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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58232 ***
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+[Frontispiece: Perspective View of the War Prison near
+Tor Royal upon Dartmoor.
+Designed for the accommodation of 10,000 Men, with Barracks
+for 2000 men a Short distance, but not
+represented in the Plate]
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+  AMERICAN PRISONER
+
+  BY
+
+  EDEN PHILLPOTTS
+
+
+
+  METHUEN & CO.
+  36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+  LONDON
+  1904
+
+
+
+
+  Out of the land whence the 'Mayflower' sailed,
+  To
+  Jeannette L. Gilder
+  With hearty greeting
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  BOOK I
+
+  FOX TOR FARM
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+  I. CATER'S BEAM
+  II. THE MALHERB AMPHORA
+  III. BESIDE EXE
+  IV. "THE MARROW OF THE FARM"
+  V. DAWN
+  VI. MR. PETER NORCOT
+  VII. THE WAR PRISON
+  VIII. A LITTLE ACCIDENT
+  IX. CHILDE'S TOMB
+  X. THE FIRSTBORN
+  XI. MALHERB'S IDEA
+
+
+  BOOK II
+
+  THE SEVEN
+
+  I. MR. BLAZEY
+  II. A BRACE OF FOWLS
+  III. THE GREEN APPLE
+  IV. A FRIEND IN NEED
+  V. FOLLY
+  VI. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MR. NORCOT
+  VII. THE SEVEN FAIL
+  VIII. JOHN LEE'S FATHER
+  IX. GRACE MALHERB HEARS THE NEWS
+  X. HANGMAN'S HOLLOW
+  XI. FREE
+  XII. THE SNOWSTORM
+  XIII. A GRAVE IN THE HEATHER
+  XIV. THE OLD AND THE NEW
+  XV. STARK RIDES AWAY
+  XVI. GOOD NEWS
+
+
+  BOOK III
+
+  UNDER THE EARTH
+
+  I. THE TREASURE HOUSE
+  II. RHYME AND REASON
+  III. THE OATH
+  IV. JOHN TAKES HIS ROAD
+  V. STARS AND STRIPES
+  VI. UNDER LOCK AND KEY
+  VII. THE TUNNEL GROWS
+  VIII. HUE AND CRY
+  IX. THE FIRST THROUGH THE TUNNEL
+  X. A GOD OF GLASS
+  XI. APOCALYPSE
+  XII. THE VOICE
+  XIII. PETER TRIUMPHANT
+  XIV. STRATEGY
+  XV. THE SALMON IS SPOILED
+
+
+  BOOK IV
+
+  THE PEACE
+
+  I. HOPE WAKES AND DIES
+  II. ON CHRISTMAS DAY
+  III. BURNHAM AS LEADER
+  IV. OUT OF NIGHT
+  V. THE LEOPARD CHANGES HER SPOTS
+  VI. THE BURNING OF BLAZEY
+  VII. DEATH AT THE GATE
+  VIII. BEARDING THE LION
+  IX. A SPECIAL LICENSE
+  X. EYES IN THE DARK
+  XI. FAREWELL, LOVEY LEE
+  XII. MANOR WOODS
+  XIII. THE PASSING OF JOHN
+  XIV. NEWS FROM VERMONT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+FOX TOR FARM
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN PRISONER
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CATER'S BEAM
+
+The huge and solitary but featureless elevation of Cater's
+Beam on Dartmoor arrests few eyes.  Seen from the
+central waste, one hog-backed ridge swells along the southern
+horizon, and its majestic outline, unfretted by tor or forest,
+describes the curve of a projectile discharged at gentle elevation.
+No detail relieves the solemn bulk of this hill, and upon it ages
+have left but little imprint of their passing.  Time rolls over the
+mountain like a mist, and the mighty granite arch of the Beam
+emerges eternal and unchanged.  Its tough integument of peat
+and heath and matted herbage answers only to the call of the
+seasons, and it bears grass, bloom, berry, as it bore them for
+palæolithic man and his flocks.  Now, like a leopard, the Beam
+crouches black-spotted by the swaling fires of spring; now, in
+the late autumn time, its substance is coated with tawny foliage,
+scarlet-splashed under the low sun; now, dwarfed by snow, the
+great hill takes shape of an arctic bear.  With spring the furzes
+flame again, and wonderful mosses--purple, gold, and emerald
+green--light the marshes or jewel the bank at every rill; and
+with summer the ling shines out, the asphodel burns in the
+bog, cloud-shadows drop their deep blue mantles upon the
+mountain's bosom, and the hot air dances mile on mile.  Beneath
+Cater's Beam, and dwarfed thereby, arise the twin turrets of Fox
+Tor; while not far distant from these most lonely masses and
+pinnacles of granite shall be found the work of men's hands.
+Beside the desolate morasses and storm-scarred wastes that here
+lie like a cup upon Dartmoor, a stone cross lifts its head, and
+ruins of a human habitation moulder back to the dust.
+
+In nettles, stereobate deep, stands Fox Tor Farm, and the
+plant--sure and faithful follower of man--is significant upon
+this sequestered fastness; for hither it came with those who
+toiled to reclaim the region in time past, and no other nettles
+shall be found for miles.  Other evidences of human activity
+appear around the perishing dwelling-house, where broken walls,
+decaying outbuildings, and tracts of cleared land publish their
+testimony to a struggle with the Moor.  Great apparent age
+marks these remains, and the weathered and shattered entrances,
+the lichened drip-stones, the empty joist-holes, point to a
+respectable antiquity.  Yet one hundred years ago this habitation did
+not exist.  Its entire life--its erection and desertion, its prosperity
+and downfall--are crowded within the duration of a century.  In
+1800 no stone stood upon another; long ago the brief days
+of Fox Tor Farm were numbered, and already for fifty years
+it has written human hope, ambition, failure upon the wilderness.
+
+One fragment of wrought granite remains, and the everlasting
+nettles beneath shall be found heraldically depicted upon a
+shattered doorway.  There, where the ghost of a coat-of-arms
+may still be deciphered, Time gnaws at the badge of the
+Malherbs: Or, chev. gules inter three nettle-leaves vert.
+
+Upon the summit of Cater's Beam, some ninety years ago, a
+member of that ancient and noble clan sat mounted, gazed into
+the far-spreading valley beneath him and saw that it was good
+and green.  Thereupon he held his quest accomplished, and
+determined here to build himself a sure abode, that his cadet
+branch of the Malherb race might win foothold on the earth, and
+achieve as many generations of prosperity in the future as history
+recorded of his ancestors in the past.  Seen a mile distant, sharp
+eyes upon that August day had marked a spot creep like a fly
+along the crest of Cater's Beam, crawl here and there, sink down
+to Fox Tor, and remain stationary upon its stony side for a full
+hour.  Observed closely, one had watched a man at the crossroads
+of life--a man who struggled to mould his own fate and
+weave the skein of his days to his own pattern.  Here he sat on
+a great bay horse and pursued the path of his future, as oblivious
+to its inevitable changes and chances as he was to a black
+cloud-ridge that now lifted dark fringes against the northern sky and
+came frowning over the Moor against the course of the wind.
+
+Maurice Malherb was close on fifty, and he had chosen to plough
+the earth for his partage in the world's work.  A younger son of
+his house, he had turned from the junior's usual portion, and, by
+some accident of character, refused a commission and sought the
+peaceful occupations of agriculture.  He had already wasted
+some portion of his patrimony upon land near Exeter; and
+he was seeking new outlet for his energies when arose a wide-spread
+ardour for cultivation of Dartmoor.  The age of enterprise
+dawned there; "newtake" tenements sprang up like mushrooms
+upon this waste; and a region that had mostly slept since Elizabethan
+miners furrowed its breast and streamed its rivers for tin,
+awoke.  As a grim crown to the Moor, Prince Town and its
+gigantic War Prison was created; while round about young
+woods budded, homesteads appeared, and wide tracts of the
+Royal Forest were rented to the speculative and the sanguine.
+
+Maurice Malherb was among those first attracted by the
+prospect.  A famous Dartmoor hero had influenced him in this
+decision, and he was now spending a week with Sir Thomas
+Tyrwhitt, at Tor Royal, and examining the knight's operations in
+husbandry.  He saw Dartmoor for the first time, and the frank,
+stern face of it challenged him.  For three days he rode forth
+alone; and then he wandered to Cater's Beam and discovered
+the dewy cup where rivers rise beneath it.  To the right and left
+he looked and smiled.  His dark eyes drank up the possibilities
+of the land.  Already he pictured dykes for draining of the
+marshes; already he saw crops ripening and slow oxen drawing
+the ploughshare in the valley.  Of the eternal facts, hard as
+granite and stern as nature, that lurked here under the dancing
+summer air, he knew nothing.  The man was fifteen hundred
+feet above the sea, in the playground of the west wind.  The
+inveterate peat encompassed him--the hungry, limeless peat, that
+eats bone like a dog and fattens upon the life-blood of those who try
+to tame it.  He gazed upon a wilderness where long winters bury
+the land in snow or freeze it to the granite core for months--save
+where warm springs twinkle in the mosses and shine like wet
+eyes out of a white face.  Here the wise had observed and passed
+upon their way; but Maurice Malherb was not wise.  August
+ruled the hour; the ling bloomed under the heat; a million
+insects murmured and made a pleasant melody.  Dartmoor for a
+moment smiled, and weary of the tame monotony of green meads,
+hedges elm-clad, and fields of ruddy earth, Malherb caught hope
+from this crystal air and enormous scene outspread, fell to picturing
+a notable future, and found his pulses leap to the great plans
+that thronged his mind.
+
+He was of a square and sturdy habit of body.  A clean-shorn
+countenance, deep-set black eyes beneath black brows, a large
+mouth underhung, and a nose very broad but finely moulded, were
+the distinguishing attributes of his face.  Restlessness was alike
+the characteristic of his expression and of his nature.  Generosity
+and pride dominated him in turn.  His failures were the work of
+other people; his successes he claimed himself.  His wife, his son,
+his daughter, the blood in his veins, the wine in his cellar, were all
+the best in the world.  His demonian temper alone he deplored;
+yet in that, also, he found matter for occasional satisfaction; since,
+by a freak of atavism, he resembled at every physical and mental
+point an ancestor from the spacious times, whose deeds on deep
+and unknown seas had won him the admiration and friendship of
+Drake.
+
+Malherb already saw a homestead spring upwards upon the
+green hill beneath Fox Tor.  There would he lift his eyrie; there
+should successive generations look back and honour their founder;
+there--thunder broke suddenly upon his dreams and the bay
+horse shifted his fore-feet nervously beneath him.  Whereupon he
+lifted his eyes, and found that a great storm was at hand.
+Unperceived it had crept out of the north while he stood wrapped in
+meditation; and now a ghastly glamour extended beneath it, for
+the Moor began to look like a sick thing, huddled here all bathed
+with weak yellow light from a fainting sun.  Solitary blots and
+wisps of cloud darkened the sky and heralded the solid and
+purple van of the thunderstorm.  All insect music ceased, and a
+hush, unbroken by one whisper, fell upon the hills.  Cater's
+Beam suggested some prodigious, couchant creature, watchful yet
+fearless.  Thus it awaited the familiar onset of the lightning,
+whose daggers had broken in its granite bosom a thousand times
+and left no scar.
+
+The wanderer spurred his horse, and regained firm foothold on
+the crest of the land; then, bending to a torrent of rain, he galloped
+westward where the gaunt wards and barracks of Prince Town
+towered above the desolation.  But the tempest broke long before
+Malherb reached safety; darkness swallowed him and he struggled
+storm-foundered among the unfamiliar hills.  Then fortune sent
+another traveller, and a young man, riding bare-backed upon a
+pony, came into view.  Sudden lightning showed the youth, and,
+waiting for a tremendous volley of thunder that followed upon it,
+Malherb shouted aloud.  His voice, though deep and sonorous,
+sounded thin as the pipe of a bird thus lifted immediately after
+the peal.
+
+"Hold there!  Where am I, boy?  Which is the way to Tor
+Royal?"
+
+"You be going right, sir," shouted the lad; "but 'tis a long
+road this weather.  Best to follow me, if I may make so bold, an
+I'll bring 'e to shelter in five minutes."
+
+The offer was good, and Mr. Malherb accepted with a nod.
+
+"Go as fast as you can; I'll keep behind you."
+
+Both horses were moorland bred, for the visitor rode a stout
+hackney lent by his host.  Yet Malherb had to shake up his steed
+to keep the native in sight.  Presently the youth dismounted, and
+his companion became aware of a low cabin rising like a beehive
+before him.  It stood at the foot of a gentle hill, within a rough
+enclosure of stone.  Some few acres of land had been reclaimed
+about it, and not far distant, through the murk of the rain, its
+granite gleaming azure under the glare of the lightning, stood an
+ancient and famous stone.
+
+"Now I know where I stand," said the stranger.  "I came this
+way three hours since.  There rises Siward's Cross--is it not so?"
+
+"Ess, your worship, 'tis so.  An' this cot do belong to my
+gran'mother.  'Tis a poor hole for quality, but stormtight.  You
+please to go in that door an' I'll take your hoss after 'e.  Us do
+all live under the same thatch--folks an' beastes."
+
+The boy took both bridles, then kicked open the door of the
+hut, and shouted to his grandmother.
+
+"Here's a gentleman almost drownded.  Put on a handful of
+sticks an' make a blaze so as he can catch heat, for he be so wet
+as a frog!"
+
+A loud, clear voice answered from the inner gloom.
+"Sticks!  Sticks!  Be I made o' money to burn sticks at your
+bidding?  If peat keeps the warmth in my carcase, 'twill do the
+like for him--king or tinker."
+
+Maurice Malherb entered the cabin, then started back with an
+oath as an old woman rose and confronted him.  She, too,
+exhibited the liveliest astonishment.
+
+"Lovey Lee!"
+
+"Ess fay, Lovey Lee it is," she answered slowly; "an' you'm
+Maurice Malherb or the living daps of him.  To think!  Ten
+years!  An' all your curses haven't come home to roost neither
+by the looks of you."
+
+"No," he replied.  "They've hit the mark rather--or you are
+playing miser still and saving your crusts and tatters and living as
+you loved to live."
+
+"I be an old, abused creature," she said.  "I starve here wi'
+scarce a penny in the world, an' your faither's paltry legacy
+growing smaller day by day.  I'll outlast it an' die wanting food, an'
+laugh at churchyard worms, since there'll be nought of me for 'em
+to breed in."
+
+She rose and proclaimed herself a woman of extraordinary
+stature--a female colossus of bones.  She stood six feet three
+inches, and, but for her wild and long grey hair, looked like a man
+masquerading.
+
+Lovey Lee was a widow, and had spent most of her life in the
+service of the Malherbs.  At twenty years of age she married a
+gamekeeper, and, twelve months later, her husband lost his life in
+a poaching affray.  Then Lovey had returned to service.  A
+posthumous girl was born to her, and the son of that daughter,
+now a lad of sixteen, dwelt with his grandmother upon the Moor.
+Mrs. Lee was clad in rags, and barely wore enough of them for
+decency.  Her great gnarled feet were naked; her huge hands
+protruded from tattered sleeves; and the round ulnar condyles at
+her wrists were as big as pigeon's eggs.  Lean, wiry, and as hard
+as adamant, the miser lived in this fastness with her cattle and
+her daughter's son.  Mystery shrouded her doings in the past,
+she seldom spoke, and seldom appeared among the moorland
+haunts of men.  Therefore humble folks feared her for a witch,
+and avoided her by day or night.  In reality, the passion of her
+life and the mainspring of every action was greed; and she
+exceeded the vulgar miser in this--that intrinsic worth, not alone
+the rude glitter of money, commanded her worship.  Value was
+the criterion; she rose superior to the chink of gold; she loved
+a diamond as well as the coins that represented it; or a piece of
+land; or a milch cow.  Her education in the house of the
+Malherbs lifted her to some breadth of mind; and when the head of
+the family had passed away, ten years before the beginning of these
+events, a black cloud hung over this woman's behaviour, and
+turned her old master's children against her.
+
+Now the man of all others most involved by this dame's doubtful
+conduct stood before her eyes and asked an abrupt question.
+
+"What did you do with the Malherb amphora, Lovey Lee?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MALHERB AMPHORA
+
+Upon the death of Sir Nicholas Malherb, his second son,
+Maurice, found himself in possession of fifteen thousand
+pounds and the famous Malherb amphora, an heirloom of the
+family.  By arrangement with the elder brother, Maurice took the
+amphora instead of its equivalent in cash, and thus the succeeding
+baronet was richer by twenty thousand pounds, which more
+fully answered his purposes than the ancient treasure.
+
+Concerning this gem a word must be spoken.  While slightly
+inferior to the Portland vase in size, its workmanship equalled that
+of the more famous curio, and it was esteemed by connoisseurs as
+much superior to the Auldjo vase, or another marvellous example
+of similar cameo glass, still the acquisition of Naples.  In Maurice
+Malherb's amphora, a bygone vitrarius had immortalised his art.
+The opaque bubble of white glass was coated with cerulean blue,
+and upon this surface another film of white had been spread.
+With the gem engraver's tools these strata were sculptured into
+a most exquisite design of little Loves playing hide and seek amid
+the foliage of the acanthus.  Herein genius had accomplished a
+masterpiece, and all men capable of appreciating it wished Maurice
+Malherb joy of the treasure.  To desire the amphora in place of
+its value was characteristic of his fine taste and spirit, and also
+symbolic of his wayward disposition, since money had been of
+far greater service to him in his agricultural pursuits.  Then a
+catastrophe overtook Malherb, for within a week of his father's
+death, the amphora disappeared.  The bubble of glass vanished
+like a bubble of water.  Upon the morning of a certain day
+Maurice had moved it from its place in a locked cabinet, displayed
+it to relations and put it back again; but, returning to this
+receptacle within two hours, he found the amphora was no longer
+there.  All that man could do men did to recover the treasure;
+but not one sign of the amphora nor one shadowy clue as to its
+situation rewarded expert search.  Then that nine days' wonder
+waned, and only the sufferer still smarted under his loss.  He
+called upon his brother to make good this grave decrement of
+fortune, but the heir refused to do so, and a breach in the family
+widened from that hour.
+
+Maurice Malherb alone of all those interested in this theft had
+suspected the old servant, Lovey Lee; yet knowledge of her
+character and peculiar propensities led him most stoutly to
+believe that she was the thief of the amphora.  His father had
+trusted and honoured this gaunt creature.  He had admired her
+remarkable physical courage, thrift, and common sense; and
+while Mrs. Lee always annoyed and disgusted the family, Sir
+Nicholas himself professed open respect for her, and found her
+secretly useful in ways not published to the world.  Yet, upon his
+death, Lovey declared herself beyond measure shocked and
+disappointed at a legacy of one thousand pounds which the knight
+bequeathed to her.  She fumed and fretted, spoke of unknown
+services, and loudly cried that the dead had inflicted upon her a
+cruel wrong.
+
+Presently she vanished unregretted from the home of the
+Malherbs; and after her departure Maurice began to associate
+the old servant with his loss.  The woman was traced and
+surprised.  She posed as one deeply injured, and proved to
+demonstration that she knew nothing of the amphora.  Yet its owner
+was not convinced, and within a year he himself sought out
+Lovey Lee in hope to make a bargain with her and recover his
+property by paying a generous sum and promising to take no
+step against her.  She had, however, forfeited her life if guilty,
+for men and women hanged on light accusations a century ago.
+But Malherb never found the opportunity he desired, because
+Mrs. Lee had quite disappeared when he made search for her.
+During ten years he heard nothing of her fate; then chance
+threw him into the old woman's company again under this
+fury of a Dartmoor storm; and his first thought was the lost
+treasure.
+
+In answer to the straight question, Lovey revealed both
+power of words and subtlety of mind.  Her eyes glittered; each
+wrinkle in her face gathered itself together, as though to repulse
+an enemy; her sharp nose looked eager to stab him.  She showed
+her teeth, and Malherb noted that they were white and strong.
+
+"Still harping on that gimcrack; still babbling to the world
+that 'twas I stole it!  What a fool must you be--an' not the first
+Malherb as was that--to think I've got your fortune.  Look
+around you.  Put your nose in that cupboard.  You'll find
+barley bread an' rancid grease--not the Malherb amphora.  Do
+'e see thicky wall?  'Tis piled o' peat, an' I live 'pon one side an'
+my donkey an' pony an' cows 'pon t'other.  They save fuel in
+winter; they keep the air warm with their breath.  I often go an'
+sleep with 'em when 'tis too cold to bear my bones.  But they
+say that your glass toy was worth twenty thousand pounds.  Even
+a thief might have got rid of it for thousands.  An' should I
+be here--should I make a jackass my pillow, an' live on berries
+and acorns like a bird, an' stew snails to my broth, if I'd gotten
+thousands?  One dirty thousand I did have--may your faither
+roast for his mean trick--an' this here slack-limbed great boy,
+Jack Lee, to keep with it.  But----"
+
+"Hear me!" interrupted Malherb.  "What you say would be
+true enough if it was not Lovey Lee who spoke.  D'you think I
+don't remember you and your ways--you that sold your good
+food and lived on orts; that bartered your clothes and hated
+wearing any raiment that was better than a scarecrow's?
+Possession of my vase would be the light of your life.  Not because
+it is lovely; not because the genius of man never devised nor his
+hand fashioned a nobler thing in such sort; but because it is
+worth twenty thousand pounds, and because to be able to hug
+that wealth all at once to your evil heart would be paradise
+to you.  That is why I believed you were the thief; and still
+believe it."
+
+She snarled at him, then made a slow answer.
+
+"Believe as you please.  I'll be very happy to hang for it--when
+you find it.  An' ban't no joy to me to see you under my
+roof, for you hate me an' think evil against me, though I served
+your parents so faithful as the humble can serve the great, an'
+nursed your youngest brother at my own breast."
+
+"'Twas chance, not intention, led me," he answered.  "A few
+years ago I longed to meet you, and make you an offer.  Now
+the opportunity has come.  I'll be reasonable, as I always am.
+You cannot take the amphora with you when you die.  At least
+see that my son----"
+
+"Go your ways an' trouble me no more!" she cried, and
+Malherb flashed into a passion.
+
+"As to that, if this hole is your home, I'm like to trouble
+you not a little, you cross-grained hag.  See there--where the
+heart of the storm is bursting now, at the other side of this great
+marsh--there you'll presently find a granite house lifting itself
+four-square to the winds.  I also have chosen the Moor for a
+home.  May that knowledge bring you to better wisdom."
+
+The old woman was deeply interested by this intelligence.
+
+"What!  You be coming?  Then you haven't flourished down
+country after all, but must climb up here an' begin again.  You're
+mad!  An' 'tis a wicked thing to steal the Moor acre by acre as
+you an' the likes of you be doing now.  An' Duchy always ready
+with its cursed greedy paws stretched out to take your money."
+
+"I shall be a Moor-man, too, and enjoy rights of Venville," he
+said, more to himself than to the woman.
+
+"'Tis a wicked thing and flat robbery," she repeated.  "All
+the countryside be raw under it; but for what count the rights of
+the poor?  All the best of the Moor--all the best strolls for
+grazing, where the grass be greenest--all the lew spots--all
+stolen away one after t'other an' barred against the lawful
+commoners; an' not a hand lifted.  That hill be where my cows
+do graze an' roam.  Now you'll drive 'em from their proper lairs,
+an' they'll have to bide on the coarse grass, an' I'll be stinted of
+milk, as is my poor livelihood."
+
+"You'll still have enough to fill the amphora," said Maurice
+Malherb; then he turned to the boy.
+
+"Bring you my horse, lad.  The storm is past.  I can get on to
+Tor Royal now."
+
+"An' tell Tyrwhitt what I tell you," said Lavey, "that him an'
+the rest be no better'n a pack of thieves an' cadgers.  'Tis a
+hanging matter if us steals the goose from the common; but nobody
+says nought when the upper people steal the common from the
+goose.  There'll come a day of reckoning for Duchy yet--an'
+Tyrwhitt too!"
+
+She stood and watched him mount, with her bent head thrust
+out of the door, like a gigantic fowl looking out of a pen.
+
+Malherb made no answer, but turned to the boy.
+
+"There's a crown for you, youngster, and I wish you a better
+grandmother."
+
+He went his way and the old woman twitched her long nose
+and stared after him.
+
+"Born fool--born fool--to waste what he've got left on this
+here wilderness.  An' so awful nigh to my----"  She broke off
+and turned to the boy, John.
+
+"What did he give e', Jack?  Quick!  Out with it!"
+
+As a matter of custom the youth gave up his money.
+
+"A crown!  Just the same great silly gawk he always was.
+Never knowed anybody with such large notions touching money.
+But them notions breed thin purses."
+
+"A very fine gentleman all the same, granny, an' a rides butiful,
+an' have a flashing eye, an' a voice as makes you run to do his
+bidding.  He'm awful proud, but I like him."
+
+"'Like him!'  You ungrateful little toad, you ought to cuss
+him for speaking so wicked to your grandam."
+
+"There was laughter in his eyes more'n once."
+
+"Go an' pick snails; go an' pick snails!  They'll swarm after
+the rain.  I see the ducks gulching 'em by the quart.  My
+snail-barrel be running low."
+
+She watched young John start to obey, then spoke to herself.
+
+"'Likes him!'  Maybe he does.  Blood's thicker'n water."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BESIDE EXE
+
+Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt loudly applauded the decision
+to which his guest had come, for it was the knight's
+conviction that Dartmoor's high places offered health, work, and
+reward to all men.  Himself a friend of the Prince Regent, he
+commanded attention from other personages also, and his own
+estates by the new settlement of Prince Town grew rapidly; his
+own enterprises awoke a sanguine spirit in others.
+
+Three days after the thunderstorm, Mr. Malherb sat with the
+High Bailiff of Dartmoor at the Duchy of Cornwall office; and,
+such was his impetuous energy, that within two months the
+walls of Fox Tor Farm began to rise.  From Lew Trenchard
+came the slates (a circumstance that set men wondering, for
+reed thatch covered most heads upon the Moor in those days);
+and teams of a dozen oxen struggled over the waste, dragging
+sledges laden with stone.  Roads there were none, and
+no wheeled vehicle had ever entered that wild valley.  Malherb
+took up his temporary residence at an ancient tenement farm
+within five miles of his land, and daily he rode to the scene of
+action, planned and plotted, ordered and countermanded, now
+entered upon passing periods of doubt, now threw aside his
+dilemmas and turned to problems more easy of solution.
+
+In the placid homestead beside Exe awoke stir and bustle too,
+for the farm on the Moor was now progressing rapidly, and
+Annabel Malherb and her daughter Grace had learnt that their
+new dwelling was to be ready within a year--a time quite short in
+those leisurely days for the transference of a home.  Mother and
+daughter contemplated the great change brooding over their
+existence, with lively hopes and fears.  The enterprise loomed
+tremendous to their simple minds; but both trusted the master
+in their hearts, if at times their heads whispered treachery.
+
+The wife was of an ancient pattern, and set high religious
+significance on marriage vows; the child loved her stormy father,
+and bravely stood for him in the face of a critical and
+unsympathetic world.  To Malherb's faults these women blinded
+themselves; his virtues they sang at all seasons.  From Carew stock
+the matron sprang, and her noble blood, her steadfastness of
+view, her large trust in the goodness of Divine purpose, was all
+her dowry, for wealth she had none.  Grace Malherb resembled
+her mother in mind and bearing.  She was a simple, generous-hearted
+maiden, and her life had passed without storm or stress.
+She moved in the scented Devon lanes; she gathered the eglantine
+and wild roses in spring, at autumn plucked the scarlet corals of
+the iris or those glimmering green mosses that made fair vestment
+for the red earth.  But now her eyes were lifted to Dartmoor,
+where its hills rose shadowy across the western sky; and awe and
+wonder widened the limits of her mind, and mystery awoke in
+dreams and added beauty to her face.
+
+The imperious farmer had a whim to keep his wife and daughter
+away from their future home until it should be ready to receive
+them; and since they were wholly ignorant of the great table-land,
+the contrast between Fox Tor with its adjacencies and the
+meadow farm by Exe was destined to come upon both women
+with a force almost bewildering.  Even to the thin voices of the
+labouring men, their chastened outlook upon life and their
+estimate of happiness, all was changed.
+
+The attitude of Annabel and Grace Malherb upon this radical
+transformation will appear.  From agricultural failure and
+depression in the valleys they were at least well contented to escape.
+
+On an autumn day they walked and talked together upon a
+meadow path by the river.  Maurice Malherb was returning from
+the Moor for a while to look after his business, and here his wife
+and daughter waited for him.
+
+"That your father has built a house is well," declared
+Mrs. Malherb, "for, come what may to his many projects, an abiding
+place of our own will be a source of peace to me."
+
+"And no more coal bills!" cried Grace.  "Father has said
+that we shall dig our coal out of the earth within sight of
+home."
+
+"'Tis peat he means--a very good form of warmth--yet I
+doubt for the cooking."
+
+"Barbara would have made shift with it.  Oh, mother, what
+shall we do without her?"
+
+"I cannot guess yet."
+
+"To think of all new servants--all new--but that horrid old
+Kek!"
+
+Mrs. Malherb smiled.
+
+"Kekewich is a sort of skeleton at life's feast.  The sour truth
+and nothing but the truth he utters.  Yet truth's a tonic, and
+your father knows it."
+
+"Truth is often very impertinent--especially as Kek tells it.
+If any other man spoke to father as he does, he would soon be
+measuring his length on the ground."
+
+"It shows my husband's marvellous judgment that Kekewich
+never angers him."
+
+"To me the man is merely a piece of earth animated.  Such
+stuff would never have grown a good cabbage, so some wicked
+fairy took it and made Kek.  I'm sure he'll be a wet blanket on
+hope, and, according to father, the mists are wet blankets enough
+up there."
+
+"Kekewich suffers much pain of body, and it makes him harsh.
+He is an honest man, and your father gets good out of him.
+That is enough for us.  He is at least the soul of common sense."
+
+But Grace shook her head.
+
+"'Tis no more common sense to look always on the dark side
+of things than, like dear father, to be over-hopeful."
+
+"The golden mean----" murmured her mother.
+
+"Rainbow gold," answered the girl.  "Human nature cannot
+find it.  What----?  But here comes Kek himself.  He looks
+spry and peart for once.  That bodes trouble for somebody."
+
+A gate opened upon the path, and in the red-gold light of
+evening a man approached them.  The ruddy earth had dyed
+his garments to its rich hue, had soaked into his clothes and
+body.  He seemed incarnate clay.  His frame had crooked, his
+hair was grizzled.  His mouth was like the stamp of a gouge
+upon putty, and at first glance a grin appeared to sit upon his
+face; but, better seen, one noted that the distortion was
+accidental, and that in reality his features were stamped with the
+eternal sadness of suffering.
+
+"Three barrow pigs be just drownded," he said.  "I seed 'em
+fighting in the water; then they went down an' comed up again,
+an' squeaked proper till the river chucked 'em.  'Tis always what
+I said would happen."
+
+"Where was Bob?" asked Grace, with much concern.  "The
+blame will fall upon him."
+
+"So it will, but that won't bring the pigs alive again; though
+they'll do very well for common people to eat if we can get 'em
+ashore inside twenty-four hours."
+
+The sound of a horse's hoofs broke upon the silence that
+followed this bad news.  Then Maurice Malherb appeared,
+dismounted, kissed his wife and daughter, and nodded to the servant.
+
+"All goes forward most prosperously," he said.  "Since I
+promised the foreman ten pounds if the chimney-pots were on by
+Christmas, the place grows like honeycomb in June."
+
+"Why, 'twas to be finished by then in any case, according to
+contract, my dear!"
+
+"True; but you know what these people are."
+
+"You be one as would pay for honesty an' make it marketable,
+'Tis a wrong way, an' don't do the world no good," grumbled
+Kekewich.
+
+"We must oil the wheels of progress, Kek," said his master.
+"I want to begin.  I want to fight next winter up there."
+
+"Best way to fight Dartmoor winters be to flee from 'em,"
+answered the old man.
+
+"Nay, nay--that's a coward's policy.  I'm going to do things
+on Dartmoor that never have been done yet.  I've not farmed
+here all these years for nothing."
+
+"No, by Gor! you've not."
+
+Annabel Malherb and Grace now turned homeward, and the
+farmer walked slowly beside Kekewich.
+
+"Up aloft they make a great many mistakes.  I mean the folk
+of the Moor.  But to see error is to avoid it with a man of
+sense.  And I've let the people find out already that they will
+have a powerful friend in me.  I learn from them what to do, as
+well as what not to do.  We shall want all kinds to help us.  I
+believe in a big staff on a farm--especially a grazing farm.  The
+old, the strong, the young--light work for the men that are three
+score and ten, and worn with a life of labour, though useful yet.
+And none shall have tail corn, as too often happens up there,
+for who can do man's work on pig's food?  And my cider shall
+be cider, as it always has been--not the vinegar they call cider
+on Dartmoor."
+
+"'Ess--you'll make the place a hospital for them past
+work--same as this be."
+
+"Not I.  But I'll keep self-respect in my people.  The women
+shall have sixpence a day out of doors.  The labourer is worthy
+of her hire."
+
+"You'll never learn sense.  You comed in the world to waste
+money, not to make it, as I've always told 'e.  Sixpence a day for
+females!  What next?"
+
+"'Cast thy bread on the waters.'  I'm a working Christian,
+and a lesson to you, heathen that you are."
+
+"A working Christian ban't no better for being a fool.  What's
+the sense of casting your bread 'pon the water while your wife an'
+maiden be hungry upon the shore?"
+
+"Hungry!  You're mad!"
+
+"'Twill come to hunger.  You'd spoil any market--a very
+good, open-hearted gentleman, us all knows; but sixpence a day
+for outdoor females!  'Tis all summed up in that.  There ban't a
+outdoor woman in the world worth more'n fourpence."
+
+"Ask their husbands.  You're an old bachelor."
+
+"'Ess--thank God!"
+
+"Some sloes there are that even winter will never sweeten; and
+you are such a one.  How fares the rheumatism?"
+
+"A sleeping dog for the minute.  He was gnawing his bone
+proper last week though.  Maybe Dartymoor will lessen my
+pangs."
+
+"I hope so with all my heart.  'Tis the least it can do for you,
+seeing how much you are going to do for it.  Such men as you
+are greatly wanted there."
+
+"Such men as me take blamed good care to bide down in the
+country--unless they've got reckless masters," said Kekewich.
+
+Then he took Malherb's horse and departed, while anon the
+farmer discoursed very learnedly to his wife concerning
+Dartmoor.  But his knowledge was borrowed; his enthusiasm was no
+substitute for personal experience.  Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt loved
+the Moor like a mistress.  To her faults he was blind; and he
+had now inspired his friend with kindred ardour.
+
+"I long to begin looking for men, but 'tis too soon yet,"
+Malherb declared.  "In a few months, however, I shall have
+work for half a dozen."
+
+"And a dairymaid, remember, since you design a complete
+change, and will not keep our Annie," said Mrs. Malherb.
+
+"Yes, the women understand calves and cows wonderfully well
+up there.  Such sheds as I am building--like the cloisters of a
+cathedral!  But stock on Dartmoor in winter needs snug houses
+and generous treatment."
+
+The women caught his mood, and prattled as though they
+already saw prosperity beckoning out of the future.
+
+"After the war 'twill all go well, I pray," said Mrs. Malherb.
+"All human affairs languish just now; but when the war is ended
+and Noel comes home----  Peter Norcot, from the Woollen
+Factory at Chagford, was here in doleful dumps yesterday.  The
+East Indian Company, who is their first customer----"
+
+"Did you see him, Grace?" interrupted Maurice.
+
+The girl blushed and shook her head, whereupon her father's
+face grew dark.
+
+"For another year you shall have your way, Miss.  Then----  I
+have said it.  Then comes the pinch, and somebody will have
+to learn the duty of a child to its parent."
+
+"I'll not marry with Peter--never," she said quietly.  "He's
+no man--a mere walking, talking chatterbox--a packman, with
+nonsensical rags and tags of rhymes and jests for his
+stock-in-trade.  He would drive me mad with his borrowed wit."
+
+"We shall see," said Malherb.  "His wit may be borrowed;
+his wealth is his own.  Now go you and get a bottle of the
+Burgundy.  We'll not argue--we love one another too dearly."
+
+But though he spoke calmly, his mood changed, and the
+infernal temper that cursed his life, and lurked in his warm, big
+heart like a wasp in a rose, broke forth.  He heard the dismal
+tale of the drowned pigs, dashed out of doors with his horsewhip,
+and roared for the lad Robert.  When Grace returned with his
+wine, her father had disappeared; her mother, grown white and
+careworn suddenly, stood by the window.
+
+Shrieks echoed through the autumn gloaming and rang against
+the walls of the farm; while, round a corner, the unfortunate
+youth whose errors were responsible for his master's loss lifted
+up a bitter voice and yelled for mercy under the lash.
+
+"That'll teach you, you idle scoundrel!  If you'd been drowned,
+none would have cared a curse.  But my pigs--there, and there,
+and there; and never show your ugly face to me again, or
+I'll----"
+
+Bob fled howling, and through a night of smart and sleeplessness
+wriggled in much misery.  But only the present suffering of
+his back troubled him, for he knew what day would bring as
+surely as it brought the sun.
+
+He met his master going the rounds before breakfast, and
+touched his hat and fell into a great simulated lameness; whereon
+Malherb gave him "Good morning" and threw him a shilling.
+
+"Mind the pigs closer henceforth, you vagabond," he said;
+then added to himself as he saw the boy's rueful countenance,
+"and I will mind my temper closer, please God."
+
+Kekewich appeared from a barn as the shilling was picked up.
+
+"Ah," he said, when Bob had departed, "usual way.  Even
+the misfortune of they pigs have cost 'e a coin more'n there was
+any call to pay."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"THE MARROW OF THE FARM"
+
+The grievance uttered by Lovey Lee against those who
+settled upon Dartmoor and appropriated to particular uses
+that ancient domain, was widespread a hundred years ago, and
+is alive to-day.  Aforetime some five-and-thirty ancient Forest
+Tenements were held as customary freeholds, or copyholds, from
+the Manor of Lydford independent of the Duchy, and these
+venerable homesteads shall be found scattered in the most
+secluded and salubrious regions of the Moor.  Of these,
+however, the Duchy has now secured more than half, and it will
+probably acquire the remainder in process of time.  But a
+different sort of farm sprang up on every side a century since;
+"newtake" tenements appeared; and Maurice Malherb now
+proposed to create another such in the virgin valley of Fox Tor.
+These constant enclosures have been a source of discontent upon
+Dartmoor for many generations, and the peasants protest with
+reason, for theirs is the unalienable right to this great waste, and
+every acre fenced off against their sheep and cattle is a defiance
+of ancient charters and a robbery of the poor.  The cry was old
+before Tudor times, and you shall read in _Henry VI._ (Part 2)
+how the Second Peter, representing his fellow-townsmen, petitions
+"against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the commons of
+Melford."
+
+And so it happened that Malherb's advent made him more
+enemies than friends in the border villages and among the
+scattered homesteads of the Moor.
+
+A little knot of grumblers were met together at the "Saracen's
+Head," near Prince Town--a modest tavern long since superseded
+by the present famous hostelry at Two Bridges.  This party now
+aired its wrongs, and albeit no man amongst them had ever set
+eyes upon Malherb, all spoke an evil word against him, and each
+man could report some sinister story gleaned from another.  It
+appeared certain upon these rumours that the new "squatter"
+was a hard and rapacious rascal.
+
+"The place will be finished home to the roof next year," said
+a thin, straight man with a long beard and a face so hidden in
+hair that little more than his nose and eyes protruded from it.
+"Fox Tor Farm 'twill be named, an' Lovey Lee, up to Siward's
+Cross, have said as she'll bewitch him from the day he enters the
+house."
+
+"Somebody did ought to tell the Prince Regent," murmured
+a very old man who sat by the fire.  "He don't know about
+these here goings on, an' how Duchy fills his pockets with gold
+stolen from our pockets.  This place was given to us in the early
+ages of the earth, an' if the Prince knowed the rights of it, he
+wouldn't take the money."
+
+"What be Duchy, Uncle Smallridge?" inquired a weak-eyed
+youth with flaxen hair and fluffy, corn-coloured down about his
+cheeks and chin.  "For my part I can't grasp hold of it.  Be it
+a live thing as you might say?"
+
+The old man addressed as Uncle Smallridge laughed and spat
+into the fire.
+
+"Duchy's alive enough; yet 'tis wasting wind to cuss it an'
+breath to talk against it.  'Tis alive, but it can't be hurled; it
+have ears, but it be deaf to the likes of us.  It laughs at us, but
+we never hear the laughter."
+
+"An' it's got a deep pocket," said the hairy man.  "What say
+you, neighbour Woodman?"
+
+"I say, 'tis a monster," answered another speaker.  "'Tis the
+invention of the Devil to breed anger an' evil thoughts in us.
+Here be I, Harvey Woodman of Huccaby, son of Harvey
+Woodman of Huccaby, grandson of Harvey Woodman of
+Huccaby, great-grandson of Harvey Woodman of Huccaby;
+an' I tell you that the vexations of the Duchy have so lighted
+'pon my family from generation to generation, that it has got in
+our blood an' we stand to it same as mankind in the Bible do
+stand to the seed of the serpent."
+
+"Maybe--with a difference, Harvey," answered Uncle Smallridge.
+"Duchy'll bruise your head for you, an' your son's head,
+same as it did your forbears, but you won't bruise its heel; for
+why?  It haven't got no heel to bruise."
+
+"'Tis a wicked whole made up of decent bits," declared the
+hairy man, whose name was Richard Beer.  "The gents as stand
+for Duchy, take 'em one by one, be human men same as us; but
+when they meets together, the Devil's in the chair every time.
+An' now another two hundred acres gone, an' all that butivul
+stroll for cattle beyond Fox Tor Mire walled off against my
+heifers an' yours."
+
+"I hate the chap afore I see him.  He've got a wicked-sounding
+name," said Thomas Putt, the youth with weak eyes.
+
+"If we was men instead of mice, we'd rise up an' show Duchy
+that right's right, and that its ways be the ways of a knave," said
+Harvey Woodman.  Then he shook his bull neck and drank
+deep.
+
+"Supposing us all had your great courage, no doubt something
+would be done," answered Beer.  "What you say be true;
+but we spend our indignation in words an' leave none for deeds."
+
+"Where there's smoke there's fire," declared the ancient by
+the hearth.  "If I was a younger man I'd lead you forth against
+Duchy an' be the fust to heave down they walls rising up-along--ay,
+an' call upon the God o' Justice to lend His A'mighty Hand."
+
+"Which He wouldn't do; for there ban't no miracles now,
+Uncle Smallridge," said Thomas Putt.
+
+"Ban't there?  I think there be, else you'd be shut up, Tom,
+an' not roaming free."
+
+This allusion made the company laugh, for, despite his slim
+shape and peering eyes, Tom Putt was a daring poacher--one of
+Izaac Walton's wicked but most skilful disciples.  He killed many
+a salmon, and he shot many a partridge intended for a nobler
+destiny than slaughter at his hand.
+
+A stranger entered the bar of the "Saracen's Head" at this
+moment.  The man shook the wet from his coat, went to the fire,
+and ordered a glass of hot brandy and water.
+
+"Nice plum weather still, your honour," said Uncle Smallridge,
+as he made his way from the blaze.  "The sun have been drawing
+up the autumn rains these many days, but winter's here at last.
+The water will all come home again in snow."
+
+"Wet enough," said the other.  "I marvel your grass here
+doesn't rot in the ground."
+
+"An' so it do in some places," answered Richard Beer; "as
+if it wasn't hard enough to get a living for the dumb things
+without walling the Moor off against the rightful owners.  Come
+presently there won't be a bit of sweet grazing us can call our
+own.  Now here's this Mr. Malherb--a foreigner from down
+Exeter way--bitten off a few more hundred acres of the best."
+
+"Who says any ill of him?" asked the stranger.
+
+"'Tis only hearsay," declared Woodman.  "There may be good
+in him; but I wish he'd bided away."
+
+"Lord knows I wouldn't speak no malice against the gentleman,"
+continued Beer, "for I am going to ax him to give me
+work.  He wants a few understanding chaps, 'tis said.  An' I
+know the Moor better'n my Bible, more shame to me.  You'll
+bear me out, neighbours, that I can get what man may from
+Dartymoor soil?"
+
+"You'm very witty at it, us all knows," admitted Harvey
+Woodman.
+
+"How would you tackle those wet slopes under Fox Tor?"
+asked the new-comer.
+
+"Well," answered Beer, "drain, drain, drain an' graze, graze,
+graze; an' leave the natural herbage as much as you may.  You
+won't better it."
+
+The stranger laughed.
+
+"If Maurice Malherb can't improve upon Nature on Dartmoor,
+'tis pity," he declared.
+
+But Richard Beer shook his head.
+
+"You've got to follow in these parts, not lead.  Nature do know
+her own business; an' you can't teach her, for her won't larn.
+Farming be a sort of coaxing her to your way o' thinking.  There's
+two sorts o' stuff the place be made of: peaty moor, as'll yield
+good grass; an' swamp, as be useful to nought but a frog.  This
+here Mr. Malherb must drain, an' pare, an' burn in reason; but
+he must not overdo it."
+
+"Mind you, the natural things have their value," put in old
+Smallridge.  "French furze at four years' growth do fetch a pound
+an acre.  An' if the land be fatted properly the man might grow
+potatoes."
+
+"Potatoes do eat up all afore you eat them," said Beer; "though
+the appleing of 'em do keep the earth sweet an' mellow.  Then
+he'll follow with barley, not wheat."
+
+"As to the chances of corn?" asked the stranger.  His wet
+coat smoked and sent up a fire-lit steam in the darkening chamber.
+
+"Corn's a ticklish business, master," replied Beer.  "Yet 'tis
+to be done if you'll bring your soil to a husband-like tilth an' not
+spare lime.  Burn clean, plough, an' dress as generously as your
+pocket will stand.  Then spread fresh mould afore the seed earth.
+Earth must be fetched, for you've got to remember there's none
+there.  Then sow your wheat--ten pecks to the acre--harrow in,
+strike out the furrows, and pray God for eighteen bushels to the
+acre.  He can do it an' He's a minded.  Next year the man must
+refresh his stubble, plough, sow, hack in, an' hope for ten or twelve
+bushels.  Then turnips must follow--not broadcast like our fathers
+sowed 'em--for that's to spread a table for the fly, but the
+two-furrow way.  Then the land must have three years' fallow; an'
+that's the whole law an' the prophets about it, so far as I know
+anything."
+
+"In my youth," said Uncle Smallridge, "when the world was
+awful backward at farming, us growed nought but rye; an' a fool
+here an' there do still cling to his fathers' coat-tails an' go on
+growing it.  But not one in the forefront of the day, like Dick
+Beer."
+
+"All the same," concluded Mr. Beer, "the gentleman's best
+stand-by will be beasts, like the rest of us.  It don't pay trying to
+tame Dartmoor--he'll soon find that out, despite all the talk of
+Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt an' such-like great men."
+
+"And you want work?" asked the listener.
+
+"So I do.  I'm ready to try an' make a fortune for anybody."
+
+"Why are you out of employment?"
+
+"My last master have gived up," confessed the labourer.
+
+"Did you make his fortune?"
+
+"To be plain, he was very unlucky.  I couldn't help him.
+Nobody couldn't.  He was overlooked, I reckon.  The evil eye
+was upon him."
+
+"Ah!--Well, Maurice Malherb is not frightened of the evil
+eye.  What wages do you get?"
+
+"Nought to trumpet about.  Seven shilling a week--'tis the
+usual wage, but pinching.  My wife be good for two shilling.
+So us do very well--thanks to God, who didn't send no childer."
+
+"I'll give you ten shillings a week."
+
+"You!  Who be you, master?'
+
+"I am Maurice Malherb, of Fox Tor Farm.  Work must begin
+in a month.  I'm looking round me.  My head man comes up
+presently.  But he doesn't know Dartmoor.  You appear to do so.
+Provided your credentials and character are good, I'll engage you
+on trial."
+
+"Aw jimmery! this be great news.  Ten shilling a week!"
+
+"My workpeople will be the marrow of my farm.  I know that
+very well."
+
+"You'd do wise to take his wife along with him, your honour,"
+said Uncle Smallridge.  "Such a dairymaid ban't often met with.
+Fifteen cows she've been known to tackle with no more than help
+in the milking.  That's three more'n any other woman I've ever
+heard about."
+
+"'Tis true, your honour," declared Richard Beer; "though my
+own wife, 'tis true.  There be some as would rob the hearse an'
+chase the driver--such be always crying out for help in their work;
+but my Dinah's different.  A towser for work; an' her temper
+pretty near so sweet as the cream she makes."
+
+"She shall come," answered Mr. Malherb.  "My lady has the
+usual pin-money," he continued.  "The poultry, pigs, and dairy
+produce accrue to her; and out of it she keeps the house, save in
+bread and green stuff.  She will need a good dairymaid who can
+go to market."
+
+"An' if there's any more men you want, Woodman here be a
+masterpiece at ploughing an' wall-building an' handling stone in
+general, ban't you, Harvey?" asked Mr. Beer, solicitous for his
+friend.
+
+"Yes, I be," said Mr. Woodman.  "Us was somebody in the
+land once, but now I've only got a little old cottage left at
+Huccaby, though in the past my people owned the farm there an'
+scores an' scores of acres.  But us have gone down.  I'll come
+if you want me; an' my son be a very handy lad.  I live by
+cutting peat an' building walls an' such like; but 'tis a poor
+business, an' I'd gladly go over to you, master, if you'll give
+me a trial."
+
+"An do, please your honour, find me a job," cried Thomas
+Putt.  "I wouldn't be so bold an' 'dashus as to ax for a shilling a
+day; but, afore God, I'll do great deeds for ninepence!"
+
+"An' what great deeds can you do?" asked Malherb.  "You
+should go to a physician for your eyes."
+
+"They be only pink-rimmed, your worship," explained the
+owner.  "They'm diamonds for seeing with--'specially by night."
