"Well, it must have rolled back again. It wanted to see its dear old home once more."

Weevil began to pick up the fragments of the milk-jug. "There is something wrong with you, Boodle-oodle," he said tenderly. "I don't want you to have any secrets, my dear. You are too young. There was a letter for you just now?"

At that the whole story came out with a rush. Boodles could hold nothing back that morning. She told Weevil about the fairy-tale, from the "once upon a time" up to the contents of that letter; and she begged him to play the part of good genie, and with his enchantments cause blissfulness to happen.

Weevil was very troubled. He had feared that the radiant head would do mischief, but he had not expected trouble to come so soon. The thing was impossible, of course. Even radiant growths must have a name of some sort. Aubrey's parents could not permit weeds to grow in their garden.

There were plenty of girls "true to name," like the well-bred roses of a florist's catalogue, wanting smart young husbands. There was practically no limit to the supply of these st.u.r.dy young plants. Boodles might be a Gloire de Devon, but she was most distinctly not in the catalogue. She was only a way-side growth; a beautiful fragrant weed certainly, like the sweet honeysuckle which trails about all the lanes, and is in itself a lovely thing, but is not wanted in the garden because it is too common; or like the gorse, which as a flowering shrub is the glory of the moor, but not of the garden, because it is a rank wild growth. Were it a rare shrub it would be grown upon the lawns of the wealthy; but because it is common it must stay outside.

"Boodles, darling, I am so sorry," the old man murmured.

"But you mustn't be," she laughed. "Sorry because I'm so happy! You must be a _bu_tiful old daddy-man, and say you are glad. I can't help being in love. It's like the measles. We have to catch it, and it is so much better to go through it when you're young. Now say something nice and let me go. I want to run to the top of Ger Tor, and scream, and run back again."

"Oh, dear heaven!" muttered Weevil, playing with the bits of milk-jug.

"I can't tell the poor baby, I can't tell it."

"Don't be weepy, daddy-dear-heart," murmured Boodles, coming and loving him. "I know I'm only a baby, but then I'm growing fast. I'll soon be eighteen. Such a grown-up woman then, old man! I'll never leave him--that's the trouble, I know. I'll always boil him's eggs, and break him's milk-jugs. Only he must be pretty to Boodles when she's happy, and say he's glad she's got a lovely boy with the beautifullest girl's face that ever was."

Weevil unmeshed himself and shuffled away, pelting imaginary foes with bits of milk-jug, blinking his eyes like a cat in the sunshine. He could not destroy the child's happiness. As well expect the painter who has expended the best years of his life on a picture to cut and slash the canvas. Boodles was his own. He had made and fashioned her. He could not extinguish his own little sun. He must let her linger in fairyland, and allow destiny, or human nature, or something else equally brutal, to finish the story. Elementary forces of nature, like Pendoggat, might be cruel, but Weevil was not a force, neither was he cruel. He was only an eccentric old man, and he wanted it to be well with the child. She would have her eyes opened soon enough. She would discover that innocents thrust out on the moor to perish cannot by the great law of propriety take that place in life which beauty and goodness deserve. They must go back; like Undine, coming out with brave love to seek a soul, succeeding at first, but failing in the end, and going back at last to the state that was hers. Poor little b.a.s.t.a.r.d Boodles! How mad she was that morning! Weevil hardly noticed that his eggs were hard-boiled.

"Darling," he said tenderly, anxious to divert her mind--as if it could be diverted!--"go and see Peter, and tell him we must have that clock.

You had better bring it back with you."

That clock was a favourite subject of conversation. If had amused Boodles for two years, and it amused her then. It was only a common little clock, or Peter would never have been entrusted with it. Peter, who knew nothing, was among other things a mechanician. He professed his ability to mend and clean clocks. Possibly Grandfather had taught him something. He had studied the old gentleman's internal arrangements all his life, and had, he considered, mastered the entire principle of a clock's construction and well-being. Therefore when Boodles met him one day, and informed him that a little clock in Lewside Cottage was choked with dust and refused to perform its duty, Peter promised he would attend at his earliest convenience, to lay his hand upon it, and restore it to activity. "When will you come?" asked Boodles.

"To-morrow," answered Peter.

The day came, but not Peter. He was hardly expected, because promises are meaningless phrases in the mouths of Dartmoor folk. In the matter of an eternal "to-morrow" they are like the Spanish peasantry. They always promise upon their honour, but, as they haven't got any, the oath might as well be omitted. When reminded of their solemn undertaking they have a ready explanation. Their conscience would not permit them to come. It is the same when they agree to charge an unsuspecting person so much for duties performed, and then send in a bill for twice the amount.

