CHAPTER XI

PHOEBE TAKES THOUGHT

That night Will sat and smoked in his bedroom and talked to Phoebe, who had already gone to rest. She looked over her knees at him with round, sad eyes; while beside her in a cot slept her small daughter. A candle burned on the mantelpiece and served to illuminate one or two faded pictures; a daguerreotype of Phoebe as a child sitting on a donkey, and an ancient silhouette of Miller Lyddon, cut for him on his visit to the Great Exhibition. In a frame beneath these appeared the photograph of little Will who had died at Newtake.

"He thinks he be gwaine to bide his time an' let me stew an' sweat for it," said the man moodily.

"Awnly a born devil could tell such wickedness. Ban't theer no ways o'

meetin' him, now you knaw? If you'd speak to faither--"

"What 's the use bringing sorrow on his grey hairs?"

"Well, it's got to come; you knaw that. Grimbal isn't the man to forgive."

"Forgive! That would be worst of all. If he forgived me now I'd go mad.

Wait till I've had soldier law, then us'll talk 'bout forgiving arter."

Phoebe shivered and began to cry helplessly, drying her eyes upon the sheet.

"Theer--theer," he said; "doan't be a cheel. We 'm made o' stern stuff, you an' me. 'T is awnly a matter of years, I s'pose, an' the reason I went may lessen the sentence a bit. Mother won't never turn against me, an' so long as your faither can forgive, the rest of the world's welcome to look so black as it pleases."

"Faither'll forgive 'e."

"He might--just wance more. He've got to onderstand my points better late days."

"Come an' sleep then, an' fret no more till marnin' light anyway."

"'Tis the thing hidden, hanging over my head, biding behind every corner. I caan't stand it; I caan't wait for it. I'll grow sheer devil if I've got to wait; an', so like as not, I'll meet un faace to faace some day an' send un wheer neither his bark nor bite will harm me. Ess fay--solemn truth. I won't answer for it. I can put so tight a hand 'pon myself as any man since Job, but to sit down under this--"

"Theer's nought else you can do," said Phoebe. She yawned as she spoke, but Will's reply strangled the yawn and effectually woke her up.

"So Jan Grimbal said, an' I blamed soon shawed un he was out. Theer's a thing I can do an' shall do. 'T will sweep the ground from under un; 't will blaw off his vengeance harmless as a gun fired in the air; 't will turn his malice so sour as beer after thunder. I be gwaine to give myself up--then us'll see who's the fule!"

Phoebe was out of bed with her arms round her husband in a moment.

"No, no--never. You couldn't, Will; you daren't--'tis against nature.

You ban't free to do no such wild thing. You forget me, an' the li'l maid, an' t' other comin'!"

"Doan't 'e choke me," he said; "an' doan't 'e look so terrified. Your small hands caan't keep off what's ahead o' me; an' I wouldn't let 'em if they could. 'T is in this world that a chap's got to pay for his sins most times, an' d.a.m.n short credit, tu, so far as I can see. So what they want to bleat 'bout h.e.l.l-fire for I've never onderstood, seeing you get your change here. Anyway, so sure as I do a trick that ban't 'zactly wise, the whip 's allus behind it--the whip--"

He repeated the word in a changed voice, for it reminded him of what Grimbal had threatened. He did not know whether there might be truth in it. His pride winced and gasped. He thought of Phoebe seeing his bare back perhaps years afterwards. A tempest of rage blackened his face and he spoke in a voice hoa.r.s.e and harsh.

"Get up an' go to bed. Doan't whine, for G.o.d's sake, or you'll drive me daft. I've paid afore, an' I'll pay again; an' may the Lard help him who ever owes me ought. No mercy have I ever had from living man,--'cept Miller,--none will I ever shaw."

"Not to-morrow, Will--not this week. Promise that, an' I'll get into bed an' bide quiet. For your love o' me, just leave it till arter Christmas time. Promise that, else you'll kill me. No, no, no--you shaa'n't shout me down 'pon this. I'll cry to 'e while I've got life left. Promise not till Christmas be past."

"I'll promise nothing. I must think in the peace o' night. Go to sleep an 'bide quiet, else you'll wake the li'l gal."

"I won't--I won't--I'll never sleep again. Caan' t'e think o' me so well as yourself--you as be allus thinking o' me? Ban't I to count in an awful pa.s.s like this? I'm no fair-weather wife, as you knaws by now. If you gives yourself up, I'll kill myself. You think I couldn't, but I could. What's my days away from you?"

"Hush, hush!" he said. "Be you mad? 'T is a matter tu small for such talk as that."

"Promise, then, promise you'll be dumb till arter Christmas."

"So I will, if you 'm that set on it; but if you knawed what waitin'

meant to the likes o' me, you wouldn't ax. You've got my word, now keep quiet, theer 's a dear love, an' dry your eyes."