+
+"Putt be a very good man if he's got a better to watch him,
+ban't you, Thomas?" asked Mr. Beer, and the poacher admitted it.
+
+"'Tis so," he confessed frankly.  "I can't stand to work if I
+know there ban't no eye upon me.  'Tis my nature."
+
+"Not but what you've got your vartues," added Beer kindly.
+"An' come his honour wants a salmon, or a woodcock, or a fat
+hare, he can't do better than go to you for it."
+
+Mr. Malherb enjoyed this subject.
+
+"I'm a sportsman myself, my lads.  I love every bit of
+sporting--gun, horse, hound, and rod.  You shall have your chance,
+Tom; but no poaching, mind, or it's all up with you.  Now
+I shall want but two more men and one more woman and my
+household will be complete."
+
+As he spoke a figure crawled out from a corner.  No word had
+he spoken either before or since Malherb's arrival, but now this
+singular man approached, pulled his hair, and addressed the new
+power.  He looked almost a dwarf, but his head was of normal
+size, and his expression betokened character.  The labourer had
+seen sixty years.  He was quite bald and as wrinkled as an old
+russet apple.  His costume differed much from that of the company,
+for it seemed that he was chiefly clad in the pelts of vermin.
+A martin's skin furnished his cap, and at its side glimmered the
+sky-blue wing-feathers of a jay; his coat was green corduroy, but
+his waistcoat was made of moleskins, and he had a white one on
+each side for the pocket-lappet.
+
+"I be Leaman Cloberry, coney-catcher an' mole-catcher," he
+said.  "No man can teel a trap like me."
+
+"I shan't want a coney-catcher," declared Malherb.
+
+"Not regular, not regular; but off an' on, when the varmints
+get too free.  There's other things, too.  There's grays--or
+badgers, as you'd call 'em; there's pole-cats, an' martin-cats, an'
+hawks, an' owls, not to name foxes."
+
+"Foxes?" said Malherb, frowning.
+
+"Plenty of 'em; an' I gets six-an'-eightpence for a fox.  You'll
+always find 'em hanging up on the yew tree in the churchyard, so
+that all the parish on its way to worship 'pon Sundays may see
+I earn my money."
+
+"Kill foxes?"
+
+"All varmints, your honour--from a hoop[*] to a hedge-pig."
+
+
+[*] _Hoop_: A bullfinch.
+
+
+"The man who kills foxes will never earn a shilling from me,"
+thundered Malherb.  "Out of my sight, you old miscreant!  Kill
+foxes!  What is Tyrwhitt about?  I'd hang you to the church
+yew yourself if I had my way.  Honest foxes to be killed by
+a clown!"
+
+Leaman Cloberry regarded the angry settler without flinching.
+
+"If you're that sort, your people be likely to have uneasy
+dreams," he said.  "As to foxes, there'll be plenty for you an' the
+likes of you to run after on horseback--no need to fear that.  I've
+killed but ten dogs an' two vixens in cub this year.  I lay you'll
+meet more foxes around your hen-roosts up-along than you'll find
+time to hunt.  Then you'll be sorry you growed so fiery against
+me."
+
+"Get you gone, you mouldy rascal!  Go to your vermin and
+foul the air no more."
+
+The mole-catcher smiled and put on his hat.
+
+"I'll go," he said, "since you be too great a man to breathe
+alongside of me.  Good evening to your honour; an' my duty
+to you."
+
+Then he made his exit, singing:
+
+  "A ha'penny for a rook;
+    A penny for a jay;
+  A noble for a fox;
+    An' twelvepence for a gray!"
+
+
+It was the tariff of his trade, and he sang the words aloud at
+all seasons and in all company.
+
+Nobody spoke after Malherb's explosion; but a moment
+afterwards he grew calm again, finished his liquor, and prepared
+to depart.
+
+"Come with your papers on Monday week to Tor Royal.  And
+now drink success to Fox Tor Farm, and when next you hear of
+Maurice Malherb, remember that the devil is not so black as he
+is painted."
+
+He flung half a crown upon the counter and went his way,
+while the men in eager concert cried, "So us will, your honour!"
+"Long life an' fortune to your honour!" and "Good luck to Fox
+Tor Farm!"
+
+When Malherb was gone they discussed the matter, and no
+emotion but a very active interest marked their attitude.
+
+"Dartymoor'll soon larn him not to fling half-crowns about,"
+said Uncle Smallridge.
+
+"Ten shilling a week!" mused Richard Beer.  "He must be
+made of money."
+
+"More likely soft in his head," answered a woman behind the
+bar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DAWN
+
+With the following spring Fox Tor Farm was habitable,
+and Mrs. Malherb and her daughter prepared to enter
+their new home.  They had spent the winter in Exeter, for the old
+farm by Exe passed into other hands at Christmas, but Mr. Malherb
+himself already lived upon the Moor.  In February he had gone
+into residence with Kekewich, and though the place was still but
+partially completed, his labourers also began work upon the scene
+and made shift to dwell there.  Good apartments for the people
+were now finished, and Mr. Malherb's cattle had also arrived to
+fill the fine yard and comfortable byres erected for their winter
+uses.  Kekewich cried failure from the first, but none laboured
+more zealously to avert it, none toiled early and late with more
+strenuous diligence than he.
+
+True to his whim, the master denied Annabel Malherb and
+Grace one sight of Fox Tor Farm until they actually arrived to
+dwell there; and even then he so ordered their advent that it fell
+in darkness.  At ten o'clock upon a night in mid-April, mother
+and daughter passed over the nocturnal Moor, vaguely felt its
+surrounding immensity, and turned from the unknown earth,
+where it rolled formless and vast around them, to the familiar
+moon, whose face they knew.
+
+From Holne, a border village whither they had driven by stage,
+Mrs. Malherb and her daughter now rode on pillions; while behind
+them came the tinkle of little bells and the thud of heavy hoofs
+where six pack-horses followed.  Annabel sat behind her husband;
+while Grace had Harvey Woodman for her escort.  Through the
+silent darkness they passed, and the mother listened to Malherb's
+hopes, and sometimes kissed the round ear next her while she
+echoed his sanguine mind.  But Grace paid little heed to Woodman,
+who discoursed without tact upon the complicated miseries
+of a Dartmoor life, and explained how that his father, grandfather,
+great-grandfather, had all gone steadily downhill before the
+insidious Duchy.
+
+A granite cross at length loomed up against the sky on a lofty
+ridge, and its significance here uplifted upon the confines of her
+new life sent a throb to Mrs. Malherb's heart.
+
+"This be Ter Hill," said Harvey Woodman to Grace; "an'
+thicky cross be one of many set up around about by God-fearing
+men some time since Adam.  Now, if you'll look down into the
+valley, you'll see a light like a Jack o' Lantern.  That's your home,
+Miss."
+
+With mingled feelings the women gazed, where square and ruddy
+spots, sunk deep in the silver night, outlined the windows of the
+farm and welcomed them.  The pack-horses, with heavily-laden
+crooks upon their backs, arrived.  Then Malherb led the way,
+and his cavalcade went slowly down the hill.
+
+Only one face from the past welcomed Mrs. Malherb and Grace,
+where Kekewich stood and lighted them up the steps to the front
+door.  Supper awaited the party; then, aweary, and with the
+emotions of a stranger in a strange land, the girl retired to her
+little chamber facing west, and her mother sought the company
+of Dinah Beer and Mrs. Woodman.  She found them amiable,
+courteous, and kindly.  Their outlook upon life was not sanguine,
+yet a warmth of heart marked them, and the sternness of their
+days had left no special impress upon their simple natures.
+Sympathy brightened their eyes--a sentiment that astonished
+the new mistress, for she had not often met with it from her
+inferiors.  Yet these women appreciated the fact that she was
+faced with new problems and new difficulties.  They had also
+seen something of Mr. Malherb and learned to appraise his
+qualities.
+
+"You'll come to it, ma'am," said Dinah Beer, "same as your
+butivul cows did.  They was worritted cruel at first.  That gert
+red 'un, with a white star on her forehead--'Marybud' by name--why,
+I could a'most swear that her shed tears when first she got
+here; but now she an' the rest have settled to the Moor an' larned
+the ways of it like Christians."
+
+"An' master be to the manner born," declared Mary Woodman.
+"My man says he never seed a gentleman gather knowledge
+so quick.  Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt from Tor Royal was over
+here last week, an' he said us had all done wonders."
+
+The wife readily gathered up this comfort, and presently, ere
+she entered into sleep, a gentle satisfaction crowned her spirit,
+and her thoughts were a prayer, half thankfulness, half petition.
+
+Her daughter, too, from gloom arose into a healthy cheerfulness.
+She set about ordering her treasures to her liking, and did
+not retire until midnight.  Then, where a sinking moon touched
+the river mists with light, she gazed, plucked happiness from that
+wonderful spectacle, and so slept contented and trustful of her
+destiny.
+
+Early in the morning, hungering for the first glimpse of this
+new world, Grace hastened to her window and looked out upon
+Dartmoor.  A lark, invisible in the blue above, found her heart
+in that dawn hour.  The day was glorious, and the bird music
+dimmed her eyes, so that the girl had to blink a little before she
+could see the outspread world.  Beneath her the farm threw its
+shadow upon reclaimed heath and ploughed land.  New grey
+walls extended round about, and raw pinewood gates marked the
+enclosures.  Beyond stretched out the cup of the mire, and sere
+rushes still spread a pallor upon it, where ridge after ridge of peat
+ranged away until detail vanished in the prevailing monochrome.
+Red sunrise fires touched this waste into genial colour, and
+threads of gold flashed through its texture where streamlets ran.
+Majestic size and fundamental simplicity marked the materials of
+the sunrise pageant.  The Swincombe River sang on her way to
+Dart; Fox Tor's turrets, touched with rose, ascended southward,
+and beyond, looming darkly against the south, appeared the
+bosom of Cater's Beam.  A spire of blue smoke, miles away in
+the brown distance, marked Lovey Lee's hut, while northerly rose
+infant plantations at Tor Royal, and the spring light of larches
+made a home upon the hill, and spoke of human enterprise.
+
+Grace drank the crystal air and listened to the lark.  Then
+another sight arrested her, and she noted, upon a little mound at
+the edge of the river, a cross above three broad, shallow steps.
+It stood upon a square pedestal which had been bevelled by
+chamfering around the socket, and Grace knew that she saw the
+historic cenotaph of Childe the Hunter.
+
+The lark, the river, the cross, all spoke their proper message,
+and kind chance had willed that this first day of the new life
+should be lovely, heralded by sunshine, unfolded beneath blue
+skies.  Grace Malherb's young spirit swam out through the golden
+gates of the morning, and she praised her God in wordless
+thoughts.  A leaden day, haunted by low and crawling mists, a
+welcome of dripping rain, and the plover's melancholy mew, had
+awakened other emotions; but instead was this embodiment of
+triumphant spring--a dawn of cloudless glory and the lark's
+uplifted joy.
+
+Half an hour later Grace was watching Mrs. Beer milk
+"Marybud."  Dinah--a brown-faced woman with neat wrists and ankles,
+grey eyes, and a face still pretty--looked up from under her
+sunbonnet, where her cheek was pressed against the cow, and
+saw a tall, rather thin maiden who had just stopped growing.
+With loving hand Nature had completed her girl's five feet eight
+inches, and now she was about to turn the child into a fair
+woman.  This the dairymaid readily perceived.
+
+"Us must keep the best of the cream for 'e, Miss," she said.
+"You wants for they pretty hands to be plumper, an' your
+cheeks too."
+
+"How kind to think of such a thing!  I can return the
+compliment, Mrs. Beer."
+
+"Nay; I've had my plump time.  I be near five-an'-forty.  Yet
+I was round once, an' so milky as a young filbert nut.  Now I be
+in the middle season, when us does our hard work.  But you--I
+seem Dartymoor will soon bring colour to your cheeks, though
+it couldn't make they eyes no brighter.  Here, take an' drink,
+will 'e?  I love to see young things drinking milk.  Milk be the
+very starting-place of life, come to think of it.  I never had no
+babies, worse luck, though I always felt a gert softness for 'em."
+
+"But I'm not a baby, Mrs. Beer; I'm nearly seventeen!"
+
+Grace laughed and drank.  The lustre of her red lips dulled
+through the milky film.  She gasped after her drink, and Dinah
+saw her small white teeth.
+
+"You'm a bowerly maiden," she said, with extreme frankness.
+"So lovely as the bud o' the briar in June; an' Dartymoor will
+make a queen of 'e afore long.  Fresh air, an' sweet water, an'
+miles of heather to ride over.  Your eyes be old friends to me,
+miss--the brown of the leaves in autumn--just like my dead
+sister's."
+
+"I have my father's eyes," said Grace; but Dinah questioned it.
+
+"His be darker far.  There ban't no storm in yours--they
+don't flash lightning.  An', please God, they'll have no cause to
+rain either.  Wealth's a wonderful thing, though what's best
+worth money ban't purchasable all the same."
+
+Richard Beer had arrived and heard his wife's platitude.
+
+"Money's a power 'pon Dartymoor, however," he said, "an'
+I'm glad the master 'pears to be made of it, if I may say so
+without offence, Miss."
+
+"Not at all," declared Grace.  "Father isn't made of money,
+and you mustn't think so.  He looks for a return very soon for all
+his outlay."
+
+Beer touched his hat with great respect before answering.
+
+"As to that, mustn't count on no miracles, Miss Malherb.  The
+master be larning that a'ready.  Us can't go no quicker'n Nature's
+own gait.  She won't be pushed because a chap here an' there
+goes bankrupt.  'Tis only at love-making she works so fast, not
+at farm-making."
+
+"Her ways do often look slow to a man in a hurry," said
+Dinah.
+
+"But us have got to wait for 'em to work, all the same,"
+concluded Beer, "an' all the cusses of David never made one blade
+o' grass sprout so quick as a drop of warm rain."
+
+This apparent allusion to her father's forcible modes of speech
+saddened Grace.
+
+"'Tis very true," she answered, then turned to the house and
+went in to breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MR. PETER NORCOT
+
+Three months after the arrival of Maurice Malherb's family
+at Fox Tor Farm, a visitor appeared to spend some days
+with them.  Mr. Peter Norcot set out from his home at Chagford
+and rode across the Moor on a fine morning in July; while before
+him at dawn a pack-horse with his luggage had started upon the
+same journey.  Leaving certain final directions at the great
+factory by Teign River, in which he was a partner, the wool-stapler
+ascended from his home to Dartmoor, climbed a broad common
+or two, and in little more than an hour after noon he trotted
+southward over the mighty crest of Hameldon.
+
+Norcot was a handsome, fair man of five-and-thirty.  The only
+ugly feature of his face appeared in an exaggerated chin.  For
+the rest, his countenance showed strength and abundant
+determination.  Any special distinction was lacking from it.  He
+exhibited a breezy and amiable exterior to the world, loved a jest
+and doted upon an epigram.  Frank honesty marked his utterances,
+and his outlook upon life was generous.  He had no
+enemies, and enjoyed considerable wealth, for despite the wars,
+his business prospered, and his grievances in connection with it
+were more apparent than real.  A humorous and hearty manner
+concealed some traits of Peter's character, for tremendous tenacity
+of purpose hid itself beneath superficial lightness of demeanour.
+He had a great gift of constancy that rose superior to side issues.
+His first object in life was to marry Grace Malherb, and now he
+strove to win his way by careful study of the girl and by every
+delicate art that he knew.  Her father was upon his side, and the
+end seemed assured; but Peter desired that Grace should come
+to him of her own free will.
+
+Now misfortune unexpected overtook the lover, for out of fiery
+sunshine crept a sudden mist, and soon the clouds grew dense
+and the day changed.  The fog in streaks and patches swept
+down with heavy and increasing density, until man and horse
+were brushed with its cold fingers.  The light waned as evening
+approached, and the mist thickened steadily into fine dense rain.
+Norcot's hair dripped, his eyebrows were frosted, and he felt the
+cold drops running from his hat under his collar.  The
+unexpected change of weather caused him no irritation, for the man
+was never known to lose his temper, and that fact, in a tempestuous
+and ill-educated age, won for him wide measure of respect.
+
+Now he murmured scraps from various sacred and profane
+authors and addressed them aloud to his horse.
+
+"We must keep the weather on our right cheek, nag.  Tut,
+tut!  How vast this silence and gloom!  It helps us to know our
+place in nature, albeit we have lost our place in it.  Lost, and
+found by being lost!  Ha, ha!
+
+          "'Come, man,
+  Hyperbolized Nothing! know thy span,
+  Take thine own measure here: down, down and bow
+  Before thyself in thine Idea, thou
+  Huge emptiness!
+
+
+"Crashaw, I thank thee.  And I pray that thou wilt help me
+with Lady Grace.  'All daring dust and ashes,' indeed, to hope
+in that quarter; but time is on my side.  She must yield--eh,
+Victor?"
+
+The horse pricked his ears at sound of his name and splashed
+on, leaving a trail behind him where he had brushed the moisture
+from heath and grass.  By Norcot's calculations he should now
+have been nearing the valley of West Dart, and from thence he
+hoped to hit the mouth of the Swincombe River, and so reach
+his destination; but time passed; the faint wind blew now on
+one cheek, now upon the other, and at length Mr. Norcot realised
+that he was quite hopelessly lost.  The darkness crowded in upon
+him and elbowed him; not one whisper penetrated it.  He
+pulled up, drank a dram from a little silver spirit flask, and
+listened for the murmur of running water.  But another sound
+suddenly rewarded him.  A shadow flitted across the gloom, and
+a thin, old voice was heard lifted up in song.
+
+  "A ha'penny for a rook;
+  A penny for a jay;
+  A noble for a fox;
+  An' twelvepence for a gray!'"
+
+
+"Well met, neighbour!" shouted Norcot.  "And since you
+sing, I doubt not you are happy; and since you are happy, you
+have a home and know the way to it."
+
+"'Ess fay!  An' you too, sir.  I be Leaman Cloberry,
+coney-catcher of Dartmeet.  An' who be you?"
+
+"One Peter Norcot, from Chagford.  This is not my country,
+and I'm seeking the River Swincombe--have been doing so for
+many hours in vain.  Now 'Light thickens; and the crow Makes
+wing to the rooky wood.'  But where's the river?"
+
+"You be within half a mile of it, your honour."
+
+"Then I came straighter than I knew.  That's the reward for
+always going straight, Mr. Cloberry; when darkness overtakes us,
+we go straight still.  It has become a habit.  I want the new
+farm of Mr. Malherb beneath Cater's Beam.  And you shall
+show me the way thereto."
+
+Leaman Cloberry shifted a small bag that he carried on his
+shoulder.  He was bound in the same direction; but while
+Norcot might be supposed a friend to Fox Tor Farm, Cloberry
+crept thither with intentions the reverse of friendly.  He had
+chosen the fog for a dark purpose.  Now, however, he hid his
+designs and spoke.
+
+"I know the place and a good few of the men as works there."
+
+"How do they prosper?  Malherb and Dartmoor must be
+flint and steel.  Yet the man will prove tougher than the granite,
+I hope."
+
+Cloberry stroked a red mark on his cheek.
+
+"Did you hear tell what chanced to Holne Church a week
+ago?" he asked.
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+"My gentleman from Fox Tor Farm took his ladies there to
+worship.  An' I comed along same time with a vixen fox an' two
+cubs to hang 'em up in the sight of the nation, so as all men
+might see I'd earned my money.  An' he falled on me like a
+cat-a-mountain, an' used awfulest language ever let fly in a
+burying-ground, an' hit me across the face with his whip."
+
+"I'm heartily sorry and ashamed to hear it.  Under a sacred
+fane, too!  I grieve for this.  It is a lesson to us all.  Yet to
+kill foxes!  Tut, tut!  'Volpone, by blood and rank' a
+gentleman.'  I preserve game myself, yet pay tithe unquestioning to
+reynard."
+
+"'Twas assault and battery, whether or no.  An' Squire he
+took Malherb's part, an' parson was o' my side.  An' I said as
+folks must live, an' Malherb, in his lofty way, sees the force of
+that, an' flings me half a sovereign.  But I let it bide on the
+ground.  You can't batter a man like that on a Sunday morning
+for money.  I'm set against him, and I'll set other folk against
+him too."
+
+"Think better of it.  Half a sovereign is a very convenient
+embodiment of ten shillings.  Take this one for showing me my
+way.  'I would be friends with you and have your love.'  It is
+my rule of life."
+
+Cloberry accepted the coin thus offered, declared that Peter
+was a hero, and presently put him upon his road to Fox
+Tor.  But after Mr. Norcot had trotted out of sight, his guide
+followed in the same direction.  The old man skulked under a
+wall until darkness had fallen upon the moor; then, walking out
+boldly into a fine piece of meadow-land upon which Maurice
+Malherb especially prized himself, he opened his sack and took
+therefrom a box with a pierced top.  Gentle squeaking came
+from inside this receptacle; and now, opening it, Cloberry
+released a dozen fat and lively moles.
+
+"There, my little velvet-coats!" he said; "go to work an' tear
+the heart out of him when he sees what you can do.  Increase
+an' multiply, my dears, like the children of Israel; an' presently
+I'll bring up a dozen more to help 'e!"
+
+The moles crawled about uneasily, but presently began to dig
+and sink into the earth.  The fog had lifted, and the lights of
+Fox Tor Farm now shone across the night.  Leaman Cloberry
+shook his fist at them.
+
+"That's a beginning," he growled.  "An' I'll bring rats for
+your byres an' stoats for your hen-roosts.  I'll plague you; I'll
+fret your gizzard!  An' I wish that I was Moses, for then I'd
+fetch along all the plagues of Egypt against 'e an' break your
+stone heart!"
+
+Meanwhile, as the vermin-catcher tramped homeward, and
+presently so far recovered good temper as to sing his only
+song, Peter Norcot found a welcome and much sympathy.
+Malherb now regarded himself as an old Dartmoor man, familiar
+with every possible freak and manifestation of Nature upon the
+waste.  He explained to Norcot the course proper to be pursued
+in a fog, and Peter, whose knowledge of the Moor extended from
+boyhood, listened very gravely, acknowledged his errors, and
+praised the older man's shrewdness in the matter.
+
+Before dinner Mr. Malherb, in all the splendour of fine black,
+new pumps, and a frilled shirt-front with a diamond in it, went
+off to his cellar for those remarkable wines that he assured
+familiar guests were now no longer in the market; while the
+lover enjoyed some precious moments with his lady.  Grace
+looked fair to see in her white muslin and blue ribbons.  She
+wore the high waist of the period; her hair towered in a mass on
+the top of her head, yet little prim curls hung like flowers on
+either side; white shoes cased her feet, and the elastic of them
+made a cross between her ankles.
+
+"The Moor suits you nobly, dear Grace," said Mr. Norcot,
+who was himself resplendent.  "I never saw you lovelier."
+
+"Do leave all that," she said.  "Let us meet in peace."
+
+"So be it," he answered, and continued--
+
+  "'Gracie, I swear by all I ever swore,
+  That from this hour I shall not love thee more,--
+  What! love no more?  Oh! why this altered vow?
+  Because I cannot love thee more than now!'"
+
+
+A gentle look came into his blue eyes as he gazed upon her.
+It was not natural to them, but he had practised it often before
+the looking-glass, and could assume it at pleasure.
+
+"Still occupied with other men's jests, Peter.  If you only
+understood me!  Do you know why I love Dartmoor?  Because
+it leaves me alone.  Because it cares no more for me than for
+the ant that crawls on the grass-blade.  So big, so grand, so stern
+it is.  And it always tells the truth."
+
+"You are quite wrong.  The Moor loves with a hopeless
+passion.  It has kissed you.  I see the print of its kisses on your
+cheek.  It has kissed your little elbow, for I note a dimple there
+that is new to me."
+
+Grace frowned and pulled up her mitten.  She sat upon the
+music-stool, struck a note or two, and did not answer.  Peter
+sighed.
+
+"You are cold, you are cold," he said.  "What does Wycherley
+remark?  'Out of Nature's hands they came plain, open, silly,
+and fit for slaves, as she and heaven intended 'em; but damned
+Love----'  There it is!  'Blessed Love,' if you happened to
+love me; doubly, trebly 'damned Love,' since your heart is set
+on somebody else."
+
+"Not at all.  I love nobody.  I hate the word."
+
+"And you are seventeen to-morrow!"
+
+  "'On that auspicious day began the race
+  Of every virtue joined in one sweet Grace.'"
+
+
+"What is my birthday to you, Peter?"
+
+"You can ask that!  I _must_ answer in an epigram.  There is
+only one reply possible.  Martial--but I know a beautiful
+translation:--
+
+  "'Believing hear what you deserve to hear:
+  Your birthday as my own to me is dear;
+  But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
+  Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.'
+
+Only that word 'friend' is too weak."
+
+"I wish you would be content with friendship, and not fret me
+to death with all this nonsense.  Do you know that father has
+bought me a lovely hunter for a birthday gift?"
+
+"I do.  And that horse will want a whip--until he knows your
+voice; and that whip Peter Norcot has provided.  'Tis almost
+worthy of you--a pretty toy."
+
+"I don't want your whip," she said.
+
+Mr. Norcot cast about for something from _The Taming of
+the Shrew_; but he changed his mind.  Meantime Grace spoke
+again.
+
+"I shall be sorry to give up riding my poor little 'Russet.'  Still,
+he's not up to my weight now; and he's growing elderly
+and lazy, and I'm to hunt next season.  Won't it be lovely?"
+
+"Our Dartmoor blades will hunt no more foxes; they'll hunt
+for smiles from you," said Peter gloomily.
+
+"You shall have some good long gallops with me if you will.
+I'm mastering the country well, and now with 'Cæsar'--that's my
+new horse--I shall be able to go twice as far as formerly."
+
+"I rejoice.  You must take me upon your favourite rides."
+
+"One has a horrid fascination for me.  'Tis to the top of
+North Hisworthy Tor above Prince Town.  From there you can
+look straight down into that great War Prison--the saddest sight
+for any woman's eyes."
+
+Mr. Malherb entered at this moment.
+
+"A tender fool," he said, "and her mother no better.  Eight
+thousand French tigers behind those bars; and these women in
+their silly way would set 'em loose to-morrow."
+
+"They long for their dens and their cubs, poor fellows," said
+Grace.
+
+"They fought for their country--that's their only sin," murmured
+Annabel Malherb.
+
+"They fought against England--that's their sin," retorted her
+husband hotly.  "The lying, slippery rascals!  Dartmoor's too
+good for 'em.  Honour!  Three broke parole at Ashburton last
+week!"
+
+"Isn't it wonderful?  They play games and hold concerts and
+have play-acting!" said Grace.
+
+"Their vile French levity," answered her father.  "Instead of
+being on their knees asking God to forgive 'em, they dance and
+sing."
+
+Mr. Norcot shook his head, as though to imply he echoed
+Malherb's sentiments.  Then he asked a question, but did not
+guess the storm it would awaken.
+
+"And what about the American prisoners?"
+
+"Curse 'em!" roared the farmer, like a sudden explosion of
+thunder.  "Curse 'em living and dying, and, if I had my way,
+I'd hang the foul traitors--every man.  Our own flesh and
+blood--a British Colony----"
+
+"I'm afraid 'tis idle to dream that any more.  The tea business.
+Never was such a shattering storm bred in a teacup before,"
+answered Norcot.  "A bad day for England----"
+
+"Matricides, murderers, insolent democratical scoundrels!"
+cried the other.  "My blood boils at the name.  How is it that
+the Almighty has not sunk their stolen continent fathoms deep in
+the sea to cleanse it?  Why are they allowed to live?
+Pirates--slave-driving, slave-hunting, slave-breeding pirates, and lynchers,
+and blackguards--self-constituted a Nation.  _A Nation!_  They
+make you believe in Hell against your will."
+
+"They have more pluck and originality than the French, I am
+told," said Peter calmly.  "They escape in a wonderful manner;
+they give the guards ceaseless trouble and anxiety."
+
+"For why?  They're bastard English.  They've got our blood
+in their veins.  'Twill take a few generations yet ere it all runs
+into the sink and leaves nothing but mongrel.  A poisoned race--a
+fallen race.  Pride has ruined 'em; as it ruined the Devil,
+their dam.  Hanging, drawing, quartering, I say!  No honest
+man----"
+
+"Come to dinner, Maurice," said Mrs. Malherb.  "And don't
+thus rage before eating.  'Tis very bad for you.  They are at
+least out of mischief now, poor creatures."
+
+"Never," answered her husband.  "An American is never out
+of mischief until he is dead."
+
+"The prison should be a good, handy market for farm
+produce," ventured Peter.
+
+"It is; but I'd rather starve than touch their vile money," said
+Malherb.
+
+He gave his arm to his daughter and went to the dining-room,
+while Mr. Norcot and Mrs. Malherb followed them.
+
+Kekewich always waited upon the family, and not seldom he
+was addressed during the course of a meal concerning subjects
+within his wide knowledge.  Now the talk turned to trade, and
+Norcot explained a serious problem of his own business.
+
+"Everything is depressed in these fighting times," he said.
+"One looks for that and provides for it.  But what shall be
+thought of our principal customers, the East India Company?
+Wool don't get cheaper, that's very certain, but they are sending
+down the price of long ells half-a-crown a piece.  They say that
+our woollens are often a drug in the Indian market; and now to
+remedy the thin web, every piece of long ell in stripes shall weigh
+twelve pounds.  We work web at coarser pitch to meet this want,
+and, of course, defeat the object of the demand by producing
+rubbish."
+
+The conversation became profoundly technical, and Malherb,
+who deemed himself an expert upon wool, as upon most other
+subjects, uttered great words.  Then Kekewich, himself an old
+wool-comber, became so interested that he forgot his business.
+At last he could stand it no more, but set down a dish violently
+and plunged into conversation, much to Norcot's entertainment.
+He perceived, however, that Kekewich knew far more about the
+matter than Mr. Malherb, and when the servant was from the
+room made a jest upon him.
+
+"A wonderful man, and sane too.  Sound sense--every word
+of it.
+
+  "'Old Kek doth with his lantern jaws
+  Throw light upon the woollen laws.'"
+
+
+"And upon most other matters," declared Grace.  "And his
+thoughts are all his own--borrowed from nobody."
+
+"It happens to me," confessed Peter, "that the things I think
+have always been better worded by others.  With becoming
+modesty, therefore, I borrow."
+
+According to modern ideas of courtesy, Mrs. Malherb and her
+daughter were somewhat slighted during the progress of dinner;
+but women listened more and talked less a hundred years ago
+than now.  Annabel saw that Peter's plate and glass were kept
+full, chatted with her daughter, laughed at her husband's jests, and
+departed to the drawing-room as soon as the table was cleared.
+Then Kekewich deposited two silver candlesticks and a pair of
+silver snuffers within reach of his master, produced a dish of dry
+walnuts, and tenderly stationed a bottle of port at the elbow of
+each gentleman.
+
+"I know you're only a one-bottle man, and you are wise at
+your age," said Malherb.  "Indeed, I seldom do more myself,
+save on rare occasions, and never except during the hunting
+season."
+
+"I hope you'll account for two bottles upon the day I marry
+Mistress Grace," answered Peter.  "She grows an angel.  Never
+beamed such radiant beauty.
+
+  "'Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
+  Having some business, do intreat her eyes
+  To twinkle in their spheres till they return.'
+
+But I wish they would twinkle for me."
+
+"To-morrow she is seventeen--God bless her!  They are my
+heart and my soul--she and my son.  But she's yours, Norcot,
+for I've said it.  She shall reign over your place at Chagford.  Her
+welfare is my first care in this world.  Now leave that.  Let our
+talk be about sheep.  I have discovered that Dartmoor is the best
+sheep-walk in the kingdom.  We shall have such wool for you
+next year as will make you generous against your will.  Already
+I'm treating for certain three-year-old Dartmoor wethers that'll
+shear nine pounds of unwashed wool a fleece.  Think of it!  Take
+one shilling and threepence a pound and five hundred sheep--the
+result is nearly three hundred pounds of money in one year!
+Then I design to cross with the new Leicesters.  Frankly, I see
+a large fortune within ten years.  It can hardly be avoided."
+
+Mr. Norcot nodded thoughtfully.  He knew the farmer's figures
+were absurdly high, both in wool and money.
+
+"You look so far ahead.  I always envy you that gift of
+foresight.  Yet, in sober honesty, you must not count to get more
+than a shilling a pound.  If you could breed Merinos now."
+
+"I've thought of that, too."
+
+"Ah!  I'll wager you have," said the merchant, with admiration.
+"What don't you think of, Mr. Malherb?  'Tis good to
+know that another man of ideas has come on Dartmoor."
+
+So the talk and the wine sped, and presently they joined the
+ladies.  Annabel was at the piano, and Grace sat beside a peat
+fire, engaged with her needle.  While the music ran, Peter,
+inspired by dinner and the fair maiden under his eyes, pulled
+forth a notebook and adventured an original rhyme.  He was
+hurt at the girl's recent allusion, and now determined to reveal
+powers unsuspected.  But the gem he designed would not polish,
+and Grace herself went to the piano to sing an exceedingly doleful
+ballad before Mr. Norcot's effort was complete.  Then he
+handed it to her in a book, while Mrs. Malherb spoke aside
+to Dinah Beer, and the master, who cared little for music,
+perused an agricultural survey of Devon.
+
+Miss Malherb read, and her lip curled visibly.
+
+  "Sweet vestal Gracie's lovely eyes have lighted
+  Such fires within his breast that Peter's frighted;
+  For now, behold!  This man of noble mettle
+  Doth feel his heart boil over like a kettle."
+
+
+Annabel still talked with her woman, and Grace, after brief
+cogitation, wrote a few lines under Mr. Norcot's effort, and
+handed it back again.  He saw what she had said, and smiled--
+
+  "Though water boils apace and fire be bold,
+  Pour one on t'other, quickly both grow cold.
+  Therefore, good Peter, let thy heart boil over.
+  'Twill ease thee of thy pain; me of my lover."
+
+
+He tore a scrap from the bottom of the sheet, and concluded
+the correspondence.
+
+When Grace bade her father and his guest farewell and reached
+her room, she scanned Mr. Norcot's final comment, and found
+that it needed no reply.  He had merely written--
+
+"The epigrammatist rejoices; but the man weeps."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WAR PRISON
+
+On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Grace rode
+forth upon the new hunter, and tenderly touched 'Cæsar's'
+flank with a whip of dainty workmanship.  Peter, on his black
+horse, accompanied her, and Mr. Malherb stood at the door of
+Fox Tor Farm and watched them depart.
+
+"A fine couple," he said to his wife.  "One sees that Grace
+has got my skill in horsemanship now that she is properly
+mounted."
+
+"And he rides well, too."
+
+"So, so.  Better than most young men.  She's coming to my
+way of thinking.  She laughs with him now and exchanges jests."
+
+His wife shook her head.
+
+"I misdoubt her.  She's a Malherb--a jog-trot tradesman will
+never win her."
+
+"Have done with such nonsense!" he said sharply.  "He is
+no more a tradesman than am I.  You should have better feeling
+than to use the word."
+
+"She won't marry him, nevertheless," said Mrs. Malherb
+placidly.
+
+"Will she not?  If I am her father she will."
+
+He turned and departed, while his wife, with a cloud upon her
+countenance, watched Mr. Norcot and Grace climb the steep side
+of Fox Tor and proceed to the heights above it.
+
+Soon afterwards, as they turned their horses' heads toward
+Prince Town, Peter observed a strange, tall figure proceeding on
+foot in the same direction.  It was as though one of the moorland
+crosses from the Abbot's Way had come to life and stole
+over the wilderness upon some superhuman errand.
+
+"Look!" cried Norcot, "a walking scarecrow!"
+
+Grace recognised the being, and laughed.
+
+"A 'scarecrow,' you say.  That's the richest woman on Dartmoor!"
+
+"A woman--and a wealthy one?  Impossible!"
+
+"'Tis Lovey Lee, an old servant of my grandfather's.  By
+chance she lives here within a few miles of Fox Tor Farm.  We
+shall pass her hovel presently."
+
+"Was it not she whom your father accused of stealing the
+amphora when Sir Nicholas died?"
+
+"Yes; and he still vows that she has it, for all her oaths to the
+contrary.  She's a weird old woman.  Her grandson, John, tells
+me that she lives upon frogs and herb tea."
+
+They were now abreast of the dame, and Peter inspected her
+carefully.
+
+"Tut, tut!  She does not throw away money upon her apparel,"
+he said.
+
+"No--isn't it horrid?  I think she wears old sacks chiefly."
+
+"And reduces them to the minimum.  Her naked feet must
+be made of iron."
+
+"Good morning, Lovey," said Grace.  "Have you been to
+Holne?  No; I see that you haven't, for you carry no basket."
+
+"Mornin', maiden; an' to you, my gentleman," she answered
+very civilly.  "No more Holne for me.  I've got a better market
+for my poor goods now; an' nearer."
+
+"The War Prison?"
+
+"Ess fay!  Plenty of money there for them that have anything
+to sell.  I can scrape a few pence out of they Americans every
+week; though how I keep body an' soul together is my daily
+wonder."
+
+"You would do it easier if you wore more petticoats, granny,"
+said Peter.
+
+"Petticoats!" she answered.  "'Tis very well for the likes of
+you, bursting wi' fatness under your fine linen, to talk o'
+petticoats.  Give me a crown an' I'll buy one--since you'm so anxious
+about it."
+
+"Why, you're the richest woman on the Moor, Lovey," said
+Grace.  "You know perfectly well that you have a gold mine
+hidden away somewhere."
+
+The old woman showed her teeth and growled like a dog.
+
+"Don't you tell that trash, or you'll make me your enemy
+I promise you!  A gold mine--some 'crock o' gold' hid at a
+rainbow's foot or in a dead man's grave--like the fools tell about
+up here.  I wish I knowed where.  Do a woman salt down
+reptiles and make her meal of blind-worms and berries if she
+have got a gold mine hidden?"
+
+"That's just what father says you would do," answered Grace.
+
+"Tell Malherb to mind his business," she answered sourly,
+"or 'twill be the worse for him.  'Twill take him all his time to
+find a gold mine under Fox Tor, anyway, let alone the Lord's
+hand being against him for stealing the earth from the meek,
+as was meant to inherit it."
+
+"Nothing of the sort," answered Grace, with great indignation.
+"She's a horrid old story-teller, Peter."
+
+But Norcot never quarrelled with man or mouse.
+
+"Mrs. Lee is naturally against the Duchy," he said.  "The
+Duchy we all know.  But, on the other hand, nobody alive can
+blame your father for availing himself of its propensities."
+
+"He'll curse himself for a fool yet, however," said the old
+woman.
+
+"I shall not be friendly with you any more, Lovey Lee,"
+answered Grace frankly.  "You're greedier than the Duchy, and
+you don't tell the truth.  You wouldn't be so unpleasant if your
+conscience didn't hurt you.  Henceforth I shall think with my
+father that you took the amphora."
+
+"You may think what you please.  It won't prove nothing but
+that you've got a Malherb habit of mind and be your faither's
+daughter."
+
+"Come, Peter!" cried Grace.  "I'll hear no more."
+
+She trotted away, and, having dropped a coin behind him,
+Mr. Norcot followed.  It was his sagacious custom never to lose
+any opportunity of making a friend.  He had found possibilities
+of usefulness in the humblest road-mender; and this woman,
+with her evident strength and ferocity, attracted him.  He
+perceived that she was one who would do anything within her
+power for payment.
+
+Lovey picked up the money with a loud blessing on the giver.
+Then she watched the retreating figures.
+
+"They be coming courting a'ready," she thought, "an' her
+only a half-growed giglet yet.  Well, let the sky fall an' the sun
+burn blue, a crown be still a crown."
+
+Before the old woman had reached home, Grace and Peter
+Norcot passed her cabin, and the wool-stapler showed more
+interest before Lovey's grim abode than at the more striking
+object close at hand.  Siward's Cross was dismissed with a nod,
+but Mrs. Lee's lair awakened a lively attention.
+
+"There she lives with only a wall of piled peat between her
+and her cows and donkey.  She's got a grandson--a very handsome,
+courteous young fellow--and he dwells in that stable there.
+In her kitchen you would find stones for chairs."
+
+"And stones for bread by the look of it.  A cheerful soul.  I
+wonder where her hiding-place may be?  Did you see her
+glittering eyes--like two diamonds set in yellow ivory--and the
+fingers all crooked like a hawk's claws.  She's a miser, or I
+never met one.  And yet 'God but little asks where little's
+given.'  Perhaps we wrong her."
+
+"Father never wrongs anybody," answered Grace.  "He
+storms, indeed, and will have his way; but good men always like
+him, and understand his noble qualities."
+
+"Most true--one in a thousand.  I'm thankful beyond measure
+that he is pleased to think well of me; for he'd never bestow his
+friendship on an unworthy object."
+
+"One word for father; two for Peter Norcot."
+
+"It is so; I rise above false modesty.  If a good man praises
+me, it is my best advertisement before the world."
+
+"You have a wonderful way with father."
+
+"I was looking into John Guillim's book a day or two since.
+He is an old-time Pursuivant at Arms.  Upon your family name
+and the three nettle leaves, which you'll see cut in the amethyst
+at the handle of your riding-whip, you shall find a quaint word or
+two.  Guillim says the nettle is of so tetchie and froward a
+nature that no man may meddle with it, and he adds that a little
+girl being once stung thereby, complained to her father that
+there was such a curst herb in his garden, that it was worse than
+a dog, for it would bite them of its own house.  Her father told
+her that the herb's nature was a notable impartiality, for friend
+and foe were alike to it.  Then there's a pleasant epigram--
+
+  "'Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
+  And it stings you for your pains;
+  Grasp it like a man of mettle,
+  And it soft as silk remains."
+
+Not that that applies to Mr. Malherb."
+
+"No, indeed!  Father is no nettle," said Grace sharply.
+
+"Most true.  The nettle's flower is plain, not exquisitely
+beautiful," he answered, looking at her.  "Your father has the
+sturdy characteristics of his house, none of the prickles.  A grand
+singleness of purpose marks his ways."
+
+"He feels too deeply, if anything."
+
+"And too much feeling so often obscures perception.  It is
+unfortunate."
+
+"There's the War Prison," said Grace, changing the subject;
+"that dreadful thing stretching out down there--a ring within a
+ring.  I always think it is like something in Dante made real."
+
+"Dante, eh?  Hell, and so forth.  Yes, that's a hell for many
+a brave, lonely heart.  Doubtless there are lovers among 'em.
+By the way, I thought your dear father was a little hard upon the
+American prisoners--if I may dare to say so."
+
+"He knows best," said Grace firmly; "and they do give a
+great deal of trouble.  To break away from their mother country
+over a paltry question of money!"
+
+"It's wonderful how soon matters of money make every question
+acute--lift it into a serious affair.  Men will argue about
+their Maker, or the chances of Eternity, or the heat of the sun,
+with irreproachable temper; but let the matter be a sovereign----  As
+to America--taxes or no taxes--fools in our Parliament or fools
+in their Congress--it had to come.  Look at a map of the world."
+
+"In this war, at any rate, they are utterly mistaken," said Grace.
+"I know all about it, and facts are facts."
+
+"And facts never contradict each other.  That's a blessing."
+
+"No doubt the wrong men are suffering now," she added,
+looking down upon the prison; "but that is a general rule in war."
+
+"And life.  What a beehive it is!  'A dungeon horrible on all
+sides round.'  Hark! you can hear the 'sorrowful sighing of the
+prisoners.'  Or rather you can hear their laughter.  In fact, they
+appear to be playing a game in that far-off corner.  It must be
+prisoners' base, no doubt."
+
+"I pity every one of them, and especially the poor little
+powder-monkeys we captured in their ships," she said.
+
+The huge circumference of the War Prison stretched beneath
+them, protected from the West under North Hisworthy Tor; the
+limbo, at once famous and infamous, lay here in summer sunshine;
+and never had Time thrown up a mushroom ring more grim, more
+grey, upon earth's lovely face.  In the midst of wild hills and
+stone-crowned heights, skirted by the waters of a stream, separated
+from mankind by miles of scattered granite and black bog, the
+War Prison appeared.  Late July ruled the land and brushed the
+hills with green; the light of the ling was just dawning, and all
+life rejoiced; but the solemn features of these stony mountains,
+fold upon fold and range upon range, take no softness to the
+stranger's eye at any season, and none who has not trodden it in
+freedom can love its austere face, or understand its chastened
+glory.  Purple cloud-shadows drifted over the prison, and revealed
+the details of Alexander's sinister masterpiece.  Previously
+they had been hidden by a great dazzle of sunlight.
+
+Some thirty acres were enclosed by two walls, one within the
+other.  The outer circle stood sixteen feet high; and separated
+from it by a broad military parade, extended the second wall,
+hung with bells on wires, and having sentry-boxes upon it at
+regular intervals, to overlook each prison yard.  The main area
+of the gaol was of rounded shape, and contained five enormous
+rectangular masses of masonry radiating from the centre, like
+spokes from the hub of a wheel.  At one side a segment was
+cut out of the circle, and this contained the Governor's offices,
+the turnkey's place, and other official buildings, together with an
+open space into which the country people were admitted for their
+daily traffic with the prisoners.  Fuel, vegetables, poultry, butter,
+and other articles were bought and sold in this market, and upon
+its completion the gangs returned to their own divisions of the
+gaol.  Each of the five main buildings mentioned was constructed
+to hold fifteen hundred men; all had two floors, and in the roof
+of every one was an additional great chamber used as a promenade
+at times of unusually inclement weather.  Each block possessed
+its own wide exercise yard and shelter from snow or rain, its
+proper supply of sweet water always running, and its _cachot_, or
+prison within a prison, for punishment of the refractory and
+disobedient.  A hospital and accommodation for petty officers
+included the edifices within the walls, while a quarter of a mile
+distant were barracks for four hundred troops, and various other
+buildings not all connected with the establishment of the prison.
+Of these the more conspicuous were a ruined cottage on the slope
+north-eastward of the outer wall, two new taverns, about which
+the soldiers swarmed like red ants; bakehouses, slaughter-houses,
+and private habitations that rapidly grew into a little street.  The
+prisoners themselves were scattered by the thousand over their
+exercise yards, with red-coats stationed upon the inner wall around
+them.  At one point outside the War Prison a large building arose
+and, guarded by the soldiery, a crowd of men laboured upon it.
+
+"They are making a church," explained Grace.  "The French
+build and the Americans do the carving and the woodwork inside.
+'Tis to be dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels."
+
+"Then you have a personal interest in it.  And maybe I too
+shall have.  We might even be married there."
+
+"We might--though not to one another."
+
+"Who knows?  Time can work wonders."
+
+"But only God can work miracles."
+
+"Beautiful!" he said, "and comforting too; for I am one who
+holds that the age of miracles has not yet gone.  You shall find
+the man of parts will make his own miracles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A LITTLE ACCIDENT
+
+As they descended into Prince Town Grace proposed to visit
+the church now growing there.  She knew one Lieutenant
+Mainwaring, a young officer in command at these works; and
+now, glad enough to be of service and display his little power, the
+lad himself escorted Miss Malherb and Peter Norcot into a scene
+of stir and activity.
+
+The Frenchmen chattered and sang to the clink of their
+trowels; while within, more thoughtful and more silent, a hundred
+Americans were engaged upon carpentering and carving in wood
+and stone.  The strangers regarded Grace with curiosity.  Save for
+the market folk, it was long since any among them had seen a
+woman, and this lovely girl awoke invisible emotion.  Many
+a heart quickened, then slowed at the sight of her.  She wakened
+the thought of women in lonely bosoms; she bridged rolling
+oceans with a sigh.  Some cursed as memory probed their
+helplessness; some sneered; some winked and whistled and kissed
+their hands; some, sensitively conscious, turned away to hide
+their rags from these well-clothed and prosperous visitors.
+
+They were soldiers and sailors, and they exhibited a wide
+variety of spiritual and mental attributes.  Many among them
+crept about like thin ghosts clad in motley; a few looked stout
+and happy, despite their shameful clothing; some toiled in sulky
+and wooden silence; others maintained a gay and alert demeanour.
+They wore yellow roundabout jackets, mostly too small, rough
+waistcoats and pantaloons, shirts, caps of wool, and shoes made
+from list and wood, that gaped at every seam.  Those amongst
+them whose shoes had fallen to pieces, cased their feet in strips
+of blanket, and so limped through the dreary time until authority
+should refurnish them.
+
+Young Mainwaring was called away at this moment, and before
+he departed, the lad turned to an elderly American with grey hair
+and a distinguished bearing, and asked him a favour.
+
+"May I beg you to show Miss Malherb and this gentleman
+round the works, Commodore Miller?" said Mainwaring; and the
+prisoner bowed a grave assent.  In looking at this man's sad
+eyes and noble face one forgot the ridiculous rags that covered
+him.
+
+"Come this way, young lady," he said.  "You see our labours
+prosper.  'Twill be a monument for the generations that follow
+us.  Our dust will mingle with this desert and be forgotten; our
+handiwork will remain."
+
+Suddenly as they proceeded a cry from overhead made Grace
+stop, start back, and look upward.  The warning saved her life,
+for six inches in front of her breast an object cut the air, and
+striking at the girl's feet upon the unpaved aisle, buried itself head
+first in the earth.  It was a heavy chisel that had dropped from a
+beam and just missed Grace's head by inches.  A cry rose on
+several lips; some shouted a curse at a man aloft on the beam
+from which the chisel had fallen; and Commodore Miller cried
+to him--
+
+"Good God, Stark; what have you done?"
+
+"Nothing--nothing at all," said Grace quickly.  "I am not
+touched."
+
+The man responsible for this accident was already half-way to
+the ground.  He descended a rope ladder so swiftly as to
+endanger his own neck, and a moment later stood white and
+trembling before Grace Malherb.
+
+"You stupid fellow," said Mr. Norcot; "'twas within a
+hair's-breadth of her life."
+
+"I know it," answered the man.  He was young and very tall,
+with a clean-shorn face and curling brown hair.  "I can only ask
+you to forgive me.  I turned suddenly and my foot struck the
+chisel."