Conscience would not allow them to charge less. The Dartmoor conscience is a beautiful thing. It urges a man to act precisely as he wants to.

A month or so pa.s.sed--the exact period is of no account in such a place--and Boodles saw Peter approaching her. When within sight of her he put out his arm and began to cry aloud. She hurried towards him, afraid that something was wrong; the arm was still extended, and the cry continued. Peter was like an owl crying in the wilderness. Drawing near, he became at last intelligible. "I be coming," he cried. "I be coming to mend the clock."

"Now?" asked Boodles.

"To-morrow," said Peter.

This sort of thing happened constantly. Whenever they came within sight of each other, and Peter called often at the village to purchase pints of beer, the little man would hurry towards Boodles, with his outstretched arm and monotonous cry: "To-morrow." He was always on his way to Lewside Cottage, but something always hindered him from getting there. He did not despair, however. He felt confident that the day would arrive when he would attend in person and restore the clock. It was merely a matter of time. Thus a year went by and the pledge remained unfulfilled.

One Sunday evening Boodles went to church, and it so happened that Peter was there also. Peter had just then reasons of his own for wishing to ingratiate himself with the church authorities, and he considered that the appearance of his vile body in a devotional att.i.tude somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pulpit would be of material a.s.sistance to his ambition. Peter entered with a huge lantern, the time being winter, and the evening dark--the night rather, for the Dartmoor day in winter is well over by five o'clock--flapped up the aisle with goose-like steps, tumbled into a seat breathing heavily, and making as much noise with his boots as a horse upon cobblestones, banged the lantern down, and gazed about the building with an air of proprietorship. The next thing was to blow out the candle in his lantern. He opened it, and made windy noises which were not attended with success. "Scat 'en," cried Peter boisterously. "When her's wanted to go out her never will, and when her bain't wanted to go out her always du."

At that moment Boodles entered. Peter was delighted to see her friendly face. The lantern clattered to the floor, and its master stretched out his arm, and exclaimed in a whisper which would have carried from one side of Tavy Cleave to the other: "I was a-coming yesterday, but I never got as far. Had the tweezers in my trousers, and here they be." He brought out the implement and brandished it in the faces of the congregation. "I'm a-coming to-morrow sure 'nuff." Then he went to work again at the lantern. Peter had not developed the spirit of reverence; and the service was unable to commence until he had finished blowing.

When the proceedings were over he followed Boodles out of church and along the road, all the time a.s.serting that the tweezers and his trousers had been inseparable for the last six months, that he had started for Lewside Cottage every day, and something had always cropped up to prevent him from reaching his destination, but that the next day would bring him, wet or fine, upon his word of honour it would. He had been remiss in the past, he owned, but if he failed to attend on Monday morning at half-past eleven punctual, with the tweezers in his trousers, he hoped the young lady and the old gentleman would never trust him again.

A few more weeks went by, and then Boodles put the clock into a basket, and came out to the hut-circles.

Peter was grievously dismayed. "Why didn't ye tell me?" he said. "I'd ha' come for 'en. I wouldn't ha' troubled yew to ha' brought 'en. If yew had told I there was a clock to mend, I'd ha' come for him all to wance, and fetched him home, and mended him same day."

It would have been useless to remind Peter of his promises and his eternal procrastination. He would only have pleaded that he had forgotten all about it. People such as Peter cannot be argued with.

Boodles left the clock, and Peter promised it should be cleaned at once, and brought back in a day or two.

During the next few months the couple at Lewside Cottage made merry over that clock. Left to himself Peter would have said no more about it, but would simply have added it to his stock of earthly possessions. However, Boodles gave him no peace. Peter could hardly enter the village for the necessity of his existence without being accosted upon the subject; and at last the slumbering fires of mechanism within him kindled into flame.

He declared he had never seen such a clock; it was made all wrong; it was not in the least like Grandfather. He explained that it would be necessary to take it entirely to pieces, alter the works considerably, and reconstruct it in accordance with the recognised model, adding such things as weights and pendulum; and that would be a matter of a year's skilled labour. He pointed out, moreover, that the clock was painted green, and that in itself would be sufficient to clog the works, as it was well known that clocks would not keep proper time unless they were painted brown. That was a trade secret. Boodles replied that there was nothing whatever wrong with the works of the clock. It only required cleaning, and she believed she could do it herself. Peter wagged his head in amazement. The folly and ignorance of young maids eclipsed his understanding.