He put her into bed, and soon stretched himself beside her. Then she clung to him as though powers were already dragging him away for ever.

Will, bored and weary, was sorry for his wife with all his soul, and kept grunting words of good cheer and comfort as he sank to sleep. She still begged and prayed for delay, and by her importunity made him promise at last that he would take no step until after New Year's Day.

Then, finding she could win no more in that direction, Phoebe turned to another aspect of the problem, and began to argue with unexpected if sophistic skill. Her tears were now dry, her eyes very bright beneath the darkness; she talked and talked with feverish volubility, and her voice faded into a long-drawn murmur as Will's hearing weakened on the verge of unconsciousness.

"Why for d' you say you was wrong in what you done? Why d' you harp an'

harp 'pon that, knawin' right well you'd do the same again to-morrow?

You wasn't wrong, an' the Queen's self would say the same if she knawed. 'T was to save a helpless woman you runned; an' her--Queen Victoria--wi' her big heart as can sigh for the sorrow of even such small folks as us--she'd be the last to blame 'e."

"She'll never knaw nothin' 'bout it, gude or bad. They doan't vex her ears wi' trifles. I deserted, an' that's a crime."

"I say 't weern't no such thing. You had to choose between that an'

letting me die. You saved my life; an' the facts would be judged the same by any as was wife an' mother, high or low. G.o.d A'mighty 's best an' awnly judge how much you was wrong; an' you knaw He doan't blame 'e, else your heart would have been sore for it these years an' years. You never blamed yourself till now."

"Ess, awften an' awften I did. It comed an' went, an' comed an' went again, like winter frosts. True as I'm living it comed an' went like that."

Thus he spoke, half incoherently, his voice all blurred and vague with sleep.

"You awnly think 't was so. You'd never have sat down under it else. It ban't meant you should give yourself up now, anyways. G.o.d would have sent the sojers to find 'e when you runned away if He'd wanted 'em to find 'e. You didn't hide. You looked the world in the faace bold as a lion, didn't 'e? Coourse you did; an' 't is gwaine against G.o.d's will an' wish for you to give yourself up now. So you mustn't speak an' you must tell no one--not even faither. I was wrong to ax 'e to tell him.

n.o.body at all must knaw. Be dumb, an' trust me to be dumb. 'T is buried an' forgot. I'll fight for 'e, my dearie, same as you've fought for me many a time; an' 't will all fall out right for 'e, for men 's come through worse pa.s.ses than this wi' fewer friends than what you've got."

She stopped to win breath and, in the silence, heard Will's regular respiration and knew that he slept. How much he had heard of her speech Phoebe could not say, but she felt glad to think that some hours at least of rest and peace now awaited him. For herself she had never been more widely awake, and her brains were very busy through the hours of darkness. A hundred thoughts and schemes presented themselves. She gradually eliminated everybody from the main issue but Will, John Grimbal, and herself; and, pursuing the argument, began to suspect that she alone had power to right the wrong. In one direction only could such an opinion lead--a direction tremendous to her. Yet she did not shrink from the necessity ahead; she strung herself up to face it; she longed for an opportunity and resolved to make one at the earliest moment.

Now that night was the longest in the whole year; and yet to Phoebe it pa.s.sed with magic celerity.

Will awakened about half-past five, rose immediately according to his custom, lighted a candle, and started to dress himself. He began the day in splendid spirits, begotten of good sleep and good health; but his wife saw the lightness of heart, the bustling activity of body, sink into apathy and inertia as remembrance overtook his wakening hour. It was like a brief and splendid dawn crushed by storm-clouds at the very rise of the sun.

Phoebe presently dressed her little daughter and, as soon as the child had gone down-stairs, Will resumed the problems of his position.

"I be in two minds this marnin'," he said. "I've a thought to tell mother of this matter. She 'm that wise, I've knawed her put me on the right track 'fore now, an' never guess she'd done it. Not but what I allus awn up to taking advice, if I follow it, an' no man 's readier to profit by the wisdom of his betters than me. That's how I've done all I have done in my time. T' other thought was to take your counsel an' see Miller 'pon it."

"I was wrong, Will--quite wrong. I've been thinking, tu. He mustn't knaw, nor yet mother, nor n.o.body. Quite enough knaws as 't is."

"What's the wisdom o' talkin' like that? Who 's gwaine to hide the thing, even if they wanted to? G.o.d knaws I ban't. I'd like, so well as not, to go up Chagford next market-day an' shout out the business afore the world."

"You can't now. You must wait. You promised. I thought about it with every inch of my brain last night, an' I got a sort of feeling--I caan't explain, but wait. I've trusted you all my life long an' allus shall; now 't is your turn to trust me, just this wance. I've got great thoughts. I see the way; I may do much myself. You see, Jan Grimbal--"

Will stood still with his chin half shorn.

"You dare to do that," he said, "an' I'll raise Cain in this plaace; I'll--"