+
+"There's nothing to forgive," said Grace.  "'Twas your voice
+arrested me.  If you hadn't shouted, I should not be here now;
+so I owe you nothing but gratitude."
+
+She smiled at him, and the youngster's colour came back to his
+cheek.  Young Mainwaring, who had just returned, bustled
+forward with his sword clanking as the sailor spoke.
+
+"You're good and brave, young mistress; and you understand.
+'Twas a noble way to pardon me.  A clumsy fool thanks you
+from his heart."
+
+He was turning away when Grace spoke again, and blushed
+a little as she did so.
+
+"Is that your chisel, sir?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Will you give it to me?  May I keep it?"
+
+Taking it from the hand of Commodore Miller, who had
+pulled it out of the earth, the girl looked at its two-inch blade
+and glittering edge.
+
+"I should like to keep it," she repeated.  "It ought to make
+me feel humble and grateful when I look upon it."
+
+"I pray you keep it, then.  And I shall thank God every time
+that I miss it," said the young man quietly.
+
+Norcot was talking to Mainwaring aside, and in the silence that
+followed these words, his voice, unfortunately for himself, came
+directly to the American prisoner's ear.
+
+"Surely not.  The Devil draws the line somewhere.  One
+would never presume to suggest a deliberate intention to murder
+an innocent girl."
+
+The words came clear and cold; then, like a thunderbolt, a
+heavy fist fell between Peter's eyes, and he was on his back half
+unconscious.  From trembling fear, from emotion almost prayerful
+at the thought of what might have happened, from frank and
+absolute sorrow for his carelessness, the young American leapt
+suddenly into ungovernable and blazing wrath.  His very body
+seemed to expand and tower above the men around him.  The
+Commodore leapt forward, but Stark shook him off like a child.
+"There!" he shouted, so that the naked walls rang with echoes.
+"Take that, whoever you are!  To hint such a foul crime from
+your foul soul against an American!"
+
+"Who's this lunatic?  Arrest him," cried Mainwaring, and
+several soldiers hastened forward.
+
+"Cecil Stark is his name--a sailor and a leader in Prison
+No. 4," said a sergeant.
+
+"Yes, Cecil Stark of Vermont," answered the lad passionately.
+"Your General Burgoyne knew the name.  'Twas my kinsman
+that made him surrender and so caused Louis of France and the
+civilised world to acknowledge America free of your bullying,
+braggart nation.  To hint at murder!  You scoundrel--if you're
+a gentleman, you'll meet me; but you're not."
+
+"Candidly," said Mr. Norcot, who was now restored to
+consciousness and sat on the ground with his hand over his eyes.
+"Candidly, I don't want to meet you again.  You are young, and
+evidently Dartmoor has not tamed your fiery spirit.  Nor has it
+polished your nautical wits.  You strike before you hear--like
+your great nation.  Tut, tut!  My nose is broken.  I was just
+declaring on my honour that to credit you with malice was
+madness.  'Twas this gentleman here who suspected that you dropped
+the chisel of set purpose."
+
+"You said it!" exclaimed Stark, turning upon Lieutenant Mainwaring.
+
+"I did, and I repeat it; and don't look at me with that insolent
+expression, or you'll repent it.  'Tis quite likely this was no
+accident."
+
+The American regarded the little officer with contempt and
+astonishment.
+
+"You're a knave to think that; and a coward to say it.  At
+least you don't believe him, young mistress?  I'd give up all hope
+of freedom, or heaven either, if I thought that any woman held
+me so vile."
+
+"No woman, and no man either, would believe it," said Grace
+calmly, and Mainwaring's face flamed.
+
+"Why, then, I'm content," declared Stark.  "As for this red-coated
+monkey, he's neither one nor t'other and his opinion don't
+matter."
+
+"Take him to the cachot!" cried the indignant soldier in a
+fury.  "Away with him--insolent hound!  We'll see what a few
+days of bread and water will do for him."
+
+"And 'tis trash like this that they put into power over honest
+men!" said the prisoner, with great show of scorn.  "In America
+no man can command others until he has learned to command
+himself."
+
+"And did you use to command, my young hero?" asked Peter,
+who had now risen to his feet again.
+
+Cecil Stark turned and laughed as he marched off with half a
+dozen soldiers for an escort.
+
+"No, sir.  You'll guess why.  I'm a fool.  Your nose will tell
+you that.  But I'm learning.  I shall be free again some day.
+Then I'll try to be wise.  Meantime I beg you ten thousand
+pardons that I hit the wrong man.  If 'tis ever in my power,
+I'll make generous amends."
+
+He departed, and among the guard his great stature was
+revealed, for he towered above them.
+
+"What a stinging sermon against disinterestedness," said
+Mr. Norcot, still patting his wounded face.  "Yet 'tis nothing beside
+your escape.  If you had died--my light would have gone out.
+Henceforth I should have lived with Petrarch under my pillow:
+'To Laura--I mean Gracie--in death.'
+
+  "'For I was ever yours; of you bereft,
+  Full little do I reck all other care.'"
+
+
+"We'd better go back to our horses," she answered.  "He's a
+fine courageous gentleman.  Only I very much wish that he had
+struck Lieutenant Mainwaring instead of you."
+
+"So do I--cordially."
+
+"And yet I'm not quite sorry, either; for you are so kind that
+you pass it with a jest; that little snappy soldier would have done
+dreadful deeds.  Why do soldiers always bear themselves with
+such silly pride?  Sailors don't."
+
+"Sailors are not so swollen with their own importance, certainly;
+they've got more intellect as a rule; and don't blush to talk about
+their profession, like so many of these fatuous warriors.  My
+dismal nose!  Tut, tut!  I see a mountain uplifting between my
+eyes.  Henceforth there will be another tor on Dartmoor."
+
+"Carry the chisel, please.  He had a fine deep voice.  He
+might have been an Englishman.  Certainly he was right to be
+furious.  I will never speak to Lieutenant Mainwaring more."
+
+"Cecil Stark of Vermont, eh?  He'll be stark enough after a
+week in a cachot.  Let us home.  My nose wants its luncheon
+of brown paper and vinegar."
+
+The Commodore saw them to their horses, and Grace expressed
+an earnest hope that young Stark would not suffer for his natural
+anger.
+
+"'Twill make his trouble light enough to know you are sorry
+for him," said the old sailor gallantly; then he gave the girl a
+hand into her saddle and soon she and Mr. Norcot were galloping
+homewards.
+
+Anon Mrs. Malherb uplifted placid thanksgivings for her
+daughter's escape, and the farmer breathed forth indignation
+at the adventure of the chisel.  He took a dark view of the
+incident, despite Grace's indignant assurances, and gave it as his
+opinion that where an American was concerned the worst motives
+might most justly be attributed.  Yet he made far more of the
+incident than anybody else, yearned towards the girl with emotion
+hardly concealed, and hastened over his wine after dinner, that
+he might return to her presence.
+
+"Come you here," he said, "and put your fingers in mine, so
+I may feel you are alive."
+
+Therefore she sat beside him, and he patted her little hand
+and exhibited the actions of quickened love.  Yet his face was
+stern the while, and betrayed no spark of the softness that
+marked his gestures and his words.
+
+Peter's countenance had now taken upon itself the grotesqueness
+of a gargoyle, but he exhibited neither self-consciousness nor
+irritation.  Indeed, he proved in a placid and didactic vein,
+moralised the incidents of the day and illuminated them with
+many quotations from many scribes.  Conversation naturally
+turned upon America, and Norcot declared that the hot-headed
+and romantic person of Cecil Stark fairly typified his country.
+
+"Most just," allowed Maurice Malherb.  "America exhibits
+defects so glaring that he who runs may read.  She is too
+vainglorious, too boastful, too impatient of control, and too ignorant
+ever to take commanding rank among the nations."
+
+He mentioned his own failings without an omission.
+
+"We must learn to walk before we can ride," said Mrs. Malherb.
+"And yet how often does a child try to copy its elders
+in advanced arts while yet the slow steps to those arts are hidden
+from it!  'Tis hard to judge the Americans, for they are made of
+our own flesh and blood."
+
+"They are, in fact, our younger selves broke loose from tradition
+and control.  They are scattered like sheep without a shepherd
+in the mighty pasture of the New World," said Norcot.
+
+"Not so," returned his host.  "England's virtues are just those
+most notoriously lacking in this upstart, ingrate race.  They have
+broken the golden links of blood and brotherhood.  They must
+abide by the consequences.  Doctor Johnson was in the right of
+it touching America--as indeed always upon every subject."
+
+"What think you, Kek?" asked Grace, that the discussion
+might be lightened.
+
+The old servant had entered to mend the fire, for a peat or two
+always glowed upon the drawing-room hearth by night.
+
+"No matter what I think, missy.  'Tis one of the few blessings
+of a common man that nobody do set a groat's value upon his
+views," returned Kekewich.
+
+"So much the less need you mind uttering them," said Peter.
+
+"We differ like flint and steel, yet strike some sparks between
+us--Kek and I," declared Malherb.  "He is at once the best,
+honestest, truest, and most wrong-headed man I ever met in his
+class of life."
+
+"Then you'll guess what I hold about this," answered Kekewich,
+who was indifferent alike to praise or censure.  "I thinks
+that a Yankee be only an Englishman turned inside out.  They
+says openly what we thinks in secret; but when it comes to
+doing--'tis 'devil take the hindmost' an' the weakest to the wall with
+them--just the same as it be with us.  'Tis a nation too young
+to deceive--same as a child be too young to deceive till it be
+growed.  We shall hammer 'em this time; an' maybe next time;
+but the day will come when they've got too big to hammer.
+Then what?  Us'll be 'pon top of our last legs some day.  An' then
+everything will be differ'nt, except human nature.  An' a beaten
+nation have a terrible long memory."
+
+"This is anti-British!  I blush for you, Kek," said Grace.
+
+"Nay; the man is in the right," declared Peter.  "A hundred
+years hence the friendship of America will be better worth having
+than anything in the world.  Yet, where there's jealousy, there
+can be no real friendship.  I hope that they will not always be
+jealous of us."
+
+"You're cowards, both you and Kek," shouted Malherb.
+"You are worse than infidels, for you leave the Almighty out of
+your calculations altogether.  We make war in the name of Right.
+We are the supreme example that history furnishes of an
+absolutely impartial nation.  We display justice and mercy to the
+earth.  We conquer by the hand of God.  And will He desert
+us for a cowardice of curs, for a rabble that knows not justice, for
+a horde of highwaymen who mix the mortar for their dirty towns
+with negroes' blood?"
+
+"Blare till you bust, Malherb," said Kek stoutly.  "You won't
+alter it.  God A'mighty's never seen on the side of the weak, an'
+so soon as thicky folks over the sea get strong enough to lather
+us, they'll most likely try to do it."
+
+With this prophecy Mr. Kekewich departed.
+
+"An ancient fool," commented Peter; "yet a witty one.  I'm
+quite of his opinion; but our grandchildren, not we, will see the
+issue."
+
+"Read 'Lear,'" said Malherb.  "'Tis the only thing I ever do
+read in the way of high poetry.  Lear is England--America has
+taken the vile daughter's part."
+
+"Doubtless they'll allow it--if you'll carry the similitude
+through."
+
+"Nay--England won't go mad--a little righteous rage--a breath
+from her nostrils, and these republican wolves will creep back into
+their dens."
+
+"Yes--to breed there; to suckle the rising generations on----"
+
+"Upon lies!" roared the other.  "Upon vile lies against the
+mother country.  To the Father of Lies let 'em go!"
+
+Presently he cooled down, and Mr. Norcot, who had turned
+to Grace for a while, was wearied to hear Malherb reopen the
+subject.
+
+"If they would but learn the dignity of manhood; if they
+would use their brains and read in the books that wise Englishmen
+have written on the highest duty of man, we might hope for
+the return of the prodigal son even yet," he said; and Peter
+answered--
+
+"How true; how generous of you to put it so; how grand!
+'The whole duty of man'--so vast, yet so simple--like Dartmoor.
+A dozen words gives one, a dozen lines from an artist's pencil
+will convey the vision of the other."
+
+"'Tis all in the best authors, I'm sure," declared Annabel.
+
+"It is, indeed.  What does Juvenal say in an inspired moment?
+'A sane mind in a sane body.  A spirit above the fear of death;
+a spirit that can endure toil; that counts the labours of Hercules
+his joys and the joys of a certain goddess her shame; a spirit
+that can keep its----'"  He was going to say "temper," but
+substituted "self-respect" out of consideration for his host, then
+made an end.  "'Through virtue lies the life of peace!  Grasp
+that fact, and Fortune has no divinity left in her.'"
+
+"All good," admitted Malherb, "except in one particular.  A
+life of peace is not to be prayed for.  Peace is rust, and makes
+against human progress.  Now, ladies, it is time that you retired."
+
+Annabel and her daughter rose, and as he bid his girl "good
+night," the master's thoughts returned to her great escape.
+Whereupon he kissed her thrice, instead of once, and said, for her ear
+alone, "Thank God!  Thank God!" in an abrupt and brusque
+but very earnest fashion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHILDE'S TOMB
+
+Mr. Norcot found the life at Fox Tor Farm so much
+to his taste that he prolonged his visit, and sent the
+young man, Thomas Putt, with a message to his sister Gertrude
+at Chagford for more clothes.  He felt secretly hopeful that each
+day was strengthening his position, and, indeed, by riding to the
+War Prison and seeing the Commandant on behalf of Cecil Stark,
+he won some thanks and a definite expression of gratitude from
+Grace Malherb.
+
+"They have released him out of the cachot," said Peter.
+"Once more he labours at the place of worship, 'pride in his
+port, defiance in his eye.'"
+
+Together the man and maid continued their excursions upon
+Dartmoor, and Grace enjoyed both to hear and to tell stories
+and legends of the ancient desert.  Its romance found an echo
+in her youthful spirit and awoke new intellectual interests in her
+life.  She soon learned the story of each lonely circle, uplifted
+monolith, and empty barrow from the age of stone; of every
+ruined cot or cross erected in times mediæval.  Among these
+last, perhaps the most famous upon the Moor lay now within
+Malherb's own borders.
+
+"Childe's Tomb" had met Grace's eyes when first she opened
+them upon a Dartmoor dawn.  By a rivulet at the edge of Fox
+Tor Mire it stood, and she had gleaned its story and mourned
+the fate of the ancient hunter who fell there in winter tempest.
+Mr. Norcot, too, was familiar with the narrative, and since early
+boyhood he had gloated over its horrid details.  Now he pretended
+but a misty recollection of the tale, so that he might listen
+to Grace.
+
+The thing was in their eyes at the time, for they started on
+horseback and rode past it.  Beside the cross, Harvey Woodman,
+his son, Richard Beer, Thomas Putt, and another labourer were
+collected at a task.  They worked upon each side of the little
+river that ran beside "Childe's Tomb," and levelled the banks
+to make a ford at a shallow point of the water.  Here they talked
+together when aching backs required rest; and it happened that
+their master and his guest were the theme of the moment.
+
+"I'll hold for Mister Peter," declared Putt.  "He gived me
+a week's wages for going to Chaggyford; an' he told me just so
+friendly as you might, when he seed me bringing in trout, that a
+grasshopper was a killing bait at this time of year.  Of course
+I know as much about grasshoppers as any man living; yet 'twas
+a very great condescension in him."
+
+Uncle Smallridge made reply.  He was now past work, but
+had walked from his distant cottage for the pleasure of a little
+conversation with familiars.
+
+"'Tis the human nature in 'un that counts," he said.  "You'll
+find as a general thing the best men ban't the easiest to get on
+with."
+
+"Malherb's chock full o' human nature," declared Mr. Woodman.
+
+"So full that he bursts wi' it--like a falling thunderbolt, till
+a man almost calls on the hills to cover him," admitted Putt.
+
+"That's because you catched it for idleness," answered Woodman.
+"Mr. Narcot be like a machine oiled up to the last cog an'
+going so smooth an' suent that a child may turn the handle; an'
+maister's like a drashel[*] in clumsy hands--you don't know where
+'twill fall next.  But give me our man with all his faults an' fire."
+
+
+[*] _Drashel_: A flail.
+
+
+"I'm afraid he'll try you sorely yet," foretold Smallridge, and
+little guessed how near the ordeal had come.
+
+"I'll cleave to him so long as it holds with honesty," said
+Beer.  "What mazes me is this: Mr. Peter never does nothing
+out of the common, nor never lapses from the level way of man
+with man, nor says a hard word to a fly; an' yet I doan't neighbour
+with him; an' t'other, despite his rages and crooked words
+and terrible rash goings on--as will damn your eyes for a
+look--why, I'd hold out for him against an army."
+
+"'Tis his weakness draws you to him," said Uncle Smallridge.
+"I know.  Us all likes to catch our betters tripping.  It levels up
+the steep gulf that's fixed between master an' man, an' makes us
+more content with ourselves.  You know how extra good t'other
+children get when one be extra naughty.  This here Norcot is
+above us in his estate, an' that we can forgive, for us can't help
+it; but we'm never too comfortable or kindly towards them as be
+much above us in vartues."
+
+"For my part, it don't seem natural," said Harvey Woodman.
+"I don't believe in these great flights of goodness in man or
+woman.  Here and there a parson will stand out like a beacon
+on a hill, for 'tis his trade; but not them as lives to make
+money like Peter Norcot.  When what shows in a man be so
+shining, I always ax myself about what don't show."
+
+"'Tis your jealous spirit," said Putt.
+
+"All the same, I don't care for a man as hides behind hisself
+like that wool-stapler do.  The Devil's got his corner in him,
+same as he have in every mother's son of us."
+
+"He may have cast him out, however," ventured Putt.
+
+"Cast him out at five-an'-thirty years of age--an' him a
+bachelor!  No fey."
+
+"Well, he ban't bound to belittle hisself before the likes of us,"
+said Putt.
+
+"Here he be, anyway," added Beer, for Grace and Peter now
+approached.
+
+She was finishing the tragic history of Childe as she rode
+beside him.
+
+"And so the monks of Tavistock found the poor frozen gentleman
+where this cross now stands, and they took him away that he
+might be buried in their town, for under his last will and
+testament those who buried him were to possess all his estates.
+Others sought then to gain the body; but the good monks were
+too clever for them, and inherited the lands of Plymstock."
+
+"Ah! 'they must rise betime, or rather not go to bed at all,
+that will overreach monks in matters of profit,' as Fuller
+observes."
+
+"The people hereabout call it 'Childe's Tomb,' yet it can only
+be a cenotaph, if the story is true."
+
+"The whole thing is a legend, be sure.  We shall never know
+the real use of this cross," answered Peter.
+
+"But might easily find a new one," said Mr. Kekewich, who
+walked beside Grace on his way to the workers.  "Them
+stepstones be just the very thing we're wanting to bridge the river
+here."
+
+"Oh, Kek! how can you?" cried Grace.
+
+"Pull down a cross?  Tut, tut, iconoclast!" exclaimed Mr. Norcot.
+
+"You may use wicked words, but stone be stone," answered
+the head man of Fox Tor Farm sulkily; "an' what was one way
+of marking a grave in the old time may very well stand for a
+bridge to-day.  Look at they fools!  What do they think they
+be doing?"
+
+Woodman heard the question.
+
+"We'm making a ford, and you'm the fool, not us," he replied
+stoutly.
+
+"What did the master say?  Tell me that," asked Kekewich.
+
+"He said 'a bridge,' for I heard him," declared Norcot.
+
+"Ess, he did, an' when he sez 'bridge' he don't mean 'ford';
+an' when he sez 'steer' he don't mean 'heifer,' do he?  A bridge
+has got to be builded.  So the sooner you fetch gunpowder an'
+go 'pon the Moor to blast out a good slab of stone as'll go across
+here without a pier, the better."
+
+"He don't always say what he mean, all the same," retorted
+Putt, who was in a fighting mood.  "Yesterday he told me
+I was a pink-eyed rabbit, good for nought, an' this marning
+he called it back, an' said he was sorry he'd spoke it.  That
+shows."
+
+"That shows he can change his own mind; it don't show the
+likes of you can change it for him.  Here he comes, anyway, an'
+what I say, I say: that thicky cross-steps would make a very tidy
+bridge, an' save a week's work."
+
+"You'd touch that cross!" gasped Smallridge.  "You--a
+foreigner from Exeter!"
+
+"Us have a right to it."
+
+"No man have a right to a stone once 'tis fashioned into a
+cross; an' if you was a Christian 'stead of a crook-backed heathen,
+you'd know it an' if a finger be laid against it, I'd not give a
+straw for the future of any man amongst us," cried Uncle
+Smallridge, rising to his feet in great agitation.
+
+"Fright childer with your twaddle, not a growed-up soul,"
+answered Kekewich.  "But no call to shake your jaw an' bristle
+up your old mane like that.  My word ban't law.  Here the
+master cometh, an' you'm like to hear more than will be
+stomachable when he sees what you've been doing."
+
+"The fault was mine, and I'll take the blame," answered
+Richard Beer.  "You men bide quiet an' let his anger fall upon
+me."
+
+Grace and Norcot, not desiring to see the labourers' discomfiture,
+rode away, and a moment later Maurice Malherb arrived
+upon the scene.  His strong face, scarred with passion
+uncontrolled, grew dark again now, and the kindly look vanished from
+his eyes as the customary storm-cloud of black eyebrow settled
+upon them.
+
+"What are you doing?  What means this digging?" he asked.
+
+"'Tis me as done it, your honour," answered Beer.  "I thought
+as a ford----"
+
+"A ford!  What business have you to dare to think?  I said
+a bridge."
+
+"The stone----"
+
+"Look round you, you lazy rascal!  Stone--stone--curse the
+stone!  Scratch the ground anywhere, and it grins at you with its
+granite teeth!  Let that bridge be finished by sundown or clear
+out, the whole pack of ye!  A ford!  And had I said 'ford' you
+would have built a bridge!"
+
+Mr. Beer grew pale behind his beard, but did not reply, and
+Mr. Woodman also kept his temper and addressed his son.
+
+"Go an' harness two bullocks to a truckamuck,"[*] he said, "an'
+you, Putt, slip up to the shed an' get some irons as you'll find
+there."
+
+
+[*] _Truckamuck_: A sort of sledge.
+
+
+Then he turned to his master and spoke again--
+
+"Us'll set to work this instant moment, your honour."
+
+"That's well--by sundown, mind."
+
+Malherb was riding off when old Smallridge addressed him,
+and the ancient man precipitated the very accident he feared.
+
+"An' if it please you, your honour's goodness, I do pray as
+you won't let no hand touch this here holy tomb.  Kekewich, as
+be grey enough to know better, have said that the stepstones
+would make a very tidy bridge an' save labour; but t'others tell
+me you never pay no heed to him, an' I hope your honour won't
+now."
+
+The two old men glared at each other, and Malherb answered.
+What he heard was nearly true, but that he heard it from Uncle
+Smallridge instantly angered him.  That the labourers should
+have perceived how Kekewich was ignored--that these hirelings
+should note their master's indifference to the wisdom of his
+servitor--again awoke Malherb's temper.
+
+"They say I don't heed Kekewich?  Then they lie.  Kek's
+little finger holds more sense than all their stupid heads together."
+
+Whereon Mr. Kekewich shone around him as the sun emerging
+from a cloud.
+
+"That cross there--good wrought stone wasted," he explained.
+"They steps might have been made for the bridge we want.  So
+I told 'em; an' all they did was to show the whites of their silly
+eyes."
+
+The master reflected but a moment; then he issued a command.
+He spoke in the name of reason--a favourite expedient
+with the unreasonable.
+
+"Good practical sense.  Now we'll see if I run counter to
+Kekewich.  He's right and you're wrong.  Here are stones lying
+useless on my land, and I want even such for a purpose.  Reason
+points to them, and I will use them.  Pull down that cross and
+build my bridge."
+
+"I'd rather take other stones and chance the extra work," said
+Richard Beer uneasily.
+
+"Pull down that pile there and build my bridge before nightfall,
+or go your way--all of you," repeated Malherb.  Then he
+departed and left the workers to make decision.
+
+"An' the cross itself, if us knocks off one arm, will be just what
+we want for the pigs' house!" cried Kekewich triumphantly.
+
+"For God's love throw down your tools and come away!"
+begged Smallridge, his ancient voice rising into a scream.  "Turn
+your backs upon this place before it's too late."
+
+"Hop off!  Hop off an' croak somewhere else, you old raven!"
+replied Kek indignantly.  "Let these men use their brains without
+your bleating.  Ban't I old too?  'Tis vain growing old unless
+you grow artful with it.  If they have got their intellects, they
+won't mind you."
+
+"Nor you--you limb of the Devil," groaned Smallridge.  "You--with
+his pitchfork in your forehead.  I wish to God I'd never
+heard tell of you."
+
+Kekewich turned from him to Harvey Woodman and the rest.
+
+"'Tis up ten o'clock," he said, "an' you strong men in the
+prime of life have got to decide what you'll do about it, not this
+tootling old mumphead here.  Use your sense an' say whether
+you'll look for a new master an' mistress an' seven shilling a week,
+or bide here with better money an' corn an' cider an' all the
+fatness of the earth.  I'll speak no word; only I might remind you,
+Beer, an' you, Woodman, that you've got wives--that's all."
+
+"Then 'tis for us to decide," said Woodman solemnly--"us
+four: me, Beer, Putt, and you, Mark Bickford.  Here us stands.
+Now you have your tell first, Thomas Putt, 'cause you'm the
+youngest."
+
+"I'm a poor tool for such a job, an' I shan't say nothing,"
+answered Putt.  "I'll abide by what you men do."
+
+"So much for you then," said Woodman.  "Us knows you
+haven't got more sense than, please God, you should have, yet
+'tis a question whether you did ought to let another man keep
+your conscience.  Now, Bickford, what's your view?"
+
+Mr. Bickford, a man of colourless mind in the affairs of life,
+showed sudden and unexpected strength of purpose.
+
+"I guess I'll bide an' pull the cross down," he said.  "Master
+do clapper-claw a bit, but he pays me eight shilling a week; an'
+where I gets such money as that 'tis my duty to stop.  You may
+squeak," he added to Uncle Smallridge, who uttered an inarticulate
+exclamation of misery at his decision, "but I be keeping
+company; an' I also be keeping my old bed-lying mother out o'
+the poorhouse.  An' I'd pull down fifty crosses afore I'd lose eight
+shilling a week.  If there's a mischief in it, ban't of my brewing."
+
+"Well, then, 'tis for me an' you, Harvey," proceeded Richard
+Beer.  "An' since I'm the older man, I'll come last an' wind up
+on it when you've spoke your mind."
+
+"A man like me with a wife an' son be in the worse fix of all,"
+declared Woodman moodily.  "If evil follows, I may be twisting
+a scourge for the next generation, whereas you that be childless
+can only catch it in your own case an' Dinah's.  Still, to go back
+to peat-cutting after Fox Tor Farm is a great fall."
+
+"The Devil's tempting you, Harvey!" cried Mr. Smallridge.
+
+"Shut your mouth, or I'll hit 'e on it!" retorted Kekewich
+savagely.  "Leave 'em to fight it out.  They've got to do their
+duty, an' I'd like to know whenever the A'mighty punished any
+man for doing that?"
+
+"There's my duty to my master an' my duty to my conscience.
+'Tis our duty to our master to do what he pays us to do; and us
+be paid to work, not to think," argued Woodman.
+
+"If evil's to be hatched, us won't catch it," declared Bickford.
+"When a man sets a rick on light, ban't the flint an' steel they
+has up for arsony, but the chap hisself.  We'm no more than the
+flint an' steel in this matter."
+
+"We've got immortal parts, however," argued Beer.  "We
+may hide our bodies behind another chap; but can us hide our
+souls?  What I want to know is the nature of the harm we'll do.
+What's the name of it?"
+
+"'Tis insulting the Lord of Hosts," said Uncle Smallridge
+tremulously.
+
+"Gammon!" answered Kekewich.  "'Tis obeying them as
+the Lord have set in authority over you.  We've got to do with
+a dead stone; an' the chap who be buried here found his way to
+heaven or hell long afore the Lord, in a weak moment, let your
+parents get a fool like you."
+
+"'Tis the shape that shakes us, not the stone," explained
+Woodman; "an' I wish you'd decide an' have done with it,
+Richard Beer.  We are ready to go by you, for 'tis well knowed
+that you've a conscience as works so active as your skin in
+harvest time."
+
+"Well," replied Beer, "I can't see no flaw in what Bickford
+said.  My conscience is allowed pretty peart, I believe; an it
+don't give me a twinge in this matter; though I'd much rather
+not do it all the same."
+
+"Suppose the lightning struck us," suggested Putt, and Beer
+scanned the sky.
+
+"Can't without a Bible miracle; an', good or bad, the size of
+this job be too small for that.  What harm falls will most surely
+fall 'pon master, not us."
+
+"If I thought Miss Grace would suffer, I'd see the stone rot
+to dust afore I'd touch it," declared Putt.
+
+"Whether or no, we've got to pull down Childe's Tomb, an'
+make a bridge; an' my conscience, an' my wages, an' my
+common sense all point the same way, so here goes," summed up
+Mr. Beer.
+
+"I'm with you," said Bickford.
+
+"An' me too," added Putt; "an' come Judgment Day, if
+there's a sharp word said to me, I shall name your name, Dick
+Beer."
+
+"An' you, Harvey?"
+
+For answer Mr. Woodman turned to the sledge that his son
+had brought up.  From this he took a rope and some long irons.
+
+"Come on!  Let's get it over.  Once the cross be down, our
+minds will grow easier.  'Tis the shape, I tell you, as makes us
+so weak for a moment."
+
+"God forgive you, souls!" cried Smallridge; "an' mind, when
+you'm wading waist-deep in trouble, that it weren't no fault of
+mine.  Bide till I be out of sight, that's all.  Then you an' this
+here crooked old Apollyon can go to your wicked work."
+
+He looked at Kekewich, shook his head at the doomed monument,
+and hobbled away as fast as his legs would carry him.
+
+"Us had better all spit over our left shoulders for luck," said
+Mr. Beer; "then we can begin.  An' see that all four of us hang
+upon the rope together, so as the work an' the pay be equally
+divided."
+
+Harvey Woodman's young son prepared to give assistance,
+but his father roughly bade him begone.
+
+"You drop that rope an' get up to the farm to your mother,"
+he said.  "She'll find you a job.  Us don't want you to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE FIRSTBORN
+
+The destruction of Childe's Tomb awoke no protest upon
+the county-side, for antiquaries had not yet turned their
+attention to the interesting and obscure relics of former ages
+scattered over Dartmoor.  A few intelligent men mourned that
+another mediæval landmark had been sacrificed to the advance
+of civilisation; then the matter was forgotten, save at Fox Tor
+Farm, where great unrest still reigned among the workers.
+
+The women exhibited chief concern; but while Annabel and
+Grace Malherb showed sentimental regret and the master laughed
+at them for their folly, Dinah Beer and Mary Woodman took
+a far more serious view of the incident, and reduced their
+husbands to the extremity of uneasiness.  They foretold disaster
+upon all concerned; Mr. Kekewich they specially tormented,
+and declared that, as arch instigator of the outrage, upon him the
+first grief must fall.  He cared nothing; but Richard, Harvey,
+and others went in growing fear.  They longed for weeks and
+months to pass that they might be removed by time from the
+hour of their evil deed; then, as each uneventful day dwindled
+and each night passed by, they drew a little nearer toward peace
+of mind.  After a month had passed they plucked up spirit and
+faced the unseen with steadier gaze.
+
+"Another week gone an' nothing said," whispered Putt one
+morning to Harvey Woodman, where they worked at wall-building.
+He glanced sideways up to heaven as he spoke with a
+gesture of suspicion.
+
+"No--the world goes on very easy.  What did Peter Norcot
+give 'e for taking the pack-horse with his leather boxes back to
+Chaggyford?"
+
+"There again--good luck surely.  A crown I got by it; an' I
+ate my meat with Mason's mother an' sister who live there.
+Mason be Mr. Norcot's man, and his sister is called Tryphena.
+An' I be going over again, for she said, when I axed her, that
+pinky rims to the eyes didn't stand against a chap in her
+judgment.  She thought 'twas a beauty, if anything.  Her be a few
+year older'n me; but that often works very well, an' keeps down
+the family."
+
+"You'd best to be careful, all the same," said Woodman.
+"The woman as you meets half-way, often makes you go t'other
+half afore you think you've started."
+
+"I won't hear no word against that female from you or any
+man," declared Thomas Putt, growing very red.
+
+"From me you certainly won't, seeing as I never heard tell of
+her afore this minute," replied Woodman calmly.  "Only, as
+a married man, I say go slow.  When a girl tells you such eyes as
+yourn be beautiful, she's getting to that state of mind when they
+put a home of their own afore truth and common sense an'
+everything."
+
+Putt was about to answer rather warmly when Richard Beer
+appeared.  His beard blew about him; his eyes were sunk into
+his head, and dull care stared from them.
+
+"It's come!" he said.  "I've held my peace these twenty-four
+hours; an' longer I will not.  The ill luck have set in!  There's
+no more doubt about it."
+
+"Have it hit you?" asked Putt, his anger vanishing; "because
+if so, us ban't safe neither."
+
+"Not directly.  It strikes the farm.  There's scores o' dozens
+o' moles in the meadow; and the rats have come to the pig-styes
+in an army."
+
+"They be natural things," declared Putt.  "You might expect
+'em.  Where there's pigs there's rats."
+
+"Yes, but not like a plague.  They've come up in a night,
+same as them frogs in Egypt."
+
+"You'm down-daunted about nought," answered Woodman.
+"Read what some of they Bible heroes had to suffer.  There's
+nought like dipping into the prophet Job when you'm out of
+heart with your luck.  'Twill make you very contented.  My
+gran'faither always read Job slap through after he'd had a row wi'
+the Duchy."
+
+"As for me, I shall bide wi' the man so long as he can pay
+wages," said Putt.
+
+They passed to their work; and elsewhere Maurice Malherb,
+not ignorant of the verminous inroad upon fields and styes, was
+debating whether he should sink his pride and summon Leaman
+Cloberry.  But while time passed by and he hesitated, there
+came a post and tidings so momentous that the rats and moles
+were forgotten.
+
+Now, indeed, did trouble like an armed man break in on Fox
+Tor Farm; the light of the Malherbs vanished, and their hope
+set in lasting sorrow.  Noel Malherb, serving under Sir Rowland
+Hill, with the right of Lord Wellington's army in the Peninsula,
+had fallen before Vittoria.
+
+Annabel and her daughter took this grief into secrecy, and
+were hidden from the world through many weeks; Malherb
+fought it down, and concealed his emotion from all eyes.  He
+laughed not less seldom, he fell into anger more often than of
+yore.
+
+"Pharaoh cracked his heart when his first was took," said
+Woodman to Kekewich; "but this man----"
+
+"His heart's hid in his breast, not open to your eye," answered
+the other.  "His heart be cracked all right, though he don't come
+to us an' say so.  But I know--by the voice of 'un, an' the long,
+lonely rides he takes all about nothing, an' his look when he
+stares at his darter--a miser's eyes--same as that old mully-grub
+Lovey Lee when she claws a bit of money."
+
+"'Childe's Tomb' have done its work--Uncle Smallridge
+didn't lie."
+
+"Seeing as this poor young gentleman was shot down and
+dust in his grave weeks an' weeks afore we touched the cussed
+cross--for I heard master say so--you'll allow you're talking
+foolishness."
+
+"The Lord can work backwards so easy as he can work
+forwards.  Miss Grace will be the next, you mark me."
+
+"Norcot'll have her come presently," said Kekewich.  "She've
+got to wipe her mother's tears for the present.  This here cruel
+come-along-of-it have cut ten years off the life of Missis."
+
+The ancient spoke truth, for Annabel Malherb's sufferings
+under her great trial proved terrible.  They were more objective
+than her husband's.  The family and the race were nothing to
+her; she only knew that a French bullet had taken the life of her
+firstborn, and she would never look into his brown eyes again or
+put her cheek against his.  Even her boy's beloved dust was
+buried within the hecatombs of Spain, and her tears would never
+fall upon his grave.  But Malherb, beside this present misfortune
+of his son's sacrifice for the country, had a deeper and more
+lasting pang of ambition blighted and hope for ever dead.  He had
+toiled in vain; he had lifted this stout dwelling as a heritage for
+none.  Presently his daughter would wed with Norcot, and no
+young eyes of his own race would see the larches and Scotch firs
+of his planting grow into trees; no heir would note the ebony
+and golden lichens write dignity and age upon his roof of slate,
+nor see the mosses mellow his granite walls.  Aliens must follow
+and the name of Malherb would vanish, like the fragrant memory
+of last year's fern.
+
+Then, within six weeks of the ill tidings, a great conceit
+suddenly flashed upon Malherb; and as the Witch of Endor
+called forth that awful shade of Samuel to her own admiration,
+so did this man raise the unexpected spirit of a thought.
+Suddenly, amidst the mean and familiar imaginings of life,
+uprising like a giant from among the dwarfish throng of practical
+and common notions, there stalked tremendous an Idea; and he
+stood astonished before it, appraised its magnitude and welcomed
+it for an inspiration from the Gods.
+
+This fancy came to Malherb as he pursued the prosaic business
+of casting figures; and he threw down his pen, picked up his hat,
+and hastened into the little walled garden of the farm to find his
+wife.  He longed to tell of this message that seemed to point to
+peace; but his impatience was not set at rest for the space of
+hours.  Mrs. Malherb had ridden out on a pillion behind
+Mr. Beer, and Dinah could say nothing of their destination.
+
+Irritated at the accident, Maurice himself strode on to the
+Moor, and proceeded towards Fox Tor, that he might note his
+wife returning and reach her as quickly as possible.
+
+His way took him past a favourite haunt of his daughter's, and
+when he reached the broken stonework of the tor, Malherb
+surprised Grace in serious conversation with a young man.
+
+The girl had gone out alone to pass her summer hours with
+mournful thoughts.  The horizon of her life was clouded now,
+and already sorrow in the present and cares for the future robbed
+her young days of their former contentment.  Her heart was
+warm--a delicious empty chamber that awaiteth one as yet
+unknown.  Beyond the dark grief of her brother's death, another
+now lurked, and Time, that should have dawdled with her in
+these rosy hours of youth, while yet her heart had never throbbed
+to one loved name, raced fast and pitiless as the east wind.
+Down his closing avenues, outlined immediately ahead, stood one
+at the horizon of her life, appeared a man as the goal and crown
+of her maiden race.  There beamed the neat, trim, and amiable
+apparition of Mr. Peter Norcot.  It was no precocity that forced
+poor Grace into thinking so much of love, while yet she knew it
+not; but in her esteem, love and marriage embraced the same
+idea, and now she marvelled mutely to find not love, but a very
+active aversion reigning in her mind against the wool-stapler.
+Her father's attitude and repeated assurances that wed with Peter
+she must, had thus thrown her thoughts upon the affairs of
+womenkind, herself not yet a woman.  But love haunted her,
+and wonder concerning it.  The chance young squire, who visited
+Fox Tor Farm, had been fluttered to his green heart's core could
+he have seen what was in Grace's mind or behind her drooping
+lids.  With interest she regarded the better-looking amongst her
+father's visitors, wondered who loved them beside their mothers,
+speculated as to what would happen if some sudden, invisible
+spark flashed from their bosoms and found fuel within her own.
+
+One friend she had, and he was a boy even as she was a girl.
+John Lee belonged to the people, yet he revealed a different mien
+from them.  The common speech was upon his tongue, the common
+clothes of earth-colour hid his shapely form; yet he had a
+way of speaking the one and wearing the other that set a mark of
+distinction upon him.  This lad possessed more imagination than
+diligence; he knew the Moor with a different knowledge to that
+of Beer, or Woodman, or Leaman Cloberry.  He had garnered
+its legends and its mysteries.  He understood something of the
+spirit of the eternal hills; he loved
+
+  Their colours and their rainbows and their clouds,
+  And their fierce winds and desolate liberty."
+
+He could read, and owned a book or two hidden in the hay-loft
+where he dwelt outside his grandmother's cottage.  He called the
+plants by their local names, and was skilled in the lore of wild
+things and the weather.
+
+Grace found him very agreeable company and, upon first
+mentioning at home that she sometimes met and spoke with him,
+her father did not take it amiss.
+
+"Get the boy to tell you where that old demon on the hill has
+hidden my amphora," he said.
+
+"As if he knew!" murmured Mrs. Malherb, who was a woman
+of literal mind.
+
+"The boy doubtless knows nothing," her husband answered;
+"but 'tis within the bounds of possibility that he might find out."
+
+Henceforward Grace, holding herself at liberty to do so, often
+met John Lee and often made appointments to meet him.  He
+taught her Dartmoor; he rode his pony by her side and gloried in
+the manifold virtues of her new hunter, the great and gallant
+'Cæsar.'
+
+While Peter Norcot was at Fox Tor Farm, young John kept
+clear of it.  Indeed, he had plenty of work when he chose to
+work, and toiled by fits and starts at peat-cutting, lichen-gathering,
+or attending upon some military sportsman from the War Prison.
+But his desire and ambition at eighteen years of age was to win
+employment in the kennels of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt.  From such
+a position, if blessed by good luck, he trusted some day to rise
+and become a whipper-in.  Of any higher destiny he did not
+dream.  To be huntsman was a position in life that rose almost
+as much above his hopes as to be Master.
+
+Now, some while before Maurice Malherb had entered on to
+the Moor, so that he might see and meet his wife returning home,
+John Lee, walking near a spot very well known to him as one of
+Grace's favourite haunts, found her there where the grass made
+pleasant cushions amid the granite boulders upon the southern
+slope of Fox Tor; where the music of a little waterfall rose and
+fell softly at the pleasure of the wind; and where the Beam's
+mighty shoulders basked under the sun and took a tremulousness
+of outline in the hot air which arose from off them.
+
+Rising suddenly out of the hollows where the streamlet ran,
+John Lee appeared within thirty yards of Grace, and, to his
+dismay and concern, discovered that she wept.  Some coincidence
+of thought with the solemn natural things about her; some
+clash or chime of sadness at the spectacle of her future and the
+vast and featureless mountain uplifted before her eyes, struck the
+emotional chord that loosens tears, and Grace suffered them to
+flow and carry away a little of her sorrow in the glittering drops.
+She was young, and hope her proper heritage, therefore she grew
+happier presently, and when the miser's grandson appeared,
+hesitated, and, with a rueful countenance, began to creep away,
+she called to him and bade him come.
+
+"I'm only crying, John Lee.  Hast never seen a girl cry
+before?"
+
+He advanced upon this, and his handsome young face was all
+blushes.
+
+"Never, Miss Grace; an' never want to.  I would I could take
+your trouble on my own shoulders."
+
+"Your grandmother never weeps?"
+
+"Not she.  A granite wall sweats more moisture than her eyes
+fall tears.  But you----  The young gentleman, your brother,
+died like a hero.  'Tis a great and noble thing to be a hero."
+
+"How can a word stand for his dear beautiful face and bright
+eyes and kind voice?  Never a maid had such a brother as Noel.
+Hero!  Hero!"  She lifted her voice bitterly.  "An empty-handed,
+senseless sound to take the place of a dear brother.  Not
+one pang does it lessen--no, not even in my father's heart, though
+he says the syllables over and over again, like a parrot.  Our
+hope and our glory gone--that is what his death means."
+
+"I can't say nothing--I wish I could.  I'd go and die
+to-morrow if 'twould bring him back," declared John earnestly.
+"You'll think 'tis easy to tell such things, but God's my Judge, I
+mean it."
+
+"You are not unlike him in a way, John.  He had your
+manner of holding up his neck, and your mouth and your neat
+ears."
+
+"I'm an awful fuzz-poll--like they curly-haired coloured men at
+the War Prison."
+
+She did not answer for a moment, then spoke again of her
+sorrows.
+
+"My heart's an empty nest now--all my plans to live with Noel
+for ever and love his children are broken down.  And I had a
+secret hope that he"--she stopped, then decided to finish the
+sentence--"that he might soften my father."
+
+"Your father be stern enough, but not to you--sure never to
+you."
+
+He spoke with conviction and Grace did not reply.  A
+black-and-orange humble bee was working in the wild thyme at her feet.
+It tumbled and laboured from cluster to cluster of the flowers,
+pulled each tiny purple corolla to itself and dipped into each for
+the stores there hidden.  It droned hither and thither, full of
+business, and at last, lifting itself heavily, flew away with a
+cheerful boom of thanksgiving.  So near Grace's ear did it go, that she
+started, and Lee, though grave enough at heart, laughed.
+
+"He won't hurt 'e.  They bumbles have no spears, I believe--anyway
+they never use 'em."
+
+"I hate Peter Norcot!" she said aloud, suddenly, and with such
+vehemence that John started and stared.
+
+"I hate him--hate--hate--hate him!  Hark at the echo.  I've
+told the echo that many a time.  And the echo always answers
+very wisely, 'Hate him!'"
+
+"What have you got against him, if I may ax?"
+
+"Nothing; and that's everything.  He's perfect."
+
+"An' do love your very shadow, so they say."
+
+"I forgot that.  There is reason enough for not liking him."
+
+"Then you'll have to hate every man on the Moor.  They all
+love you--even I dare to do it."
+
+"Love me?"
+
+"Ess fay!  Be it uncivil in me to say so, Miss?"
+
+"I should think it was, indeed!"
+
+"Truth's truth.  I can't help it.  Never seed nothing like you.
+I'd go to the end of the world for you.  I wish 'twas my happy
+lot to be your servant."
+
+"Would you kill Mr. Norcot for me?"
+
+He was silent; then he nodded.
+
+"Well, John Lee, I had sooner you loved me than Mr. Norcot
+should."
+
+"Don't say it even in fun.  You don't know what it means to
+me.  I'm up eighteen year old now--a man.  But I hate
+Mr. Peter, too, for that matter."
+
+"Because I do?"
+
+"Yes, an' for another reason; because granny likes him.  He
+gived her money once.  She said afterwards that there was that in
+his face pleased her fancy, for he'd got a depth in it that would
+make rocks and water do his will."
+
+"She's quite wrong there.  He's a most superficial man and
+amiable to weakness.  He is always making feeble jests and
+quoting the poets.  He is a thing of shreds and patches.  He put
+your grandmother into an old verse once.  I laughed, though I
+hate him.  He said:--
+
+  "'Through regions by wild men and cannibals haunted,
+  Old Dame Lovey Lee goes alone and undaunted;
+  But, bless you, the risk's not so great as it's reckoned;
+  She's too plain for the first and too tough for the second!'"
+
+
+"He may laugh at her," replied John Lee.  "But she don't
+laugh at him.  When he'd gone that day, she told me that he
+was the first man ever she clapped eyes on as could be her master
+if he liked; and I shivered to hear her say it."
+
+"He's welcome to be her master; he never shall be mine," said
+Grace resolutely; and as she spoke, her father suddenly appeared
+before them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MALHERB'S IDEA
+
+John Lee touched his hat, while Grace rose and welcomed
+her father, who, still dominated by his Idea, proved in a very
+amiable mood.
+
+"You grow fast--you'll be as tall as your grandmother at this
+rate.  Not that you are like her," he said to the lad.
+John smiled and touched his hat again.
+
+Malherb scanned the finely built youngster, and thought of his
+dead son.  There was a resemblance, as Grace recently remarked
+to John himself, and the father, who had a picture of Noel
+Malherb painted lifelike upon memory, now perceived this similitude.
+For a moment he stared in silence, then turned to Grace.
+
+"I seek your mother.  Has she gone to visit Lady Tyrwhitt?"
+
+"Yes, she is at Tor Royal, father.  Indeed, she should be on
+her way home again by this time."
+
+"Then we'll walk along to meet her.  And you, John Lee, tell
+that old witch up there I'm not asleep.  I shall have my amphora
+yet; and the reckoning, when it does come, will mean a halter for
+her."
+
+"Your servant, sir; an' I'll be sure to speak the message."
+
+As they proceeded together, Grace put a petition to her father,
+and he was about to decline it, but bethought him.  The Idea
+entirely turned upon Grace herself, and he had no desire to cross
+her will in minor matters, though she still differed from him upon
+the great question of her own future.
+
+"Father," she said, "I ought to have a groom."
+
+"Why, that boy we have left is as good as a groom to you."
+
+"In a way.  But I feel there should be a little more distinction
+about the matter.  In truth, John Lee's pony can't live with my
+beautiful 'Cæsar' and if he was better mounted he could show
+me the country that you and I are going to hunt in the winter.
+'Twould be well for me to ride over it, and you are too busy
+to take me.  Now Lee, if he had a horse and a livery--and how
+wonderfully well he rides."
+
+"That's true.  I had observed it.  Better far than any man I
+have seen on the Moor--excepting Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and
+myself.  A splendid natural seat."
+
+"Let him be my servant and look after your hacks and the
+hunters.  But only if you can afford it.  I know you have had to
+spend a great deal lately."
+
+"Yes, yes; we must spend to get; and Dartmoor wants a good
+deal of cash down in advance on a bargain.  But I think I generally
+get the worth of my money.  Well--he shall come.  I like a livery
+or two about me, and poor Kekewich will never cut much of a
+figure in his.  The boy is a fine up-standing boy, and civil.  You
+shall have him.  He may help me too--in the direction of the
+Malherb amphora."
+
+"Thank you, thank you!  Was there ever such a kind father?"
+
+"I've only got you now," he said.  "I'm not a talker, and it
+is a vile thing to see a man of quality show his feelings; but
+between father and daughter affection is natural, and may even
+be declared in reason.  You're the apple of my eye."
+
+"How well I know it!"
+
+She kissed him and, occupied with his Idea, he took her hand.
+Thus they walked along until Mrs. Malherb appeared on her
+homeward way from Tor Royal.  She sat behind Richard Beer
+on a pillion, for she was fearful of horses, and never rode alone.
+
+Annabel described an _émeute_ at the War Prison.
+
+"It seems," she said, "that the poor Americans are the chief
+danger there.  They were sent up from the hulks at Plymouth,
+because they were always escaping from them; and now more
+than one has got clean away in a disturbance.  They think that
+these Desperate men will presently be recaptured, or else lose their
+lives in the lonely desert wastes towards Cranmere Pool.  They
+may, however, by good fortune get into touch with their
+fellow-countrymen on parole at Ashburton or Tavistock, and so make to
+the coast and escape to France from Dartmouth or Tor Quay."