The second year came to an end, and the clock was in precisely the same condition as at first. Peter was glad to have it because it made a nice ornament for his section of Ger Cottage. He had only touched it once, and then Mary, who happened to be present, exclaimed: "Dear life, Peter, put 'en down, or you'll be tearing 'en."

The tenants of Lewside Cottage had become tired of the endless comedy.

So, on that morning when Boodles had her letter, it was the most natural thing in the world for Weevil to suggest that she should go and reclaim their property; and as the girl was longing for the open moor and the sight of Tavy Cleave, which was on the way to fairyland, she went, running part of the way for sheer joy, singing and laughing all the time.

The hut-circles were deserted. Mary was out on the "farm," which was a ridiculous sc.r.a.p of reclaimed moor about the same size as an Italian mountaineer's vineyard; and Peter had gone to the village inn on business. Boodles looked inside. There was Grandfather, ticking in his usual misanthropic way; and there was the uncleaned clock in the centre of the long shelf which ran above the big fire-place. Boodles took it, and ran off, laughing to think of Peter's dismay when he returned and discovered that his mantelshelf lacked its princ.i.p.al ornament. He would think some one had stolen it, and the fright would be a punishment for him. Boodles raced home, put the clock on the kitchen table, opened it, and placing the nozzle of the bellows among the works cleaned them vigorously. When old Weevil came shuffling in the clock was going merrily.

"I've done in two minutes what Peter couldn't do in two years," laughed the happy child.

Weevil shuffled out. He was in a restless mood. He knew he ought to tell Boodles that she mustn't be happy, only he could not. Somebody or something would have to use her as she had used the clock; blow wildly into her poor little soul, and do for her in two minutes what Weevil would never have done in two years.

CHAPTER VIII

ABOUT ATMOSPHERE

There are secret places among the rocks of Tavy Cleave. The river has many moods; one time in the barren lands, another time in bogland, and then in hanging gardens and woodland. No other river displays such startling Protean changes. The artist always fails to catch the Tavy. He paints it winding between low banks of peat, with blossoms of pink heather dripping into the water; but that is not the Tavy. He presents it as a broiling milk-white torrent, thundering over rocks, with Ger Tor wrapped in cloud, and bronzed bracken springing out of the clefts; but that is not the Tavy. He represents it shaded with rowan and ferns, its banks a fairy carpet of wind-flowers, and suggests a gentle river by removing the lace-like pattern of foam and the big boulders, and painting the water a wonderful green, with here and there a streak of purple; but still he has not caught the Tavy. He goes down from the moor and shows a stately stream, descending slowly a lew valley between hills, partly wooded, partly cultivated; shows the smoke of scattered Bartons mixing lazily with the clouds and going with them sea-ward; shows cattle feeding and bluebells nodding; a general atmosphere that of Amaryllis and her piping shepherd, though the lad is only a dull clod and his pipe is of clay, and Amaryllis has dirty finger-nails; but again the elusive Tavy has escaped somehow. Once more he tries. There is the Tavy, like an ocean flood, coming across mud-flats, mingled with brother Tamar of the border; a dull unromantic Tavy then. The magic mist of bluebells has given way to the blue steel of the railroad, and wooden battleships, their task over, float upon its waters instead of fern-fronds. Not a fairy-tale is to be told, nor any pretty fancy to be weaved there. The pictures go into galleries, and win fame, perhaps; but the river of Tavy chuckles over his rocks, and knows he is not there.

It is a river of atmosphere. Only a dream can produce the Tavy; not the written word, nor the painted picture. Unpleasant dreams some of them, like nightmares, but human thought produces them; and human thought is the dirtiest, as well as the n.o.blest, thing created.

In one of the secret places among the rocks Pendoggat waited, and Thomasine came to meet him there. She came because she had been told to, and about the only thing that her mind was capable of realising was that she must be obedient. Country girls have to do as they are told. They are nearly as defenceless as the rabbits, and any commoner may trap them as one of his rights. So Thomasine came down among the rocks. She had not been out with Will Pugsley lately, because it was not allowed. She wanted to, but Pendoggat had refused permission. He had indeed gone further, and had threatened to murder her if she went with any other man. Thomasine accepted the inevitable, and told her Will she could not go out with him any more. Pugsley, having saved a little money, desired to spend it upon matrimony, and as he could not have Thomasine he was going about looking for another maid. One would serve his purpose as well as another, so long as she had plenty of blood in her.

