"The old feeling is pretty well dead though. I look on and watch the man ruining himself; I see his wife getting hard-faced and thin, and I wonder what magic was in her, and am quite content. I wouldn't kick him a yard quicker to the devil if I could. I watch him drift there."

"Don't talk like that, dear old chap. You're not the man you pretend to be, and pretend to think yourself. Don't sour your nature so. Let the past lie and go into the world and end this lonely existence."

"Why don't you?"

"The circ.u.mstances are different. I am not a man for a wife. You are, if ever there was one."

"I had him within a hair's-breadth once," resumed the other inconsequently. "Blanchard, I mean. There 's a secret against him. You didn't know that, but there is. Some black devilry for all I can tell.

But I missed it. Perhaps if I knew it would quicken up my spirit and remind me of all the brute made me endure."

"Yet you say the old feeling is dead!"

"So it is--starved. Hicks knew. He broke his neck an hour too soon. It was like a dream of a magnificent banquet I had some time ago. I woke with my mouth watering, just as the food was uncovered, and I felt so d.a.m.ned savage at being done out of the grub that I got up and went down-stairs and had half a pint of champagne and half a cold roast partridge! I watch Blanchard go down the hill--that's all. If this knowledge had come to me when I was boiling, I should have used it to his utmost harm, of course. Now I sometimes doubt, even if I could hang the man, whether I should take the trouble to do it."

"Get away from him and all thought of him."

"I do. He never crosses my mind unless he crosses my eyes. I ride past Newtake occasionally, and see him sweating and slaving and fighting the Moor. Then I laugh, as you laugh at a child building sand castles against an oncoming tide. Poor fool!"

"If you pity, you might find it in your heart to forgive."

"My att.i.tude is a.s.sured. We will call it one of mere indifference. You made up that row over the gate-post when his first child died, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes. We shall be friendly--we must be, if only for the sake of the memory of Chris. You and I are frank to-day. But you saw long ago what I tried to hide, so it is no news to you. You will understand. When Hicks died I thought perhaps after years--but that's over now. She 's gone."

"Didn't you know? She 's back again."

"Back! Good G.o.d!"

John laughed at his brother's profound agitation.

"Like as not you'd see her if you went over Rushford Bridge. She 's back with her mother. Queer devils, all of them; but I suppose you can have her for the asking now if you couldn't before. d.a.m.nably like her brother she is. She pa.s.sed me two days ago, and looked at me as if I was transparent, or a mere shadow hiding something else."

A rush of feeling overwhelmed Martin before this tremendous news. He could not trust himself to speak. Then a great hope wrestled with him and conquered. In his own exaltation he desired to see all whom he loved equally lifted up towards happiness.

"I wish to Heaven you would open your eyes and raise them from your dogs and find a wife, John."

"Ah! We all want the world to be a pretty fairy tale for our friends.

You scent your own luck ahead, and wish me to be lucky too. I ought to thank you for that; but, instead, I'll give you some advice. Don't bother yourself with the welfare of others; to do that is to ruin your own peace of mind and court more trouble than your share. Every big-hearted man is infernally miserable--he can't help it. The only philosopher's stone is a stone heart; that is what the world 's taught me."

"Never! You're echoing somebody else, not yourself, I'll swear. I know you better. We must see much of each other in the future. I shall buy a little trap that I may drive often to the Red House. And I should like to dedicate my book to you, if you would take it as a compliment."

"No, no; give it to somebody who may be able to serve you. I'm a fool in such things and know no more about the old stones than the foxes and rabbits that burrow among them. Come, I must get home. I'm glad you have returned, though I hated you when you supported them against me; but then love of family 's a mere ghost against love of women. Besides, how seldom it is that a man's best friend is one of his own blood."

They rose and departed. John trotted away through Sandypark, having first made Martin promise to sup with him that night, and the pedestrian proceeded by the nearest road to Rushford Bridge.

Chris he did not see, but it happened that Mr. Lyddon met him just outside Monks Barton, and though Martin desired no such thing at the time, nothing would please the miller but that his friend should return to the farm for some conversation.

"Home again, an' come to gla.s.ses, tu! Well, they clear the sight, an' we must all wear 'em sooner or late. 'T is a longful time since I seed 'e, to be sure."

"All well, I hope?"

"Nothing to grumble at. Billy an' me go down the hill as gradual an'

easy as any man 's a right to expect. But he's gettin' so bald as a coot; an' now the shape of his head comes to be knawed, theer 's wonnerful b.u.mps 'pon it. Then your brother's all for sport an' war. A Justice of the Peace they've made un, tu. He's got his volunteer chaps to a smart pitch, theer's no gainsaying. A gert man for wild diversions he is. Gwaine coursin' wi' long-dogs come winter, they tell me."