+
+"If I should meet a runaway!" cried Grace.
+
+"You would ride him down, I should hope, unless he yielded
+and followed you," said her father.
+
+Mrs. Malherb nearly dropped Richard's pillion-belt and fell to
+the ground.
+
+"La! what sport for a young maid!" she cried.
+
+That night after they had gone to rest, the master placed his
+great inspiration before Annabel, and her eyes grew round in the
+darkness.  The blind was up, for Malherb allowed the daylight
+to waken him, and the seasons regulated the hour of his rising.
+Now Mrs. Malherb watched a star cross the eastern-facing casement;
+but only her eyes perceived that distant sun, for her mind
+was occupied with a closer matter.
+
+"I have hit upon a thought which shows how I may still work
+to some purpose here and not make a place for strangers to enjoy
+when we are gone," he said.  "A Malherb shall have all----"
+
+"You cannot mean that you will forgive your nephews!" cried
+his wife in amazement.
+
+"'Nephews'!  No.  Curse the pack of 'em--curs that disgrace
+the name.  They're not even honest.  And 'twas not I that
+quarrelled with them, but they with me.  I am fifty-one.  In
+a year I shall be fifty-two, and Grace will be marriageable.
+Eighteen's a very proper age.  My grand-aunt, Sibella, was a
+famous beauty at sixteen, wedded with the Duke of Sampford on
+her seventeenth birthday, had a daughter upon her eighteenth,
+and was a grandmother when she was thirty-seven.  By the time
+Grace is nineteen she will be the mother of a son."
+
+"Good gracious, my love, how you run on!"
+
+"Not at all.  I'm simply stating the probable course of nature.
+A son, I say; and that son comes to us.  When the lad is
+one-and-twenty I shall be but seventy or so.  What is that?
+Nowadays, such a man as I am is merely middle-aged at seventy.  We
+have the lad for our own.  He must be given to us.  By God, it
+shall be a condition of the match!  And he shall be called
+Malherb, and shall found a line of 'em here instead of my boy,
+who is dead and gone.  'Tis but a jump of a generation."
+
+The stars at the window laughed in their courses and tumbled
+before Mrs. Malherb's eyes.  Her husband abounded in fantastic
+projects, but this scheme was egregious even for him.  She felt
+the futility of it, not the humour.  One objection specially beat
+upon her mother's heart, and that she uttered--
+
+"You couldn't expect Grace to give up her first baby, my
+dear."
+
+"Why not?  Why not?  Not to me?  Not to her own father?
+'Slife!  Who should be better able than I to make a man of a
+young fellow?  He would be my personal companion.  He would
+be brought up from the cradle with this place in his eyes.  He
+would understand that he was a Malherb and all that that means.
+'Tis a very proper idea and, if the girl's not a fool, she'll be the
+first to see it.  Whether she sees it or not, however, don't matter
+a button."
+
+"For God's sake say no such thing to her!"
+
+"Am I likely to?  Do credit me with some understanding.
+All the same, it will have to be.  My heart's on it.  The high
+traditions of the family--Norcot will assent readily, I have little
+doubt.  I can twist him round my finger."
+
+"I fear Grace cares less and less for him."
+
+"I know better.  Even you will allow me some knowledge
+of human nature.  Her indifference is assumed.  She is deeply
+interested in him."
+
+"Deeply interested?  Yes; in how to escape him."
+
+"Be that as it may, within six weeks of her eighteenth birthday
+she'll be Mrs. Peter Norcot; and her son will be called Maurice
+Malherb and come hither as soon as he is weaned.  If ever I meant
+anything in my life, I mean that."
+
+"The way you order human destinies!"
+
+"It is the province of the strong man so to do," he answered
+calmly.  "My son cannot fill my shoes, because he has fallen for
+his country; but my grandson can and shall.  The rest of them
+may be Norcot's; the first is mine."
+
+"To count your grandchildren before they are born!" murmured
+Mrs. Malherb.
+
+"No such thing at all.  Go to sleep, and don't be foolish.
+I do not count them.  That is Heaven's work.  I merely reserve
+the eldest to myself.  The action may not be usual, but that
+weighs very little with me.  I speak in a spirit both scientific and
+religious; and it shall be so, if the Devil himself said 'No!' so
+there's an end on it."
+
+He turned over, and in ten minutes snored; but for long hours
+Annabel watched the twinkling sky, and marvelled as to what
+manner of planet reigned in heaven and lighted earth at the
+moment when her husband first drew breath.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE SEVEN
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MR. BLAZEY
+
+At the War Prison, in a crisis now rapidly approaching, it was
+destined that the young man, Cecil Stark, should assume
+sudden prominence.  Thousands of French and American
+prisoners were confined at Prince Town during this period;
+and with the latter were herded a company of coloured men who
+had been captured in the enemy's battleships or privateers.
+Bitterly was this circumstance resented by the Americans; but,
+worse than their slaves they found the presence of some seven
+hundred French, who shared the granite hospitality of Prison
+No. 4.  These poor tatterdemalions had added to their necessary
+griefs by personal folly.  They had gamed away their very shoes
+and blankets; and they were thrust hither by the hundred,
+and kept alive, like cattle, with scarcely a rag to cover their
+nakedness.
+
+Many times the Americans protested with indignation against
+this wrong, and implored that these forlorn French might be
+removed from amongst them.  But months elapsed before their
+reasonable complaints were heard, and the baser sort of soldier
+guards was wont to laugh and ask the Americans wherein their
+own fantastic and ridiculous habiliments presented a better
+appearance than the Frenchmen's skins.
+
+Stark and certain of his companions were thus challenged on a
+day in autumn as they patrolled together along the exercise yard.
+Beside him walked Commodore Jonathan Miller, who had commanded
+the United States frigate _Marblehead_ when she was taken,
+while behind them followed one William Burnham, a junior officer
+on the same vessel, and James Knapps, sometime boatswain of
+the _Marblehead_.  These four men, together with three others
+presently to be mentioned, formed a little community of
+friendship, and had entered into a compact to share their means, and
+make common cause against the hardships that encompassed
+them.  They were known as "the Seven" and their companions
+held them in high esteem, for it happened that Stark was among
+the fortunate and obtained regular advances from home.  With
+his money he did no little good, and not the Seven only, but
+many more who suffered from poverty or disease, had found him
+a willing friend.
+
+A sentry perched before his box on the prison wall heard Stark
+grumble to William Burnham and made a jesting remark.
+
+"Don't the Frenchmen's skins fit 'em as well as your clothes
+fit you?" he said.
+
+Whereupon Burnham, a mere lad with red hair and a round
+freckled face, made such a fiery retort that the soldier scowled
+and fingered his musket.
+
+"You ask that--you coarse-hearted lout?  Their skins don't
+fit 'em.  Count their ribs; look at the bones sticking out of their
+elbows and ankles.  No prisoner's skin can fit him in this cursed
+country, for you starve us; your agents rob us; you strip your
+scarecrows to clothe us!"
+
+They passed on, and Commodore Miller spoke.
+
+"The Americans are treated better elsewhere, however," he
+remarked.  "At Chatham, and at Stapleton too, they receive
+more considerate attention.  There, at least, they obtain what
+the British Government is pleased to give them."
+
+"And the markets shut agin us--that's consarned robbery," said
+James Knapps.  "'Tis the loss of the market that angers me
+most past bearing."
+
+"A very great injustice," answered Miller sadly.  "It cannot
+be known.  The French are permitted to trade with the people
+of the country.  Farmers and farmers' wives are admitted into
+the great court and they barter regularly there.  But we can only
+get our cheese, or butter, or eggs for our sick folk through the
+French, and they charge five-and-twenty per centum above the
+market prices."
+
+"So we are robbed every way," said Knapps.  He was a
+powerful, middle-aged man, of genial aspect and ordinary
+appearance; but another American who now approached and walked
+beside his friends, discovered a countenance that had called for
+second glances in any company.  He was tall, extraordinarily thin
+and very high-shouldered.  His eyes were of the palest grey, his
+high cheek-bones seemed nearly thrusting through the skin.  He
+was almost bald, and his woollen cap came down over his ears.
+A flat nose and a fan-shaped tuft of hair upon his chin completed
+the man's physiognomy; and much bitterness usually sat upon
+these strange features.
+
+"What say you, Leverett?" asked Stark of the new-comer.
+
+David Leverett, who had been a carpenter on the _Marblehead_,
+and lost one hand in the engagement which ended that vessel's
+career, waved his stump to the sky.
+
+"I say 'tis small wonder that some on us enlist in the King's
+service, damn his eyes!  It's their dirty, devilish game ter make
+us.  They torture us and starve us and freeze us, till narry a one
+but would Judas his own mother, if 'twas only for the sight of salt
+water again."
+
+Cecil Stark nodded.
+
+"That is what they mean, sure enough.  Another batch came
+up yesterday from the _Hector_ prison ship.  Many, they say, have
+gone into the King's service."
+
+"'Tis the refinement of cruelty to make a man turn against his
+motherland," mused Miller; "yet there were a few good Englishmen
+on the _Marblehead_."
+
+"Then there's Blazey," continued Mr. Leverett, who seldom
+opened his mouth save to utter a grievance.  "Call him an
+Agent!  One of the carved stone turrets we are going ter fix on
+the church tower would be a better agent than him.  I wish I
+had the handling of the skunk."
+
+"Lordy!  Have done with your growling," said Knapps.
+"What's the use of it?  You only drive other hot-heads into
+the enemy's ships.  I miss faces every day as it is."
+
+"Many are true enough," replied young Burnham.  "There's
+Mercer and Troubridge and our messmate, Caleb Carberry.  You
+miss them because they are all sick in hospital."
+
+"Troubridge is dead," said Cecil Stark shortly; "and Matthew
+Mercer is dying.  I saw the doctor this morning.  He said 'twas
+all over with him.  He's unconscious."
+
+Leverett lifted his ribs in a deep sigh.
+
+"They are out of it.  I most envy 'em.  There's no escape
+from this cussed bowery except by way of the 'orspital."
+
+None spoke; then upon their gloomy silence a black man
+burst, in the very extremity of excitement.  He was a big,
+full-blooded negro--a splendid specimen of vigour, manhood and
+health.  Now he waved his arms and rolled his great brown eyes
+and advanced upon them with a clumsy saltation.
+
+"Waal, now, look at that black imp!" cried Knapps.  "Come
+here, Sam Cuffee!  What's happened to you?  Has anybody left
+you a fortune, or a pair of wings?"
+
+"Better dan dat, Jimmy Knapps!  Good tings for all ob
+us, please de Lord.  Him coming, Sars.  Ha, ha, ha!  Him
+coming!"
+
+"Who's coming?" asked Leverett.  "The Lord?  Don't you
+think it, Sam.  There's no God nowadays ter keep his weather
+eye lifting on the likes of us."
+
+"'Tis vain to whine so, David Leverett," said Stark angrily.
+"I'm weary of your eternal grumbling.  If you chose fighting for
+your business in life, you should expect hard knocks.  You went
+to be carpenter in a ship of war, and----"
+
+Here a shout from Burnham interrupted the speaker, for
+Mr. Cuffee had told his great news to the other officers.
+
+"Yes, Sar--honour bright, Sar.  Marse Jones, de turnkey, he
+tell me.  Marse Blazey--him coming to put all right dis berry
+day, so I done run to tell you."
+
+"Then you can call back your words, carpenter," said
+Commodore Miller.  "There's a God yet--only He takes His own
+time--not ours."
+
+"Blazey coming!" cried Knapps.  "'Tis most too good to be
+true.  Some on you gentlemen had best think what to say to
+him."
+
+As he spoke, Captain Cottrell, Commandant of the War
+Prison, appeared and advanced with a guard into the midst of
+the patrol ground.  A trumpeter blew a blast to summon the
+wandering throngs, and when they had crowded in a dense circle
+round him, the Commandant raised his voice and made a statement
+from the midst of the bristling bayonets that hemmed him
+about.
+
+"I have to inform you, gentlemen, that your Agent, Mr. Blazey,
+from Plymouth, will visit Prison No. 4 at three o'clock of
+the afternoon to-day.  Here in public he will meet you and hear
+all your grievances, but there must be no private intercourse."
+
+He departed, and the Americans, with joy upon their faces,
+raised a cheer--not for Captain Cottrell, but his news.  The
+black men, who were grouped together apart, also lifted a shout
+of satisfaction.
+
+"One might think that peace was proclaimed rather than that
+a paid official is merely about to do his duty," said Cecil Stark
+with bitterness.
+
+But Commodore Miller shook his head.
+
+"Do not even assume so much, my lad.  This man--well, a
+sluggard in duty can never be trusted.  If he discharges his task
+reluctantly, he may also discharge it ill."
+
+Great stir and bustle marked the next few hours.  Light and
+air were let into every dark corner; broken hammocks were
+patched, and each granite ward was cleansed.  Only the prisoners
+themselves remained unchanged.  No power could instantly alter
+their thin, hungry faces or their disgraceful attire.
+
+There came presently to Cecil Stark his friend and superior
+officer, the Commodore.
+
+"As one not quite unknown to them, they have called upon
+me to be spokesman," he said.
+
+"Of course, sir; you're the first man amongst us.  Every
+American knows that."
+
+"But I've no gift of words, Stark, and my nerve is not what it
+was.  I declined the task; whereon they invited me to name a
+speaker likely to address this Blazey with force and judgment.
+I come to you.  I hold it to be your duty.  You must not shrink
+from it."
+
+Cecil Stark was much taken aback by this proposal.
+
+"Think better of it, sir.  Who am I to voice so many older and
+wiser men than myself?"
+
+"I wish you to do so.  We must say much in little and hold
+the Agent's attention.  Be off now and collect your thoughts and
+set your ideas in order," said the Commodore.  "Look to it that
+you justify my choice, for I shall bear the blame if you fail."
+
+"'Tis a very great responsibility, but I'll assume it, since you
+command, Commodore.  Now let me meet the leaders."
+
+After a brief conference with the prominent prisoners, Stark
+vanished and, until the important person named Reuben Blazey
+arrived at Prince Town, he secluded himself with certain papers
+and prison orders, that he might prepare his speech.
+
+Then, towards evening, a trumpet announced the arrival of the
+Agent; the captives drew up in a dense double line, and
+Mr. Blazey, with his staff and a guard of red-coats, appeared.  He
+was a short, stout man, clad in plum-colour, with a face of
+generous purple that matched his clothes.  His little black eyes
+shot sharp glances everywhere as he advanced, hat in hand; his
+clean-shaven mouth was of a coarse pattern, yet it lacked not
+kindliness.
+
+"Great God!" he said to a clerk at his elbow, "this is the
+Valley of Bones; and they have come to life.  But, indeed, I had
+not dreamed there were so many."
+
+"There are some five or six hundred of 'em, I believe,"
+answered Lieutenant Mainwaring, who escorted the visitor.  Then
+he addressed the prisoners.
+
+"Now who is to speak for the rest with Mr. Blazey?"
+
+Stark instantly stepped forward and saluted.
+
+"You!" exclaimed the soldier.
+
+"Yes, my comrades honour me with this grave commission."
+
+"Then be brief, young man," said Blazey, "for I don't want to
+ride over Dartmoor in the dark."
+
+"'Be brief!'" echoed Stark, with fire flashing to his eye.  "'Be
+brief!'  Why, you----"
+
+Here with an effort and in response to the murmur of warning
+voices behind him, he curbed his temper and made another
+answer.
+
+"Our grievances can't be very briefly told, Mr. Reuben Blazey;
+but I will set them out in as few words as possible.  First and
+worst, the scum and offscouring of the French prisons are poured
+in upon us to our terrible discomfort.  Next we desire to tell you
+that our contractors are rogues.  For five days in the week the
+law directs that we receive one and a half pounds of brown bread,
+one half-pound of beef, including bone--of which God knows we
+get our share--one-third of an ounce of barley and salt, one-third
+of an ounce of onions, and one pound of turnips.  The residue
+of the week we have one pound of pickled fish and coals enough
+to cook it.  These things are daily served by the contractors, and
+we have watched them scrimp weight cruelly to fill their pockets
+out of our starving bellies.  Upon beef days we suffer most."
+
+"Go on," said Mr. Blazey.  He yawned, scratched under his
+wig, and turned to a clerk.
+
+"You are making notes, Mr. Williams?"
+
+"Yes, sir--full notes."
+
+"Next," continued Stark, "the printed regulations delivered to
+us by Commandant Cottrell speak explicitly of what your Government
+has undertaken to do on our account.  We are not criminals,
+but honest men.  Why do not you understand that?  We are
+allowed each a hammock, one blanket, one horse-rug, and a bed
+containing four pounds of flocks.  Every eighteen months we are
+to receive one woollen cap for our heads, one yellow roundabout
+jacket, one pair of pantaloons, and a waistcoat such as you give
+your soldiers.  We are further promised one shirt and one pair
+of shoes every nine months."
+
+"And 'tis high time your tarnal thieves was delivered of them
+shoes.  Look at our feet!" burst out a voice from the ranks of
+the captives.
+
+"Silence!" cried Stark.  Then he turned to Mr. Blazey.
+
+"These things----"
+
+"You have," interrupted the Agent.  "Are you not attired in
+them, you who speak?"
+
+"Look at me!" answered Stark.  "Regard these scarecrows
+behind me and say if such a pandemonium of grotesque devils
+ever filled human eyes outside a nightmare.  Heaven knows that
+we are thin enough, yet our yellow jackets might have been made
+for skeletons.  Look!"  He stretched up his arms.  "Mine comes
+scarce below my elbows."
+
+"You happen to be a giant," objected Blazey.
+
+"Then why, in the name of God, don't you give him a giant's
+jacket?" roared Knapps from the rear.  He was silenced and
+Stark proceeded.
+
+"Our pantaloons you can study for yourself, Mr. Blazey.  You
+can note the space visible between them and our waistcoats.  But
+the shoes are still worse.  They are made of wood and rotten
+yarn, and these granite floors knock them to pieces in a week.  I
+pray you see to these things.  Here surely are caricatures of men
+that would make England weep if she could see them."
+
+"Have you done with your facts, sir?" inquired the Agent.
+
+"Very nearly.  Now there are certain offices, such as sweeping,
+shaving prisoners, cooking and the like, that receive payment;
+and those who can execute mechanic arts here may daily earn
+sixpence.  Why are not our humbler folk allowed to share these
+privileges?  The French receive all these offices, though the
+Americans are quite as deft as they.  There is also the vital
+matter of the market.  The French traffic weekly with the
+country people and so add fresh food to their store; we are not
+permitted to do so--a cruel embargo.  To sum up, I pray for
+more food, more clothes, more generosity.  We are men against
+whom the authorities can find no real fault.  Our cachot is always
+empty.  I was the last that occupied it.  Our guards will tell you
+that we are courteous, obedient, and patient.  Then pray,
+Mr. Blazey, help us.  You know not the awful battle we have to fight
+here--a battle worse ten thousand times than any between man
+and man.  We endure such cold as you have never endured,
+sir; we eat such food as you have never eaten; we suffer from
+such prison evils in shape of loathsome diseases as you will never
+know.  We are very sick and we daily die.  How can starving
+men battle with the reigning horror of smallpox?  How can----"
+
+But at the word "smallpox," Mr. Blazey's countenance assumed
+a pallor under its purple and he woke from indifference to extreme
+activity.  His little eyes wandered wildly over the great sea of
+faces before him.  Then he screamed to Lieutenant Mainwaring.
+
+"Is this truth that the man utters?"
+
+The young officer took pleasure in Mr. Blazey's terror, and
+oblivious of the prisoners or their welfare, made answer--
+
+"True enough.  The atmosphere you are breathing is pure
+poison.  Half these men are infected."
+
+It was a lie, but the Agent believed it, and made an instant bolt
+for the entrance.
+
+"Then I should have been told.  This is murder--deliberate,
+cold-blooded murder, and you shall smart for it!  Let me out for
+the Lord's sake, before I've gulped any more of their filthy air!"
+
+They made way and opened the gates.  Then, before he
+vanished, Mr. Blazey turned and bawled a word or two towards
+Stark.
+
+"I'll see what can be managed for ye.  I'll do my best
+endeavours.  But I've no power, and no funds neither.  Besides,
+all exchange of prisoners is stopped for this year.  So you'll do
+wisely to bide quiet, and trust in God and the Transport Board,
+not me."
+
+He vanished, with his clerks and the soldiers after him; and
+then for a moment silence, dreadful and solemn, fell upon the
+captives.  The haggard faces that had strained upon Blazey so
+long as he was visible, turned each to gaze into his neighbour's
+eyes; the gates fell to, the locks clashed, the sentries on the wall
+resumed their eternal tramp.  Some men, wrought up to a pitch
+of mental excitement beyond their strength to conceal, shed tears
+and sneaked in corners to hide them.  The boys--powder-monkeys
+out of captured ships--broke their ranks and went off whooping
+to leap-frog; the negroes chattered and blubbered apart; some
+Americans scowled and shook their fists at the blind doors; some
+cursed their spokesman for bungling the matter; others walked
+away mute, quite frozen by long suffering to a dead indifference.
+Many fell to quarrelling among themselves, and their leaders,
+including Commodore Miller and Stark, sat together and debated
+upon the failure of this--their forlorn hope.  In the dark
+disappointment of the hour young Burnham lifted his voice against
+his motherland.
+
+"They have forgotten us!" he said.  "We have lived for the
+States, fought and bled for them; and now we are forgot."
+
+"Nay, lad, don't think it," said Miller.  "Your heart is low
+and time drags into a daily eternity here; but remember that it
+flies faster outside these walls than within them.  Our country is
+busy."
+
+"'Tis that cursed Agent," growled Leverett to Knapps.  Then
+he scratched the red-grey wedge of hair upon his chin and turned
+to Stark.
+
+"I asked Blazey as he came in whether he had got our letters
+and he nodded.  He's in communication with both Governments.
+
+"Thet 'ere man will hev the devil's toasting-fork in his guts
+afore he's much older," prophesied Knapps.  "He's a traitor."
+
+"Please Providence smallpox will clutch the swine; then an
+honester man may get his billet," said Leverett.
+
+Thus they uttered folly and went stormily to their rest; but
+upon the morning of the next day the Seven, strolling together,
+listened to reason and formulated a plan of action.  Their sick
+mate, Caleb Carberry, was this day discharged cured from hospital,
+and he listened to Burnham, who narrated the events of the previous
+evening.
+
+"We've done what we might by fair means.  Now it remains
+for us to trust to our wits and our right arms," said Stark.
+
+"The wall men have built, men can climb," declared Burnham.
+"What say you, Commodore?"
+
+Miller gazed upward at the mighty ring of the inner
+circumvallation, scarlet-dotted with the sentries.
+
+"I'm with you--over--or under.  At Chatham eighteen brave
+lads escaped from the prison ship, _Crown Prince_, by cutting
+through the side of her.  Well, oak or granite, 'tis all one."
+
+"If we no fly, we burrow berry nice, gentlemen," declared
+Samuel Cuffee.
+
+"Then 'tis our life's work from this hour to get out," said
+Carberry.  "By hook or crook we'll do it.  And with a boss like
+Commodore Miller, I lay the way will come clear."
+
+"We don't want a lot o' poppy-cock talk, I reckon," added
+Leverett.  "'Tis just a secret for the seven of us--though," he
+added under his breath to Carberry, "I'm consarned if I like
+to work with a slave."
+
+Caleb Carberry was a thin, feeble-looking young man who had
+been cook's mate on the _Marblehead_.  He glanced at Cuffee, to
+whom Leverett referred, and answered aside--
+
+"Sam's all right.  No smouch him.  Besides, Mister Stark
+have had him for a servant ever since we sailed."
+
+But Leverett shook his head.
+
+"I don't trust no black man.  I'm fearsome of him.  He's
+always snooking around; and so like as not he'll end by busting
+on the show."
+
+Despite the carpenter's distrust, however, a secret and desperate
+determination henceforth actuated every member of the Seven,
+Sam Cuffee included.  What skill, energy and intrigue could do,
+they  meant to do.  Miller and Stark had personal friends
+quartered upon parole at Ashburton, some fifteen miles distant,
+and their purpose now was to escape from Prince Town, enter
+into communication with these Americans, and so win to the
+sea-coast and to France.
+
+"Hunger will break through a stone wall," said the
+Commodore.  "How much more may love of liberty do it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A BRACE OF FOWLS
+
+The result of their Agent's visit was manifested in various
+ways to the American prisoners at Prince Town.  Some
+sank back upon despair and cursed each grey morning's light, as
+it awakened them from the blessed oblivion of sleep; many
+entered the British Service, and of these not a few were American
+only in name, for their birthplace was England and they had
+fought in the enemy's privateers, tempted thereto by handsome
+payment.  Others, like the leaders of the Seven, to whom such
+surrender meant dishonour, dreamed of escape and occupied their
+energies with projects and plots toward liberty.
+
+But practical good ultimately accrued to the prisoners from
+Mr. Reuben Blazey's brief appearance on Dartmoor.  That
+gentleman, perhaps in thanksgiving upon the discovery that he
+had not taken smallpox, stirred himself to some purpose after all,
+and not a few of the grievances that Cecil Stark had set forth
+were presently redressed.  The Transport Board sanctioned the
+renewal of the market in Prison No. 4; the place was entirely
+divided from its fellows for the greater comfort of those who
+dwelt there; the French outcasts were put into durance apart,
+and the negroes, with sole exception of Sam Cuffee, Stark's
+servant, were also removed from among the Americans.
+
+More than one of the little band that had sworn to escape, now
+doubted whether, under this amelioration of circumstances, it
+would be wise or politic to exchange the inside of the prison for
+the outside.  They held that Dartmoor rather than Prince Town
+made the real prison, and that the great unknown wilderness,
+with its morasses and precipices, its barren mountain-tops and
+dangerous tempests, would be but a poor exchange even for
+the misery of No. 4.  But these doubtful ones were overruled
+by Stark, Commodore Miller and the youngster, Burnham.
+Carberry and Leverett most lacked courage; Knapps was
+indifferent and ready to follow any man; Cuffee took his master's
+view.  That the negro should be permitted to join their secret
+association had occasioned some natural opposition; but Cecil
+Stark, whose ideas upon the subject were more than a century
+ahead of his time, won permission to include the servant; and
+Sam's personal fitness none questioned, for aboard the _Marblehead_
+he had proved himself faithful and courageous.  It was the
+principle that awakened objections, not the man.
+
+Soon the markets were again open, and finding that many of
+the American prisoners had more money than the French,
+discovering also that they spoke their own tongue and thereby
+rendered bargaining more easy, the native Moor folk crowded
+among them and opened a brisk traffic in fowls and eggs, cheese,
+bacon and butter.  No small amount of intoxicating drink was
+also smuggled among them, though it generally paid duty to
+some turnkey or sentry before reaching the prisoners.  The
+market stalls were arranged in a wide yard; the current market
+prices were cried out, so that all might understand, and none
+from the outer world were permitted to begin his business until
+he had been carefully searched.  But as time went on, and the
+regular merchants became known to the guards, a little strictness
+relaxed and relations became friendly.  The means of the
+prisoners varied much.  Some were penniless, and made trinkets
+carved of bone or wood serve them in place of money; some
+received regular supplies from home, and these privileged ones,
+Cecil Stark and Burnham among the rest, shared their funds with
+less fortunate neighbours.
+
+There came a day when, towards the close of the market hours,
+Leverett and Knapps were standing at one of the stalls and
+addressing the countrywoman who sat upon an upturned barrel
+behind it.
+
+"Where's your grandson of late, Mrs. Lee?  I ha'n't seen him
+with you for many a week."
+
+"Nor won't no more," answered Lovey Lee.  "He's gone into
+sarvice--groom to a farmer's darter."
+
+"Waal now!  Do your farmers' daughters hev grooms?"
+
+"Not often.  She's a lady.  'Tis a newtake farm 'pon Dartymoor,
+an' the man who started it has got more money than wits.
+Jack takes good wages, an' I have half of 'em, as I ought, seeing
+I brought him up."
+
+Sam Cuffee came up at this minute.
+
+"Missy Lovey Lee," he said, "you dun gib me my proper
+butter yesterday for Marse Stark.  I swear 'twas light, ma'am."
+
+The tall woman, whose head, though she sat on the barrel, was
+as high as that of Mr. Knapps where he stood beside her, stared
+at the negro with scorn in her ferocious eyes.
+
+"Get along with you, you black idol!  Ban't eighteen ounces
+to the pound good butter weight?  You stole some yourself, I'll
+swear, to oil your ugly face."
+
+"You's a berry imperent ole woman, and I dun take no notice
+ob your talk.  Har come Marse Stark hisself, so you may just
+speak to him, ma'am," answered Cuffee.
+
+Stark, carrying a tray, appeared with Burnham.  This signal
+was concerted, and as soon as they saw him the other men moved
+away together.
+
+"Look here, Mother Lee, these won't do, you know.  I must
+take my custom elsewhere if you are not going to deal straight
+with me," began the sailor bluntly.
+
+"Eggs--well, what of 'em?" asked Lovey.
+
+"The less said of them the better.  Here are six--the remnant
+of the last dozen I bought.  Of the first six that Cuffee broke, I
+ate none.  So the second six you have got to take back and
+give me six fresh ones from your basket."
+
+But Lovey by no means saw the force of this suggestion.
+
+"What next will you ax?  To rob me right an' left be your
+pleasure always; but I've been weak as a fly with you afore,
+'cause of your curly hair.  You'd starve a poor woman to death."
+
+"Take them back, or I'll never buy another thing from you.
+What's more, my friends shall not either," said Stark loudly.
+Then, before she could answer, he added under his breath, "_Take
+'em and look at the yelks!_"
+
+Lovey instantly perceived that more appeared than was spoken.
+She remembered also more than one conversation with Stark's
+friends.  Struck by her intelligence, unusual education and
+extraordinary greed, Commodore Miller had called attention to the
+old woman as being a tool ripe for their hands.  Now the
+preliminary approach promised well, for it was manifest that
+Mrs. Lee had caught the speaker's meaning.
+
+"I won't; I won't do it--'tis flat robbery, I tell you, an' you'd
+not care if I starved on the Moor all alone in my hovel without
+strength to lift a dying prayer.  You are cruel devils--all of you,
+and I'll go back to the French folks, as have got hearts in their
+breasts.  I'll----"
+
+Then Stark, now alive to the fact that Lovey was only acting
+for the benefit of the sentry, interrupted with threats.  But still
+Mrs. Lee argued, and only after much chatter, and a great deal
+of disgraceful language, she took back the eggs and gave the
+sailor six fresh ones in exchange.
+
+"Now I must sell these to somebody else," she said, "or I
+shan't get bit or sup inside my lips to-day."
+
+"Better eat 'em yourself, Missis," said the sentry.  "Anyway,
+time's up now, so off you go."
+
+A bell rang to clear the market, and the folk began to stream
+out of the prison.
+
+"Here, Sam!" shouted Stark jubilantly.  "Take these to the
+kitchen.  I've near choked myself talking and swearing at that
+old witch; but I've won my way.  She's taken the bad eggs and
+give me fresh ones instead."
+
+Cuffee hurried forward.
+
+"You was dam smart, sar.  I dun fink nobody in de prison
+could hah git around dat party 'cept you."
+
+And Lovey Lee, grumbling and whining to the last, took
+herself and her baskets back across the Moor; tramped home;
+entered her hovel, and then turned with greedy curiosity to the
+secret of the eggs.  She was as safe from interruption in her lonely
+cabin by Siward's Cross as she had been in the desert of Sahara;
+yet caution and suspicion were a part of her; therefore she locked
+her door and covered up her little window with an apron before
+she turned to her basket.  Then, one by one, she broke the eggs
+into a basin, and her mouth watered at the sight of such food,
+even while she mourned to see two pennyworth of marketable
+commodity wasted upon herself.  The fifth egg weighed normally;
+but it was filled with dust, and, after all, Lovey made no rare
+meal, for she spoilt the mess in the basin by pouring the dust on
+top of it.  A vital matter, however, she rescued, for in the dust
+was a little roll of paper, and upon the paper a message closely
+but clearly written.
+
+"_To mistress Lee, an offer of money in plenty if she will help
+Cecil Stark to escape from the War Prison at Prince Town.  Let
+her sell two fowls next market day if she will serve him; let her
+sell two ducks if she will not serve him.  But if she betray Cecil
+Stark, his friends will be revenged upon her._"
+
+To the young man from Vermont had fallen this first step in
+the plot.  Lots were drawn as to who should get the message to
+Lovey Lee, for all agreed that one only need be inculpated until
+it was certain that she would assist them.  Now, if she proved
+loyal to the authorities, Stark alone would suffer; but upon that
+score little anxiety was felt, for Lovey had often expressed
+sentiments much the reverse of patriotic, and had at all times made
+it clear that money was the only sovereign lord she acknowledged
+or served.
+
+Upon the following market day two fine fat fowls were displayed
+at Mrs. Lee's stall.  She sat behind them on her upturned
+barrel, and gave Stark an indifferent "good morning" as he
+strolled past with the Commodore and James Knapps.
+
+"Here's a nice brace of chicks, your honour," said Lovey.
+
+But Stark laughed and shook his head.
+
+"No luxuries to-day, ma'am; we're not made of money, you
+know.  They would look well upon Commandant Cottrell's table."
+
+"I serve him, too," she answered.  "But he likes his poultry
+stuffed wi' marjoram an' wild thyme."
+
+"And these?"
+
+"They be stuffed different."
+
+"Well, we won't quarrel as to that.  Hungry men don't criticise
+their sauces.  What's the price?"
+
+"You shall have 'em for half-a-crown."
+
+"Lordy!  Preserve us agin you greedy women!" cried Knapps.
+"I reckon you'd make soup out o' stones an' sell it for ten cents
+a pint if you dared."
+
+"Come along, Commodore," said Stark, "we'll try Mrs. Luscombe
+at the next stall.  Lovey Lee's too grasping."
+
+At that moment William Burnham approached and saw the
+fowls.
+
+"Just what I want," he exclaimed.  "Poor Matthew Mercer
+is still alive; but he can't eat any victuals, so we'll make some
+chicken broth for him.  What's your price, Mrs. Lee?"
+
+Lovey glanced at Stark, and, seeing that he was not concerned,
+understood that she might sell safely.
+
+"Half-a-crown, an' I'd sooner fling 'em into the Moor for the
+foxes than take a penny less," she said.
+
+Commodore Miller turned to a sentry and asked the market
+value of fowls.  The man did not know, but a turnkey passing at
+that moment answered him.
+
+"Fowls are tenpence each--eighteen pence a pair to-day," he
+said.
+
+Whereupon Lovey called down lightning upon his head, and
+behaved with such impropriety that the man turned round in a
+rage and threatened to have her removed out of the markets.
+Upon this she relapsed into sulky silence, and presently, after
+some haggling, took the money that was her due, and almost
+flung the fowls at Burnham.
+
+Anon Mr. Cuffee departed with the poultry under his arm,
+and, guessing what to expect, he made a careful examination.  A
+few words much to the point were scrawled upon paper and
+packed within one bird.  Lovey Lee had written an answer to
+Stark's invitation.
+
+"_Right.  Tell me what you want and what you'll give.  Put
+message in a chaw of baccy next week._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GREEN APPLE
+
+It sometimes happened that at those hours when the guard
+was being changed, seconds and even minutes passed, during
+which a sentry-box might be empty and a section of the inner
+wall remain unguarded.  It was proposed by the Seven to avail
+themselves of such a moment in the dusky evening hour before
+all prisoners were called upon to leave the exercise yard and pass
+behind locked doors.  Between the inner and outer walls of the
+prison extended a space or patrol ground of ten yards in breadth;
+but while the inner wall offered no special difficulties, as the
+sentries' staircases were built into the side of it, the second wall
+presented a harder problem.  By climbing upon each other's
+shoulders like acrobats it was hoped to scale it, but since the
+message from the miser, this plan was abandoned in favour of
+mechanical means.
+
+For necessary apparatus the conspirators looked to Lovey Lee.
+Her businesslike reply to Stark promised well.
+
+"We must give her more to help us out than the authorities
+would give her to reveal our plans," explained Commodore Miller.
+"She would get but three pounds a head for us if she turned
+traitor.  Let her have ten pounds a head to free us and all will
+probably be done that she can do.  Lovey Lee sells herself to
+the highest bidder.  Her only steadfast principle is dollars."
+
+"Suppose I was ter give her a tarnation fright, and let on as her
+life wouldn't be worth a chip if she rounded on us?" suggested
+David Leverett.
+
+But Stark and Miller protested at such short-sighted policy.
+
+"She won't be driven, and she won't be frightened," declared
+the Commodore.  "Her friendship is vital now.  We've got to
+submit terms, and they will need to be high."
+
+"Best to offer a hundred pounds right off," said Burnham.
+
+"The difficulty will be to get her to help us without the money
+in advance," declared Stark.
+
+Then came the great business of the communication to Mrs. Lee.
+It was duly written and anon reached Lovey tight packed
+in a huge piece of tobacco.  Knapps apparently cut the quid
+from a roll and handed it to her in exchange for a bundle of
+watercresses.  The woman put it into her cheek at once, and
+kept it there until opportunity offered to hide it in her pocket.
+Then, as before, she hastened home upon the completion of
+market, locked her door, covered her window, and set to work to
+read.
+
+"_We want_
+
+_Item.  A map or picture of the road from Prince Town to the
+town of Ashburton._
+
+_Item.  A letter to be delivered to the first prisoner on parole,
+who shall be seen walking by you along that road, within
+the measured mile from Ashburton._
+
+_Item.  An answer to that letter acknowledging its receipt._
+
+_Item.  A map or picture of the road from Prince Town to
+your Cottage, so that if one escapes he may lie hid with you,
+and thus be of service to his friends._
+
+_Item.  Three hundred yards of thin copper wire in lengths
+that can be wound up inside a fowl or other bird._
+
+_Item.  Twenty very large iron nails that may be driven
+between the stones of masonry._
+
+_We offer_
+
+_One hundred English pounds.  Ten will reach you from
+time to time on market days during the next three weeks.
+This will be placed between other moneys when we buy and
+you sell.  Ten will reach you on the day that the last of the
+stipulated articles are received.  Ten will reach you on the
+day that the first man of us gets clear of Prince Town.  The
+balance will reach you when we are all free.  There are
+seven of us.  We can only promise by the God of Heaven to
+keep this contract.  We place ourselves in your power, and
+you must trust us as we trust you._"
+
+
+Lovey Lee reflected long upon this communication.  Then she
+put it aside and ate a meal of black bread and pickled snails.
+The snails were salted down in a barrel, and she forked them out
+of their shells and ate them with indifference.  Her senses of
+taste and smell were alike faulty.  She cared nothing for food
+and only drank tea made of wild herbs.
+
+"'Tis a dreadful risk--an' me as never trusted a human soul
+since I was short-coated!" reflected the miser.  "Yet nothing
+venture nothing have.  A hundred would make up the thousand
+down along to Hangman's Hollow.  An' it might fall out that
+after I'd got their money, 'twould be in my power to give 'em up
+to the prison people again.  Seven of 'em.  That would add up
+to twenty-one pound at three pound a head.  There'll be ten
+pound anyway--clean profit afore I do anything.  Then I'll
+make a journey, for I've got a bag full of small money waiting
+to go."
+
+She referred to her secret treasure-house in the Moor.  Money
+she never kept beside her, but conveyed to her hoard at such
+times as the moon shone after midnight and she could count upon
+creeping over the wilderness unseen.
+
+Lovey Lee's answer was practical.  Three days later she
+tramped to Ashburton and walked ten miles to that town
+and ten miles back again without weariness.  Thus she
+killed two birds with one stone, for she purchased a
+hundred yards of thin copper wire, and she refreshed her mind
+as to the road and its nature.  Mile by mile the old
+woman set down the track upon a sheet of paper bought at
+Ashburton for that purpose.  She marked the features of the
+land upon it, wrote the names of the adjacent tors, and indicated
+bridges and rivers across which the highway passed.  As for the
+wire, she purchased it ostensibly to make rabbit-snares, for which
+purpose it was chiefly sold.  A few of the prisoners upon parole
+she also saw taking exercise, and knew them by their speech.
+
+Upon the following market day, Lovey appeared at the Prison
+with full baskets, and her big teeth closed tightly under her lips
+as the turnkey, from some unusual prick of conscience or accession
+of zeal, stopped her and overhauled her basket.
+
+"Hullo, missis, what's this, then?" he inquired, looking at a
+fine goose.
+
+"Your brother," said Mrs. Lee promptly.
+
+"Then best give him to me to bury decently, though 'twill be
+a cannibal act.  You shall have a shilling for him."
+
+"A shilling!  Look at the market rates?  Geese be paid
+according to weight--an' this ere bird's nine pound if it's a grain.
+But ban't for you.  I promised young Cecil Stark as he should
+have a goose to his birthday."
+
+"And so he shall then," said the turnkey.  "Mr. Stark's a
+gentleman.  He made me a toy for my child last week.  'Twas a
+clever little thing, fashioned like a windmill, out of mutton
+bones.  I lay he'll do summat with the skeleton of that goose."
+
+The Americans greeted Lovey with their usual heartiness, but
+she refused to sell her bird until young Stark and his friends
+approached.  Then, before he could make any remark, she
+lifted up her voice to him.
+
+"I've kep' my promise, young man, an' here's your birthday
+feast, though you may think yourself lucky it have reached you,
+for Mr. Turnkey there was terrible set upon it."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Lee; and the price?"
+
+"Half-a-crown, though a grasping party might ax three
+shilling."
+
+"You shall have three."
+
+"'Tis but just.  All the same, it ban't a very young bird--rather
+old, in truth.  An' I haven't drawn it, for their insides _be a
+bit wiry_ when they come to full growth."
+
+"So much the better for our teeth," said Burnham.
+
+"For that matter, we shall hev plenty of time to eat him,"
+declared Knapps.
+
+"Well, lads, to-morrow night we'll pick his bones, and if
+Mrs. Lee can manage to get a bottle of brandy past our friend
+there----"
+
+The turnkey winked.
+
+"If 'tis for physic----" he said.
+
+"Certainly, certainly.  Don't you wherrit about that.  A jorum
+o' drink for the sick folk.  Narry a one on us would displeasure
+you ter drink it ourselves, I'm sure," declared Leverett.
+
+"And a noggin hot--for you yourself," said Stark.  Then he
+handed silver coins to Lovey Lee; and, feeling between them in
+her pocket as she slipped them down, the old woman knew that
+a half-sovereign had come also.
+
+From that moment she conducted her business with most
+unusual amiability.  She jested with Burnham and Cecil Stark;
+she cleared her baskets, and in a fit of reckless generosity
+presented Leverett with a green apple, which remained when all else
+was sold.
+
+"Can't eat it," said the sailor.  "My stomach have struck
+work; but this here nig will let it down, no doubt."
+
+"You'd do better to keep it for a love token," said the miser;
+but Mr. Cuffee had already taken the fruit.
+
+"Don't eat it; treasure it," she said.  "Then you can tell
+your black maidens when you go home-along that you had a
+sweetheart in England who loved you so bad that her hair
+growed white for you."
+
+"I lub you too, ma'am.  I lub anybody who gib me apples,"
+said Sam.  "You's de boofullest young ting I ebber see, and I
+dun fink about no udder gal no more.  And I marry you when
+dey let me out ob dis dam bowray, I swar!"
+
+At the same moment Mr. Cuffee opened his huge mouth and
+the apple was gone.  Mrs. Lee looked fixedly at him and laughed
+a curious laugh.
+
+"You clunk apples like a dog do swallow bones," she said.
+"There's the bell; an' I shan't come no more for a week belike,
+for I've got to get in my peat now, because winter will be
+knocking at the door again afore long.  Then we must have heat
+about us, for once let the marrow freeze in your bones 'pon
+Dartymoor, an' you'm dead."
+
+She departed, and within the hour Mr. Cuffee made a careful
+search upon the goose.  Two skeins of wire were concealed
+therein, and a scrap of paper, whose laconic message Stark
+presently deciphered.
+
+"_I'll trust you since I must.  Fifty yards wire along with this.
+And in the apple I shall give to Leverett you'll find a map of the
+road.  Have your letter ready for they Ashburton chaps next time
+I come._"
+
+Samuel Cuffee wept when he learned what he had done, and
+vowed to atone for his greediness if only the Lord would offer
+him an opportunity to do so; but the error was righted at
+Mrs. Lee's next visit.  On this occasion she brought a big red apple
+for Stark.  She also carried more wire concealed in a sucking
+pig, and she took home with her a letter which the Americans
+furnished.  It was carefully hidden in a gift.
+
+They had made Lovey Lee a new pipe with a piece of hard
+wood for its bowl and a mouthpiece of goose-bone.  Packed
+within this hollow bone was a missive for a friend of Stark--a
+gentleman who dwelt upon parole with an Ashburton farmer.
+
+So, day by day and week by week the intercourse was continued,
+until Lovey Lee found herself the richer by ten pounds, and the
+plotters possessed maps, nails, wire, and certain communications
+from their distant accomplices.  These objects reached them in
+pats of butter, in carrots or turnips, in ducks and fowls.  Once,
+when a sentry commented upon the fondness of the Americans
+for poultry, Lovey Lee affected a furious indignation, accused the
+man of paltering with her character, and insisted upon
+disembowelling a bird under the public eye, that her innocence
+might be established.
+
+At length all preliminaries for their attempt were completed,
+and only an opportunity and a twilight of grey weather remained
+to wait for.  But each day augmented their difficulties, for the
+vigilance of Commandant Cottrell increased.  Others beside
+Cecil Stark and his friends had not only prepared but executed
+remarkable escapes.  Several men safely cleared the prison
+precincts only to be recaptured; several were found drowned
+in the rivers, whose crystal floods deceived them by their seeming
+shallowness; a few vanished never again to be seen or heard of;
+others made successful escapes, and finally reaching Tor Quay or
+Dartmouth, got clear to France, and so home again.  One young
+man from Cecil Stark's State of Vermont went boldly forth in a
+girl's clothes, which were smuggled to him by a farmer's daughter
+under a basket of cabbages.  A French prisoner nearly came off
+by stealing a sentry's coat and hat.  But as he whistled on the
+way out, and adopted the air of the _Marseillaise_, a guard
+challenged and the man was arrested.  Many other instances,
+successful and futile, were recorded.  Therefore Stark and the Seven
+exercised all caution and patience until fair conditions should
+open before them and their undertaking promise a triumphant
+issue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+Immediately without the War Prison stood a ruined cot,
+and, distant some few hundred yards to the north-east beneath
+it, a river ran.  This stream, named Blackabrook, was crossed by
+a pack-horse road that passed over Ockery Bridge; and here,
+one hundred years ago, in place of the existing cottage, there
+stood a neat little dwelling-house.  Verandahs extended round it;
+the walls were of granite, and the roof of reeds.  Upon one side
+a view of Prince Town spread, while southward its windows
+commanded the valley of the river.
+
+Here dwelt Captain Cottrell, Commandant of the prison settlement;
+and now, together with a handsome, genial man clad in
+black, he shall be seen sitting under his verandah and drinking
+port wine after midday dinner.  The Captain's visitor was of a
+kindly countenance and pleasant voice.
+
+"So much for that, then, Mr. Norcot.  You'll send to us from
+your mills at Chagford such quantities of flocks as Government
+shall determine for the new mattresses."
+
+"Exactly.  I'm always gratified to oblige the Government."
+
+"We can make them here--the mattresses, I mean.  We have
+a little world of skilled artificers within our walls.  You see,
+Holland is in league with Napoleon, and many of our captives
+taken out of Dutch vessels are Eurasians, Malays and Chinese
+from the service of the Dutch East India Company.  The world
+has sent us representatives of every civilised race, and among
+them are craftsmen from each trade that man practises."
+
+Peter Norcot nodded.
+
+"'All sorts and conditions of men.'  Do you recollect what
+Shenstone says?
+
+  "'Let the gull'd fool the toils of war pursue,
+  Where bleed the many to enrich the few.'
+
+You shall have your flocks and a good article.  Since my lamented
+senior partner's death I have been busy in certain directions.
+Uncle Norman Norcot was a conscientious and a conservative
+soul, and he regarded the new labour-saving contrivances with
+the utmost suspicion.  How he hated 'em!  But amongst such
+things there is a remarkable new flock-cutter.  These matters,
+however, will not interest you."
+
+The Captain emptied his glass and rose.
+
+"I'll take your word for all that.  Now come along.  You
+desire a glimpse of our caged beasts and the Prison?"
+
+"Even so--delighted to exchange my flocks for your herds."
+
+An orderly brought round their horses and in five minutes
+Peter departed with Captain Cottrell.
+
+"Now enter the bear garden, Mr. Norcot, and do not fear the
+growling.  For reasons not known to me, my beasts have a hearty
+hatred of their head keeper."
+
+It was true, and Norcot observed that his guide won little
+but scowls and indifference upon his way through the prisons.
+Occasionally an officer among the captives would salute him; as
+a rule the prisoners turned their backs.
+
+"A strange and many-coloured assembly--of rags," commented
+Norcot.  "'Spectatum admissi risum tenatis amici?'  But really
+to the man of sentiment 'tis a matter for tears rather than laughter.
+I observe you are unpopular, Commandant."
+
+"The fate of most men who do their duty, sir."
+
+"How true!"
+
+"Not one fool amongst them has the wit to guess at my onerous
+labours," continued Cottrell.  "Old General Rochambeau, who
+is living on parole with me at Ockery Bridge, will scarcely
+exchange a civil word, and prefers to eat his meals in the seclusion
+of his chamber.  He is for ever abusing 'Les mirmidons de
+Transport Service'; and yet the ancient ass makes me laugh
+sometimes.  He received letters recently, and one of them told
+him that Napoleon would land in England on the twenty-third of
+July last.  Upon that day he appeared in full dress, booted and
+spurred, with all his orders on--ready to welcome Boney should
+he honour Dartmoor with a visit."
+
+"He may come here yet--to stop."
