clement met Doctor Parsons himself and asked concerning his aunt's true condition.

"She gave you the facts as they are," declared the medical man. "Nothing can save her. She's had _delirium tremens_ Lord knows how often. A fortnight to a month--that's all. Nature loves these forlorn hopes and tinkers away at them in a manner that often causes me to rub my eyes.

But you can't make bricks without straw. Nature will find the game 's up in a few days; then she'll waste no more time, and your aunt will be gone."

Home went Clement Hicks, placed his mother in a whirl of mental rejoicing at this tremendous news, then set out for Chris. Their compact of the morning--that she should await his return in the woods--he quite forgot; but Mrs. Blanchard reminded him and added that Chris had returned in no very good humour, then trudged up to Newtake to see Phoebe. Cool and calm the widow stood before Clement's announcement, expressed her gratification, and gave him joy of the promised change in his life.

"Glad enough am I to hear tell of this. But you'll act just--eh? You won't forget that poor auld blid, Lezzard? If she'm gwaine to leave un out the account altogether, he'll be worse off than the foxes. His son's gone to foreign paarts an' his darter's lyin'-in--not that her husband would spare a crust o' bread for auld Lezzard, best o' times."

"Trust me to do what's right. Now I'll go and see after Chris."

"An' make it up with Will while sun shines on 'e. It's so easy, come gude fortune, to feel your heart swellin' out to others."

"We are good friends now."

"Do'e think I doan't knaw better? Your quarrel's patched for the sake of us women. Have a real make-up, I mean."

"I will, then. I'll be what I was to him, if he'll let me. I'll forgive everything that's past--everything and every body."

"So do. An' doan't 'e tell no more of them hard sayings 'gainst powers an' princ.i.p.alities an' Providence. Us be all looked arter, 'cording to the unknawn planning of G.o.d. How's Mrs. Lezzard?"

"She'll be dead in a fortnight--perhaps less. As likely as not I might marry Chris before the next new moon."

"Doan't think 'pon that yet. Be cool, an' keep your heart in bounds. 'T is allus the way wi' such as you, who never hope nothing. Theer comes a matter as takes 'em out of themselves, then they get drunk with hope, all of a sudden, an' flies higher than the most sanguine folks, an'

builds castles 'pon clouds. Theer's the diggin' of a graave between you and Chris yet. Doan't forget that."

"You can't evade solid facts."

"No, but solid facts, seen close, often put on a differ'nt faace to what they did far-ways off."

"You won't dishearten me, mother; I'm a happy man for once."

"Be you? G.o.d forbid I should cloud 'e then; awnly keep wise as well as happy, an' doan't fill Chris with tu gert a shaw of pomps an'

splendours. Put it away till it comes. Our dreams 'bout the future 's allus a long sight better or worse than the future itself."

"Don't forbid dreaming. That's the sole happiness I've ever had until now."