"And how are Phoebe and her husband?"

"A little under the weather just now; but I'm watchin' 'em unbeknawnst.

Theer's a glimmer of hope in the dark if you'll believe it, for Will ackshally comed to me esster-night to ax my advice--_my_ advice--on a matter of stock! What do 'e think of that?"

"He was fighting a losing battle in a manly sort of way it seemed to me when last I saw him."

"So he was, and is. I give him eighteen month or thereabout--then'll come the end of it."

"The 'end'! What end? You won't let them starve? Your daughter and the little children?"

"You mind your awn business, Martin," said Mr. Lyddon, with nods and winks. "No, they ban't gwaine to starve, but my readin' of Will's carater has got to be worked out. Tribulation's what he needs to sweeten him, same as winter sweetens sloes; an' 't is tribulation I mean him to have. If Phoebe's self caan't change me or hurry me 't is odds you won't. Theer's a darter for 'e! My Phoebe. She'll often put in a whole week along o' me still. You mind this: if it's grawn true an' thrawn true from the plantin', a darter's love for a faither lasts longer 'n any mortal love at all as I can hear tell of. It don't wear out wi'

marriage, neither, as I've found, thank G.o.d. Phoebe rises above auld age and the ugliness an' weakness an' bad temper of auld age. Even a poor, doddering ancient such as I shall be in a few years won't weary her; she'll look back'ards with butivul clear eyes, an' won't forget. She'll see--not awnly a cracked, shrivelled auld man grizzling an' grumbling in the chimbley corner, but what the man was wance--a faither, strong an'

l.u.s.ty, as dandled her, an' worked for, an' loved her with all his heart in the days of his bygone manhood. Ess, my Phoebe's all that; an' she comes here wi' the child; an' it pleases me, for rightly onderstood, childern be a gert keeper-off of age."

"I'm sure she's a good daughter to you, Miller. And Will?"

"Doan't you fret. We've worked it out in our minds--me an' Billy; an' if two auld blids like us can't hatch a bit o' wisdom, what brains is worth anything? We'm gwaine to purify the awdacious young chap 'so as by fire,' in holy phrase."

"You're dealing with a curious temperament."

"I'm dealing with a d.a.m.ned fule," said Mr. Lyddon frankly; "but theer's fules an' fules, an' this partickler wan's grawed dear to me in some ways despite myself. 'T is Phoebe's done it at bottom I s'pose. The man's so full o' life an' hope. Enough energy in un for ten men; an'

enough folly for twenty. Yet he've a gude heart an' never lied in's life to my knawledge."

"That's to give him praise, and high praise. How's his sister? I hear she's returned after all."

"Ess--naughty twoad of a gal--runned arter the gypsies! But she'm sobered now. Funny to think her mother, as seemed like a woman robbed of her right hand when Chris went, an' beginned to graw into the sere onusual quick for a widow, took new life as soon as her gal comed back.

Just shaws what strength lies in a darter, as I tell 'e."

The old man's garrulity gained upon him, and though Martin much desired to be gone, he had not the heart to hasten.

"A darter's the thing an'--but't is a secret yet--awnly you'll see what you'll see. Coourse Billy's very well for gathered wisdom and high conversation 'bout the world to come; but he ban't like a woman round the house, an' for all his ripe larnin' he'll strike fire sometimes--mostly when I gives him a bad beating at 'Oaks' of a evenin'.

Then he'm so acid as auld rhubarb, an' dots off to his bed wi'out a 'gude-night.'"

For another ten minutes Mr. Lyddon chattered, but at the end of that time Martin escaped and proceeded homewards. His head throbbed and his mind was much excited by the intelligence of the day. The yellow stubbles, the green meadows, the ploughed lands similarly spun before him and whirled up to meet the sky. As he re-entered the village a butcher's cart nearly knocked him down. Hope rose in a glorious new sunrise--the hope that he had believed was set for ever. Then, pa.s.sing that former home of Clement Hicks and his mother, did Grimbal feel great fear and misgiving. The recollection of Chris and her love for the dead man chilled him. He remembered his own love for Chris when he thought she must be dead. He told himself that he must hope nothing; he repeated to himself how fulfilment of his desire, now revived after long sleep, might still be as remote as when Chris Blanchard said him nay in the spring wastes under Newtake five years and more ago. His head dinned this upon his heart; but his heart would not believe and responded with a sanguine song of great promise.

CHAPTER III

ANSWERED

At a spot in the woods some distance below Newtake, Martin Grimbal sat and waited, knowing she whom he sought must pa.s.s that way. He had called at the farm and been welcomed by Phoebe. Will was on the peat beds, and, asking after Chris, he learnt that she had gone into the valley to pick blackberries and dewberries, where they already began to ripen in the coombs.