+
+"I hope so.  Be very sure no parole will ever be granted to
+one who has so often broke his oath."
+
+They had now entered Prison No. 4.
+
+"Here are my black sheep," said Captain Cottrell.  "One
+Yankee is more trouble than twenty Frenchmen.  Never satisfied.
+There are exceptional men amongst them--representatives of the
+old American gentry; but the greater number are the very rubbish
+and offscourings of the sea, swept here by our men-o'-war.  I
+believe that near half of them are Englishmen from the privateers.
+They get high bounties for that work; but they are a reckless and
+dangerous company.  These men set the hulks on fire at Plymouth."
+
+"Made the ships too hot to hold 'em?  But they are safe
+enough here.  Tut, tut!  Dartmoor would tame the Devil
+himself, once he was on a chain."
+
+The yellow-coated prisoners wandered about, and some exchanged
+private jests as Cottrell passed, and some fell into silence
+until he was out of earshot.  Then a very tall, finely built man,
+drew himself up and saluted the reigning power.
+
+"You see there is a gentleman now and then to be found among
+them."
+
+"And that particular gentleman I have good cause to know,"
+answered Norcot.  "May I exchange compliments with him?
+'Twas he who, in a moment of undue haste, broke my head."
+
+Cecil Stark found himself summoned, and Mr. Norcot told the
+Commandant of their meeting at the church.
+
+"Then, like a lion, he felled me with his paw.  I hope no fist
+will ever hit me so hard again."
+
+"He is prominent among them, and his influence is all for
+good," said the Commandant carelessly in Stark's hearing.
+
+"And a sailor; and doubtless good-hearted, like all sailors.
+Well, Mr. Stark, your servant, sir."
+
+Cecil Stark recognised the wool-stapler immediately, and shook
+the hand extended to him.
+
+"I hope I see you well, sir," he said, "and none the worse for
+my stupidity."
+
+"In excellent health, I thank you.  My nose, as you see, stands
+where it did.  Yet I am much reduced from my usual level
+humour by this sight."
+
+"A dreary spectacle enough."
+
+"You are probably unfamiliar with Cowper?  It is your loss.
+
+  "'War's a game which, were their subjects wise,
+  Kings should not play at."
+
+Neither kings nor yet Congresses.  Perhaps, had you read Cowper,
+you would have stopped at home, Mr. Stark?"
+
+"It takes two to fight, Mr. Norcot.  My kinsman, General
+Stark--but I'll not prate of that, though this I'll say: 'tis a base
+and a cowardly deed to deny parole to Commodore Miller and
+his officers.  We handled the frigate _Marblehead_ like honest men;
+and we had fairly beaten your _Thunderbolt_.  She was about to
+strike when the _Flying Fish_ and the _Squirrel_ hove in sight and
+bore down.  Then she fought on.  We ourselves had hardly struck
+to them before the _Thunderbolt_ sank.  These things I learned from
+the prize crew that brought the _Marblehead_ into Falmouth."
+
+"I understand that there were technical reasons why parole
+was denied to the officers of the _Marblehead_," explained Captain
+Cottrell.
+
+"You may understand, sir," retorted Stark, "but none among
+us was ever made to do so."
+
+Norcot nodded thoughtfully.  True to his invariable custom,
+he set himself the task of making a friend.
+
+"You get supplies regularly?" he asked.
+
+"He does--and shares 'em with the poorer folks," said Cottrell.
+"He has great wealth, I believe," he added under his breath.
+
+"You want parole, naturally--like any other officer and
+gentleman.  Why not?
+
+  "'Rash, fruitless war, from wanton glory waged,
+  Is only splendid murder,'
+
+as Thomson very truly remarks.  Yet even war has its laws."
+
+"Most certainly.  And Commodore Miller and his officers
+possess a right to parole.  Miller is one of the ablest men in the
+navy of the United States," declared the young sailor.
+
+"Ah--possibly that's where the difficulty lies.  However, though
+I cannot pretend to any considerable interest, yet some I have
+with one or two very distinguished gentlemen of the British East
+India Company.  It has been my privilege to do them a service.
+Maybe Peter Norcot will prove the mouse to nibble you lions out
+of your granite cage.  Who can tell?  You have my word of
+honour that I will endeavour to better your lot."
+
+At friendship so gratuitous, Cecil Stark found himself much
+moved.  He hurried forward and shook Peter very warmly by
+the hand.
+
+"Thank you, thank you with all my heart and soul; and thank
+God for sending you," he said.  "'Tis not only for myself I speak,
+but for better men.  Miller is not young, and this terrible place
+is making him old and infirm before his time."
+
+"Well, I'll see; and recollect that I'm doing good for evil.
+My mistress owes you little thanks, Mr. Stark, and I still less.
+But all's well that ends in Christian charity."
+
+"Are you going to marry that lovely young lady?" asked
+Stark.
+
+"That is my happy privilege.  What is your fate to mine?
+You suffer until the end of the war--perhaps not so long.  But
+I--Mistress Grace Malherb has transported me for life!  Tut,
+tut!  You do not see the jest?  How dense a sailor can be!
+Well, God be with you, Mr. Stark.  May you dance at her
+wedding."
+
+"'Twould be a glorious experience, Mr. Norcot.  I hope your
+fortune will prove worthy of you.  May your life be a happy and
+a blessed thing, for you are a noble man," said the youngster
+earnestly.
+
+"I will not contradict a gentleman," said Peter.  Then he
+bowed and went upon his way, to be rated and laughed at by
+Captain Cottrell for conduct the Commandant held most
+Quixotic.
+
+With great good temper, Mr. Norcot explained his theory of
+life, and denied that any human action was innocent of an
+ulterior motive.  Then, having seen the Prison, he rode on.
+But home he did not go.  His goal was Fox Tor Farm, and he
+designed to spend a couple of days there before returning to
+Chagford.
+
+Much had happened to him since his last visit, and his
+position in the Wool Factory was now supreme.  The senior
+partner--an elderly man and Peter's uncle--had fallen upon evil
+times in his home.  Finally, Mr. Norman Norcot's young wife
+ran away with a neighbouring squire; whereupon the unfortunate
+husband descended into gloom and darkness, and life grew a
+weariness to him.  At last he relinquished the burden, and,
+going upon the Moor to shoot game, he destroyed himself--an
+action that placed his nephew at the head of the famous business.
+
+Now, conscious of these new dignities, Peter proceeded towards
+Cater's Beam, and as he went he committed young Stark's
+statement to memory.
+
+"_Marblehead_ fought and defeated _Thunderbolt_.  Latter vessel
+about to strike to the American when His Majesty's ships
+_Squirrel_ and _Flying Fish_ appeared.  _Marblehead_ taken.  Parole
+denied to her officers.  Why?  Cecil Stark--related to General
+Stark, conqueror of our General Burgoyne.  Yet the pen is
+mightier than the sword, as Burgoyne knew.  Commodore Miller,
+noteworthy American sailor."
+
+In his mind Norcot was already dictating a letter to certain
+friends who possessed interest at the highest quarters, when he
+passed Siward's Cross.  Then, lifting his eyes, he saw Lovey Lee
+at work in a peat-cutting close at hand, and approached her with
+a desire to be better acquainted.
+
+"Well met, mother.  A drink of milk for a thirsty man, I pray
+you."
+
+Lovey put down the glittering peat knife with which she toiled,
+and rose to her full height.
+
+"So 'tis!  The gentleman as I seed with Grace Malherb?"
+
+"The same.  I hope I see you well."
+
+Mrs. Lee did not answer, but started to fetch the milk, and
+Peter followed her.  Presently she produced a teacup and handed
+it to him.
+
+"I thank you.  And here's a shilling; but you must let me
+have some change--sixpence at least."  This he said to try her.
+
+Bitterly disappointed, Lovey returned to her den, and while
+she was absent, Mr. Norcot, who had not drunk milk since he
+was a baby, emptied his teacup into the heather.  He was
+apparently smacking his lips when the old woman reappeared.
+
+"I've no change but these dirty coppers from the prisoners to
+Prince Town.  The hands that held 'em last was shaking with
+smallpox, but of course you won't mind," she said.
+
+"Tut, tut!  Keep them, keep them, my dear woman.  I only
+jested.  So you traffic in the prison markets with the French?"
+
+"No--the Yankees.  I understand their speech, and they've got
+more money," said Lovey, stroking the coppers.
+
+"Ah!--'tis an ill wind that blows good to nobody.  So you
+begin to get money, my poor soul?  But be very careful, I beg of
+you.
+
+  "'For Satan now is wiser than of yore,
+  And tempts by making rich, not making poor,'"
+
+
+"Rich!  Great riches mine!  Look around."
+
+"For my part I pray daily that these ghastly wars will soon be
+over," said Peter.
+
+"That's where we be of different minds, then," she answered.
+
+"Different minds and different interests, Mrs. Lee.  Well, I'm
+glad to see you again.  It may happen some day that you can do
+me a service, or I can do you one."
+
+"I see--with that maiden?"
+
+Her eyes glittered, and she pointed down the valley to Fox Tor
+Farm.
+
+"Good gracious!  No," said Peter, astonished that she had
+guessed so near his thoughts.  "The days of witchcraft and
+love-potions are past, ma'am.  Not that I want anything of that sort.
+Grace Malherb adores me."
+
+She looked at him with curiosity.
+
+"My grandson be her groom now," she said; but did not add
+that John Lee had confided to her the girl's dislike for Peter.
+
+"It is a wise and rare maiden who knows her own mind,
+mother.  I may add that 'None but the brave deserves the fair,'
+as Dryden so happily remarks.  Farewell."
+
+Lovey nodded, and he rode away.
+
+"A strong, dangerous fashion of man," she thought with her eyes
+upon him.  "An' wants my friendship for his own ends.  Well,
+my friendship is always open to the highest bidder, Lord He
+knows.  An' the maiden be going to take a bit of managing by
+the looks of it.  John Lee had more in his mind than he spoke,
+last time he comed to tell with me an' pay me half his wages."
+
+Meantime Peter trotted forward, and presently he beheld the
+raw stone walls and broken lands of the farm.  He shook his
+head at this display of much futile labour, then turned at the
+thud of galloping horses and saw his sweetheart and her groom
+approaching over the shaggy crest of the Beam.
+
+John Lee dropped back quickly as Mr. Norcot stopped, but the
+wool-stapler had sharp eyes, and he made a mental note of what
+he saw.
+
+"Well met, my lovely lady!" he cried a few minutes later.
+"Of all maidens who sat a steed none ever became one as you do!
+
+  "''Tis well in stone to have three Graces
+  With lovely limbs and lovely faces;
+  But better far, and not in stone,
+  To have the three combined in One.'
+
+Isn't that a pretty thing?  I kept it to greet you with."
+
+"Not your own, I'll wager," said Grace; "but never mind--don't
+come nearer, please; 'Cæsar,' is fidgety.  I hope that you
+are well, Peter."
+
+"Your groom was near enough as you came over the hill, my
+treasure."
+
+"Yes, 'Cæsar' knows him.  We were talking about his grandmother."
+
+"The horse's?"
+
+Peter turned and beckoned to Lee; then, as John cantered up,
+Mr. Norcot regarded him critically.
+
+"What a picture!  I never saw such a wonderfully handsome
+lad--an Apollo's face.  'Disguised like a ploughman, Love stole
+from the sky'--eh, Grace?"
+
+The heart of Miss Malherb beat fiercely, but in secret.
+
+"He's no ploughman," she answered.
+
+"I'm jealous," continued Peter.  "Tut, tut!  I feel the green-eyed
+monster's fiery breath scorching my liver!"  Then he spoke
+to the groom, who now approached.  "Give you good day, lad.
+And, John Lee, dost know that Mr. Bolitho of Ivybridge is seeking
+an underwhip for his pack of hounds?  Say the word, and I'll
+commend you."
+
+John's eyes flashed; he smiled and touched his hat.
+
+"Thank you very kindly, sir--very kindly indeed; but I'm well
+suited in Mr. Malherb's service."
+
+"You mean in Miss Malherb's, you lucky dog!" said the man of
+business.  Then he winked genially, while Lee, reddening under
+his clear brown skin, galloped forward to open a gate that led
+into the outlying lands of the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FOLLY
+
+Had Mr. Norcot heard the conversation which he
+interrupted between John Lee and Grace, it must have amazed
+him exceedingly and reminded him of his lady's youth and
+inexperience.
+
+Those most concerned knew nothing of the relation that now
+obtained between Grace and her servant, for that a daughter of his
+could look upon a groom was an idea beyond the wildest mental
+flight of Maurice Malherb; but humbler folks found themselves
+not wholly ignorant of recent developments.  Harvey Woodman
+had hinted to his wife that the girl spent a great deal of her time
+in riding with miser Lee's grandson, and Mary Woodman murmured
+in secret upon this unquiet theme with Dinah Beer.  The
+question in their minds related to Mrs. Malherb.
+
+"Ought us to tell her?" asked Mary.  "Such a good, high-minded
+lady as her be.  An' Miss Gracie--so promising as a
+March calf, bless her."
+
+"'Tis a hard thing.  I've nought against the boy for my part
+either," declared Dinah.  "He's civil an' smart, an' his face would
+soften a stone.  But they'm both young, an', loramercy! what
+Nature teaches boys an' girls ban't wisdom, for sartain!  Mr. Norcot
+will never come it over her, for she hates him.  Her told
+me once, when I catched her crying all alone, poor maiden, that
+she couldn't abide his shadow, an' when I said as her parents
+knowed best about it, she talked treason wi' the fire in her cheeks.
+'Love can't be made to order,' her said; an' when I telled
+something about her duty, she cut me short an' axed, 'Do you love
+your Richard, Dinah?'  'Ess fay!' I sez.  'An' if your faither
+an' mother had told you to marry some person else--what then?'
+she sez.  'There, Miss, let me get to my work,' I answered her;
+but the truth--I couldn't tell it: that me an' Dick runned an' got
+married against faither's orders, as meant for me to take a
+cordwainer to Tavistock."
+
+"Shall we tell Kekewich?" suggested Mrs. Woodman.  "For
+all his wickedness he'd never do an unwitty thing.  He's terrible
+wise--not after the event, when us all be--but in time."
+
+"I couldn't," declared Dinah.  "It do always bring a cloud to
+my heart when I see his pain-stained face--such a prophet of evil
+as he be."
+
+"He never promises any good to anybody, so he's always
+right," answered Mrs. Woodman, who was in a pessimistic vein.
+
+"My husband don't like him, no more don't I," replied the
+other woman.  "Don't say nought to him--a baggering old Job's
+comforter.  He'd get John Lee turned off without a character.
+Us have right an' reason to trust Miss Grace in such a thing.
+Only I do wish the proper one would turn up.  She never sees a
+young man but him."
+
+"A terrible pretty chap--Lee, I mean.  Have 'e noticed how
+mincing he gets in's speech?"
+
+"Dick an' your husband was laughing at him for it last night.
+He picks it up from Miss Grace."
+
+"Which shows they must have a lot to say to one another."
+
+Dinah nodded, and with an uneasy sense of guilt changed the
+conversation.  But the truth was in fact nearer their suspicions
+than they guessed, and Grace Malherb, by slow degrees, had
+come to make a close friend and confidant of John Lee.  He
+possessed other charms than beauty, for his mind was simple; his
+heart was generous; his disposition kindly.  Romance and some
+mystery hovered round him; and Grace, left much to her own
+devices, found the groom too often in her mind, his voice too
+often upon her ear.
+
+A critical conversation fell out between them upon the day of
+Norcot's return to Fox Tor Farm.  For three months Lee had
+now served his new master, and attended Grace to all parts of the
+Moor.  Sometimes Mr. Malherb accompanied these expeditions,
+and generally he superintended Grace's hurdle practice, for she
+was to hunt during the coming season; but the father did not
+always find himself at leisure to follow this pleasant task, and
+Lee, whose first duty was to wait upon Miss Malherb, went far
+afield with her alone.
+
+From indifference Grace woke to pleasure at his delicate and
+refined nature.  She encouraged him to talk, and presently heard
+as much of his scanty story as he himself knew.  The narrative
+fired her imagination, and lent him a romantic interest to her
+mind.  Gradually she divulged a few of her own secrets, and the
+less he apparently desired to know, the more she found herself
+telling him.  His courteous reserve even piqued her upon occasion.
+Once she quarrelled with him, and bade him retire.  But
+her apology upon the following day, brought him quickly to her
+side.
+
+"'Twas not indifference, God knows, Miss Grace," he told her.
+"I held back for fear I might seem too forward in your affairs.
+Every breath you draw is a thing of account to me.  I do know
+by the very light in your eyes whither your thoughts be tending--up
+or down.  An' I'm loth to call Mr. Norcot into your mind;
+for his name brings a shadow over your face, like a cloud across
+noon sunshine."
+
+"I thought you yawned yesterday, John, when I mentioned
+him.  That is what angered me."
+
+"'Yawned'!  I've never yawned since I knowed you."
+
+"Since you knew me, John.  You are so slow to mend that
+weak ending of the past tense.  'Tis a part of Devon
+speech--a thing in their blood--but not in yours."
+
+"I wish I knew all that was in my blood," he answered.
+
+"You will some day.  Light will come.  Sometimes I think old
+Lovey stole you, as gipsies steal little children.  'Tis monstrous to
+suppose that you are kin of hers."
+
+"Not so; her daughter was my dear good mother without a
+doubt."
+
+"'Tis strange how a man's heart warms to the very name of his
+mother, though he has never known her," said Grace.
+
+"Mine does, but I can only remember a white face and great
+frightened eyes that belonged to her.  And when I ask my granddam
+for my father, she laughs--that laugh like tin beating on
+tin--and tells me to look in the river and I'll see him."
+
+"He was a very handsome man then.  You've got about the
+most beautiful ears I ever saw on anybody."
+
+She spoke in a pensive and a critical tone with her eyes lifted
+to the hills, as though she spoke to them.
+
+"Good Lord, Miss Grace.  Have I?"
+
+And so they talked and daily drifted nearer danger.  A
+conversation of moment happened between them concerning Lovey
+Lee.  John ransacked his memory for Grace's benefit and told
+her of early recollections, of his mother's funeral, of his arrival
+with Mrs. Lee at Siward's Cross when a child, and of his first
+labours upon the Moor.
+
+"I had to collect the lichen of which they make dyes," he said;
+"then I went wool-gathering, and grew very clever at setting briars
+in the sheep-tracks.  Later I learned to plait rexens, or rushes as
+I should call 'em; then a man taught me how to ride.  And as I
+grew and got sense, my grandmother became a greater wonder
+and mystery to me.  She lived two lives, and of one I knew
+nothing.  Oftentimes I found that she went abroad by night.
+Lying in my straw near the cattle, with their sweet breath coming
+to me, I'd wake and see light in the slits of the boards overhead
+where Granny slept.  Then she would dout the flame--put it out,
+I mean--and the boards would creak and she'd come down the
+ladder and go out into the night.  'Twas moonlight she always
+chose, and once, when I was a bit of a lad, up home twelve
+years old, I reckoned I'd follow after and see what 'twas that took
+her off so secret when all things slept.  But 'twas a poor thought
+for me.  I followed 'pon a summer night in staring moonlight;
+and half a mile from Fox Tor, under which she went, my foot
+slipped where I was sneaking along a hundred yards behind her
+and I fell into a bog.  She heard me splash out of it, and afore I
+could crouch down and hide, her cat's eyes had marked me and
+she turned and catched me, breathless an' soaking wet to the
+waist."
+
+"Alack, John!  And what did she do?" asked the girl, reining
+up her horse to hear his answer.
+
+"Well, 'tisn't too strong a word to say that she very nearly
+knocked the life out of me.  She changed from a woman into
+a demon.  She screamed like to a horrid vampire, and clapper-clawed
+me from head to foot.  'You'd spy, you li'l devil!' she
+said.  'I'll larn you to peep 'pon my doings; I'll tear your liver
+out, I'll----'  Then under her blows I went off fainty, an' she
+scratched me like a cat-a-mountain, an', no doubt, left me for
+dead.  I was only a little boy, of course, and she was just the
+same as she is now, only six years stronger.  When I come to
+again she'd gone; but I thought I'd waked to die, for there was
+a dreadful bitter pang in my breast.  I crawled back to the
+cottage somehow, and next day, when she was out of the way,
+I caught a donkey she had, and got up to Prince Town.  The
+doctor at the prison by good fortune passed me as I came, and
+I made bold to tell him I was ill, and he had a look at me and
+said two of my ribs were broken.  They kept me at a cottage up
+there, where Granny was known, and 'twas a round six weeks
+afore I went back to her.  Then first thing she said was that she'd
+kill me and salt me down in her snail barrel if ever I spied on
+her again; so you may be sure I never did."
+
+The story fascinated Grace.
+
+"How you must have suffered!  But to think of the secrets
+that horrid old woman has hidden!  It makes my mouth water,
+John.  Father believes that she knows all about the Malherb
+amphora--the priceless glass vase that vanished, you know--and
+I believe she knows all about you.  These things must
+be discovered; and 'twill be your task to find them out, John
+Lee."
+
+"Ah! if I could find my father.  But that's a search I'm almost
+fearful to make.  I----"
+
+He broke off, and Grace felt the matter too delicate for
+comment.  Her interest in Lee grew daily, and, ignorant of love,
+the girl now believed her emotion towards him must be called
+by that name.  He for his part loved indeed with all his young
+heart and soul.  Care clouded his life, because he knew that he
+was wrong to think twice about his mistress.  By night, when
+alone, his courage sometimes increased; but daylight and duty
+quenched it.  Under darkness he dreamed dreams, yet when he
+rose to hear rough men laugh at his amended speech, and see
+Malherb order him hither and thither, as he ordered the rest,
+John Lee's folly stared him in the face.  He fought with himself
+to relinquish his task and depart from Fox Tor Farm; he fancied
+that he had conquered himself, and determined to go; then
+would come a long, lonely ride with Grace, and a return to vain
+unquiet hopes.  His conscience urged him away; his power of
+will proved insufficient to take him beyond temptation.  As for
+the girl, her tender feeling was an unconscious instinct of
+self-preservation.  She desired a strong protector rather than a lover;
+and he who might secure her safety was sure to win her active
+regard.  Grace's delight in John Lee, her increasing admiration
+for his goodness, honesty and chivalrous nature, she mistook for
+love.  The fatuity of such a conclusion was not impressed on
+the girl's virgin mind; and the secret of John's parentage proved
+no obstacle to attachment, but rather an incentive.  That he was
+a gentleman in every vital particular she perceived.
+
+Upon this day a barrier fell down between them.  She had
+found herself sad and weak before the approaching shadow of
+Peter Norcot; and John had waxed desperate, and forgotten
+everything in heaven and on earth but the lovely, mournful maid
+beside him.  They were but seventeen and eighteen; of the
+world they knew nothing at all; but his world was in her eyes,
+and she believed that her future welfare and hopes of happiness
+now rode at her elbow in the handsome shape of the lad.
+
+"John," she said, exactly one hour before Mr. Norcot's horse
+appeared nigh Cater's Beam--"John, he's coming to-day."
+
+"I know it.  I know the weather of your heart, Miss Grace,
+as soon as I look upon you; for the eyes are the sky of the mind."
+
+"Come closer," she answered; "come closer and comfort me."
+
+"Mr. Peter is a great man now--head of the Wool Factory,
+and worth many thousands of pounds."
+
+"Cold comfort!  If he was made of gold with diamond eyes
+he would still be Peter Norcot."
+
+"'Tis strange, but you are the only person in the world that
+don't like him."
+
+"And you," she said quickly, "you hate him too."
+
+"Yes, I hate him well enough--because he's a coward and a
+hard-hearted man at bottom to plague you so, when you've made
+it clear you cannot love him.  I hate him for that, I promise
+you.  I could believe dark things against him gladly.  Do you
+know what Tom Putt said?"
+
+"No," replied Grace.  "Not that Putt's opinion is of much
+moment save in matters of salmon."
+
+"He is courting a maiden at Chagford; and her brother--a
+man called Mason--is an outdoor servant to Mr. Norcot.  And
+last Sunday, when the women were at church, Putt had speech
+with this man, and they got merry over drink.  Tom praised
+Mr. Norcot mightily, and his servant said with great admiration
+that he believed as like as not, Mr. Peter had killed his uncle
+to get head of the Wool Factory.  Mason said he couldn't pay
+Mr. Norcot a higher compliment for skill and cleverness; but
+Tom Putt was rather afeared about it, and he's in doubt now
+whether to go on courting that man's sister."
+
+"There was a mystery," declared Grace.  "Peter Norcot last
+saw his uncle alive on the Moor.  Oh, John--to think of it!  He
+is cruel, for he sets man-traps and spring-guns in his woods.  A
+man who would do that would--he may be even a murderer!
+Under all his rhymes and nonsense he surely has a tiger's heart!"
+
+"You mustn't think of it--either that he could do so wicked
+a deed, or that you are going to marry him.  Most gentlefolks
+put man-traps in their preserves nowadays.  But, to be honest,
+he don't, for I heard him tell master he didn't last time he was
+here.  And as for you, the right man must soon come.  He----"
+
+"Stop there, John!  'Tis like your kind self to talk so to me;
+yet I know very well how it hurts you."
+
+"Sweet!" he cried.  "I have told you how I love you.  I
+couldn't choke it down longer.  And you forgave me, and pitied
+me a little.  You must let me hope and pray for the right man,
+since 'tis impossible I can ever be anything to you."
+Grace was silent, and he continued.
+
+"I've learned better since that moment.  I'm not a fool.  My
+love at least is too big a pattern to offer it to you again."
+
+"Can a man love a maid too much then?" she exclaimed.
+
+"He may love too little and so offer himself.  I love--there,
+my love's all of me.  But who am I to dare to lift eyes to
+you?"
+
+"'Tis just that, John," she said with a fluttering heart.  "Who
+are you?"
+
+"Until 'tis known----"
+
+"What difference can that make?  Can a fact not known alter
+a fact known?  Mr. Norcot taught me that much.  Facts never
+contradict themselves, he said once; and the fact is--you love
+me.  If a king was your father, you still love me; and you are
+you--honest and true, and generous.  And--and you've got a
+dear face like my dead brother's."
+
+He stared in front of him, and Grace mused over his virtues.
+
+Suddenly he spoke.
+
+"You'll make me mad again!" he cried.  "I ought to spur
+away for dear life, and for honour and right; I ought to turn my
+back and gallop to the ends of the world; but I can't--I can't
+do it--more shame to me."
+
+"You certainly love me with all your heart, John.  Well, John
+dear, I think I love you too!"
+
+"No, no," he said.  "You must not; it can't be; 'tisn't in
+sober reason."
+
+"So much more likely to be real," she answered.  "True love
+is not reasonable, John.  And you must fight a great battle for
+me, because all the world is against us."
+
+"The world--the world's here--here!  The rest I can put
+under my foot and forget.  You love me--oh!  Grace, my
+star--is it true?"
+
+"Yes, for I've never felt so before, and I've done almost everything
+but fall in love in my time.  'Tis quite a new thing--sure
+it must be love; for what other name is there to give it?  I love
+your beautiful face, and your voice, and your gentle ways; and
+I love you best of all for loving me, John."
+
+"Every living thing loves you," he said solemnly.  "Yet you
+can come to a useless, poor, humble man like me, and trust me
+with yourself!"
+
+"Yes, I trust you, John," she said with gravity equal to his.
+"I know not what may betide; but you must stand between me
+and--and that man.  Do you love me well enough to run risks
+and dangers for me?"
+
+"May time prove it!"
+
+"Your love is shield and buckler both to me," she said.
+
+"And yours such a blessing as God Almighty never poured
+into any life before," he answered earnestly.  "'Tis my prayer
+henceforth that I may lift myself up to be worthy."
+
+"I love you with all my heart, indeed.  And some day, far
+on, when the world rolls kinder and everybody's wiser, and
+Mr. Norcot is an angel or a married man--then I'll be your wife,
+John Lee."
+
+The lad appeared more weighted by this mighty promise than
+jubilant at it.
+
+"Do 'e call home all it means, my lovely?" he asked.  "Do
+'e know that your whole beautiful life rests on whether 'tis a wise
+deed or a vain one?"
+
+Grace nodded.
+
+"Love casts out all fear," she said.
+
+"Then I can only fall back upon God to be on our side," he
+answered.  "'Tis my life and light and heaven on earth to hear
+you say that.  Ay--you shall be my song for evermore.  I'll try
+to live worthy of such bounty.  There's no going back now--none,
+for I'm only flesh and blood, and Michael and all his
+angels shan't take 'e from me any more!"
+
+Before she could speak he was close at her side and she felt
+his arm about her waist, his kisses raining upon her cheeks.
+
+"For ever and ever, Grace!"
+
+"Oh yes, dear John.  Love never dies."
+
+"If we could ride away over the hills now----" he said,
+dreaming his golden dream.
+
+"We should meet Mr. Norcot, for there he comes," she
+answered.
+
+"I feel that I should like to go to him and take him out of
+his saddle and crush him like an eggshell."
+
+"My valiant sweetheart!  You may indeed have to do so some
+day.  Drop back now, dear John, and let my cheeks cool.  Oh,
+how lovely a thing it is to have this mighty secret between us!"
+
+"If I died now," he said, "I should have had far, far more
+than my share of the good of the world."
+
+"Talk not of dying.  You must live for me."
+
+"That will I--and die for you if need be."
+
+"We'll live and die together, John.  Now fall you back, my
+own dear love--else Mr. Peter will grow jealous."
+
+Thus it came about that when the manufacturer winked at
+young Lee and called him "a lucky dog," he uttered a great
+truth, although he was quite ignorant of the fact.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF MR. NORCOT
+
+A company all clad in black assembled at the dinner-table
+of Maurice Malherb.  The family still mourned their hope,
+while Mr. Norcot's loss was even more recent.  He bore himself
+with great correctness and resignation.  The narrative of his
+uncle's sensational death was held back until later in the evening;
+out a matter more pressing filled Mr. Malherb's mind, and he
+hurried the ladies from the table when dessert was done, that he
+might open his project.
+
+"How do you find Grace bear herself towards you now?"
+began the farmer abruptly, when he found himself alone with his
+future son-in-law.
+
+"Alas!  'A fellow that lives in a windmill has not a more
+whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man lodged in a
+woman.'  But I must be patient."
+
+Malherb frowned.
+
+"She's a fool--yet a fool may make the heart of the wise ache.
+Who shall escape a fool's folly if that fool be his daughter?"
+
+"Tut, tut!  Don't call her a fool.  She is young--still in her
+halcyon hours.  As Horace----"
+
+"Listen to me, Peter.  You are a reasonable man, and thank
+your God that it is so, for they grow rare.  Now you will readily
+understand my feelings when my son died."
+
+"I died myself when I pictured your sufferings, Mr. Malherb.
+
+  "'World-wasting Time, thou worker of our woes,
+  Thou keen-edged razor of our famous name.'"
+
+
+"Even so.  To be frank and avoid sentiment, I've put my life
+and soul into this place.  I've made it a strong fortress for those
+to come.  I have built and planted with my thoughts upon my
+son.  And then, while the mortar was a-drying and the young
+larches getting their first root-hold, he fell.  Think of what that
+meant to me."
+
+"My imagination can picture it.  Death is so final.  As Herrick
+says:--
+
+  "'Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never
+  Wound up again: once down he's down for ever.'
+
+I have sympathised with all my soul."
+
+"Then you must be practical and prove your sympathy.  I had
+meant to write to you, but speech is more direct, and so I waited
+until we met.  Now thus it stands.  My son has passed away;
+my daughter remains."
+
+"I have appreciated that.  There was a verse writ on the
+Duchess of St. Albans by the Earl of Halifax for the toasting-glasses
+of the Kit-Cat Club.  A word or two makes it exquisitely
+applicable:--
+
+  "'The line Malherb, so long renown'd in arms,
+  Concludes with lustre in fair Grace's charms.
+  Her conquering eyes have made their race complete:
+  They rose in valour, and in beauty set.'"
+
+
+"They mustn't set; that's the whole matter," answered Maurice
+Malherb.  "I have sworn to my heart that set they shall not.
+My son is dead; my grandson remains a possibility--nay, a
+certainty, so far as anything human can be certain."
+
+"Your grandson!  You amaze me.  Tut, tut!  Was Noel
+married?"
+
+"No!  My grandson will be your firstborn.  Where's the
+amazement in that?  Two years hence you will be the father of
+a boy; and that boy I ask of you.  Some might almost say I had
+right of possession, circumstances being what they are; but I am
+reasonable in my dealings, and just to all men.  That boy I
+ask--nay, I beg.  My heart yearns to the unborn lad.  I live in the
+future always, for 'tis both true wisdom and true happiness to
+look ahead.  The present generally proves cursedly disappointing
+to a sanguine soul.  I gave you my daughter and you give me
+your son--your firstborn son.  He will come hither; his name
+shall be Malherb; he succeeds me and founds the family which
+my own son would have founded.  You catch my sense?  'Tis
+but a link missed in the chain.  I cannot believe that I am asking
+too great a thing.  What say you?"
+
+As a man of humour, Mr. Norcot always appreciated his present
+host.  Now he kept a judicial face and laughed out of sight.  His
+eyes were grave and his forehead wrinkled.  He thought, of
+course, of Grace, but he did not mention her.
+
+"You are the most original and gifted man it has been my
+fortune to meet.  Even the crushing changes and chances of life
+leave you quite unperplexed.  You evade them in a masterly
+manner by sheer quickness of perception.  It is genius.  Positively
+you do more than deserve success: you command it."
+
+"Sleep upon the proposition, Peter, if you find it too great
+thing to decide instantly."
+
+"I see no need.  I seldom find myself in a difference of
+opinion with Maurice Malherb.  The phlegm with which I view
+the advent of this unborn man-child quite surprises me.  Your
+idea is worthy of a big heart.  I seem to feel it both just and
+honourable.  These walls must not fall into alien hands when
+your work is done.  That a son of mine should face the world
+as a Malherb and follow his grandfather's footsteps--what a
+privilege!  To be honest, I have never much desired children,
+though doubtless the bachelor's heart expands when he is
+married, and the usual result follows.  But now the case is
+altered.  Tut, tut!
+
+  "'Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
+  To teach the young idea how to shoot';
+
+and also how to ride, and to fish, and to be a gentleman.  By
+'young idea' I mean my son--your son.  Yes, your son--to
+grow as you would have him grow, in the traditions of the
+Malherbs."
+
+"Upon my soul, you might have been my son yourself!" said
+Malherb with stern exultation; "for you're the most level-headed
+man that ever I met."
+
+"I have learned from you," said Peter modestly, "life is really
+not half so difficult as people make it.  Wise sacrifice is the secret
+of success--nay, more, of happiness.  Man cannot have his way
+all round.  He doesn't grow in a flower-pot alone, but in a jungle
+of other living men and women--some stronger and some weaker
+than himself.  Then let him sacrifice where he can't succeed,
+that where he can succeed he may succeed superlatively.  Lop
+off this limb, for that stout tree will bruise it; cut out these fine
+twigs, they will never get to the sun.  But keep such and such a
+branch, for its way promises clear, and it can kill the weaker
+things if you only make it strong enough.  Limit your aspirations,
+like a gardener limits his melons; but once determine where
+lies your strength, then throw heart and nerve and every pulse of
+life that way.  Spare no pains, no brain-sweat, no toil there.  Pour
+your life's blood out for that purpose.  So you have taught me."
+
+Mr. Malherb nodded with a satisfaction hardly concealed.  It
+was a system remote from his own, as the unwavering light of
+the moon from fitful marsh fires; but Norcot knew well that he
+would not perceive the fact.
+
+"Tenacity of purpose is vital to success," the elder man
+declared.
+
+"Yes, it is so; our parts must limit our plans.  I cannot do
+much.  I have neither your intellect, nor education, nor power of
+driving many horses together; yet, what I can do--is done.  My
+subjects are few, but I have mastered them and pursued them to
+the present limits of human knowledge.  My ambitions are all
+gratified save the greatest."
+
+"And you still short of forty!  You were easily satisfied,
+Peter."
+
+"Forgive me, but you would speak with more authority on
+that point did you know what my ambitions were.  Accident
+gratified my penultimate desire two months ago.  To achieve the
+supreme place at the Wool Manufactory was impossible by my
+own act, because a human life stood between; but my uncle
+perished; and now the thing I thought would be so sweet proves
+otherwise.  'Tis a sermon on the futility of human ambition."
+
+"He was unfortunate in his wife.  You must keep that sad
+story for the drawing-room.  Annabel is most anxious to hear it.
+And your last ambition is Grace?"
+
+"She is, indeed.  She will, at least, exceed my highest hope."
+
+"Her mother presses for a season in town."
+
+"'Tis but natural that Mrs. Malherb should do so.  Then
+'farewell, a long farewell' to Peter Norcot.
+
+  "'And too, too well the fair vermilion knew
+  And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew
+  The love of every swain.'
+
+You don't read Marlowe?"
+
+"You have my word.  She might marry a Duke for that
+matter; but would a Duke make me a present of his firstborn
+son?"
+
+"One may answer with absolute certainty that he would not,
+Mr. Malherb.  In fact, the constitution of the realm--She is,
+however, of the stuff that Duchesses are made; I know that
+perfectly; while I can never hope to be more than a plain
+man--perhaps a knight and a member of Parliament, if all goes
+well--yet----"
+
+"She is yours and she'll have an uncommonly good husband,"
+said Mr. Malherb shortly.  "Now talk of the farm.  Did you
+note my sheep upon the Moor?"
+
+"I did.  They look most prosperous."
+
+"There's a rascally law here that denies me the right to pasture
+more cattle on the Forest than I can winter upon the farm.  For
+the overplus I am called to pay as though a stranger to Venville
+rights.  A monstrous injustice, as I've told 'em.  But to meet it
+I must build new great byres.  Did you note the work?"
+
+"I saw no new byres," answered Peter.
+
+"Nay--I forgot.  They are not yet begun.  But so clearly do
+I view them in my mind, that for the moment I thought they
+existed already."
+
+"You incur tremendous expenses."
+
+"Why, naturally so.  One does not come to Dartmoor empty-handed.
+To tame a desert and turn it into an important agricultural
+centre calls for capital among other things.  Now let us
+join the ladies."
+
+"Gladly," returned Mr. Norcot.  "Those are the pleasantest
+words I can hear spoken under this roof.  'Tis not always
+so--but here.  'And beauty draws us with a single hair.'  I wrote
+that to Grace when I heard that she had caught her first trout.
+She never answers my letters, by the way."
+
+Presently the visitor told of his uncle's death.  The story
+proved dramatic, and Mr. Norcot's method of delivering it was
+very deliberate and effective.  Her kinsman's unhappy end
+specially interested Annabel, who had known him intimately in
+earlier days.
+
+"You are to understand that the cloud fell upon my poor
+Uncle Norman when his wife left him.  Some might have held
+her departure a happy circumstance, seeing the light nature of
+the minx; he took his fortune differently.  To us it may seem
+strange that any circumstances would make life unendurable--apart
+from the question of morals.  Massenger has a word on
+that--a sort of answer to Hamlet.
+
+  "'This life's a fort committed to my trust,
+  Which I must not yield up till it be forced.'
+
+Poor verse, but good sense.  Well, there came a day when I
+made yet another attempt to lift my uncle from his deep despondency;
+and I thought that I had succeeded, for he consented to
+come upon the Moor and take his gun.  I was to fish; he proposed
+to shoot duck--his favourite amusement in the old times.  I
+rejoiced, little guessing his dark purpose.  Indeed, who could
+have done so with a mind so lofty?  What does Blair say in
+'The Grave'?
+
+  "'Self-murder!  Name it not; our island's shame;
+  That makes her the reproach of neighb'ring states.'
+
+It should be looked into, for the crime grows appallingly common.
+But a female is too often at the bottom of it.  My uncle
+exhibited the utmost bitterness when his wife ran away from him.
+'Women are all alike,' he said to me; and when a man says that,
+you know his luck has been to meet the exception.  Never did
+Norman Norcot touch upon the deed in his mind, however,
+though Parson Haymes has since told me that upon one occasion
+he found it his duty severely to reprove my uncle for ideas
+favourable and lenient to suicide.
+
+"To resume, he threw off dull care, as I fondly supposed, and
+went to the Moor for a day's holiday along with me.  I took my
+man, Reginald Mason; while a lad accompanied my uncle.  Our
+plan was that I should fish the River Teign where it runs into
+the central vastness of the Moor beneath Sittaford Tor; while he
+proposed to shoot up the valley of the little Wallabrook, a stream
+that rises in the marshes beneath Wattern and joins the Teign
+near Scorhill.  We were to meet at a lone dwelling by Teign
+Head, where lives a shepherd.  There we designed to take
+luncheon; and my sister Gertrude had packed a goodly basket
+with such delicacies as we knew that our uncle most esteemed.
+There was a bottle of French burgundy at my order.  ''Tis bad
+for him,' said Gertrude.  'I know it,' I replied, 'but 'twill do him
+no hurt for once after hard exercise.'
+
+"Mason left me at the junction of Teign and Wallabrook, and
+proceeded up the river to the place where we were to lunch three
+hours later.  The boy, with uncle's great red dog and little black
+spaniel, went up to the head of the lesser stream, for he told this
+lad to work down towards him, and drive any birds that might
+rise into the lower reaches of the river.  This plan Uncle Norman
+proposed, and I wondered at the time that he should make
+arrangements so unusual.  For myself, I set up my rod and was
+a little impatient to get at the trout, for there chanced to be a
+good morning rise.  But my uncle desired me to stop with him
+for a while, and of course I did so.
+
+"At last we parted, and he made no ado about leave-taking,
+but compared his timepiece with mine and promised to be
+punctual at the luncheon tryst.  I wetted my fly and had moved
+a hundred yards when he called me back and asked me for some
+string.  'My bootlace has broken,' he said.  I had no such thing
+upon me, but cut off a yard of my line; then restored the cast
+of flies and left him apparently putting his boot in order.  I
+never saw him again alive.  When I had reached what I call
+'the pool,' where Teign lies in long, still reaches between two
+waterfalls, I thought that I heard the faint report of a gun; and
+I smiled with satisfaction, little dreaming what had occurred.
+
+"Punctual to the appointed time, I met Mason at Teign Head
+cot.  But my uncle did not appear.  An hour we waited; then
+came the boy and the dogs.  The lad had also heard one report
+of a distant fowling-piece, but he had worked all the way down
+to our starting-place without seeing his master.
+
+"Still I found myself not anxious.  I partook of food, then
+went down the valley expecting to meet him at every turn.  At
+last I reached the place where we had parted, and then Mason
+and the dogs together made that terrible discovery.  You know
+the rest.  My unhappy relative was reduced to the primal, 'porcelain
+clay of human kind.'  He had slain himself by putting his
+weapon to his throat and pulling the trigger with his foot.  My
+fishing-line had been used for that terrible purpose.
+
+"'Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace,' says Dryden.
+Before set of sun, as though carried on magic pinions, the whole
+little world of Chagford knew what had happened.  It was a very
+trying time for me.  My spirit sank.  But for thoughts of Fox
+Tor Farm I could have relinquished my new responsibilities and
+envied the eternal rest of the dead.  I felt most dreadfully
+unsettled.  Nothing mattered.  The dubiety of mundane affairs
+was much borne in upon me.  Reflections concerning the shortness
+and darkness of man's days crowded down like a fog upon
+my spirit.  I felt as I never yet had felt, that
+
+  "'The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.'
+
+Dryden again.
+
+"There he lay in his life's blood--extinct and cold as ice.  He
+had chosen to destroy himself within a hollow worked by the
+old-time miners.  Great deliberation and forethought clearly
+marked his actions.  Yet I am thankful that they brought it in
+as insanity; and, for my part, I am positive that the dear
+gentleman's mind had given way under his misfortunes.  But there is
+no marrying nor giving in marriage where he is now."
+
+Mrs. Malherb wept silently as Peter finished his story.  Then
+her husband spoke.
+
+"He was a coward, and a coward is better out of the way.
+No human tribulations can justify the evasion of suicide.  The
+man's duty had been to follow them, find his false lady, and,
+with proper formality, blow her lover's brains out, not his own.
+Go to the piano, Grace."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SEVEN FAIL
+
+That night the weather changed from fair to foul.  Dense
+vapours descended upon the Moor, driving mists wrapped
+hill and valley; scarce a mountain thrust its crown above the
+gloom.  For two days the rain prevailed and Grace was in some
+fear that the change would delay Peter Norcot and lengthen his
+stay at Fox Tor Farm; but when she whispered that belief to
+Kekewich in the breakfast parlour on the morning of their visitor's
+departure, the old man showed no fear.
+
+"He'll go.  He'm not the sort to change his plans for a scat
+o' rain.  You'll be rids of him by noon."
+
+"Oh Kek, when shall I be rids of him altogether?"
+
+"'Twill be wiser to get rids of your dislike of the gentleman,
+Miss Grace.  Master means to see you married by next
+Whitsuntide."
+
+"Somebody will have to run away with me."
+
+"There's many would be very willing, I doubt not.  But them
+as runs away with a maid, will often run away from her come
+presently.  In this here vale o' tears, the hard deed be the wisest,
+nine times out o' ten.  You'm so butivul as a painted picture;
+but your sort is often miserable in their lives, just because 'love'
+be the first thought and only thought in every heart as sees 'em.
+So you pretty ones get to think that love be the sole thing as
+matters."
+
+"I'm sure I don't, then; at least--I--oh, why do fathers plot
+and plan for us so?  Is it right?  Is it fair?"
+
+"A grown-up faither must be wiser than a young giglet not out
+of her teens."
+
+"Where's the wisdom of----?" began Grace; but her mother
+appeared at this moment, and Mr. Norcot followed with the
+master of Fox Tor Farm.
+
+After breakfast the weather mended, and Malherb insisted that
+Peter should ride round the estate with him--a performance of
+which they had been disappointed on the previous day.  Norcot
+obeyed and admired all things, but he ventured to doubt whether
+a plan for bringing water from a spring by way of an open conduit
+would serve the purpose in winter.
+
+"It is like to freeze or choke with snow," he said.
+
+"Nonsense!" answered Malherb.  "Everybody here is always
+whining about what will happen come winter.  Did not I see last
+winter here myself?"
+
+"A very unusually mild one."
+
+"Well, I don't fear it.  But my men shiver at the name of it.
+It haunts their summer.  They begin to see the phantom of it
+before September.  Woodman and Beer are always crying about
+it.  Is it not so, man?"
+
+He addressed Mr. Beer, who was ploughing up potatoes with
+a yoke of oxen.  The stalks had been drawn and collected in
+huge heaps, and now, with his coulter held close on the left of
+each row, Richard flung up fine tubers at every step, while Tom
+Putt, Mark Bickford, and several women, specially engaged for
+this important business, followed and filled the carts.
+
+The crop was heavy, and Mr. Malherb regarded it triumphantly.
+
+"These will astonish some of our neighbours, I fancy," he
+remarked.
+
+"You must have brought this land with you!" commented
+Peter; and the farmer was constrained to admit that the soil had
+called for costly preparation.
+
+The weather broke anon, and before midday the mist lifted
+sluggishly to the crowns of the hills, sulked there awhile, then
+prepared to roll down again.
+
+At his parting meal Norcot had some speech with Grace and,
+afterwards, succeeded in winning a little conversation with her
+alone.  She showed indifference and impatience.  Then he
+interested her by describing his visit to Prince Town.
+
+"The hero of the chisel honoured me with his attention.  I
+am to do him a service if I can.  He is a gentleman from the
+State of Vermont.  He congratulated me on my fortune and I
+expressed a hope that he might be at your wedding.  If I win
+his parole for him, it is quite possible that he may be."
+
+"I am resolved with all my soul and all my strength never,
+never to marry you, Peter; and you know it; and you are
+ungenerous and cruel to press it."
+
+Mr. Norcot nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"Nothing in the world like a hearty resolution," he answered.
+"'I have seen a woman resolve to be in the wrong all the days
+of her life; and by the help of her resolution, she has kept her
+word to a tittle.'  But not so Grace Malherb.  She is too sensible
+for that.  I can leave my future happiness with absolute
+confidence in her little hands."
+
+"My happiness is of no account!"
+
+"Your happiness is my own.  But let us return to Cecil Stark.
+A handsome and a gallant lad.  He and his companions should
+enjoy parole without a doubt; and it may be that I shall assist
+them in that direction."
+
+"You're a fool for your pains," declared Maurice Malherb, who
+entered at this moment.  "Are there not enough of his kidney
+quartered all round about at Moreton, Tavistock, Ashburton and
+elsewhere?  Certain of the Americans have broken their parole as
+it is.  Conceive, if you can, the mind capable of such a crime.
+A dog has more sense of honour than these people."
+
+"There are both heroes and rascals among them as amongst us
+all.  You know my weakness for physical perfection.  He was
+such a magnificent lad--Stark, I mean.  And sailors always get
+upon the blind side of me.  I find them so sterling and so
+simple.  Of course, 'they that go down to the sea in ships,
+that do their business in great waters,' surprise one, since you
+might suppose that no man of intelligence would willingly select
+such a deplorable profession; yet I like 'em for their modesty and
+humble behaviour.  I shall release Commodore Miller and the
+rest, I believe, if Lord Hamilton prove still my friend.  He is
+_persona grata_ with the Regent."
+
+"And so is Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt at Tor Royal.  I am almost
+minded to pit my influence against yours," said Malherb, half in
+jest, half in earnest.  "I am myself privileged to know the Duke
+of Clarence, and at his table I was once honoured by meeting the
+Prince and received some flattering attention from him when he
+learned that I was a friend of Tyrwhitt."
+
+"Oh, dad, don't!" pleaded Grace.  "Let Peter free them if he
+can."
+
+"And what interest have you in the matter, my dear?"
+
+"Why, didn't the young man nearly knock my brains out?
+I have every right to be interested," declared his daughter.