Such a thing as love without l.u.s.t was unknown to Pendoggat. His only idea of the great pa.s.sion was to catch hold of a woman, maul her, enjoy her flesh, and her warmth, and the texture of her clothes; the coa.r.s.e, crude pa.s.sion which makes a man ruin himself, and destroy the life of another, for the pleasure of a moment's madness; that same anarchy of mind which has dethroned princes, lost kingdoms, and converted houses of religion into houses of ill-fame. Pendoggat would not have gone mad over Thomasine had she been merely pretty. It was that face of hers, the blood in her, something in the shape of her figure, which had kindled his fire. All men burn, more or less, and must submit; and when they do not it is because Nature is not striving very hard in them. Much is heard of the morality of Joseph; nothing concerning the age or ugliness of Potiphar's wife. These conventional old tales are wiped out by one touch of desire, and nothing remains except the overmastering thing. The trees cannot help budding in spring. Nature compels it, as she compels the desire of the human body also.

They were out of the wind. The heavy fragrance of gorse was in the hot air. It was a well-hidden spot, and somewhat weird, a haunted kind of place. The ruins of a miner's cot were close by, and what had been its floor was then a ma.s.s of bracken. The stones were covered with flowering saxifrage. There was a scrubby brake here and there, composed of a few dwarf trees, rowan and oaks, only a few feet high, ancient enough but small, because their roots obtained little nutriment from the rock-bedded peat. Their branches twisted in a fantastic manner, reaching across the sky like human limbs contorted with strange agony. They were the sort of trees which force themselves into dreams. Some of them were half dead, green on one side and black upon the other; while the dwarfed trunks were covered with ivy and ma.s.ses of polypodies; overgrown so thickly with these parasites that the bark was nowhere visible. Such a thickness of moss coated some of the boulders that the hardness of the granite was not perceptible. Beneath the river tumbled; a rough and wild Tavy; the river of rocks, the open, sun-parched region of the high moor; the water clear and cold from Cranmere; and there was a long way to go yet before it reached cover, the hanging trees, and the mossy bogs pink with red-rattles, and the woods white with wind-flowers, and the stretch of bluebell-land, the ferns, bracken, asphodel, and the pleasant winding pathways where fairy-tales and decent love abide, and the little folk laugh at moonlight.

"It be a whist old place," Thomasine said; the words, but not the thought, frightened out of her by Pendoggat's rude embrace. Like most girls of her cla.s.s she was no talker, because she did not know how to put words together. She could laugh without ceasing when the occasion justified it, laughter being with her what tail-wagging is to a dog, the natural expression of pleasure or good-will; but there was not much to laugh at just then.

"You haven't told any one about our meetings? They don't know at Town Rising?" said Pendoggat.

"No, sir," answered Thomasine.

"It wouldn't do for them to know. They'd talk themselves sick. You don't wear much, my maid. Nothing under your blouse. If it wasn't for your fat you'd take cold." He had thrust his hand into the front of her dress, and clutched a handful of yielding flesh.

"Don't ye, sir. It ain't proper," entreated Thomasine.

She hardly dared to struggle because she was afraid. Instinct told her certain behaviour was not proper, although it had not prevented her from coming to that "whist old place." It was fear which had brought her there.

"How would you like to come to the Barton, and be my married wife? I want a fine maid to look after me, and you're a fine l.u.s.ty sweetheart if ever there was one. 'Tis a job that would suit you, Thomasine. Better than working for those Chegwiddens. I'd find you something better to do than sitting in a cold kitchen, keeping the fire warm. There's a good home and a sober master waiting for you. Better than young Pugsley and twelve shillings a week. Say the word, and I'll have you there, and Nell Crocker can go to the devil."

Thomasine did not say the word. She had no conversation at all. She did not know that Pendoggat was giving her the usual fair speech, making her the usual offer, which meant nothing although it sounded so much. She had heard Nell Crocker referred to as Mrs. Pendoggat, never before by her actual name. She had come to meet him, supposing him to be a married man, not because she wanted his company, but because she had to accept it. She could only conclude that he really did love her. Thomasine's ideas of love were simple enough; just to meet a man, and walk with him in quiet places, and sit about with him, and be mauled by him. That was the beginning and end of love according to Thomasine, for after marriage it was all hard work. If a man made a girl meet him in secret places among the rocks, it could only be because he loved her. There could be no other reason. And if a man loved a girl he naturally suggested marriage. The matter was entirely simple. Even she could understand it, because it was elementary knowledge; the sort of knowledge which causes many a quiet moorland nook, and many an innocent-looking back garden, to become some smothered infant's grave.