+
+Anon, Mr. Norcot set off for Chagford, and Grace, yielding to
+her father's wish, rode with him for some miles.  Behind them
+followed John Lee and Thomas Putt.  The former had come
+to escort Grace home again; the latter carried Mr. Norcot's
+luggage.  As for Lee, Peter's well-knit figure and prosperous mien
+quite filled the forefront of his thoughts.  His own helplessness
+especially crushed him when Norcot occupied his mind, and
+while Peter and Grace exchanged ideas, John kept a dark silence
+behind them, nor could Putt win any word from him.
+
+At last Miss Malherb reached the turning-point and prepared
+to take her farewell.
+
+"I wish you could find a reason for your coldness," said
+Norcot, as they drew up on the lonely heights of Believer.  "I'm
+a logical man.  If you convinced me of error, it would be so
+different.  But I have yet to know why I shouldn't love you and
+why you shouldn't marry me."
+
+"I don't love you."
+
+"Tut, tut!  That's nothing.  What a pitiful fellow should I be
+to let so small an accident frighten me from a noble purpose!
+Besides, 'don't' and 'won't' are very different words.  Patience
+is my strong point, and you can't remain a child for ever."
+
+"Words--words, Peter!  I often wonder what your real life is
+behind so much talking."
+
+"Marry me and find out."
+
+"Never.  You think I may love you presently.  It is absolutely
+impossible, so spare yourself the delusion, and spare me."
+
+"As to that, delusion is half the joy of life, and at least three
+parts of true love.  Hear Waller.  His address to the 'Mutable
+Fair' might do you good.
+
+  "'For still to be deluded so,
+  Is all the pleasure lovers know;
+  Who, like good falconers, take delight,
+  Not in the quarry, but the flight.'
+
+Farewell, sweet Grace, until we meet again."
+
+He bent over her hand in a very courtly fashion, and then
+set off for Chagford with Putt after him.
+
+When they were out of sight Grace turned to her lover and
+quickly felt his arm round her, his gentle kisses upon her
+cheek.
+
+"'Tis very well," she said; "but I can't live even on your
+kisses, sweetheart.  This man quite overclouds my spirit.  I gasp
+for air; I suffocate with quotations.  You'll have to run away
+with me, John."
+
+"Whither, my lovely Grace?"
+
+"Why--to your grandmother.  I'll dye myself nut-brown and
+pick snails for Lovey Lee."
+
+Than her jest nothing had better served to show young John
+the futility of his hopes.
+
+He groaned aloud.
+
+"I have been mad," he said; "each day, each hour shows me
+how mad."
+
+"Your love must find the way.  Read some of my story-books.
+I'll warrant they'll hearten you.  You are meant to do dashing
+deeds."
+
+"Life falls out so different.  What can I do?  How shall I
+set about proving that I'm worthy to tie your shoe-string?  The
+bitter truth is that I'm not."
+
+"Now I see that Mr. Norcot has oppressed you as he oppresses
+me.  I always feel not good enough, nor great enough to breathe
+the same air with him."
+
+"But he is not good, nor yet great," John answered.
+
+"Well, we stand where we did.  You must see your grandmother
+and be firm with her.  You are a man now.  Approach
+her boldly upon the subject of your father.  She knows all about
+you--more even than I do--'tis not to be endured.  And if you
+cannot win her to our side, then I must.  Just think how it
+might chance if she has the amphora!"
+
+Upon this fascinating problem they spoke at length, and with
+such earnestness, that they forgot their love affairs for full five
+minutes.  Not until familiar landmarks warned them that they
+neared their home again, did they become personal.  Then John
+Lee's soul grew glad once more, and hope woke within him at her
+voice.
+
+Peter Norcot, meantime, heard something of interest on his
+homeward way.  In a wild heath beyond Hameldon, he overtook
+two old men plodding along together, and as he possessed a
+remarkable memory, the horseman recollected one of them very
+well, and offered him greeting.
+
+"How now, Mr. 'Ha'penny for a rook, a penny for a jay'!
+How wags the world with you?  You forget me, but I remember
+Leaman Cloberry who showed me my road to Fox Tor Farm
+when I was fog-foundered a while agone."
+
+"To be sure--an' they be reaping what they sowed there by all
+accounts--I mean where I took you."
+
+"Reaping what you sowed more like," said Putt wrathfully.
+"If I'd catched you at your May-games wi' rats and moles
+up-along, I'd have broken your wicked neck--old as you be."
+
+"Stuff an' nonsense!" answered Cloberry, "I never went nigh
+the place.  'Tis Childe's Tomb I speak of, not rats an' mice.  'Tis
+pulling down of holy crosses wi'out more thought than an honest
+man would draw a turnip.  An' they lost their only son; and but
+for the mercy of God might have had their throats cut last
+night--eh, Uncle Smallridge?"
+
+"'Tis so indeed, your honour," piped Uncle.  "An' me the
+first to tell the news; for if they'd escaped, 'tis odds but they'd
+have fallen on man, woman, 'an childern; for they'm little better'n
+Red Injuns by all accounts."
+
+"What is this aged but animated earth chattering about?"
+asked Peter.
+
+"'Tis thanks to the watching Lord an' Cap'n Cottrell they
+didn't," declared Uncle.  "But they tried, an' they'd a' gotten
+their devilish contrivances all ready; but the red-coats was too
+clever for 'em; an' now 'twill be bloody backs for every one of
+'em; an' sarve 'em right, I say!"
+
+"The old chap overruns his subject, your honour," explained
+Cloberry.  "The matter be that last night but one, when the fog
+blowed up so thick an' sudden, a party of them Yankees to the
+War Prison concocted a wonnerful clever plan for escape.  In the
+thick of the dimsy light they popped over the first wall wi' a very
+nice li'l ladder all made o' rabbit wire; but somehow--God he
+knows how--afore they could scale the outer wall, up ran
+Commander Cottrell an' his valiant men, as was snugly hidden away in
+a covered shed there.  The armed sojers made every man Jack
+of 'em a prisoner in a moment.  How the plot was found out an'
+who told upon 'em ban't known; but somebody did for sure--else
+they'd a' got clean off--all seven of 'em."
+
+"Pegs! 'tis a merciful escape for Dartymoor!" said Uncle
+Smallridge.
+
+"Most interesting; but I hope 'twas not a young acquaintance
+of mine," answered Peter, "else I much fear my efforts upon his
+behalf will prove vain.  Thank you, my men, for this remarkable
+news.  Now let us sing 'Long live the King,' and Cottrell, long
+live he; and here's a trifle to cool your throats when you have
+done so."
+
+He handed a shilling to each man, and they clamoured blessings
+upon him.
+
+"Always knowed you was a gentleman.  An' may it be your
+turn next, sir," said Cloberry with great heartiness.  "I only hopes
+you'll be in a proper tight fix some of these days and 'twill be my
+fortune to pull you out!"
+
+"An' me, too," declared Uncle Smallridge, "for you'm one of
+the Lord's chosen heroes if ever I seed one.  You can take an
+old man's word for't."
+
+
+Within a fortnight, Norcot had succeeded in obtaining the
+privilege of parole for Commodore Jonathan Miller, Cecil Stark
+and William Burnham.  But the boon arrived too late, for in
+response to the order came a communication, telling how these
+officers, together with four other men, had recently been captured
+in a bold attempt to break out of the War Prison.  In what
+manner the authorities had learned their secret and hindered
+them, none knew; but the result proved definite enough; for the
+promise of parole was immediately withdrawn and all future hope
+of it denied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JOHN LEE'S FATHER
+
+A week after his latest recorded ride with Grace, John Lee
+visited Siward's Cross, to find his grandmother in a black
+and savage temper.  Not only had she lost her money, but all
+chance of making more, because the Americans now firmly
+believed that Lovey Lee was the traitress, since she alone, beside
+the Seven, knew of their project and the time determined for it.
+This woman was quite innocent; yet now, indeed, her sole regret
+centred in the fact that she had not betrayed them.  But an
+unknown spy had taken the Government's money, and was richer
+by twenty guineas, while Lovey went poorer every way.  How to
+regain the confidence of the prisoners was the problem before
+her, and she had not solved it on a day when John Lee came to
+her cabin.  With him he brought some of his wages, and the
+silver served to comfort Mrs. Lee.  She was half tempted to tell
+him her grievance, but natural caution arrested her.  She held
+her peace concerning her private affairs; then, by a sudden
+question, unconsciously led him into his.
+
+"How do Malherb get on with Norcot?  You can tell him
+from me that thicky chap be built to be his master."
+
+"'Tis the daughter he wants to master, not Mr. Malherb.
+She's promised to him.  'Tis all cut and dried in every mind but
+Miss Grace's."
+
+"They won't ax her."
+
+"To think of such a maiden being flung to a man she hates!"
+
+"Stuff!  She'll come round same as her betters afore her.
+He'll make her like him.  Ban't he made o' money?  Us all
+know that he be."
+
+"She's wept tears against him a thousand times.  She's a
+Malherb too, with all her father's strength of will and fifty times
+his sense.  She won't wed against her heart for any man."
+
+"What do you know about her heart, Jack Lee?  You'll be
+wise not to open your mouth so wide; else you'm like to lose
+your job."
+
+"I'm not blind to hideous injustice."
+
+"Nor me neither.  The man who would rob the poor would
+sell his darter to the rich.  His damn stone walls stretch out all
+around yon valleys now, an' my cows get the fat of the pasture
+no more.  I wish I could fret the flesh off his bones for it."
+
+"Mr. Malherb has got his troubles and so much the more he
+wants to have his daughter off his hands and be free of her.  The
+madness of the man!  I learned from Kekewich, who is a very
+good friend to me, that he has already asked Norcot for his
+first-born to make him master of Fox Tor in the time to come.  He
+looks that far ahead."
+
+"The fool!"
+
+"It shan't be while I live and can stand between her and the
+ruin of all her young life.  I'm a man now--I----"
+
+"Since when did you larn to talk so fine?  An' who taught 'e?"
+
+"Miss Malherb has been pleased to polish my speech.  We--we
+are very good friends, thank God."
+
+Lovey reflected over this curious remark.  Then the matter in
+her mind was suddenly echoed upon his tongue and he put the
+familiar question.
+
+"Grandmother, when are you going to tell me my father's
+name?  I weary of asking you."
+
+"You'm travelling fast," she answered; "long rides, an'
+mended speech, an' what else?  She finds you're fair to see--'tis
+natural.  Yet 'twill dash this crack-brained foolery when you
+know what you crave to know.  For years I've kept that secret,
+hoping there was money hanging to it.  But I don't see none."
+
+"'Tis your duty to tell me now that I am a man."
+
+"As to that--  Do she want to know, or do you?"
+
+"We both--at least----"
+
+She caught him up.
+
+"Ho-ho!  An' what be you to her that she should care a rush
+who your faither was?"
+
+"Well--a secret understanding----"
+
+"Unknown to her faither?"
+
+"'Tis so, but for God's sake, grandmother----"
+
+"Say it out, then, or I'll peach.  Come now----"
+
+"Will you swear before heaven to tell nobody--not a breath to
+any living soul?"
+
+"I'll swear hard and fast--may my liver rot if I whimper it,"
+said Lovey, already speculating what the lad's confession might
+be worth to Maurice Malherb.
+
+"And you'll tell me my father's name?"
+
+"As to that, yes.  We'm prone to hunger after more truth
+than's pleasant to taste.  An' what you want to know won't make
+you more light-hearted, nor yet that maiden, if she's been so daft
+as to turn her eyes to you.  Your mother was my daughter Jane.
+Your faither was Norrington Malherb, the younger brother of
+Maurice Malherb, as died long since.  So you stand cousin,
+wrong side the blanket, to that girl."
+
+She watched his face grow pale and heard him groan.
+
+"Only his faither, my old master, knowed, and that was why he
+paid me anything at all--cussed miser that he was.  You wince,
+as if I'd thrashed 'e like I did when you was a boy.  You'd
+better have bided ignorant."
+
+"No, by God!" he swore.  "'Twas right that I should know.
+My only grief is that you hid it so long.  'Twill break her heart."
+
+Lovey jeered.
+
+"If that's all your trouble, you can laugh again.  Maids as
+ban't hardly growed to see their bosoms rounded don't break
+their hearts for men.  You tell her, an' she'll find it very easy to
+forget you."
+
+"She has promised to be my wife!"
+
+"My stars!  The moonshiney madness there is in children!"
+
+"She loves me--she always will.  We can't be more than
+mistress and man now.  But she'll never think no worse of me;
+for this is no fault of mine."
+
+Lovey Lee did not answer, but her mind worked busily.  She
+was wondering whether she might be able to pluck profit out of
+this folly.
+
+"You'm a proper man--none can gainsay it.  Have 'e the
+pluck of a man?  A church service an' the mumbo-jumbo of the
+parsons never yet kept the rickets out of a weakly babe, nor
+made the child of healthy folks more fair to see.  Cuss the
+world, as must needs drag God A'mighty in by the ears to their
+twopenny-ha'penny plans an' plots an' marryings!  Nature's made
+you a fine, shapely mate for any female.  Maybe this wench----"
+
+"No," he said; "I'm a gentleman at least.  I cannot marry
+her now, and I will not.  Fate has cast me into the world and
+has given me good blood, but it has denied the only thing that
+makes blood worth having.  She can never be my wife; yet I
+may fight for her against the world; I may serve her well, please
+Heaven."
+
+"Bah!  What's the use of that knock-kneed twaddle?  'Tis for
+you to fight for yourself against the world and beat it at its own
+dirty games, not to whine about fate, just 'cause your faither an'
+mother didn't happen to be yoked but by their own healthy
+passions.  Be a man!  Ban't it better to have noble blood in 'e,
+even o' the left hand, than wake and find yourself a labourer's
+son--heir to nought?  Here's such a chance as might find you
+master of Fox Tor Farm in twenty years or less, if you was built
+of fighting stuff.  What's the bar?  None at all to any but a fool.
+There be Dukes of the Realm whose forbears comed in the
+world when a King of England cuddled an actress.  Larn what
+happens an' take a big view of things.  If you'm ashamed of
+yourself, then slink away an' cut your throat comfortable behind
+a haystack, an' get out of it.  But if there's a pinch of your
+faither in you--not to name your gran'mother--then pick up the
+cards an' play 'em for all they be worth.  Oh, I could almost
+wish I was a pretty lad like you be, to have the living of your
+life."
+
+"I'm in a maze.  I must get away with my thoughts; and I
+must speak to her."
+
+"But don't speak what I've told you.  Don't be such a born
+fool as that.  Run away with her if there's one drop of lover's
+blood in you.  Marry her; then play for Fox Tor Farm after;
+an' mind there's a lew corner by the fire for your poor starving
+gran'mother come she gets old."
+
+He left her and went out with his head hung low and abiding
+grief upon his face.  The woman's talk had not fired him; the
+thought of fighting and conquering the world did not quicken his
+pulses.  He only saw the gulf for ever fixed between himself and
+Grace Malherb, and he was crushed.  He felt not even curious
+to find out how she would receive the news.  His own mind
+assured him that his determination could not waver.  He must
+leave the farm, and that immediately.  He debated whether he
+should vanish away without a word.  But such a step appeared
+both cruel and weak.  Therefore he decided to tell Grace
+everything and then depart.
+
+Lovey Lee meantime flung herself into the matter with great
+mental zest and an itching palm.  Come what might, a lively
+promise of money rose out of this remarkable accident, and she
+foresaw encounters such as her soul loved between the strong and
+the feeble.  Peter Norcot and Maurice Malherb were upon one
+side; Grace and the boy upon the other.  Her natural instinct
+drew her to the powerful and the rich; then she reflected that in
+the long run Grace Malherb herself might prove the best mistress
+to follow.  All depended upon the young woman's attitude
+towards John Lee's information; for that he would tell her the
+truth Lovey perceived, and that the girl's decision would presently
+reach her own ears she was also assured.  Dismissing the matter,
+therefore, she returned to her former problems, and speculated
+how to convince the American prisoners that she had acted in
+good faith, and that the traitor to the enterprise must be sought
+inside the War Prison, and not outside it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GRACE MALHERB HEARS THE NEWS
+
+Harvey Woodman was ploughing with a team of six
+bullocks, and as he plodded behind them over the burnt
+ground, he sang a strange song understanded of the cattle.  It
+cheered them at their toil, and the low, monotonous notes
+sometimes broke suddenly, and leapt abruptly a whole octave upward.
+When the song stopped, the steers also stopped, nor would they
+resume their labour until the ploughman returned to his music.
+Beside Woodman tramped his son to turn the team when necessary.
+But they made poor ploughing through the heavy and
+ill-drained ground, and Maurice Malherb, who watched the
+operations from a distance, was alive to the fact.  His personal
+unwisdom prompted the enterprise, for he was engaged in
+attempting to reclaim land that defied the effort; but, as usual,
+he set all blame upon other shoulders than his own.  Now he
+approached Mr. Woodman and accosted him.
+
+"You're not getting what you might out of those brutes.  If
+you'd sing less and watch your work closer----"
+
+"Ban't that, your honour--devil a bit will they go unless a
+man chants their proper song to 'em.  'Tis the nature of the
+earth, not the cattle."
+
+"Nonsense.  The land is no worse than the rest aloft there,
+that I've drained and pared and turned into fine fallow.  The
+cattle go uneasily.  I'll wager that fool blacksmith at Prince
+Town shoed them ill."  He examined the hoof of an ox as he
+spoke.  The inside claws behind were left unprotected, but the
+outer ones had been carefully shod with iron.  Malherb
+perceived that the work was good.
+
+"Then he threw them carelessly, I'll wager.  These big steers
+should be thrown with the greatest skill."
+
+"To be just, your honour, 'twas very cleverly done, for I
+helped myself," answered Woodman.
+
+The master turned away without another word.  In his stormy
+mind of late there had been growing a darkness foreign to it.
+Dim suspicions, thrust aside only to reappear, shadowed his
+waking hours and haunted his pillow.  From cursing ill success
+he had, by rare fits and starts, risen superior to his character and
+asked himself the reason for it.  With impatience and an oath
+the answer was generally rapped out; but the question returned.
+In secret arcana of his heart, Maurice Malherb knew that he had
+acted with overmuch of haste.  Thereupon he distributed the
+blame of his enterprise right and left: and chiefly he censured
+Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, in that the knight had always prophesied
+smooth things.  Yet honesty reminded Malherb that while
+pursuing the suggestions of local men where it pleased him to do
+so, he had widely departed from the beaten track of experience
+in many directions.  He remembered a recent interview with the
+owner of Tor Royal, and the words bluntly uttered then: that in
+certain particulars of husbandry Malherb attempted the
+impossible.  The impossible, indeed, had always possessed a fatal
+charm for him.  He had of late despatched cattle to Bideford
+Fair and sheep to that at Bampton--a matter of considerable
+expense in those days.  But no prize nor commendation rewarded
+his undertaking.  He was spending money still with but meagre
+return for it.  He saw his means dwindling, and already the
+future of his family depended largely upon the success of a
+midland canal, in which Maurice Malherb, fired by glowing promises,
+had embarked a very large proportion of his capital.  Canals
+were the rage amongst speculators a hundred years ago, but few
+sensibly succeeded; many were no more than the schemes of
+rascals and existed only upon paper.
+
+Now this man, conscious of gathering troubles, lifted a corner
+of the veil that hid his spirit and looked upon himself.  The
+spectacle was disquieting and made him first impatient, then sad.
+Angry he often was, but sadness before this apparition proved
+something of a new emotion.  For a few fleeting moments he
+glimpsed the real and perceived that his own stubborn pride and
+boyish vanity were near the roots of life's repeated failures.  For
+once, in the glare of a mental lightning-flash, he saw and
+understood; then his troubled eyes caught sight of flocks feeding in
+the bosom of Cater's Beam; and Malherb's misery lifted.
+Scattered upon the hills like pearls, their fleeces washed to snowy
+whiteness by recent rain, the farmer saw his sheep; and they put
+heart into him, and dispelled the gloom begotten elsewhere.  He
+turned his back on Harvey Woodman and failure; he stopped
+his ears to the cattle song, and looked out upon the Moor.
+
+"The music of a sheep-bell rings my fortune," he reflected.
+"There lies my strength; that wool means high prosperity
+presently and an issue out of these perplexities."
+
+Now his flocks represented the counsel of other men.
+
+A moment later the master went his way with mended spirits,
+and as he entered his farmyard a grumbler met him.  Mr. Putt
+revealed a face red to his sandy locks, while the rims of his eyes
+were even pinker than usual.  Consciousness of wrong stared
+out of his face and he spoke with great feeling.
+
+"I does my stint, God He knows.  I work by night as well as
+day, but 'tis too much to be agged into a rage six times a week
+by they females, Dinah Beer an' t'other, just because I can't do
+miracles.  Ban't my fault things go awry in the fowl-house; ban't
+in me to alter the laws of nature an'----"
+
+"What's the matter?  Despite your scanty vocabularies, all
+you men take a wearisome age to say what might be said in
+a minute.  But if you had more words perhaps you would make
+shorter speeches."
+
+"Ban't vocableries at all, axing your pardon, sir," said Tom
+Putt; "'tis rats--an' their breeding is no business of mine.  I'm
+at 'em all the time wi' ferrets an' traps an' terriers; but they will
+have the chickens, for they'm legion.  But what's the sense of
+Mary Woodman using sharp words to me?  I do all that a man
+may.  Look at the barnyard door next time you pass, your
+honour, an' you'll see varmints of all sizes an' shapes nailed
+against it.  There's owls an' weasels, an' rats' tails by the score,
+an' martin-cats, an' hawks.  I can't do no more; an' Leaman
+Cloberry hisself couldn't."
+
+"Go your way.  I'm satisfied that you work hard enough.  We
+shall get 'em under presently.  As to Cloberry--the old moth-eaten
+knave--let him not show his face to me while he shoots foxes."
+
+"There was a brave gert fox round here two nights since," said
+Putt.  "I heard un bark, an' he got short in his temper, too, when
+he found the ducks was out of reach.  You could tell by the tone
+of his voice that he was using the worst language he knowed.
+An' I told Miss Grace; an' her laughed an' said she could wish
+as he'd collared hold of a good fat bird for hisself and his family."
+
+Mr. Malherb smiled grimly.
+
+"Very right and proper," he said.  "If any duck of mine will
+help a good fox to stand before hounds, he's welcome to it.
+Never touch a fox as you hope to be saved, Thomas Putt.  Thank
+the Lord cub-hunting begins in a fortnight."
+
+Cheered by this reflection, the master proceeded about his
+business, and Putt went the round of the mole-traps to find not a
+few of Mr. Cloberry's "velvet-coats" dangling from the hazel
+switches that he had set.  As he returned he met Grace about to
+start on her ride, and hearing of Mr. Putt's speech with the master,
+she bid him take to heart what her father had said.  Then, turning
+to John Lee as they trotted out of sight into the wilderness,
+she continued upon the same matter.
+
+"To think that within a few short weeks I may win my first
+brush!  But a cub's little brush--it seems so unkind to kill the
+baby things.  Still the baby hounds must be brought up in the
+way they should go--eh, John?"
+
+But the young man's thoughts were far from foxes, because he
+was now to tell his lady of the conversation with Lovey Lee.
+
+"You're sad," she said, as they rode over the Beam and
+descended into those heathery wastes that stretched south-east of
+it.  "Even the thought of my first brush wins no enthusiasm
+from you.  What's amiss, John?  I fear that Lovey----?"
+
+"Even so," he answered.  "'Twas but the day before yesterday,
+and yet it seems long years since I heard it--my death-knell."
+
+"What a word!"
+
+"The true one.  I only ask your leave to go.  Bide here I
+cannot any more."
+
+Grace looked very grave.
+
+"What dreadful thing has fallen out?" she asked.  "Whatever
+you have learned, it cannot make you other than you are.  And
+it cannot surely make you love me less."
+
+"My father was your father's brother, Grace--your Uncle
+Norrington, who died."
+
+She did not answer, but stared before her.  A flush lighted her
+cheek, but it was of exultation rather than dismay,
+"You're a Malherb!  How glorious."
+
+He shook his head very sadly.
+
+"Not I.  My mother's name and my mother's shame is all my
+portion."
+
+"Poor John--'tis hard to smart for others so.  Yet--you're
+my own cousin."
+
+"Don't think it.  These things run by law, not by blood.  I'm
+mere fatherless dust--not worthy to be trod upon by you.  I can't
+live for you now, Grace; I might die for you; 'tis the highest
+fate I hope for."
+
+She reflected for some moments, then answered--
+
+"I do not see that the case is much altered.  We had guessed
+at this, John; it hardly hurts me.  We are still as we were.  There
+is nothing between us that prevents me from being your wife."
+
+"How ignorant you are of this cold, cursed world!  You argue
+like an angel might that had never been beyond the gate of
+heaven.  But we must face facts now.  All is changed."
+
+"Except my word and yours.  I've promised to wed you; and
+a Malherb does not break promises.  Don't I love you dearly?
+Tell me that I do."
+
+"Right well I know it."
+
+"Then that's your weapon against this cold world you speak
+of.  You've got to make the world warm for yourself--and me;
+you've got to make the world forget this accident of birth.  How
+are you different?  You were born like any other.  A man may
+be born to power; but no man is born great.  'Tis but an extra
+handicap and obstacle at the start.  Oh, my brains are quick as
+lightning to-day!  You must conquer this thing, as many great
+men have; you must see that it might have been ten thousand
+times worse.  Your father was my father's favourite brother.  He
+was a soldier and died in the wars.  Now 'tis for you to make my
+father your friend.  Then he gets you a commission in the Army.
+Then you go to the wars, and--oh, no, no--to think that I can
+say that!  I who still wear black for my brother!"
+
+But he saw her vision of himself--grown great despite his birth.
+He beheld himself winning a place in the world even worthy to
+offer her.  He was young and sanguine, and her words had thrown
+a veil over the harsh truth.  Yet his spirit sank.
+
+"If such a thing could be!"
+
+"Such things have been a thousand times.  History is rich in
+them."
+
+"I might do something, yet never anything great enough to
+offer to you."
+
+"It must mean that you went far away, and I don't think I
+could let you go.  And yet----"
+
+"The thought is too grand even for hope.  Who am I that I
+should ever win a commission in His Majesty's Army?"
+
+"You are the son of a good soldier.  The time cries for
+soldiers; but no, I couldn't let you--oh, dear, gentle John, I
+couldn't.  Perchance Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt might--but I can't
+plot the details in cold blood, and I wish heartily I'd never
+thought of such a horrid idea at all.  You shall not go to the
+wars for me.  You must shine in a peaceful part."
+
+"Fighting's the only sure quick way to success in these days.
+How to get Mr. Malherb's good word?"
+
+"I've thought of that already.  I've been thinking of it ever
+since you told me, and hating myself for thinking with such a
+hard heart.  You've got a grandmother, and she is shrewdly
+suspected of a great crime.  If, indeed, she robbed dear father,
+and you could prove it----"
+
+"If I could find the amphora and bring it to him!"
+
+"You must do so!  That is what lies before you."
+
+"But it may be all a dream, Grace."
+
+"Then we must go on with the dream until we waken.  Our
+love's no dream at least, and if one way won't serve, we will seek
+another."
+
+"Honesty and right point the only way--for me: that leading
+out of your life."
+
+"You are downcast and you try to make me so; but you shall
+not succeed, I promise you.  Am I nobody, that you talk so
+easily of the road that leads away from me?  Do you want to
+be off with the old love, John?  Ah!  Now I know what
+has fallen out: you've found a pretty girl and one easier to come
+by!"
+
+"Don't--don't!  'Tis no time for jesting.  My heart's breaking
+to see my duty so cruel plain."
+
+"Your duty lies where your love is, and honour bids you keep
+your word to me before everything, John.  And if you love me
+well enough to go into the world and fight for me, you shall;
+though 'tis my heart that will break, not yours, when I think of it.
+Thus it stands: you must win my father to your way and if good
+chance helps you to bring him back his treasure, then so much
+the more quickly will you come to your reward."
+
+"It may be so.  Certainly there is some place that my
+grandmother used to haunt by night, and I know the direction."
+
+"As a child she nearly killed you for spying; now, as a man,
+you must do the like again to better purpose.  She can't whip you
+now."
+
+"You will jest."
+
+"The amphora is no jest.  Secure it, and my father is under
+an eternal obligation."
+
+"Would you have me ask for his daughter?"
+
+"No, indeed; he would fling the amphora back in your face.
+But you ask--oh, that I should say it--for a commission.  Yet,
+please God, the war will be done; and yet, again, if it is, whence
+are you going to win glory?"
+
+"Glory!"  He sighed and said no more.
+
+"To be frank," continued Grace, "dear father would not keep
+the amphora now.  He loves beautiful things, but he loves his
+farm better.  He needs money.  He looks so far ahead, that the
+present often finds him very straitened.  Just now 'tis money
+he most wants, and you have to begin the campaign by finding
+twenty thousand pounds for him."
+
+"I'll do my best--the Lord helping."
+
+"And think not, dear John, that I am light of heart because
+my tongue wags so fast.  I laugh, but my spirit is low enough
+when I remember all that these things must mean.  Your life will
+be full of fret and fever and action; I shall have nothing but
+thought and hope to fill mine."
+
+"I wish I could believe you.  Your dangers will be real ones.
+If I departed, who is to stand between you and Peter Norcot?
+Since I am to fight, 'tis your battle, not the King's, that I long to
+enter into."
+
+Grace shook her head.
+
+"Have no fear for me, John; I can take good care of myself--of
+that I do assure you.  Now tell me that no maid more practical
+and sensible and brave than I, ever set sail to face a sea of
+troubles."
+
+Then fell silence between them for a long season, and there
+was no sound but the rasp of the dry, burnt heather twigs against
+their horses' feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HANGMAN'S HOLLOW
+
+John Lee entertained a very vivid recollection of the spot
+where his grandmother had turned on a moonlit night under
+Fox Tor, and beat him for daring to follow her.  That her
+hiding-place was still the same he doubted not; and now he
+determined to track the old woman down again, but with more stealth
+and skill than had marked his boyish operations.
+
+Seven times he waited on the Moor beneath the hills, only to
+find each vigil unbroken save by the familiar shapes and voices of
+the night.  Then two moons passed and the hunting season
+opened in earnest.  It now became Lee's duty to ride his master's
+second horse, for Mr. Malherb was both a heavy weight and a
+hard rider.  As for Grace, she approached the sport with all her
+father's ardour and quickly proved herself a brave and a brilliant
+horsewoman.  Oftentimes she made John's heart sink, for she
+knew no fear; then Maurice Malherb cautioned her for incurring
+of unnecessary risk, and in private John implored her to be more
+cautious.
+
+"You are magnificent," he said.  "'Tis a grand thing to see
+Mr. Malherb's face when he watches you; but you are made of
+flesh and blood, not moonbeams; and your horse, fine though he
+is, can only do what a horse may."
+
+"'Tis so funny to hear dear father tell all men about his
+wonderful system of teaching; while the sober truth is that you
+have taught me what I know," she answered.  "Father rides well
+enough and with the courage of a lion; but you--I love to hear
+them talk of it.  Sir Thomas and the rest declare that you have
+the most perfect style on Dartmoor.  Father has to thank you for
+much.  You nurse his second horse marvellously."
+
+"He is always most generous with his praise--and his
+half-guineas.  I hate to take them," replied John.
+
+Grace Malherb got her first brush in November.  Then came
+a day when circumstances so fell out that she went to a meet with
+Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and the house party from Tor Royal.  Upon
+this occasion Mr. Malherb had business in Exeter and he rode
+thither at dawn with John Lee.  It was understood that Grace
+might spend the night with friends at Holne, some miles from
+Fox Tor Farm.
+
+An incident trivial in itself needs this much of elaboration,
+since mighty matters sprang from it.  Maurice Malherb, his
+business of purchasing a new hunter happily completed, set off
+homeward in good spirits; while John Lee followed, riding his
+own horse and leading the new one.
+
+Upon his return the master found that Grace had not come
+home; while John Lee, perceiving the night to be clear and lit by
+the moon, determined once again to keep a vigil for Lovey.  He
+tumbled into bed soon after eight o'clock, slept soundly for three
+hours, then, as he had often done of late, arose, dressed in his
+thickest attire, left the loft wherein he lived and crept out of the
+house.  Slipping from a side door, John was startled to hear
+footsteps, and, peeping cautiously over a gate that led to the
+stable-yard, he saw his master, booted and spurred.  A moment later
+Maurice Malherb led a saddled horse from the stable, mounted it
+and cantered away.
+
+John kept invisible until the other was gone; then, full of
+wonder at a circumstance quite beyond his experience, he left the
+farm and entered the Moor.  The moon shone clearly, and there
+was frost in the air.  Dew glimmered grey upon the dying herbage;
+and below in the valley waters murmured softly from a dense
+cloud of silver mist that hid them.
+
+Now the object of Malherb's secret pilgrimage was one which
+he would sooner have perished than declare.  The man's soft
+heart prompted him upon this mission; a simple matter of sentiment,
+hidden jealously from every eye, took him forth into the
+night.  The morning kiss that he gave to Grace was always formal
+and cold; and if sometimes he stroked her hair or patted her soft
+cheek, he instantly assumed an attitude of indifference or said
+some harsh word, as though contemptuous of his own weakness.
+Annabel Malherb, affectionate and warm-hearted though she was,
+possessed far more common-sense and infinitely more self-possession
+in matters of human affection than did her husband.  She
+showed all that she felt and very properly passed for a gentle and
+a tender-hearted woman; he secreted his emotions and banked up
+volcanic fires out of sight.  Thus he suffered as only those at once
+self-conscious and deeply feeling can suffer.
+
+Upon returning from Exeter, Mr. Malherb supped with his wife
+and heard how Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had called upon his homeward
+way after hunting and taken a dish of tea and a cordial.
+
+"'Twas a very good run--one hour and twenty minutes.  They
+killed upon East Dart, near Dury, and my lady Bastard had the
+brush."
+
+"What of Grace?"
+
+"Sir Thomas saw her once, well up.  Doubtless she returned
+with the Fentons to Holne.  Her things were sent in good time,
+for Dinah Beer went in to market there and took 'em with her."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," said the farmer, and spoke of other
+matters.  Yet sleep refused to close his eyes; and while Annabel
+slumbered placidly enough, well knowing that her daughter was
+safe and happy, the father, equally sure of the fact in his reason,
+found a paternal instinct above reason keeping him awake and
+restless.  He tossed to the right and left; he swore half-sleeping;
+then he started into wakefulness and saw his window full of
+moonlight.  The illumination decided him.  With a shamed face he
+stole from the side of his wife, and ten minutes later was ready
+to take the road.  Creeping out of doors, he went to the stable,
+saddled a hack and rode off towards Holne village with a sulky
+and guilty satisfaction.  The thought of any human eye upon him
+had driven him into a furious passion at once.  He was ashamed
+of himself, yet well content to be upon this business.
+
+Malherb trotted the four miles to Holne, fastened up his horse
+at the edge of a wood, and proceeded cautiously to the dwelling
+of the Fentons.  Avoiding the front of the house, he presently
+reached the back premises.  All was still, and he passed
+noiselessly to the window of the stables.  The occasional thud of
+hoofs and snort of nostrils reached him from here.  Moonlight
+illuminated the interior, and Malherb without difficulty saw what
+he wished to see.  His daughter's hunter stood comfortable and
+asleep in its stall.  For that sight alone the man had come,
+because it revealed to him how all was well with Grace.  Some
+great dog bayed, and leaped to the length of its chain with a
+rush and rattle, but before a sleepy voice from above bade it be
+silent, Malherb was far away.  He hurried back through the
+trees to his horse, then returned homewards, happy.  Other such
+human secrets as this were locked in the casket of his heart, and
+now, thinking upon the past, he remembered deeds to his account
+as a young husband and father.  He growled impatiently and
+shook his head, for it vexed him that God's self should know
+those things.
+
+Into the thread of the night's incidents Malherb anon returned,
+but for the moment it is necessary that we follow John Lee.
+Proceeding along the accustomed way, he hid closely where,
+beneath the inky blackness of a rock's shadow, it was possible for
+him to survey the shining vast, himself unseen.  The sky twinkled
+with frosty stars to the horizon; the moon sailed high overhead.
+Then, almost before he had settled to his vigil, there came a
+sound out of the night, a rhythm of feet, that bore a lean
+grey figure who seemed woven of light and mist.  It crept
+towards him; it promised to pass along the sheep-track within five
+yards of him; and Lee, with a tremor of boyish fear suddenly
+chilling his bones, shrank into the darkness and scarcely dared
+to breathe.  Then Lovey Lee went past, and the light was in her
+eyes where they glimmered out of her white face, like jewels set
+in marble.  Her breath came a little short, for she was moving
+fast.  As one in sleep she swept along, staring before her, until
+her tall shape was swallowed up again within the pearly dimness
+of the Moor.  The sound of her footsteps died upon his ear;
+the vision of her faded.
+
+John Lee gave his grandmother a few minutes' start before he
+followed with extreme caution.  For two miles he stalked the
+shadow of her, then, perceiving that she must presently enter a
+deep gorge known as Hangman's Hollow, where certain ruins of
+old mining works and blowing-houses still stood, he made a wide
+detour, mended his pace, and got to the neck of the coombe
+before her.  Here he concealed himself again beside one of the
+rotting buildings, formerly used for smelting of tin.  He hid
+behind a broken wall, and through a chink in it kept watch upon
+the ravine down which he had just hastened.  Upon his left
+yawned a disused gravel-pit, where a labourer had hanged himself
+to a rowan tree and so given this sinister name to the spot.
+Around about, dying brake-fern spread wanly under the night;
+and here and there flashed the white of a rabbit's scut as it
+bobbed from its hole to the open and back again.  On the
+watcher's right hand, deep sunk into the heather-clad earth, the
+bulk of an old blowing-house still appeared; but one side had
+bulged and broken out, so that the whole stood like a shattered
+corpse of some habitation, and shone pallid there in its pall of
+grey lichens and rusty moss.
+
+While still he panted after his run, and was vexed to see
+his breath steam into the moonlight, there came Lovey Lee
+slowly descending.  She passed him, and turned the corner of
+the ruin where two broken walls rose with a shattered alley-way
+between them.  Above towered the dome of the blowing-house;
+beneath was a wilderness of broken stone.
+
+John heard no sound, so he took off his boots, and, keeping in
+the shadow, peeped round the corner that Lovey had turned.
+But he saw nothing.  The place was a narrow cul-de-sac and no
+visible exit offered from it; yet Lovey had quite vanished.  Her
+grandson rubbed his eyes, then crept forward, and, growing
+bolder, searched every nook and cranny of the spot.  But not
+one evidence of life rewarded him.  Beneath, green sward sloped
+away at the embouchure of the combe, and a few sleeping
+sheep appeared dotted upon it, all misty and silver-grey.  No
+shadow of his mysterious grandmother was visible.  Again
+he searched without avail, then turned homeward--in haste
+to be gone.  There was upon him now a cold and crawling
+sensation of dread.  Witches and devils, hobgoblins and
+werwolves were dancing in his mind; each silent stock and stone
+that stared moon-tranced upon him seemed to hide some
+nocturnal thing of horror, some ghoul, or cacodemon.  Impish
+atoms of life twisted and wriggled under his feet; the owl's
+cry uttered words of dark meaning to him; the night opened
+sudden unexpected eyes, and spirits that he had never known
+now jostled and elbowed poor John Lee.  Even in his
+superstitious dread he felt a wave of shame when he thought of
+what Grace must say; yet he could not regain his courage
+immediately, for every time that the problem of his grandmother's
+disappearance turned uppermost in his mind there came an
+unnatural solution to it.
+
+But had John Lee waited patiently with his eyes upon the
+ruin, instead of flying so fast away, his fears had been stilled, and
+the mystery solved without any superhuman aid.  Long before
+he reached home again Lovey had already reappeared, and was
+tramping back by the way that she had come.
+
+Then the sound of a horse's feet fell suddenly upon her ear,
+and knowing that it was no wandering pony, but a mounted
+beast, she turned and saw the figure of Maurice Malherb
+approaching.  The old woman's first instinct was to secrete herself,
+but time did not allow of it.  The horseman had observed her
+and now reached her side.  Indeed, annoyance quickly gave
+place to curiosity at this extraordinary apparition of him by
+night; and he felt no less surprise on meeting the ancient woman
+thus alone at such an hour.
+
+"Lord defend us!" she cried.  "What ghost be you stealing
+here afore cock-crow thus?"
+
+"You know me well enough," he answered.  "And you, you
+old miser?  Going to visit your hoard, I'll wager--or else keeping
+an appointment with the Devil."
+
+"Ess; only I've missed my gentleman.  He's too busy to meet
+me this evening," she said; "but you'll do very well.  An' so
+you ban't weary o' Dartymoor; but love it so dearly that you
+must wander here by night as well as day?  Most of your sort
+be sick of the place before the moss begins to grow on the silly
+walls they build."
+
+"There's no shepherd for sheep like the owner of them," said
+Malherb.  "A good wether was slaughtered not long since.  I'd
+pay handsomely to know whose belly bettered by him.  There's
+a man called Jack Ketch for that work, Lovey Lee."
+
+"You be fond of promising me a halter.  See your own cursed
+temper don't thrust your head into one afore long.  You be all
+alike--your brother, an' him as be dead, an' my old skinflint
+master--robber that he was.  But 'tis idle to cuss the dust."
+
+"You've no call to curse Malherbs--you with twenty thousand
+pounds of my money stolen."
+
+"You still think as I've got you're beggaring old pot?"
+
+"I'll swear you had it; and I'd stake half its value that you
+have it yet."
+
+"An' if I had?  What better way of filling your eyes with
+twenty thousand pound all to once?"
+
+"But not your own."
+
+"Bah!  If I had it, 'twould be my own, as much as my body
+an' bones be my own--mine to make or mar--to cherish or put
+under my feet."
+
+"I'll swear your hag's eyes have mirrored it this night!" cried
+Malherb.  "I see you licking your lips as though you had just
+come from a feast."
+
+"If 'twas so, 'tis a feast as I won't ax you to share."
+
+"Nevertheless, I shall share it some day unasked."
+
+"You'm welcome; but the day you see the Malherb amphora
+again will be the last day you see anything."
+
+"You've got it then?"
+
+"Why, as to that--since there be no witness here but your
+horse--I can speak.  Ess, I've got it safe enough.  'Tis my
+family to me, my fire, my food, my heaven.  I catch heat from
+it in the cold; it feeds me when I be hungry; it fires my blood
+same as liquor would.  I hug it like a lover an' it makes me
+young again.  But you--you that have lifted walls between my
+cattle an' their best grazing ground--you that have cursed me
+and promised to hang me--you that be what is worst in every
+generation of your race rolled into one--you may ax an' pray to
+all the devils of hell for your amphora; an' they'll sooner give it
+back to you than ever I shall!"
+
+Malherb preserved a very remarkable restraint under these
+insults.
+
+"As usual, my judgment is confirmed," he said.  "You hold
+my treasure and deny me possession.  So be it.  But you must
+die some day, Lovey Lee.  Now let us discuss the future."
+
+"Never--never," she screamed.  "Die--who be you talking
+to?  I ban't built to die.  I'm all steel springs and tough as
+osiers.  Not a sense failing, an' power to do a man's work when
+I will.  I'll last out you an' your brood, never fear; I'll live to
+see your blasted walls in the dust yet an' your body resting on
+the Coffin Stone up Dartmeet Hill.  Don't fox yourself to think
+I'm going to die afore you.  An' when that time does come an'
+I know that I've got to go, I'll scat your toy to little bits--pound
+it to dust an' eat it--eat twenty thousand pounds!  I've thought
+of that--I, that live on snails an' efts, will make me such a meal
+as no human has ever made.  You!  I'd rather fling the glass
+under the hammers at the tin mine afore you should touch it or
+see it more."
+
+"A ducking-stool would do you good, you foul-mouthed old
+witch," he said.  "Be very sure your secret's out now and the
+end of you is not far off."
+
+"You're a fool to think so.  You'll tell the world I've got your
+amphora?  And I'll say I have not.  You'll say that I confessed
+to it, and I'll ax when?  You'll say upon the middle of Dartymoor
+at a moonshiney midnight!  An' the neighbours will reckon
+another fool be taking to drink to drown his troubles.  Get home
+to your wife!  Be you faithless to her, too, along of your other
+faults?  Go; throw over more crosses till the curse of God's ripe
+for you!  An' do me a hurt at your eternal peril.  Your son be
+took, but lift one finger against me, an' by the God as made us
+both evil, I'll ruin your daughter's life.  'Tis in my power to do
+it, so I can hit you harder than you can hit me."
+
+She stood still a moment, then turned her back upon him, and
+hastened down a stony place into the darkness.  He watched her
+climb out upon the other side and fade into night.  For a moment
+his rage prompted him to gallop after her, but he changed his
+mind and turned homeward.
+
+A grand problem filled the foreground of his life from that
+moment.  Daily his circumstances grew more straitened, and
+that morning he had felt shamed in secret to spend fifty guineas
+on a new hunter.  Yet now twenty thousand pounds seemed
+almost within reach again.  He doubted not that his amphora
+was hidden upon Dartmoor, and felt positive that the historical
+jewel of the Malherbs must soon return to his possession.
+Already he planned the spending of the money.
+
+In olden times this man would have thought it no sin to
+torture the truth out of Lovey Lee by rack or red-hot iron.
+Now he concerned himself with other ways of solving the problem.
+Stealthily he returned home, stalled his horse and rubbed
+it down, then crept back to bed.  His mind was occupied with
+fair means to recover his amphora.  As for the miser's threats,
+they were forgotten.  He had as yet met no woman capable
+of opposing herself successfully to his determination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FREE
+
+While John Lee carried his experience of the night to
+Grace at the first opportunity, Malherb told no man
+of the nocturnal meeting with Lovey.  He turned his secret over,
+and between intervals of hunting and of work, held deep speculation
+with himself how best to circumvent the miser.  Vaguely he
+dreamed of cunning traps and surprises, but such warfare was
+foreign to Maurice Malherb, and his mind lent itself to no subtlety
+in that sort.  Nor would he ask assistance of any man; for,
+though he thought upon Peter Norcot more than once, and might,
+indeed, have made no better choice, yet pride rebelled before the
+spectacle of himself seeking aid to outwit a woman.  That he
+would recover Lovey's stolen treasure the master felt positive;
+but no means of doing so immediately appeared.
+
+John Lee, meanwhile, had less than Malherb's knowledge in
+one direction, much more in another.  That the amphora was
+actually in his grandmother's possession he did not guess; but
+the locality of her hidden haunt he had discovered.  All that
+he knew Grace now learnt, and her mind awoke into great
+enthusiasm.
+
+"'And then she vanished'!  No, no, dear John; people don't
+vanish--not even mysterious, savage old misers like Lovey.  She
+went somewhere out of your sight and out of your reach for
+the present; but flesh and blood cannot vanish," said Grace very
+seriously.
+
+"There were witches in the Bible, and there may be on
+Dartmoor," he answered.  "Not that I'm afeared any more.  I'm
+going to hunt Hangman's Hollow every moment of my spare time
+henceforth.  All the future depends on it for me, and for you,
+and for Mr. Malherb also, since you say that without money
+things must fall out hardly in a year or so."
+
+Yet, despite John Lee's great resolutions, a chance unforeseen
+came now to thwart them, and it was many weeks before any
+human foot explored the desolate ravine that hid Lovey Lee's
+secrets.  As though to convince the master of Fox Tor Farm that
+the moor-men did well to fear winter, terrific weather fell upon the
+upland waste.  Long weeks of sulky black frost ended in white
+frost.  From lowering skies the sun crept forth above the
+undulation of Cater's Beam; but his direct rays proved powerless to
+thaw the ground.  Each night the frost bit deeper; each morning
+the cattle byres were coated with ice from the frozen breath
+of the kine.  Work was suspended, and the world seemed a
+thing perished and insensible to any further touch of life.  Then,
+alter a cloudless week, the wind, that had puffed fitfully as it
+listed, yet never found a cloud to drive along the pale azure floors
+of heaven, went north and stopped there.  Now the frost abated
+by a degree or two, but still remained severe and, from day to
+day, feathers and films of cloud swept southerly.  For some time
+these vanished before nightfall; then they increased and a few
+light snow-showers fell.  They heralded a notable and terrific
+blizzard, whose sustained fury burst upon the Moor, swallowed
+its boundaries, buried its lonely heart and piled mighty barriers
+of snow between the central waste and all civilisation.  Fox
+Tor Farm was well equipped for such a siege; but many an
+isolated homestead, now surprised by weather beyond man's
+memory to parallel, found itself much straitened until the
+thaw.
+
+At one place above all others this avalanche of snow brought
+with it deep concern and anxiety.  In the War Prison,
+Commandant Cottrell and his staff, with ten thousand men to feed,
+found great problems threatening their peace.  Supplies promised
+quickly to run short, and even the store of sealed provisions set
+aside for any possible emergency, represented little more than
+a week's fare for the hosts of Americans and French.  Within
+three days of the great isolation food was being nursed and rations
+were decreased--a hardship terrible at such a time.  But
+unutterable suffering and woe beyond words marked these black
+weeks at Prince Town.  Infinite cold settled upon the waste,
+and thousands of prisoners stuck all day to their hammocks,
+leaving them only at the hour of meals.  All buying and selling
+had been suspended, for the country-folk now possessed nothing
+they could part from.  Within the War Prison order and
+discipline were scarce maintained beneath the strain; death reigned
+at the hospital, and nimiety of human misery found an end in
+the frozen earth.
+
+The tempest that followed upon this arctic weather deeply
+affected the fortunes of the Seven.  After some weeks of
+imprisonment in the cachots, Cecil Stark and his companions
+rejoined their compatriots in Prison No. 4.  What had happened
+to defeat their scheme they knew not, and no thought of treachery
+amongst their comrades darkened a single heart, because every
+man supposed that Lovey Lee had betrayed them.  For a time
+after their failure each held aloof from the rest, since suspicious
+eyes now closely marked their actions.  Then came a meeting
+with Captain Cottrell, and immediately after their liberation, the
+three officers, Miller, Stark and Burnham, were summoned before
+the Commandant.
+
+They appeared and for the first time learnt that Peter Norcot
+had availed with the authorities.
+
+"But those who break prison would break parole," said Cottrell
+drily.  "Therefore upon my report, gentlemen, and as the result
+of your own folly, the privileges that a generous Government was
+prepared to extend to you are now denied."
+
+Commodore Miller answered for the Americans.
+
+"Little need be said to what you tell us, Captain Cottrell.
+We stand under a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Norcot, for his
+generous and disinterested effort on our behalf; and our failure
+to make good escape will not unnaturally be punished by a
+withdrawal of the privilege of parole.  One other point only of
+your remarks challenges my comment, and that I would willingly
+avoid, since it is no wish of ours to quarrel personally with any
+man in authority.  But when you say that those who would break
+prison would break parole, I declare that you speak for yourself,
+and not for these gentlemen, or for me.  We are honourable men
+and the prisoners of an honourable country, but you--by these
+words you have proclaimed yourself a mean and base soul, not
+worthy either to have the control of gentlemen, or to mingle with
+them."
+
+The Commodore spoke with calm self-restraint, and upon the
+silence that followed his rebuke struck Stark with somewhat less
+careful choice of words.
+
+"Every man has a right to regain his liberty at any cost; but
+no man has a right to tell a lie and break a solemn oath.  You
+are much to be pitied, Commandant, in that you, who call yourself
+an officer and a gentleman, can confuse such widely different
+issues."
+
+The soldier gnawed his moustache and grew red.
+
+"I stand corrected," he said.  "So many of your countrymen
+have committed this crime of breaking their parole, that I assumed
+the issues were not regarded as opposite in the American mind.
+Commodore Miller, I pray that you will accept my apologies, and
+I shall be very happy after the war is ended, to give you every
+satisfaction."
+
+"It is enough," said Miller.  "I would that you could extend
+your ready sense of justice to the parole now tended to us by
+authority; but that, of course, is a question for your personal
+judgment."
+
+"In that connection no apology is needed nor will be offered,"
+returned the other.  "Had you escaped, the onus of the achievement
+must have fallen upon my shoulders.  I had possibly been
+cashiered."
+
+"Since we are on it, Captain Cottrell," said Stark, "may I, as
+a sportsman and in good faith, inquire how you discovered our
+enterprise and knew so punctually both when and where we
+should endeavour to depart?"
+
+"What! the informer's name?  Surely you know that informers
+are sacred in this world, whatever may be their fate in the next?"
+
+"This much at least I beg you to tell us, if you hold it square
+with duty.  Was it from within or from without that we were
+struck?  We may desire to try again, and it is well to know
+friend from foe."
+
+Captain Cottrell laughed at the bold question.  He reflected
+a moment, then made reply.
+
+"You've preached me a sermon on honour, and I'll pay for
+it with a word of advice.  A man's worst foes shall be they of his
+own household.  There's a seed to sow in your heart, Mr. Stark!
+But since you will have it, then take it.  At least I trust that it
+may serve to break up a little family party of Seven which I
+hear about.  It will be better for all concerned that you respect
+the prison regulations henceforth.  Now, gentlemen, I wish you
+a very good day."
+
+In darkness and indignation they departed before this cynical
+speech.  Stark and Burnham were for disbelieving it utterly;
+Commodore Miller, more cautious and more experienced, deemed
+the assertion not one to ignore without serious reflections.
+
+"'Tis a patent lie," declared Stark.  "I marvel that you cannot
+see it, sir.  He actually dared to declare his object in uttering it.
+He wishes to separate the Seven and scatter them finally.  What
+more certain way of so doing than by making each distrust the
+rest?"
+
+"We shall only doubt each other, however, if we believe him,"
+said William Burnham.
+
+"Yet I will not say offhand that he lied," answered the
+Commodore.
+
+Thus the cloud worked to bitterness from the outset.  Four of
+the Seven, their hearts fouled by racial prejudice, swore that
+Cuffee was the culprit; while the Commodore supported poor
+Sam, and Stark staked his own honesty and honour upon the
+negro's.  Acrimonious conversations passed among them, and
+it seemed that Commandant Cottrell had fully effected his
+purpose; but then came the awful weather, and certain necessary
+relaxations called for by its severity, now drew the old friends
+together again in hope of escape.
+
+The cold had long reduced all exercise in the open, and through
+the greater part of every day the prisoners collected by thousands
+in the chambers immediately beneath the roof of each main
+building.  Here, through the windows, a wide survey of the
+surrounding country offered, and Stark and his friends often
+noted the visible contours of the land, and realised to some
+extent the accuracy of Lovey Lee's maps.  They learned also
+of a matter more interesting and nearer at hand.  The boxes
+upon the inner wall were empty, for one soldier had already
+perished of frost-bite on sentry-go, and two others were at the
+door of death.  To stand in the open air for half an hour was a
+proceeding so dangerous that the inner wall now remained
+unguarded save by its automatic protection of bells and wires.
+
+Upon the occasion of the blizzard, while yet nature waited in
+frozen silence and the north grew black at midday, six of the
+Seven, taking their lives in their hands, made a second effort to
+escape.  David Leverett alone had no share in the enterprise,
+for he was sick of a chill and kept his bed in the hospital.
+Burnham and Stark demurred whether they might in honour repeat
+their attempt without him, but Commodore Miller decided that
+the greatest good to the greatest number must determine their
+action.  They were all sailors, and failing the apparatus of a wire
+ladder, employed in their first experiment, they designed a living
+ladder that could be quickly built up of their own persons.  The
+manoeuvre was not difficult, and they practised it out of sight of
+the sentries until each man well knew his place and part in it.
+
+At the fall of evening, while yet faint grey light marked the
+western sky and the snow had only just begun to fall, many men
+went into the yards for water.  This, in the shape of ice, they
+conveyed to the prisons, and each party in turn broke a portion
+from their frozen conduits and fled back shivering into the fetid
+warmth of the great buildings.  The guards and the guarded
+alike shrank from the open air, and in that hour before the storm,
+a hundred men might have climbed out of the prison with no eye
+to mark their going.  But the weather made escape suicide; the
+north wind and the snow were the gaolers of Dartmoor for many
+a day henceforth.
+
+Separating themselves from the throng, Commodore Miller and
+his companions departed one by one and presently assembled
+behind the angle of an empty cachot.  From here they approached
+the inner wall, and, while the blood was still warm in them, set
+about their task.  The square and solid shape of James Knapps
+came first, Sam Cuffee leapt to his shoulders, Stark followed, and
+then came Burnham, while the Commodore next worked his way
+up the living ladder; and the light and weakly person of Caleb
+Carberry brought up the rear.  Once the warning bells jangled,
+but the wind swept the sound away, and no turnkey heard them.
+The darkness began to close in quickly, while far above ruddy
+splashes of light blazed like fierce eyes from the squat windows
+of the prison.
+
+The difficulty of the ascension was quickly tackled and mastered.
+With Knapps centred the chief strain, but despite his weight the
+man proved nimble enough, and though he bruised both Cuffee
+and Stark not a little as he clambered over them, soon Jimmy
+reached the top.  Then the negro, full of muffled regrets at his
+clumsy feet and hands, also went aloft, and within three minutes
+of the start the whole six had safely passed the inner wall.
+Descent from this was easy, for steps rose upon the outer side of
+it and communicated with the sentry-boxes along the top.  Now
+snow fell upon them in great solitary flakes, and they got a
+glimpse of inky cloud-banks swallowing the Moor to windward;
+then they hurried down into the great fosse beneath them, crossed
+it and prepared to scale the outer wall.
+
+Up they went, though more slowly than before, for the cold
+began to touch them.  Soon they crowded in a row aloft like
+forlorn birds; then they felt the full force of the wind, and stood
+aghast at the grim desolation spread beneath.
+
+"Get to earth, lads, while we can use our hands," shouted
+Miller.  "Once free, we'll speak a word or two as we move south.
+When we are down, each man must determine for himself his
+course of action.  We can either follow the wall round to the
+main entrance and give ourselves up to the guard again, or we
+can turn our faces to the night and trust in God."
+
+No man answered, but the living ladder was formed, and
+Knapps, taking a firm grip of the wall, lowered himself half over.
+Cuffee slipped down and held the sailor's ankles, and the others,
+one by one, thus lowered themselves to the ground.  Then
+Knapps, hanging to the full extent of his reach, let go, and those
+on the ground stood by to break his fall.
+
+Now, face to face with night and tempest, the character of
+each among that little throng appeared, stripped bare by
+circumstance.
+
+Cuffee was the first to speak.  He already wept and whined, as
+the wind cut him to the bone, and the snow sweeping horizontally
+over the heath stung through his rags.
+
+"For de lub ob Gard, sars, I'se go back afore I've froze into
+one lump ob black ice!  Oh, gemmen, we run quick, else we
+nebber run no more!"
+
+"The chances of life are small," said Miller, "and no man
+will think the worse of another if he turns to the gates.  The
+storm promises to be terrific, and though we might have reached
+Lovey Lee's cottage in weather still and clear, 'tis but a forlorn
+hope now.  We are to hold on until we strike young plantations
+of larch and beech.  These we leave on our left, and then keep
+south-east.  'Tis seeking a needle in a bottle of hay, and failure
+must mean death.  Let no man start in ignorance."
+
+"For God's sake be moving, sir," pleaded Burnham.  "Whatever
+happens, we must get abreast of the main gates.  Then
+those who will may go to the Moor.  We shall freeze here while
+we stand.  For my part I return.  Life is sweet."
+
+"An' me too," said Carberry.  "I'm fearsome of this weather.
+My lungs will fail me in a mile.  'Tain't no manner of use killing
+myself for nought.  I wants ter see the gate again.  T'other side
+the wall's only prison, but this side's death."
+
+"I'se with you, Marse Burnham and Marse Carberry," chattered
+Cuffee.  "My legs is gwine so funny, like as if dey belonged
+to some udder gemman."
+
+"It's suicide, Stark," said Burnham, as they bent forward and
+followed the wall.  The wind now shrieked past them, and the
+snow began to change its character.  It had been very thick and
+heavy, and the Moor was already an inch deep under it; but the
+flakes ceased to fall, and dwindled into an icy dust that stabbed
+like a rain of needles.  Darkness increased; only by the wall
+upon their right hands did they know their road.
+
+"My cheek him froze hard!" cried the negro.  "Oh, my poor
+mammy!"
+
+Stark, with his head down, spoke to Miller.
+
+"What do you do, sir?" he asked.  "I'm going to make a
+fight for it; but dare you?"
+
+"I'll come, lad, on one condition: that you do not stay a
+single step for me.  'Tis each for himself.  My life matters to no
+man.  And I take it into my hands with all reverence for the
+Giver.  If I die, I die a free man."
+
+"'Tis so with me," answered the younger; "none will mourn
+me, for sorrow of heirs is only laughter under a mask.  But we'll
+win, not lose.  And 'tis victory either way, whether we live or die."
+
+There remained James Knapps, and now Stark asked him his
+purpose.
+
+"Waal, I reyther guess I'll hold on," he answered.  "I ain't
+frightened of snow and never stopped hum nights when I could
+go out.  I was a trapper in the Rockies once.  This weather is
+old company, and no man kin tell what's behind sich a smother.
+Death or life, 'tis no great odds to me; so I'm for going ahead."
+
+"I hope it don't displeasure you us turning back," panted
+Caleb Carberry to Stark; "but I'm very wishful ter get home
+again some day.  I've got a wife and family in Vermont----"
+
+"Then you'd be a knave to hold on," said the other.  "I've
+got nothing in Vermont but a good solid chunk of the State
+itself.  The beavers won't miss me, nor yet the maple trees, nor
+yet my cousins, I'll swear."
+
+When the glare from a great lamp above the main entrance
+was seen across the snow, three men huddled together in an
+empty sentry-box near the gates, and three struck strongly
+forward into the south-east.  They held a steady course, and walked
+in Indian file, with the storm on their left sides.
+
+Sam Cuffee sobbed and screamed.
+
+"Poor tings, dey got der marching orders!  I nebber see
+Marse Stark any more.  I wish I born dead!"
+
+"Shut your mouth, you black scorpion," said Burnham savagely.
+His heart was with his friends, and now he smarted to think that
+he had turned.  If they lived, they would never respect him more.
+So he believed.  He had always entertained a lively jealousy
+where Stark was concerned.  He knew that his messmate was a
+better man than himself and, eaten by envy, could not pardon
+his superiority.  Now in his heart there sprang a base and fleeting
+hope that Stark had departed to die.
+
+"I'se no scorpion," answered Cuffee.  "I'se only berry dam
+miserable nigger, sar."
+
+"Be silent!  Do you want the men in the guardhouse to hear
+us?  We're to give Commodore Miller as much law as we dare
+without getting ourselves frostbitten.  Then we can ring the bell
+and sneak back to kennel--like the hounds we are."
+
+"To the cachot," said Carberry.  "I kinder guess we'll sleep
+on granite to-night.  Snow's softer and warmer, after all's said.
+But if we sleep here, you bet we shan't wake no more."
+
+"They'll have a pretty down on us now," answered Burnham.
+"We were fools not to go and die with the others."
+
+"De cachot--wid de snow coming in to bury us froo de naked
+windows!  Oh, I wish I dead and in hell--it warm dar.  I no
+care for twenty million debbils so long as dey take me into de
+warm place."
+
+"You'll be warm enough to-morrow.  They'll flog us for this
+when we refuse to say anything about the others," returned
+William Burnham.
+
+"Flogging's better'n dying.  Durn the silly monkeys--they
+might just as well have cut their throats as go," declared Carberry.
+"I dare say every doodle of 'em's dead by now.  Miller's a loss
+to the country for sartain."
+
+In silence they waited another minute; then Burnham
+addressed Sam Cuffee.
+
+"Ring the great bell, nigger; I can't lift my hand to it."
+
+Soon the three were back again within the prison walls, and as
+Carberry had expected, a cachot opened frozen jaws for them.
+Untold misery they endured, although a soldier at his own risk
+fetched them a bundle of straw to spread between their bodies
+and the stones.  Commandant Cottrell himself directed the
+punishment.
+
+"As for the others," he said, "we are well quit of the troublesome
+rascals.  They'll be out of further mischief before dawn.
+Nothing could live in this, for Satan and all his angels are loose
+to-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SNOWSTORM
+
+Now through the bursting heart of that great storm the
+American prisoners struggled on their way.  None spoke;
+for all believed that death strode beside them and came closer
+with each savage thrust of the northern wind.  About them the
+snow already lay in a heavy carpet and upon the Moor, in gorges
+and old, deep ravines, an icy dust was piling into drifts that
+would only vanish with the suns of April.  The gale blew with
+gigantic but irregular outbursts, so that it seemed as if fingers
+invisible on cruel hands stretched out of the night to tear their
+garments off them.  The spirit of the storm escaped from its icy
+chambers, swept chill around them, and each breath they drew
+cut sharp to their lungs as the men panted onward.
+
+South of Prince Town roll high and open heaths, whereon,
+under the tremendous impetus of the tempest, the snow was
+swept horizontally.  It fell, only to be gathered up again and
+launched forward in writhing wisps and veils.  Along these level
+heights Commodore Miller, Stark, and Knapps made their way;
+then when each heart sank low and every sanguine pulse was
+nearly frozen, they touched the skirts of the young plantations
+at Tor Royal and hoped again.  Half a mile distant the hospitality
+of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had been at their command, and
+the knight had gladly closed stout doors between the wanderers
+and death; but of the establishment within these snow-bound
+young forests they knew nothing.  Their thought was the cabin
+of Lovey Lee, concerning the position of which she had made
+them clear; and now they held on to the end of the wood, then
+turned a compass-point southward and faced the Moor again.
+
+Cecil Stark at length spoke, and shouted into the Commodore's
+ear.
+
+"We're on the right road.  We may pull through after all."
+
+"Save your breath and keep together," answered the older
+man.  "I have some fight in me yet."
+
+"And you, Jimmy?"
+
+"I wish I was ter prison."
+
+"Blame yourself that you're not," panted Stark.
+
+"I duz," answered the sailor.  "I s'pose there's no grizzly
+bars snooking around these parts?  I thought I squinted
+something back away."
+
+"No; but there are stone crosses; and one stands nigh Lovey
+Lee's.  Hit that and we're saved."
+
+"Miss it and--but no use to wherrit.  'Tis a very good end.  I
+knew a chap as slept hisself out of life very comfortable on such
+a night.  Narry a pang; and I found him in the morning froze
+to the marrow, and smiling about it, like he was a statue in
+church.  Better than a bagonet in your belly, anyhow."
+
+"Drop that talk, bo'sun.  We'll win yet!"
+
+They fought on silently, but the pace became slower as their
+force abated and the snow increased.  Now they felt the full
+strength of the wind, and nature instinctively made them turn
+and edge away from it.
+
+"Hold to your left, lads, or we are done for!" cried Miller.
+"Keep the wind on the port bow."
+
+"Be damned if I kin suffer it against my cheek any more,"
+answered Knapps.  "My ear and jaw are just frozen and my left
+eye's bunged up with ice."
+
+Twice more Stark addressed the sailor, but received no answer.
+Then, turning again, he found one shadow beside him instead of
+two.
+
+"Is that you, Stark?"
+
+"Ay, sir."
+
+"Where's Knapps?"
+
+"I'm afraid he's lost, sir.  He would hold off a point.  Had
+I sought him, I must have lost you."
+
+"Shout--shout with all your might.  We may save him yet."
+
+They lifted their voices, but the piping of them was gulfed in
+the roar of the wind.  The ice poured out of the darkness, and,
+despite the snow-blink, an awful circumambient gloom hid all
+things from their eyes.  Only the wan upthrown illumination at
+their feet told of the snow beneath.
+
+"I implore you to be moving, sir.  Right or wrong, we must
+hold on now," cried Stark, for he saw that his companion seemed
+to hesitate.
+
+"Knapps may be right.  Can we have got too far east?  However,
+'tis all one.  Blessed sleep's ahead, my poor boy.  'Tis good
+to die in the great Hand of God and not behind stone walls."
+
+"Don't speak of dying, Commodore.  Get closer; take my
+arm and husband your strength as you may."
+
+Stark closed up on the other's left hand between his friend
+and the weather; but Miller appreciated the action and fought
+against it.
+
+"You shall not do this for me.  I'm tougher, older, better
+seasoned!"
+
+"For love of life, speak no more," Stark answered.  "Hold
+close.  We may save each other."
+
+Now arm in arm, or sometimes hand in hand, but never apart,
+they battled through a dread hour of agony.  Often they fell and
+bruised themselves upon ice and granite; often they dropped
+headlong into some snow-hidden rift; then surmounting it, they
+struggled on again, half blind, half strangled.  Despite their
+tremendous exertions, no warmth to fight the wind, no heat of
+blood could either generate.  They froze as they fought and their
+progress became very slow.  They grew conscious of sloping
+land and passed where hills of stone rose to the right, while the
+storm, from lower levels, leapt upwards as it seemed out of some
+dark crater on the left of them.  They had missed Siward's
+Cross by miles and now wandered under Fox Tor above the
+Mire.  Each yearned to lie down and end it; and each knew
+that a longing to yield was in the heart of the other.  For a
+moment they stood in deep snow where great rocks towered and
+broke the wind.  Then Commodore Miller addressed Stark, and
+his dreamy, placid utterance sounded strange in the fury of the
+hour.  Shouts and a frenzy of fear or of energy had better,
+chimed with the free and fearful forces of the air; but the
+American spoke like a spirit and looked upon these material
+phenomena of night and tempest as one already above their
+influences and beyond their power.
+
+"'Tis a great thought that you and I are bigger than this
+weather.  A man's soul can steer through the worst storm ever
+loosed against earth--steer a straight course and fear no evil of
+earth or sea.  This dust of us will soon be ice, my lad.  We shall
+sink into this frozen wilderness as rain falls on a river; but we
+ourselves----"
+
+"Hope on, hope on," gasped the younger man.  "We'll fight
+the British weather as we've fought the British ships.  There's a
+shot in the locker yet!"
+
+They crawled forward, and Stark, himself failing slowly, well
+knew that the increasing weight upon his arm must soon bring
+him to earth with his friend.  Miller was nearly spent.  He began
+to speak fitfully, but rambled in his speech, and discussed men
+and matters beyond his companion's knowledge.  For ten minutes
+they pressed on, but advanced little more than two hundred yards
+in the time.  Snow still fell, though less heavily, and it seemed to
+Stark that the wind abated a trifle, but he could not be sure, for
+sensation was almost dead.  His legs felt nothing, even when he
+struck them against the stones.  They had followed a wide slope
+of the land, and now stood in the very shadow of death where
+Childe the Hunter's ruined cenotaph had risen, and where legend
+pointed to the sportsman's place of passing even on such a night,
+and in such an hour.
+
+There was a sudden rent in the snow-clouds at this moment, for
+out of heaven burst a blast so awful that it tore the inky curtains
+of the storm, swept the air clear along its hurricane ways and
+brought a fleeting glimmer of light to earth.  In the black chasm
+opened on high reeled suns, and the flames of bygone ages
+flashed into the eyes of dying men.  Then those silvery star-fires
+were swallowed up again, and the tempest, shrieking like a fury,
+tumbled its pall over them to lift it no more.  Yet in that blast
+another light than those of the indifferent universe had touched
+upon Cecil Stark's fainting eyes.  Dear as the smile of a friend,
+as the sound of a voice, as the hand of a man stretched to save,
+he had marked a ruddy flash from one little window high aloft on
+the western face of Fox Tor Farm.  Like a lighthouse lamp it
+hung above the chaos.  It flashed serene and steadfast; then the
+blizzard thundered down again, and it vanished behind the snow.
+
+"All's over, old fellow," said Jonathan Miller.  "I'm done
+for--fought and lost, and glad to go.  My heart's stopping.  Go
+on--good-bye."
+
+"Look, man, look!  Right ahead!  Ah! 'tis blotted again;
+but I saw it clear enough--lifted above us--a light."
+
+"I shall see it too--held out of Heaven to guide us.  God is
+kind.  The road's always clear to Him."
+
+"Be of good cheer yet!  'Twas an earthly light I saw--ruddy
+and heart-warming!  Don't--don't--give up the fight when we're
+so near--one effort more--one----"
+
+For answer the other's hand relaxed, and he fell suddenly face
+downwards.
+
+Stark instantly bent to raise his friend, but he could not.
+Himself he dropped to his knees; then, with a great struggle,
+stood again upon his freezing feet.
+
+"Go, lad--go," said the fallen man.  "By stopping you slay
+us both.  Hold on to the light if you can.  Speed--speed!
+Death is alongside now--ready to board----"
+
+Stark knew the truth of this, and, striving in vain to note some
+mark that should indicate where Miller lay, he turned whence the
+light had shone.
+
+"Trust me then.  I'll get back in time!  Don't sleep--keep
+shouting--keep shouting.  We'll save you yet!"
+
+Stark spoke cheerily as though already in the company of other
+men; but his hope perished as he turned and saw his friend a
+silent spot in the darkness--already half obliterated by snow.  A
+sob rose in the man's throat, and he felt a tear like a spark of fire
+upon his cheek.
+
+"The end of him--the cruel, bitter end of a great sailor and a
+good man.  God's curse on those that murdered him!"
+
+The cry came thickly and the shrieking wind carried it away.
+Stark staggered against the hill, sometimes upon his feet,
+sometimes on his knees.  The light gleamed fitfully and directed him
+across the storm.  Now it vanished behind curtains of snow;
+now it broke through once more, placid of flame and mellow of
+hue.  Higher it towered and higher, until it seemed to the
+wanderer immediately above him.  But even as he looked up to
+it, the sailor fell into a little rivulet and struggled with fresh
+bruises on to the further bank.  A steep slope still subtended the
+space between himself and the shining window.  The light
+beckoned him forward and forces unseen denied any further
+advance.  He could stand no longer, but grovelled on yard by
+yard.  Then a wall buried in the snow, raised a barrier,
+mountainous to his feebleness, and he remained motionless beneath it
+for a full minute.  Peace was there and delicious silence.  The
+snow warmed him; the coverlet crept up and up.  It was pulled
+over his breast, neck, head, by gentle hands.  He remembered
+his mother and her cradle-songs in his childhood.  "'Tis the
+great Mother tucking me up," he thought.  For a moment, as it
+seemed, the glow of health and vigour drove his blood along.
+Life was kissing him and saying 'good-bye.'  His eyes shut;
+all present things began to sink away out of his mind.  He
+smiled indifferently and, turning back along the pathway of
+consciousness, retraced his life's short road and passed its
+memories in final review.  He remembered the defeat of the
+_Marblehead_ and felt the sharp grief of failure.  He saw the
+'Stars and Stripes' flutter down, as the dying see their last sun
+sink; and that darkest emotion of his days reawakened now,
+mercifully held force enough to shatter the snow-trance.  He
+opened his eyes, found an impulse of restored energy from his
+short respite, saw the light clear and sharp above, and surmounted
+the stone wall, but fell prone upon the other side.  Then, with a
+sort of savage thankfulness that the last stage in the long fight
+was come, he rolled and crawled thirty yards more, and reached
+within twenty feet of Fox Tor Farm.
+
+Powerless to lift a finger more, he lay there, stared at the light
+and blinked his eyes to keep the snow out of them, that the image
+of that shining window might remain clear.  Its radiance would
+brighten his end, and the idea strangely comforted him.  His
+wits reeled again; he prayed a wild prayer: he began to long for
+life with all his might, and the desire towards it poured in a frantic
+torrent over him.  A signal set within his eyes by man smiled
+upon him, but he could not reach it.  Thrice he shouted to
+Miller to follow him; to shout for his own salvation did not
+strike his mind; and whilst he cried aloud for the third time, the
+storm, that had increased to sweep the snow clear of one bright
+window, lulled, and for a moment drew a long, sobbing breath, ere
+it shrieked again.  In that oasis of silence the man poured out
+his last cry to his friend; but only the raving voices from above
+answered it, for Miller had long passed beyond sense.
+
+And yet, behind the granite of the farm were wakeful ears.
+Aloft Grace Malherb lay sleepless, while she watched a great heap
+of snow gather upon her bedroom hearth.  The taper that was
+leading Stark to salvation beamed steadfastly to him; to Grace,
+under her blankets, it staggered and reeled and guttered, and
+fought strange draughts that crept through unknown chinks and
+crannies.  Then, the hour being eleven, there fell that awful
+simultaneous suspiration of breath in the yelling throats of the
+storm.  A mysterious silence touched the night and in the
+moment of it a human cry--wild and faint--reached the girl's
+straining ear.  No other heard it, for though Malherb walked
+below, uneasy before the onset of this hurricane, his dwelling lay
+between him and the lost man, while for the rest all that
+household slept in peace.
+
+Now did Death huddle close over Cecil Stark, hide him, muffle
+his speech, and steal his senses one by one; yet with his last
+throb of consciousness the sailor shouted on to Miller, and before
+his voice stilled and his life was in the act to close, Grace
+Malherb had reached her father where he walked and told her
+news.  He showed much doubt, yet lost not a moment, and the
+last weak cry of the man in the snow saluted Beer and Malherb as
+they crept round the southern front of the farm with a lantern.
+
+"Miller!  Miller!  Mil----!"
+
+Then they heard no more, but guided by the voice, struggled
+across the snow to it and fell over a fellow-creature.
+
+Battered, bleeding, apparently lifeless, Beer and his master
+discovered Cecil Stark; and they picked him up and thanked
+God and carried him into Fox Tor Farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A GRAVE IN THE HEATHER
+
+For two days the great blizzard continued, and Cecil Stark
+remained more or less unconscious.  Sometimes he recovered
+sufficiently to speak, and his friend's name was upon his
+tongue when he did so; but the sick man could neither frame a
+coherent sentence, nor make his desires understood to any listener.
+At length, however, he began to mend, and Maurice Malherb,
+who held himself something of a physician, pronounced that the
+lad was out of danger.  For this happy circumstance he took all
+credit to himself, but Grace declared that she it was who had
+saved the wanderer's life.  As yet she had not seen him.  Her
+mother and Dinah Beer ministered to him during his unconsciousness,
+obeyed the master in every particular, and, with most
+assiduous care, steadily nursed Cecil Stark back into life after he
+had said farewell to it.
+
+The American prisoner's return to intelligent speech brought
+no small annoyance for his host.  Stark's clothes were bought
+from a Jew pedlar, and had not betrayed him; but he made
+all clear as soon as he was able to do so; and Mr. Malherb,
+stamping into the parlour after his first conversation with the
+invalid, announced a discovery with considerable wrath.  As yet
+no news of the outer world had reached Fox Tor Farm.  It lay
+separated from all things by impenetrable barriers and drifts of
+snow.
+
+"An American!  A wretched prisoner who broke out of Prince
+Town on the night of the storm.  One Cecil Stark, by a vile
+coincidence.  Doubtless that rascal who came so near to braining
+Grace in the summer.  Himself and other blackguards climbed
+over the walls, for our sentries had been moved and wrapped in
+cotton wool, I suppose, to keep the weakly fools from freezing!
+Once in the teeth of the storm, three of the six prisoners turned
+tail and went back as fast as their legs would carry them.  Three
+held on.  One--a common sailor--was soon lost; two--this lad
+and another officer--struggled to within a hundred yards of my
+mansion.  Then the elder fell to rise no more, and the boy, with a
+last effort, reached us.  The rest you know.  Thanks to Grace
+and to me, he will regain his worthless life, and not lose a finger."
+
+"But the other poor souls--how monstrous sad to think that
+one perished almost at our doorstep!  I pray you despatch
+Beer, Woodman, and the rest instantly, dear Maurice," cried
+Mrs. Malherb.
+
+"Am I a stone?" he answered.  "Already the men and dogs
+are seeking this unfortunate creature.  But he is far beyond all
+help.  It may be that we shall not find him before the melting of
+the snows."
+
+Mr. Malherb hastened off, and Annabel, taking Grace with her,
+went to see their guest.  Young Lee had been appointed night
+nurse to the sufferer, and now John met Grace and her mother as
+they arrived.
+
+"Mr. Stark is sitting up," he said.  "He finds himself too
+weak to rise, but he awaits you very eagerly.  I hear him
+mumbling a speech that shall express his deep regret for all the
+care he has given here."
+
+"He shall say no such things," declared Mrs. Malherb; yet,
+before she could prevent it, Stark began upon the theme at his
+heart.
+
+"Forgive me, madam, for this terrible trouble that I have
+brought into your home.  I had better far have died outside it.
+Yet I bless you that I still live.  To sharp ears and generous
+courage and wonderful skill I owe my salvation, and 'tis beyond
+human power ever to thank you for such goodness.  Samaritans
+indeed have you been to me.  You have given me back my life."
+
+"Then I pray you to set a better value on it, Master Stark,"
+said Annabel, "for truly you rated it but low to venture it on such
+a hazard."
+
+"It shall be precious henceforth.  When I grow desperate I
+will consider the price of skill and trouble with which you and
+your husband have redeemed it."
+
+"And my daughter, sir; your best thanks are due to her, for
+'twas she who heard your cry in the night."
+
+Grace, gazing down, saw a strong, young face, with wild black
+hair, a powerful neck, square jaw, and clean, firm mouth.  Stark's
+countenance was very thin, and the grey eyes that burnt out of it
+appeared dim and weary.  Their lids kept falling upon them.  But
+now into his face came a flush.  He had not yet looked at Grace
+Malherb, nor did he do so now.
+
+"God bless your daughter, madam.  And have they found
+him--my friend--the Commodore?  'Twas to him I shouted, and
+forgot that the cry might reach any other listener."
+
+"I fear you must not hope----"
+
+"No, no.  I only trust that he may be found--his dust.  Oh,
+God of Mystery! to think that I led my friend directly to your
+very gates and lost him then because my senses were sealed up.
+Mayhap one word had saved him!  And such a sailor as any
+nation might take glory in!  He lies there, frozen to death;
+while I bide here alive, with angels to tend my good-for-nothing
+body."
+
+"He's gone to greater and better work, young sir," said
+Annabel.
+
+"There's no greater or better work on earth or in Heaven,
+madam, than to fight for one's country," he answered wearily.
+
+"And is not Heaven the Country of us all?  What nobler task
+than to fight for that?  You shall find there--not Frenchmen,
+nor Englishmen, nor Americans--but only happy souls at rest."
+
+"Your land has killed a great man," he said.
+
+"Alas, sir!  Of what nation on earth can less be confessed?
+The conqueror's path is often over noble corpses.  You are young
+and our terrible solitudes have not yet tamed you.  We shall see
+you again to-morrow.  Meantime John Lee and Mrs. Beer are at
+your beck and call by night and day.  And accept my earnest
+and prayerful thanksgiving that you are spared to do worthy work
+in the world."
+
+"And mine too, Mr. Stark," said Grace.
+
+Then, for the first time, he lifted his eyes to her face and
+recognised her.  Thereupon his slight colour faded away, and he
+seemed like to faint.  Instead, he braced himself, sat up, regarded
+her with deep emotion and spoke.
+
+"I remember you!  You have paid me good for evil, indeed.
+I----"
+
+But here his fortitude failed him, his spirit was shaken in
+its present feeble state, and he turned his face away to the wall.
+Annabel hastened her daughter out of the room and followed her
+immediately.
+
+"The poor young man is reduced to the utmost weakness,"
+she presently told her husband.  "He must have all the strong
+and sustaining fare that we can bestow upon him to restore his
+masculine serenity.  'Twas he whose chisel nearly destroyed dear
+Gracie, and when he saw her and thought upon it, he hid his
+face to weep.  'Twas a pitiful sight--happily only seen by
+women."
+
+"Death came so nigh that it robbed him of manhood--if
+Americans have manhood--yet just missed to grasp at his life.
+We must restore him to health and to prison as quickly as
+may be.  There is wine in my cellar--an elixir beyond reach of
+any now, for none remains in the market.  He shall be free of it.
+Yet I hate to think that even in the name of humanity we have
+suffered an American to cross this threshold."
+
+"Our country's enemy, father, not ours," said Grace.
+
+"And since when were my country's enemies not mine, chit?"
+he asked.
+
+"Yet you praised Monsieur Marliac, who is on parole at
+Ashburton, for his riding in that noble run before the ill
+weather."
+
+"His riding, yes; not him.  He happens to be a marvellous
+fine horseman with British resource and courage.  Some Englishman
+doubtless taught him.  Have done with that.  When this
+boy returned to consciousness, my first demand upon him was
+that he should give me his parole.  Needless to say, he instantly
+agreed to do so."
+
+The baying of a hound, the shrill barking of two terriers, and
+the murmur of men's voices came through the window.  Other
+sounds there were not, for the snow had long muffled up the
+earth and made its frozen surface dumb.  Glancing out of the
+casement, Malherb saw the sight that he awaited, bade Grace
+and her mother retire, then solemnly went forth uncovered to
+meet the dead.
+
+An hour before, Thomas Putt, with Beer, Harvey Woodman
+and Mark Bickford, had tramped out of doors to seek the body
+of Cecil Stark's companion.  The snow no longer fell; the sky
+was clear, yet lacked colour; the wind, sunk from its sustained
+fury, now uttered gigantic but irregular sighs and slept between
+them.  When it blew, snow-wreaths puffed aloft in little spirals,
+and deep white snow-banks slipped and cracked.  Like streams
+of ink the rivers wound beneath, and every rush and briar beside
+them bent under its proper weight of snow.  The glare of the
+earth upthrown made Mr. Putt's eyes smart.  A bitter, steely
+cold still held the Moor, and every man was wrapped up in such
+thick garments as he possessed.  Mr. Beer wore one of his wife's
+shawls wrapped round his ears, while each labourer had fashioned
+himself haybands to protect his legs.  They held their task vain,
+but hoped that the dogs might do what they could not.  The
+hound--a mastiff--rejoicing in its liberation, bellowed and
+plunged dewlap deep in the snow, while the terriers tumbled
+and rollicked after it until only their wagging tail-stumps were
+visible.
+
+Richard Beer growled at the evil times and speculated where
+the farm field-walls might lie under this universal carpet.
+
+"Us might so soon seek a storm-foundered sheep or steer as a
+man," declared Putt.  "I'll be tissicked up wi' brownkitty again
+to-night, an' nobody to care a cuss whether my breathing be hard
+or easy."
+
+"Never seed any man wi' so poor a spirit as you," answered
+Bickford.  "Once you get cold to the bone an' you haven't the
+pluck of a louse."
+
+"I'm a poor tool when I'm cold, an' I know it," admitted
+Putt.  "Now us be all getting our death for nought.  If there
+was a live party lost 'twould be differ'nt--even though he was an
+enemy of the nation.  But this here chap's been food for foxes
+these many days."
+
+"'Twas a great sign of the love o' freedom said to be born in
+'em, that they Yankees would rather take to the open on such
+a night than bide any more pent in that den of Frenchmen and
+prison evil," mused Beer.
+
+"I'm the last to blame 'em," declared Woodman.
+
+"They'm too blown up as a nation, however," added Beer.
+"'Twas a very unhandsome thing to get in holds with us just
+when we had our hands full wi' Boney."
+
+"I reckon these chaps had to do what they were told, like us,"
+declared Mark Bickford.  "They'm sailor men, so I hear, an' 'tis
+no use cussing 'em same as master do.  They be only earning
+their living.  A sailor have got to do what he'm bid, like any
+other warrior."
+
+"God's word! but he makes my blood boil, no matter how
+cold the weather be--master, I mean.  I wouldn't speak to a dog
+like he speaks to me.  The manhood in me will blaze out some
+day," declared Putt.
+
+"Then you'll get turned off," said Mr. Woodman.
+
+"'Tis very well for you; though Lord He knows how you can
+stand the mouth-speech you suffer from him in his rash moments,"
+retorted Putt.
+
+"I stand it, like a donkey eats dachells:[*] I be built to.  My
+family's always had a marvellous power of putting up with hard
+words from our betters.  Not from smaller men, mind you, nor
+yet from our equals; but what's simple impidence an' sauce not
+to be borne from the common sort, be just greatness of mind in
+the bettermost.  They don't mean nothing.  'Tis only the haughty
+blood in 'em."
+
+
+[*] _Dachells_: Thistles.
+
+
+"'Tis just their haughty blood that these here American chaps
+won't sit down under no more," declared Mr. Beer.  "There's no
+bettermost among them, so I'm told.  A man have got to work
+his way to the top.  He can't be born up top; though how it
+answers to have no gentlefolks, I ban't witty enough to guess."
+
+Malherb's great mastiff presently, by skill or accident,
+discovered the thing that these men sought.  Beside Childe's
+desolated cenotaph the hound stopped, lifted up its head and
+bayed.  Then it began to dig, and the terriers, yelping loudly,
+rushed to aid it.  The men with their shovels made quick work,
+and the corpse of Jonathan Miller lay revealed.  Neither physical
+agony nor mental grief clouded his features.  His eyes were shut;
+his countenance appeared placid under the gentle snow-slumber
+that had led him through the Valley of the Shadow.  All perceived
+that they stood before one who had been their superior.  Thomas
+Putt touched his hat to the corpse.  Beer dragged a bottle from
+his pocket, then, appreciating the futility of troubling the dead,
+prepared to put it away again with a sorrowful oath.
+
+But Bickford proposed another course.
+
+"He can't drink, poor hero, but us can.  If you've brought
+brandy, gi' me a drop, for I'm in a proper case for it.  My feet
+be just conkerbils of ice beneath me."
+
+Therefore they all drank, and Woodman spoke as his turn came
+for the bottle.
+
+"Here's to the gen'leman," said he, "an' may he be out of
+trouble for evermore."
+
+"An' here's to his wife an' family," added Beer, wiping the
+mouth of the bottle with his sleeve before he put it to his
+lips.  "You may be pretty sartain he's left a wife an' half a
+dozen, for men in new countries allus get a quiver full, according
+to the wonnerful wisdom of the Lord."
+
+"An' I'll drink to the sexton," said Bickford, "because the
+ground's froze two feet, an' the digging of this carpse's grave be
+going to fetch out a proper sweat on some man."
+
+"You take his honour's heels, will 'e, Woodman?  An' walk
+first.  Me an' Putt will hold each a shoulder.  You gather up the
+tools, Bickford, an' keep back they dogs.  Look at thicky baggering
+hound!  He knows he've done a clever thing an' wants the
+world to know it."
+
+So they returned and cast their features into a solemn mould at
+the direction of Richard Beer.
+
+"Us can't be axed to feel no more than the proper sorrow of
+man for man," he explained, "but death's death; an' it might be
+you or me as was going feet first an' shoulder high, but for the
+goodness of God an' us being Englishmen."
+
+"The poor soul's feet would make a merry-andrew sober," said
+Woodman.  "What he's suffered only him an' his Maker will
+ever know."
+
+"They'll be cured again afore his honour wants 'em," answered
+Richard Beer.  "He'll rise so well as ever he was at the Trump,
+along with the best man amongst us."
+
+That night a coffin was built and the dead American's remains
+laid with reverence therein.  A few papers and a watch were
+found in Miller's pockets, and Malherb, making a packet of them,
+handed all to the prisoner on parole.  Then, two days afterwards,
+when the weather was bright and the temperature had a little
+risen, Stark found himself strong enough to rise and creep about
+and reach the grave that had been dug for his friend.
+
+Maurice Malherb selected a resting-place upon his own
+domain; and to Bickford himself the task of sinking six feet into
+the frozen soil was allotted.  Thus within the bosom of Dartmoor,
+as many of his countrymen before him, a good and wise son of
+America was laid to rest; but his compatriots' dust mouldered
+under the prison walls; the sailor slept on the central waste.  And
+still his pall is the solemn-moving and purple shadow of the
+clouds in summer, and in winter the unstained snow; still his
+knell is sounded in the musical echo of sheep-bells, or the cry of
+birds by night.  The life and activity of Fox Tor Farm have
+vanished into the eternal past, and graves widely scattered hold
+those who buried Miller then; but none sleep so grand, so
+solitary as he in his forgotten tomb under the heather.  A repulsed
+civilisation has retreated before the severity of the land, before
+the far-flung granite, hungry peat and rough greeting of winter
+winds and storms; but these forces, harsh to living man, are the
+patient watchers beside his grave; this earth and stone he cannot
+tame, yet they open their hearts to him at the last.
+
+The American was present as chief mourner at his friend's
+interment; while Maurice Malherb read the funeral service, and
+at his order all the human life of the farm assembled beside the
+grave.  Stark, now restored to strength, exhibited no trace of
+emotion during the ceremony, and at the completion of it he
+limped homeward with Mrs. Malherb and her daughter.  This
+he did by direct command.
+
+"Your health and the weather do not permit me to allow you
+to follow your wish," his host said curtly; "but I shall be proxy
+for you in my own person."
+
+Therefore Maurice Malherb waited beside the grave alone until
+Putt and Bickford had completely filled it up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE OLD AND THE NEW
+
+In the restless eyes of Cecil Stark there seemed reflected the
+hunger, ignorance and hope of a new-born nation, together
+with the spirit of its genius and the solemn magnitude of its
+destiny.  He stood for young America; he typified that majestic
+land over which the first silver of day had broken, whose
+transcendent future, sung by the Sons of the Morning, already filled
+with music a thrilling dawn.  Dayspring had touched her eastern
+shores and now, sweeping over her virgin bosom, warmed the
+heart that beat there.  It advanced with the speed of light, and
+promised soon to illuminate her spirit, even as the sun himself
+diurnally swept her being from ocean to ocean; then passed
+beyond her Golden Gate, that he might dip in the Pacific and
+behold the horizons of the East.
+
+Against this lad's single heart and sanguine ardour now stood
+the stern figure of Maurice Malherb; and he was not the best
+type of Englishman to discuss with youthful America the questions
+of that hour.  Yet the master stood for more than British
+conservatism and prejudice.  He represented glorious traditions
+and a significant past.  Wise and tolerant exposition of their
+differences had made Stark the man's friend; rational argument
+and some allowance for the point of view had impressed this
+young heir of the future and warmed a heart already full of
+personal gratitude; but Malherb adopted an unwise position.
+Calm discussion never distinguished his methods; to find in the
+welfare and advancement of humanity at large a common ground
+for nations, was no ambition of his.  He did not point backward
+to history and invite Cecil Stark to claim his glorious birthright
+in the story of the Anglo-Saxon race--a course reasonable enough
+one hundred years ago, before the American family became
+hybrid.  He did not indicate his guest's just right, title and
+share in British story and glory; he did not remind Stark that
+he was the fellow in blood of Drake and Raleigh, of Shakespeare
+and Milton; but he denounced all Americans as traitors to their
+fatherland, spoke of the Revolution, not of the Wars of
+Independence, and blamed the New World with a rabid bitterness
+that indicated his class-attitude and justified America more
+thoroughly than any power of rhetoric or oratory could have
+done.
+
+Sometimes they agreed to differ, and dropped the subject
+without heat; more often Malherb broke off with an oath and cursed
+the weather for still keeping an enemy of England beneath his
+roof.  And yet, despite his flagrant passions and narrow sympathy,
+he won Cecil Stark, as he won many others, by some magic of
+character that rose superior to his temper and persistent pride.
+
+Once the American summed the situation in a biting phrase,
+that stuck with his country's foe long after the speaker had
+forgotten it.  They sat over their wine after dinner, and the lad
+spoke with pride of the part that a kinsman had played in the
+capture of the British General Burgoyne.
+
+"Small credit to him," declared Malherb.  "Burgoyne?  The
+man was better at making rubbishy pieces for the playhouse than
+leading an army."
+
+"But those matters that fell out after--they sum the difference--the
+fundamental differences of ideas between the respective
+countries, Mr. Malherb," said the sailor.  "Simplicity--childish
+simplicity, if you like--is our keynote, and we shall never depart
+from it back into old-world pomp.  When Burgoyne, clad in a
+magnificent uniform covered with gold lace, surrendered up his
+sword, he found the conqueror wearing an old blanket for a cloak
+and a cotton cap stuck over one ear.  There was the type of
+monarchy triumphed over by a despised but an inspired race.
+Afterwards Congress, in a sudden fit of reckless generosity,
+presented General Stark with two ells of blue and one of yellow
+cloth to make him a conqueror's coat, and six shirts of Dutch
+linen to wear under it withal!  But my father well remembered
+the general complaining when he received his nation's gift that
+the cambric for his cuffs was not provided!"
+
+"What argument do you reap from beggarly poverty, sir?"
+
+"Why, sir, who are you to flout it?  The beggars won!
+The beggars had the genius on their side.  Your country calls
+for millions on millions to grease the old, creaking wheels of
+its social and constitutional machinery before they will turn at
+all; America's unique simplicity only places a single sentinel at
+the President's door."
+
+"Our failure was an accident of men, not of system," declared
+Malherb.  "Fortune favoured a wicked cause as not seldom
+happens.  You had Washington--a man as great as a fallen
+angel; we--well, it is idle to name names to-day.  But it may
+be permitted to allude to the Howes, who sacrificed to fraternal
+affection the vital trust imposed upon them.  It is granted that
+we fought ill and taught you what to avoid; it is even allowed
+that the scholar became as skilled as the master.  Your
+experience, courage and discipline are British; your treachery and
+red-skin morality are your own.  However, the last word is not
+yet spoken.  There are yet a great many Tories in America."
+
+"Of whom I am one," declared Cecil Stark.  "Those who
+pretend to read the future," he continued, "see two great
+tendencies amongst us--one towards democracy, t'other towards
+aristocracy.  The nation may become vulgar, or it may become
+noble; but it must become great.  None can say more of our
+future than that by all laws of revealed religion and human
+history, it should be glorious so long as our aims are pure.  To
+foretell that calls for no prophet."
+
+"What religion sanctions the revolt of a child from its parent?
+You were not of age.  You had no right to think for yourselves."
+
+"The old British fallacy," answered Stark.  "Freedom of
+thought can be denied to none.  Deny all other freedom, if you
+will.  But freedom of thought is an immortal fact."
+
+"And duty to your betters is also an immortal fact.  Your
+nation--so to call it--has disgraced itself at the opening of its
+history.  It has begun its separate existence in its father's blood.
+For what prosperity and blessing shall the country seek that blots
+the first page of its history with such a crime?"
+
+"A revolt against ignorance, oppression, greed and dishonesty
+is no crime.  Your Parliament had become a hell of narrow-minded,
+cold-hearted, cynical devils, and to spurn them was a
+glorious achievement in itself, and the first step upon our path.
+Slaves do not lift their eyes to the stars and play a worthy part in
+the history of the world."
+
+"Yet those of us who visited and reported upon you before
+this war, told no great tale of progress."
+
+"No; they told lies.  They were dishonest rascals and did
+more harm than enough by their falsehoods.  You'll regret their
+deliberate mendacity in the time to come; you'll lament the
+bitterness of many broad-sheets when the weeds sown in your
+heads bear fruit in your children's hearts.  Pull them out while
+you can, if you are wise, sir.  'Tis a mad policy to leave them
+there.  Our destiny is sure as the daylight; dark clouds hang
+over yours.  You are old, we are young, yet, when an American
+is on your lips, your error is that of youth, for you are always
+hasty and intolerant when you speak of us.  It was no unnatural
+revolt of child against parent, but the noble self-assertion of a
+growing man, whose liberty, dignity and honour were threatened
+by a tyrant.  We were of your heart's blood; us you might have
+buckled to you with bonds impossible save between those of one
+race and one mother.  But you spurned us; our welfare was of
+no account; our power to fill your coffers was everything.  You
+treated us damnably by the hands of base politicians, who
+lacked common intelligence and foresight.  And you have your
+reward."
+
+"This is the parrot talk of your people, and your trashy
+scribblers.  Public opinion governs America as it must every
+republic; and what is the public opinion of a nation of rebels
+worth?  You are poisoned by the circumstances of your birth.
+You have built your stronghold on lawlessness; you spread false
+reports into your backwoods and mountain fastnesses, your
+pioneers will never know the thing their leaders did.  There is
+no purity in your public mind; every prejudice against England
+is fostered until it festers.  You are rotten at the roots, and time
+must prove it."
+
+"I do not think so," answered Stark calmly.  "We are a very
+dispassionate people, Mr. Malherb, and of most unbiassed
+judgments.  We would have listened to Burke; his sublime voice
+was unheeded amidst the chorus of your ignoble leaders.  It
+pleases you, and those who think as you do, to impute to us a
+hot-headed and fanatic attitude in our dealings with this nation;
+but you have driven us into a corner and made us fight for our
+lives and liberties.  Were we to be to England what our black
+people are to us?  God forbid!  We are unprejudiced.  Prejudice
+is a wasting disease of old countries; you shall not find it among
+the infantile ailments of a young state."
+
+"And will you crow as loudly of the justice of this present
+shameful war, Mr. Stark?  Will you dare hold America innocent
+of a sinister object at this moment?  This quarrel scraped on
+false pretences, while we have France upon our hands--what
+casuistry can justify that?"
+
+"I deem it unfortunate, not unnatural.  You have taught us
+to hate you, not to love you.  There's no hatred worse than that
+of kin."
+
+"Or of madmen, for what in sober sanity they should most
+love and cherish.  You're a mad people, and America at this
+day is sunk to be the sink and lunatic asylum of the earth."
+
+Stark flushed, then sighed.
+
+"I hope you'll live to mourn the folly of such an utterance,
+dear sir.  And for your estimate of us, take mine of you: Great
+Britain is becoming America's volume of reference--no more;
+and soon enough at the gait she is ganging, she will be altogether
+behind the van of progress."
+
+"Not yet.  We're writing history somewhat quickly.  You at
+Prince Town should know that!"
+
+"The war's not over."
+
+"Why, I think it is--all but the terms of peace.  I wish I had
+the making of 'em."
+
+"Our turn will come.  No country can conquer Time.  A wise
+man has said that nations crumble by the process of their own
+up-massing, like sand in an hour-glass.  The fall of every great
+power is a natural corollary of its rise--as death must follow life.
+It is not of vital importance to America whether England does
+her justice now; but it is of vital and eternal importance to
+England whether she does.  We are separated, but the gulf in
+space matters nothing; it is the gulf in thought that counts.
+There will come a day when your country will curse those who
+might have bridged that gulf and helped united England and
+America to rule the round world.  Now it is too late--successive
+generations will drift further apart, until the bonds that unite us
+are base and of utility alone.  And God, Who judges Nations,
+as He judges souls, will know how to measure blame when the
+day of reckoning comes and the awful charge of setting back the
+world's welfare is read at Doom."
+
+It was this boyish utterance that made Malherb reflect and
+shadowed his dogmatic certainties.  But for a moment only was
+he silent.  Then he rated Stark's ardour and mourned his
+hopeless ignorance.
+
+They drank their wine and joined the ladies.  Before Mrs. Malherb
+and Grace, politics were not spoken, and intercourse
+between Stark, his hostess and her daughter was of the friendliest
+description.  The women dispelled his mournful horror of life,
+brightened existence, and made it a good, desirable, hopeful
+thing again.  They much softened the bitterness of his outlook
+and appealed to the generosity and gentleness of his nature.  To
+them he spoke of his circumstances, since they showed a lively
+and ingenuous interest concerning them.  He told how that he
+was an orphan, that he had an uncle of great wealth and
+importance in his native state of Vermont, and that he was heir to
+Allen Stark's lands and moneys.  He described his youth beside
+Lake Champlain; he explained his pleasures and ambitions, the
+customs of his country and the social life of his order.
+
+Cecil Stark's home interested Grace; the people in it attracted
+her mother.  He told them of the Green Mountains and declared
+that his native land had something in common with their own
+wild Dartmoor.
+
+"Our great hills gather the water in their moss beds even as do
+yours," he said.  "Problems like these of the Moor on a larger
+scale occupy the Vermont settlers.  The intervales are a boon to
+us--low, fertile lands about the rivers.  Great floods overrun
+them in spring and make them rich.  But there is a wide
+difference in other ways.  We fight with forests, you with naked
+wastes.  We fell trees that the earth may receive the sun again
+and grow warm and sweet; you plant them to shelter your lands
+and homesteads.  We hope in time to better our climate, make it
+more equal and moderate and lessen the awful snows of winter."
+
+"Then your hills are clothed, not naked as ours?" inquired
+Mrs. Malherb.
+
+"The Green Mountains are covered with aged forests of dwarf
+evergreens; pine, spruce and hemlock, that spring above stone
+and moss and winter grass," replied the sailor.  "They rise green
+into the blue sky; their great gorges and valleys are full of blue,
+mysterious shadows; falling waters glimmer upon their sides and
+make music there in summer and thunder in winter time."
+
+"We have our Wistman's Wood," said Grace; "but no forests
+now; and no lakes such as the glorious sheets of water that you
+tell us of."
+
+"The rivers leap down to them.  My earliest childhood's
+memory is a little boat on Champlain.  Even then my small soul
+longed for the greater sea.  Other children would not believe in
+it.  I always did."
+
+Stark told Grace of the natural things her soul loved.
+
+"The brown beaver of North Vermont is a wonder of wonders,"
+he declared.  "'Tis the most social of living things.  It regulates
+and governs its ideal republic in a manner so marvellous, that I
+think a beaver had been the best image for our banner and
+emblem of our hopes.  A pure and perfect constitution obtains
+amongst 'em.  Such harmony men will never know, but must
+always covet."
+
+He told of their dams and lodges, their arts of safety, their
+home life.  He added many startling facts believed a hundred
+years ago concerning the beaver, but discredited to-day.
+
+Malherb shook his head.
+
+"You are too eager to flaunt the superiority of even your brute
+beasts," he said.  "You will praise the Red Indians next."
+
+"They have their virtues, sir.  Perhaps the man of America
+has learned from them something of that passionate love of
+freedom that inspires him.  At least Vermont's history is glorious
+in that respect.  We played a notable part before an evasive and
+temporising Congress.  We preserved our independence.  We
+declined to sacrifice our rights, either to the intrigues of our
+neighbours, or the threats of our supreme tribunal.  We challenged
+the impartial world in 1779, and refused once and for all to
+submit our sacred liberties to the arbitrament of man.  Vermont
+existed independently of the thirteen United States, and was not
+accountable to them for the Creator's gift of freedom.  We spent
+our best blood and treasure fighting for it.  Were we to give up
+all at our neighbour's bidding?  Were we to hold a great frontier
+for the States and be rewarded with slavery?  We had rather
+have cast in our lot with Canada--we had even rather have
+made terms with England than bend under the yoke of New
+York."
+
+"A lifelong misfortune for you that you did not," answered
+the farmer.
+
+"No, no.  The sequel justified all.  To turn to England to
+settle the rights of man in the Colonies would have been an
+insane act in those days.  Your Government was not then
+competent to approach such a question as the rights of man."
+
+"No politics, gentlemen," said Annabel; whereupon Cecil
+Stark begged for pardon, and with sufficient tact turned to matters
+of more personal interest.  He told of sheep and the success
+attending their breeding in Vermont.
+
+"A wether of three years will weigh one hundred and twenty
+pounds with us, and yield you three or four pounds of wool,"
+he said.  Then he discussed flax--a crop at that time grown
+also upon Dartmoor--and he fascinated Grace with a description
+of the maple sugar manufacture, of the precious juice flowing
+from ancient trees, and of the gorgeous pageant of the maples
+when Autumn's breath touched their foliage and lighted their
+aboriginal forests with scarlet and purple and flaming gold.
+
+At other times the lad awakened sorrow in sympathetic hearts
+by his descriptions of the War Prison and the pitiful life there.
+But he did not guess the secret pain he thus occasioned; he did
+not know that Annabel Malherb often sighed when she looked
+into the wintry Moor.  Soon a journey to Prince Town would be
+again possible, and Maurice Malherb much desired it.  Neither
+did the American imagine that Grace suffered dire unrest at
+this period; nor dream that her maiden happiness slowly
+foundered in a sea of new sensations, mostly miserable.  Yet such
+was the simple case.  Sometimes she shook herself out of these
+amazing and unprecedented trances with a blushing face and
+beating heart.  Then to the night she would cry softly, "I
+love John Lee--I love dear John!"  But why the fact needed
+this nocturnal declaration oft repeated, and what antithesis of
+ideas called it forth under the darkness, Grace Malherb as yet
+imperfectly perceived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+STARK RIDES AWAY
+
+Within the space of ten short days Cecil Stark was
+turned from supreme indifference concerning life or
+death to the contrary emotion.  Existence for him had become
+endowed with a lively charm, and if Grace Malherb's heart
+fluttered in secret, the sailor's also now beat less steadily, and
+played him pranks at her approach.  He found in the maiden all
+that love asks, and more by much than ever he had seen in any
+other woman.  Here did beauty, spirit, force of soul, music of
+voice and graciousness of mien all merge in one lovely girl; and
+Stark very rightly and properly went down like a man before the
+irresistible.  Now greedily he counted the hours and prayed that
+the snow might endure.  He hated the red sun that daily crept
+above Cater's Beam and sank where Prince Town lay, for it
+touched the drifts and changed their character.  The expanses of
+white glittered and settled down, while from their bowels snow-water
+eternally trickled until the rivers roared, and black, boiling
+streams, all splashed with yellow spume, thundered from each
+great hill.  Now sunlit streaks and spots of stone, heath and bog
+broke the huge whiteness of the mountains, and Stark's glimpse
+of Paradise was nearly over.  Each morning at the breakfast-hour
+he waited in fear for Maurice Malherb to pronounce sentence of
+departure; each day he breathed again to find a few hours were
+still left to him.
+
+Grace Malherb proved such a listener as sailors love.  She had
+not imbibed many of her father's prejudices, and was too full of
+the delight of life on one side, its personal problems and puzzles
+on the other, to concern herself with politics or abstract ideas
+touching the welfare of nations.  Cecil Stark did what Grace's
+father was powerless to do, and wakened in her an active interest
+concerning war.  She listened attentively while he rose to the
+occasion and, inspired by her advertance, painted with all an
+earnest lad's enthusiasm the cause for which he fought.  She
+watched from under lowered lids, and while he fancied that her
+heart must throb to the cannon's roar or the crash of falling spars,
+she was either comparing his powerful face with the more delicate
+and more classic features of her lover, or contrasting the fire of
+the fighting man with the dreamy disposition of John Lee.  But
+John Lee would presently be a fighting man also.
+
+Little basenesses crept into the soul of poor Grace under this
+ordeal.  By night she wept bitterly at herself and marvelled to
+behold her own meanness.  She found herself secretly thankful
+that Cecil Stark knew nothing of her engagement; then, heartily
+ashamed, she probed this instinct, and imagined that it must be
+caused by the American's superiority of position and of rank.  In
+reality she erred and the truth was far different; but this the girl
+had not as yet discovered.  Her misery was extreme, and she
+blamed herself bitterly when she reflected how much of her
+thoughts the American prisoner already owned.  Indeed, all other
+concerns swept headlong into a remote, unimportant past.  And
+it was so with the man; for his first love now lighted life with
+wild, unrestful glory.  Of the maiden's heart, indeed, he knew
+nothing, but, impelled to do so by a vague hope as to the future,
+he had made a clean breast of his own affairs and dwelt egotistically
+upon them.  Not seldom Mr. Peter Norcot's former assertion
+clouded those moments in which Stark had sense to pause
+and reflect, yet the other's name was never mentioned by Grace,
+and he began presently to hope that the wish was father to Peter's
+thought and declaration.  There seemed no evidence that Miss
+Malherb's future was already determined.
+
+The sailor's ambitions Grace admired with enthusiasm; his
+splendid future, his prospective flocks and herds, lands and
+homesteads beside the Champlain, attracted her less keenly.  But
+more topics than one made the girl's eyes sparkle as he spoke of
+them.
+
+"You are such a Diana that you'd love Vermont," Cecil once
+said.  "Our folks, however, hunt for business rather than sport.
+We had moose, deer, bears, foxes and wolves once, and peltry
+was the great business of the trappers and pioneers.  Even yet
+our furs fetch near two thousand pounds every year; but the
+beasts are being killed faster than Nature can restore them.
+They will soon vanish."
+
+"We had wolves here, too.  I think the last was killed in
+Tudor times.  'Twas an obligation under the old local laws that
+the folk should slay them.  Now we have little but foxes; and a
+good, red Moor fox is the best in England."
+
+"I never hunted, though I can ride sailor-fashion.  Now I
+should like to see you in the saddle, Mistress Grace!"
+
+"Of course you hunt in the English way, if you have respectable
+hound-fearing foxes?" she asked, ignoring his desire concerning
+herself.
+
+"Yes; many amongst us stick stoutly to New England ways,
+which, indeed, are the same as old England ways for that matter.
+But in states of society such as ours, the conditions make for
+change.  We are deeply interested in education and enterprise;
+we marry early; we advocate equality of rights, because that is
+natural where all men have the same interests.  But equality
+of power we never pretend to.  The idea is nonsensical; Nature
+herself shows that.  Men are unequal in power and capacity--so
+are all other animals.  We are, I think, both economical and
+hospitable.  We resent control of religion, and hold liberty
+of thought in that matter vital.  We have an elastic mind in
+affairs of government, and don't attempt to bind posterity to our
+forms in your English fashion.  In England men are full of
+opinions and empty of information.  We let opinions go hang
+and never tire of learning.  We keep fluid; we respect human
+life very much.  Instead of a hundred and sixty capital crimes, as
+there are in Great Britain, we have but nine sins in Vermont for
+which a man is punished by death.  We marry early----"
+
+"You said that before."
+
+"Did I?  Well--it's interesting."
+
+"So it is."
+
+"But I bore you to distraction--I am sure that I must do so,
+Miss Malherb."
+
+"Very far from it, Mr. Stark.  You interest one and all of us.
+It is marvellous to me how you tell each amongst us the sort
+of things most likely to attract him, or her.  You have made
+every man your friend; and every woman too."
+
+She dimly guessed his meaning when he dwelt so much upon
+himself, and told of his honoured family, and of his future as the
+survivor of the race.
+
+Throughout the severe weather it was impossible for John Lee
+to see more than a passing glimpse of his lady.  The hardship
+of this specially touched Grace's heart, and not seldom, after
+intimate chatter with the American, she purposely sought
+disconsolate John that she might cheer his loneliness and longing.
+But in the vital matter of the guest, young Lee suffered less than
+would have been supposed.  Jealousy was no part of his nature.
+He rejoiced heartily that Grace should have company so interesting
+during the tedious days after the storm.  In common with
+Beer, Woodman and the rest, John appreciated Cecil Stark, and
+found his own sentiments echo the sailor's on many subjects.
+The labourers often discussed their visitor, admired the frank,
+friendly spirit in which he came amongst them at their work, and
+regretted the fact that he must soon return to prison.
+
+Once in a morning hour Grace played her piano to the guest,
+and upon opening a music-book, the ghost of a sprig of white
+heather, now turned brown, tumbled out of it.  Mr. Peter Norcot
+had presented this trophy, and placed it to mark a song of
+Herrick's, with Purcell's accompaniment.
+
+Now Stark noted the flower.
+
+"You like it not, I see," he said, for memory suddenly clouded
+the singer's eyes.
+
+"Dead heath," she answered; "and for me I vow that it
+never lived.  A gentleman placed it there because the song
+pleased him."
+
+"I'd give the world to know who 'twas, Miss Malherb."
+
+"You shall hear for nothing.  There is no secret.  The name
+will not be new to you, I think; Mr. Peter Norcot."
+
+Stark's face fell, and the recollection of many things crowded
+down bleakly upon him.
+
+"He's a good man--a great-hearted, generous spirit," he
+declared.
+
+Grace did not answer.
+
+"I have been blind lately," he continued.  "My wits went
+wandering in the blizzard and have never returned.  It has pleased
+me to forget Mr. Norcot too long.  What might have been, Miss
+Malherb!  He won parole for us out of his own pure goodness
+and love of humanity.  But meantime we had tried to escape
+and failed.  A mad world!  And but for that Jonathan Miller
+might still be living.  The man's name must be blessed by every
+American that hears it--Norcot's, I mean."
+
+Still Grace made no reply.
+
+"Such a gentleman must be above possibility of error in such
+a vital thing as he confided to me," pursued Cecil gloomily.
+"I ought to have faced the fact sooner and not let my fool
+thoughts----  So you are going to marry him, Miss Malherb?"
+
+"Never, Mr. Stark."
+
+"He told me so--truly he believed it."
+
+"He is wrong.  He is a most worthy person, and he very
+seldom makes a mistake.  But he is wrong for once when he says
+that, or thinks it--wildly, utterly, hopelessly wrong."
+
+"You do not love him?"
+
+"My father does.  He desires that I should wed him."
+
+"But surely----?"
+
+"'Surely I could do no better,' you were going to say?"
+
+"Indeed, no.  Surely your father's first thought is your future
+happiness?"
+
+"My future--not my future happiness.  You see, one's parents
+have got over our young delusions about people being happy.
+Fathers and mothers forget that love matters.  They hold it as
+we hold the fleeting wretchedness of a toothache.  They don't
+even pity us.  Yet my father was a grand lover, for my mother
+has told me so; but he has forgotten."
+
+"You honour me to divulge these sacred things about yourself.
+Poor Norcot--and yet--in a sense--in truth from my whole heart
+and soul, I mean.  But how is this to the point?  To sum up, you
+don't love him?"
+
+"That is exactly what I strive day and night to make clear to
+everybody."
+
+"Would it be beyond the limits of courtesy to breathe a
+question on so great a subject?  Yet I seem to know the answer.
+It must be so.  It sinks like lead into me; you love somebody
+else, Miss Malherb?"
+
+"Heyday!  And if I do, why should you be miserable, Mr. Stark?
+I love my mother, sir, and my father, and--and all who
+love me--excepting only Mr. Norcot.  I love him too--the Bible
+bids me love him; but I don't like Him.  The Bible is too wise
+to order the impossible.  It does not tell us to like anybody."
+
+"Listen, if I may--at least----"
+
+"Do you hear the river in flood?  It is like the sound of an
+angry sea by night."
+
+"I hear it well enough.  The snows are melting, and my
+happiness with them.  Oh, if I dared--before I left you!  If I
+had a pinch of my country's courage!"
+
+"You do not lack for that, else you would never have seen
+Dartmoor."
+
+"That was the chance of defeat.  But real bravery----  There's
+such a madness here raging in me--such a hurricane
+that----"
+
+"Oh, dearie me!  Even such nonsense does Mr. Peter Norcot
+talk!"
+
+"And so you answer him.  Yet your eyes are gentler than
+your tongue.  I'll speak--I care not.  I'm only a sailor swept
+here by chance.  Fate--at least Providence, I mean--to be plain,
+I love you!  I love you so dearly that I'd--but not until I'm no
+longer a prisoner.  After the war--could you listen then?  I--oh,
+my heart and my life, say I may come back again after the war!"
+
+The lightning progress of this business burnt poor Grace like
+fire.  She gasped as he spoke.  Her senses reeled.  She had not
+strength to draw from him the hand that he had clasped and now
+passionately kissed.  He was down upon his knees beside her,
+and she saw his great chest rise and fall, she felt his eyes pierce
+to her heart and read the truth there.  Now she understood her
+mistake.  This was love, and all the past only a ghostly phantom
+and mockery of it.  She longed to give herself up to him.  She
+felt that he offered her life, that his voice woke the soul that
+had slept until now within her.  Then she blushed at the baseness
+of her thoughts and spoke with levity to hide the first mighty joy
+and the first master-sorrow that her heart had ached over.
+
+"Come back if it pleases you, Mr. Stark.  But not to me.
+Worthless thing that I am, another already claims my love."
+
+He released her hand reverently, then rose.
+
+"'Twas an insult to you not to know that without being told.
+I did right to say that I was mad."
+
+"You'll never speak of this," she whispered; "your own act
+forced it from me.  I am proud to think that you could love me;
+but you will keep my secret?"
+
+"Trust me for that.  As you'll keep my confession, so I shall
+cherish yours.  God knows how I can go on living any more.  Yet
+I'll even curse the end of the war that sets me free now, for free
+in truth I'll never be again."
+
+"Then I shall feel sad to think I have a slave against my will.
+I shall suffer to remember that."
+
+"Remember me no more at all.  Only remember that you have
+lifted me up and made my existence good and precious.  You
+saved my life and led me into a paradise.  Now I must depart
+again.  Twice conquered by England am I; and blessed in
+being conquered."
+
+"You are generous and I do greatly esteem you, sir," faltered
+Grace.  "You have brought happiness and interest and knowledge
+into my ignorant days.  More knowledge than you think for!  I
+thank you for all your goodness, and I mourn to know you are so
+ill-paid.  Had it not been--at least--I shall never forget you."
+
+"May God bless and keep you and the man you love," he said
+earnestly.  "You have been light in darkness to me; I shall
+always love and worship you.  And he who has won you has my
+admiration and respect for ever.  A king of men must he be!"
+
+Annabel Malherb entered at this moment, and she came the
+bearer of stern news for Stark.  Yesterday her intelligence had
+sunk him into the depths of tribulation; to-day he welcomed it.
+Henceforth his prison was not of stone and iron, but built in
+memory.  To breathe the same air with Grace Malherb would be
+his sole remaining privilege now, since closer common interest
+he could never claim.
+
+Maurice Malherb sent a courteous inquiry as to whether his
+guest's convenience would be suited by early departure on the
+following morning.
+
+"If so," said Annabel, "my husband proposes that you and he
+should ride together after breakfast to--to Prince Town, dear
+Mr. Stark."
+
+The sailor declared that he was ready.
+
+"And to thank you, madam, would be a vain, impossible task,"
+he said.  "Your daughter saved my life; you and your husband
+nursed me back to health, bore with me in my weakness and ill
+humours, sympathised with my sorrows, treated me with a
+consideration and kindness beyond belief.  I shall never while I
+live forget your goodness, nor forget to be grateful for it."
+
+Upon the following morning Cecil Stark departed, and it was
+a secret joy to Grace amid all her secret grief, that he rode upon
+'Cæsar.'  She steeled herself to the farewell, for now she knew,
+indeed, that she loved him; now she found her desire towards
+him a live, gigantic and ponderable passion, not the gauzy and
+delicate understanding that she had maintained with John Lee.
+Love took her by the heart-strings, shook her, banished sleep,
+killed appetite, wrote care within her young eyes and revealed it
+upon her looking-glass at dawn.  Her future life, from a vague
+shadow, half shunned, half spied upon, as in the past, now came
+close and stared at her.  She found the time to come hideous
+and wished that she might die to escape from it.  She looked ill
+when she bade the American prisoner "good-bye"; and he
+observed it and felt it hard to keep his voice steady.
+
+Then Grace watched him ride away with her father, and
+behind them trotted John Lee.  He passed where she stood at
+a wall on the farm boundaries and touched his hat to her, for he
+could be seen by all.  But only Grace was within reach of his
+voice.
+
+"At last, my darling dear!  At last I shall kiss your sweet lips
+again!  Such news--such brave news, my Gracie!  I've found
+the hiding-place of the amphora!"
+
+He passed on, and the girl, returning to her chamber, locked
+the door of it and wept as she had not wept since childhood.
+
+"Three--three men," she sobbed to herself.  "Three grown
+men can all love this wretched thing.  And I hate one; and
+I--I--love one; and good John Lee, handsome, humble, kind,
+faithful John Lee; I would rather die a thousand deaths than
+break my troth to you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+GOOD NEWS
+
+In his own estimation Maurice Malherb had long since
+mastered the mysteries of Dartmoor, and was now familiar
+with its difficulties and dangers by night or day.  But heavy
+snow presented new problems; progress toward Prince Town
+proved very difficult; many detours had to be made, and a chill
+gloaming, lighted by the purity of the earth, already sank upon
+the travellers before Siward's Cross was reached.
+
+As they approached Lovey's cottage, Malherb called up his
+groom and bade him ride ahead.  Until the present John had
+kept behind, for his master objected to take advice or profit by
+the lad's local experience.
+
+"Get you forward to your grandmother and order a brew of
+hot drink, John Lee.  A draught of milk with something from
+my spirit-flask will not be amiss."
+
+John cantered forward and Stark, as many a man had done
+before him, admired the rider's perfect skill.
+
+"How magnificently that fellow sits his horse," he said.
+
+"Well enough; but it was not I who taught him--a natural
+gift," confessed Mr. Malherb.
+
+When they reached Mrs. Lee's hut, both dismounted and
+entered the squalid den, to find a pan of milk already steaming
+upon a great peat fire.  Malherb showed by no word or sign the
+nature of his last meeting with Lovey Lee, and the American
+was similarly cautious.  As for the miser, she treated them both
+with equal indifference.
+
+Cecil Stark gazed round him to see the salvation he had
+fought to find in the storm.  With better knowledge of the
+Moor, his amazement grew at his own recent escape; and yet
+a thing not less remarkable had fallen out on the same
+tremendous night.
+
+When Lovey Lee handed a cup to the prisoner, Malherb proposed
+to add spirits from his flask, but the old woman objected.
+
+"Put nothing in, young sir.  There's a drop of cordial there
+already.  Think you I don't know what cold men need to warm
+their vitals?"
+
+Stark laughed but read the look in her eyes and took the
+cup quickly.  Then he saw that a hollow hazel-nut floated in the
+milk and, familiar with Lovey's expedients, drank at once.  The
+nut he kept within his cheek and presently transferred to his
+pocket.
+
+Anon they went their way refreshed, and, commenting upon the
+grim and starved object who had ministered to them, Stark listened
+to new sentiments from Maurice Malherb, and saw a little deeper
+into the gulf that separated their convictions.
+
+"The peasant's mind has ever been my close study, and I
+have endeavoured to supply his requirements all my life," declared
+the older man.  "His path is narrow, but well marked.  To
+attempt to draw him from it would be madness.  Poverty is no
+hardship in itself, and to teach a peasant to be other than poor
+is no part of a wise man's work."
+
+"But education----"
+
+"Endangers the tranquillity of the community at large.  It
+unsettles their minds, loosens the bonds that holds them to
+their native soil, provokes all manner of outrage.  Think of the
+Tories, the Peep-o'-Day Boys, the Hearts of Steel and other
+ruffianly hordes of banditti that disturbed Ireland before the
+rebellion."
+
+"But education is the watchword of civilisation," exclaimed
+Stark.
+
+"You think so; but like every half-truth, the idea is abominably
+dangerous.  What do you do?  Under the name of Liberty,
+you invite to your naked shores the German, the Frenchman, or
+any other needy and worthless adventurer who goes a-wandering.
+You announce that the feudal services required by the great from
+the humble in Europe are banished from your country.  You tell
+the new-come immigrants that lie--you, who keep your heel upon
+the black and fill your pockets with the proceeds of his misery!
+A race of slave-dealers to trumpet Liberty!"
+
+Stark flushed and felt the hit.
+
+"I grant some truth there.  Please God, we'll live to see that
+plague-spot healed.  But our constitution is sound; we shall
+throw our ailments off.  To deny knowledge to your own
+people--that is a worse disease.  Consider the epidemic you will
+breed!"
+
+"You are ignorant of history, Mr. Cecil Stark.  We have centuries
+of experience on which to base our judgment.  What think
+you fostered the naval rebellion of fifteen years agone?  As a
+sailor that will interest you.  Why, the pen-and-ink gentry aboard
+His Majesty's ships of war!  They made a mutiny with their
+devilish doctrines scratched on paper and spread in secret from
+vessel to vessel.  How shall we suppress concerted action in the
+multitude, if every Jack among 'em learns to read and write?
+Consider the sedition that must spring from such an abandoned
+state.  No, let the poor work, not think.  These people are
+only too ready to believe that their penury is the result of our
+oppression, and grows incompatible with the rights of man.  Then
+what follows?"
+
+"They'll do as we did and cast off their chains for ever,"
+declared the sailor.
+
+"You would support anarchy then?"
+
+"And yet you yourself, sir, give your own workers more than
+the usual wage, and pay the women as women were never paid
+elsewhere--so Kekewich informed me."
+
+Malherb shook his head impatiently.
+
+"They will be talking, damn them, instead of doing their work.
+Don't argue from a particular case.  I've my own private
+opinion--especially as to women's labour on the land.  That's neither
+here nor there.  I'm possibly wrong.  Education takes the poor
+to the devil.  Enlarge their views and you distort their views.
+They institute uncomfortable and improper comparisons; they
+begin to confuse the rights of property; the sanctity of birth is
+forgotten; the interests of the country are threatened: the State
+totters and falls."
+
+"Surely the sooner it falls, the better for England.  A State
+built on foundations of ignorance----"
+
+"So you echo your specious people.  Ignorance is the solid
+and everlasting rock on which the prosperity of every State must
+exist.  If you believe your Bible, you will see from Genesis that
+the Creator made happiness depend on ignorance.  The Tree of
+Knowledge is a very statesmanlike conceit.  Preserve a
+fundamental ignorance at any cost.  Your own life depends upon it.
+Once let knowledge in--'tis like the foul air in a mine--death
+follows.  The Church battens on that golden rule; so does the
+State.  The security of both lie therein.  But our spiritual and
+temporal lords are far too wise openly to proclaim what I tell
+you."
+
+"Then God help your country," answered the younger man;
+"for a policy more cynical, more vile, was never uttered.  I go to
+prison now, but 'tis you who are in prison.  I am free.  This
+State's a prison--a prison not made with hands, but with heads--a
+prison of cruel prejudices, narrow distinctions, distrusts,
+hatreds, and lies.  But your prosperous errors shall not always
+prevail against unpopular truths.  Your time will come."
+
+"I wish you had been better brought up," said Malherb.
+"You feel deeply; there is character in you; but unfortunately
+it has been poisoned at the source."
+
+"And I wish that I could open your prison doors, sir, before
+mine shut upon me.  Stone and iron are only dust; they will
+not endure; but the pride of Lucifer, the blind prejudice of the
+Dark Ages, and such a damnable policy as you have this moment
+uttered, make a prison-house for the spirit of man that it will
+need a revolution to shatter."
+
+"It is such windy nonsense that has led you there!" answered
+Malherb.
+
+He pointed where the grey walls of Prince Town, set in snow,
+rose ashy against the twilight, and Stark's enthusiasm chilled a
+little at sight of them.
+
+They fell into silence; then the American shook his host's
+hand and bade him a grateful farewell.  A moment later he had
+dismounted from 'Cæsar' and entered the War Prison.
+
+Two surprises awaited the sailor.  Within Lovey's hazel-nut
+was a scrap of paper that told how, by miraculous chance, James
+Knapps had escaped the blizzard, and, while turning from the
+full force of it, in reality corrected his way and made a straight
+journey to the hut by Siward's Cross.  Thus wonderfully he
+saved his life; and his eyes, at a crack in the boards of Lovey's
+ceiling, had watched Cecil Stark beneath.  Through Lovey,
+Knapps now made urgent appeal to his friends, and the paper
+in the nutshell called for money to pay the miser and for
+instructions as to the future conduct of Mr. Knapps himself.
+
+Heartened by this circumstance, Cecil Stark presently went
+before the authorities; and then another sensation greeted him.
+During his absence Captain Cottrell had been superseded, and a
+new commandant now reigned over the prisoners.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+UNDER THE EARTH
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE TREASURE HOUSE
+
+On a day when the storm had sunk to a grim memory, when
+cold winds blustered and more snow fell through the dark
+and sunless weeks before spring-time, did Harvey Woodman and
+Richard Beer hold converse with ancient Kekewich.  For once
+the pessimist had those of the household with him; but no
+sooner were the labouring men reduced to a condition of absolute
+hopelessness before the picture he painted, when Kekewich
+changed sides, according to his wont, took up his master's part
+and foretold fair things out of contradiction.
+
+"Ban't our business," declared Woodman, "an' yet even a
+common man have eyes; an' touching the potatoes, a fool could
+see he's wrong."
+
+"Actually feeding the stock on 'em, an' grumbling when my
+wife goes to fill a sack for the house!" said Beer.  "Ban't good
+husbandry or good sense to feed beastes on such human food.
+Lord knows they potatoes cost enough to fetch up out o' the
+airth.  'Twould be better far to face the trouble an' buy fodder
+in a big spirit."
+
+"No method to him, if a man may say so without disrespect,"
+answered Woodman.  "Of course you wants to look forward
+more 'pon Dartymoor."
+
+"He fights the Moor same as he fights life," explained
+Kekewich.  "The masterfulness of un be so tremendous that us
+might almost look to see Nature go down afore him."
+
+"Nature don't go down; 'tis us that do," replied Beer; "an'
+if the storm haven't taught him that, nothing won't.  'Tis no
+sense your telling that sort o' rummage, Kek, an' very well you
+know it."
+
+"Not but the gentleman have his black moments," continued
+Woodman.  "I've seed him pass by me many a time wi' a cloud
+on's face, an' a puzzled look in his eyes, as if he was trying to
+read in a book an' couldn't catch the meaning.  Essterday he
+stood in the opeway an' stared out afore him so grim as a ghost,
+as if he might have been waiting a message from the sky."
+
+"He'll get a message as he won't like the taste of afore long,"
+foretold Beer.
+
+"He don't go about the right way to larn, I'm sure--to say it
+without offence," added Woodman.
+
+"He won't larn nought from you dumpheads, that's sartain,"
+said Kekewich.  "But he'm far off a fool, an' his heart's got
+eyes if his head haven't.  When all's said, 'tis for his lady an' his
+darter he thinks an' plans.  He lies waking o' nights for the honour
+an' glory of the family.  Things will fall out right yet, an us
+shall live to see it."
+
+"'Tis very well, though you'm the first to holler 'ruin' yourself
+most days," retorted Beer, rather indignant that Kekewich should
+thus take up a position so unusual.  "Us all knows the man do
+mean well as an angel, yet it looks a very unhandsome thing to
+thrust his maiden into matrimony with a chap she hates like
+sin."
+
+"So it do," assented Woodman.  "You'm right, Richard.  He'll
+take his stand behind his darter's welfare an' put a husband she
+hates upon her.  Wise it may be; Christian it ban't.  But
+everything's cut and dried now, and Mordecai Cockey, the journeyman
+tailor, be coming in six weeks to make the clothes, so my wife
+tells me."
+
+"The maiden's Malherb, faither or no faither," said Beer, "and
+Dinah, as understands such affairs, have marked by many a
+foretoken that she won't wed out of her heart--not for fifty faithers."
+
+"Matters be coming to a climax then," declared Harvey
+Woodman solemnly.  "My wife dreamed o' blood t'other night;
+an' for my part I've seen Childe's tomb in my dreams, wi' Childe
+hisself rising up like a ragged foreign bear.  I do hate for things
+to come in a heap this way.  Ban't natural we should be called
+upon to suffer more ills than one to a time.  There's the whole
+Book of Lamentations bearing down on Fox Tor Farm in my
+opinion, an' I'd so soon be away as not."
+
+"He've got money, however," argued Beer.  "Money will
+stem a good few mortal ills, let them as haven't got none say
+what they please."
+
+"As to that, my Mary heard him tell Missis something about a
+canal somewheres that's gone scat; an' the lady turned white as
+curds an' went in her chamber for to get over it unseen," answered
+Woodman.  "If you ax me, I reckon he'm driven for money.
+When I spoke to un of half a dozen more drashels,[*] as wouldn't
+have cost half-a-crown, he got so touchy as proud-flesh, an' told
+me to run out of his sight, an' said us was a lot o' lazy
+good-for-nothing hirelings as never thought of his pocket.  Of course he
+was round next day as usual with a cheerful word an' the money;
+but I tented un to the quick when I axed for it first."
+
+
+[*] _Drashels_: Flails.
+
+
+"An' that's why Miss Grace have got to marry Mr. Norcot, no
+doubt," declared Beer.  "'Tis so much for her father's good as
+her own belike."
+
+He nodded to where Grace rode past the barn.  She was clad in
+a snug, short habit of purple Totnes serge; and upon her hands
+were a pair of gloves made from the skin of a wild cat that had
+been captured after prodigious exertions by Thomas Putt.
+Behind Grace rode John Lee, and their enterprise was secret, for
+it had to do with the young man's recent great discovery.  Now
+Grace, despite the languor of these days and the anti-climax
+that followed upon Cecil Stark's departure, found herself awake
+and much alive.  Darkness shadowed her life and her home.
+She knew that trouble slept with her parents and haunted her
+father in all his goings; she suffered for them; yet she believed
+that no such sorrow as her own private sorrow had ever crushed
+into a human life before; that no such tragic experience as this
+mistake of emotion for passion, had until now tortured an
+unhappy young heart.  Yet to fight upon her father's side seemed
+good.  She desired dangers and difficulties to lift her from her
+personal tribulations.  She herself had planned the present
+expedition, and Lee was in some concern, for though undertaken
+by daylight, it lacked not danger.  John had at last discovered
+Lovey's hiding-place, and now he was taking his mistress to
+see it.
+
+"Your star-bright eyes will find this wondrous treasure if 'tis
+there," he said.  "For myself I could light on nothing but
+money-bags.  They had gold in 'em and were ranged on stone
+ledges as high as I could reach.  For the rest, there was a pitcher
+under trickling water that runs in a corner of the place; a basin,
+with mouldy bread and cheese in it; and a great stone upon
+which stood half a dozen rush-lights.  And as I first climbed
+down, 'twas like the story of Arabia that you told me, for the
+walls of the hole all shone as though they were plastered with
+pure gold.  A light in darkness they made.  'Tis a shining moss
+that glitters there on the damp rocks.  I'm right glad to have
+found the place; an' yet my mind misgives me that more evil
+than good will come out of it."
+
+"The only evil that can come out is Lovey Lee.  If she
+caught us!"
+
+"No--that won't happen.  She's safe for to-day.  You'll laugh,
+but you know there's force in the old charms for all your laughing.
+They work, though wiseacres may know better."
+
+"John, John!"
+
+"A maiden nail has power, I tell you, despite all scoffing."
+
+"A maiden nail!  And what is that?"
+
+"A nail fresh made from bar iron--one that has never touched
+ground.  Drive such in the threshold of a witch's door and for a
+day and night she cannot hurt a fly."
+
+"Really, John Lee, I could blush for you--here at the beginning
+of the nineteenth century, in these dazzling days of
+enlightenment!"
+
+"I got 'em from Noah Newcombe, hot off his anvil," said John,
+"and I've driven them home into the dern of grandmother's
+door.  Believe it or not, I very well know she's harmless to all
+mankind this day."
+
+"I wish I had such faith in men as you have in nails, John,"
+said the girl thoughtfully.  Then silence fell between them, and
+Grace reflected upon her sweetheart's credulity.  She had never
+realised the extent of it until recent events and the intercourse
+with the American prisoner.  Peter Norcot's manifold ingenuities
+and petty cleverness of quips and cranks had but served to make
+John Lee's simplicity shine bright by contrast; but the light that
+Stark cast over thought was a white light, and smote pitiless upon
+both the others.
+
+"You have faith in one man sure?" said John presently.  He
+had thought of her words long before replying to them.
+
+"In two--in two," she answered hastily; but more she would
+not say.
+
+"'Tis old Kekewich and me," he mused aloud.  "A very
+strange thing, my lady dear, that two such men should get to be
+trusted by your sweet spirit, afore all the rest of the world."
+
+But she could not let him remain in ignorance.
+
+"I meant Mr. Stark, not Kek," she answered.
+
+He nodded and looked away.
+
+"I know you meant him.  'Twas only to see if you'd tell me,
+that I pretended you meant Kek.  A sly thing to do, but
+somehow I was tempted."
+
+She did not answer, nor did he speak again until they reached
+the ruin in Hangman's Hollow.
+
+"Here we are at last--a queer sort of place.  'Twould call for
+little fancy to see my grandmother meeting the Devil himself
+here after dark.  'Pon that rowan above the gravel-pit a man
+hanged himself a little while back, 'cause he found he'd been
+cheated over a horse.  Here, under our feet, is granny's den.
+We'll dismount, tether up; an' then you follow me down this
+blind alley-way to the top of the mound.  By the wall-side at
+the end, is a stone that will turn when we set foot upon it, and
+open a hole down the blowing-house chimney into a great
+chamber underground."
+
+Grace dismounted; John fastened up their horses and soon
+led the way whither Lovey Lee had vanished.
+
+"But 'twas no miracle after all, you see.  There--the stone
+twists on a regular pivot.  'Tis balanced beneath like a logan."
+
+He showed where a large piece of granite slowly yielded under
+his weight.  Then he retained it in position with a stick and
+made it firm.  A black, perpendicular pit appeared, and upon
+the side of it rough stones protruded irregularly and formed a
+ladder.
+
+"I'll go down," said Lee, "and light a candle.  'Tis day-proof
+and air-proof nearly; but you'll soon see and breathe when you're
+used to it."
+
+He disappeared, and from beneath Grace heard him strike
+flint and steel, then saw the gleam of candlelight, and prepared
+to descend.  The way proved easy enough to one of her activity,
+and soon she found herself beside John Lee, ten feet beneath
+the earth, in a large irregular chamber.  The place was half
+natural, and half built of masonry now ruinous.  A shaft of
+daylight from above revealed the steps, and the walls of the grotto
+diffused a glimmering and golden radiance, so that it seemed to
+Grace that she had, indeed, descended into some storehouse of
+fabulous treasure.  The shining moss[*] encrusted the cavern
+with its phosphorescent light, and water tinkled drop by drop
+unseen.  Lee held above his head a candle that he had brought
+with him, and slowly details stole out of the gloom as their eyes
+focussed them.
+
+
+[*] _The shining moss_: Schistostega Osmundacea.
+
+
+For some time they found nothing more than John had already
+recorded.  Then the desiccated remains of a dog in a corner made
+Grace exclaim with sorrow.  The beast was fastened by its neck
+to a staple in the wall, and had clearly perished of starvation
+there.  Close scrutiny revealed nine or ten money-bags perched
+aloft in nooks of the granite and holes of the broken building.
+Grace opened three, and all contained the same amount--one
+hundred pounds in gold.  They restored every bag to its proper
+hiding-place, and continued their search.  Yet the girl grew
+listless, and John Lee felt it by his senses, although he could not
+see her face.
+
+Presently he hit his shins against a square box corded up with
+ropes, and his companion's heart throbbed as she thought that
+within an hour the Malherb amphora would be restored to its
+owner's hand.  Then, while yet their new discovery remained
+unproved, a dull indifference again invaded her spirit; and John
+stood amazed to find her in no way disappointed when the box was
+found to contain nothing more precious than silver plate, sundry
+fine French snuff-boxes, watches and other trinkets.
+
+"How brave you are!" he said.  "Yet this is something
+worth discovering, for I'll wager my grandmother stole what is
+here from your family in times past."
+
+"Be just to her.  These French things perchance came from
+the prisoners.  Tie them up carefully, and put them where you
+found them.  Lovey must never guess that we have seen her
+secrets."
+
+The man obeyed, and for half an hour they continued to make
+laborious and unrewarded search.
+
+"'Tis a rogue's roost of a hole!" cried Lee.  "You shall stop
+in it no longer, else you'll faint for lack of sweet air.  'Twill take
+much time and patience to exhaust all these crannies and clefts.
+My candle wanes."
+
+"Let us depart then and visit the place again presently when
+time allows it."
+
+"But you've lost your old eagerness," he said shortly.
+
+"Not so.  I care very much.  Why, it is life or death
+almost--for father.  I know him to be sore driven for money."
+
+"For your father.  And is it nothing that it means life or
+death for Jack Lee?  Have you forgotten what you yourself
+proposed?  Oh, Grace, I'm afraid you have.  I was to go to the
+wars----"
+
+"The wars are like to be soon over now, dear John."
+
+He made no answer, but lighted her to the steps and helped
+her to ascend them.  Things recently suspected, like clouds
+lifting their furrowed foreheads above a remote horizon, grew daily
+nearer, and this experience within the treasure house had brought
+alarm to the very zenith of John Lee's mind.  He was quick to
+see and to read each mood and humour of Grace Malherb.  A
+hesitation before a kiss, a wayward breaking off in mid-speech,
+sudden ardours to atone for periods of coldness--all these shadows
+and half-shades of change, and of a sense of honour at war with
+overmastering love, had made themselves manifest in the girl;
+and Lee had read them while she was ignorant of their visible
+existence.  At first such apparitions from her inner self merely
+mystified him, and the memory of them vanished with the mood
+that displayed them; but now more clearly he began to perceive
+that her highest graciousness followed upon coolness; that she
+was kindest after being least kind; that her outbursts of wild
+affection sprang not from love, but remorse.  He battled against
+the belief; but it grew into a conviction, bitter and sure.
+
+To-day, as he restored the cover-stone of the cave, he felt that
+another nail was struck into hope's coffin; and the thought
+wakened no indignation against Grace, but rather a mighty,
+melancholy anger with himself, that he had proved a man too
+feeble to hold his pearl against all comers.
+
+"We must seek and seek and never despair," said Grace as they
+turned to ride homeward.  "I feel positive that the amphora is
+there.  If necessary you will have to hide in the den of the tigress
+yourself, John, and mark her when she supposes herself alone.
+Yet I should tremble for you.  'Twill be an awful day for that old
+woman when she loses the amphora.  It is her god."
+
+"If I got it, I could almost find it in my heart to break it."
+
+"John Lee!"
+
+"Why, I spoke as I felt.  I'm beginning to see terrible things
+beyond your strength to hide, Gracie.  You would hide them if
+you could; you think in your heart that they are hidden; but
+they peep out and scourge me for my awful folly."
+
+"What--what can you mean?"
+
+"Don't think to deceive me, for you deceive yourself, dearest
+heart, if you do.  I'm sensible in flashes, though mostly blind
+with you.  I've read the riddle ever since he went away; now
+I've read the answer too."
+
+"You wrong me to speak so.  I have not changed to you,
+John; and to him I am nothing in the world."
+
+"Be angry; be angry; I could rage, too; I could tear up the
+earth and--and--but I haven't the heart.  I wouldn't hurt him
+excepting as man to man.  I'd pray to Heaven to bring us face
+to face in war.  I'd seek him out on land or sea--I'd----"  He
+broke off, dropped his rein, and pressed his hands to his face.
+Then Grace rode close to him and touched his arm.
+
+"You are unhappy, and I have made you so.  This must not
+be, dear John.  'Tis life and death between--between lovers, to
+speak pure honesty at all times.  Listen.  He grew to love me.
+'Twas the loneliness and friendlessness of his life.  His eyes had
+seen no woman for years; therefore he made more of me than
+I deserved.  He--he asked me to marry him some day; and I
+told him that I belonged to another.  Then he went out of my
+life and blessed the unknown man who had been more fortunate
+than himself.  That is the truth; and if I've been half-hearted
+and my wits a wool-gathering, forgive me, for the thought of
+Master Stark's sorrow has made me sad.  I have much desired
+the war to end that he might go home to those who love him;
+and--and--don't look at me like that, John, for God knows I
+speak the truth to you.  I hoped for his sake that the war might
+cease; for yours that it might not cease.  Then I settled it by
+praying for peace with America--for his sake, and war with
+France--for yours.  I'm only a fool, John, but I'm a truthful
+fool.  There's nothing else in my silly heart but that."
+
+"But there is--looking out of your eyes when you forget to
+shut them and hide it.  My pretty darling--oh, God, to give you
+up!  I cannot.  I never will.  A thousand heroes shall not take
+you----"
+
+"Give me up--what do you mean?" she cried, and her heart
+beat fiercely.
+
+"Why, 'tis true there must be no secrets betwixt us," he said in
+a gentle voice, "not so long as we are what we are to one
+another.  'Pure honesty' was your word.  You tell me he asked you to
+marry him.  And you tell me what you answered.  I know all
+that right well without your telling me.  But I've got to know
+more; I've got to know what you felt as well as said."
+
+"Sorry for him--most truly sorry for him, dear John.  I _did_
+like him.  I'll own to that."
+
+"Don't speak in a tone so light, sweetheart.  'Sweetheart'
+still a little longer.  You women do think a tone of voice makes
+truth less true and falsehood less false.  You say the same words
+in different voices and mean different by them.  And a man must
+grow skilled in your sounds, like a hunter grows clever in the
+sounds of wild things, not counting the weight of the words.  You
+say you liked him as you might like such a one that held your
+stirrup or opened a gate; but you and me are at a place now
+where you've got to speak sacred truth--solemn, slow, each word
+forged to last till doom.  Did you love that man?"
+
+"What is it to love a man?"
+
+He bowed his head.
+
+"I'm answered," he said.  "Oh, Gracie dear--once mine,
+never mine--you know what 'tis to love a man; but you never
+did afore you saw him."
+
+She marvelled that one who had yesterday driven maiden nails
+into a doorpost could see so deep.  She remembered that it was
+she who had taught him to read.  Tears came to her eyes and
+shining drops fell glittering on her horse's neck.
+
+"You break my heart," she said.
+
+"Please God, never!  You didn't know; you mistook--what? you
+mistook something else for love.  We were a boy and a girl;
+and I couldn't choose but worship--you were so lovely in soul
+and body--so gentle to me--so----"
+
+"John," she declared solemnly, "I shall marry you or no
+man."
+
+"You mean it with your whole heart, Gracie?  Right well
+I know you do, and I love to hear you say it, and to see you
+think it while your beautiful, steadfast eyes fright the tears
+away."
+
+"I love you, I love you indeed, John."
+
+"I am content to be loved so," he answered slowly.  "And
+maybe the time that's coming will show the colour of my love for
+you, since 'tis all too big for words.  'Twill take deeds to set
+it forth.  It calls for deeds to show the pattern of a man's life, and
+love for you be all that's left of life for me henceforward."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+RHYME AND REASON
+
+A fortnight after the visit to the old blowing-house,
+Mr. Peter Norcot arrived from Chagford to stay a while at
+Fox Tor Farm, and with him he brought more snow.  This fact
+by no means troubled his level temper.  He was neither more
+plain-spoken nor less poetical than usual as he walked out with
+Grace after noon, and reminded her of Maurice Malherb's
+intention that she should marry during the coming summer.
+
+"Do not think, my dear girl, that Peter is blind.  He knows
+all about Endymion.  But positively John Lee as a husband!"
+
+"'Tis not the first time I have bade you mind your own
+business, Peter.  You have no right or reason to say these
+things to me.  'Tis worse than your rhymes.  If you were half
+the man he is!"
+
+"Hard words cannot break bones, or kill love.  Do what you
+please; say what you like,"
+
+  "'A very sandal I would be
+  To tread on--if trod on by thee.'
+
+I can even rise superior to the necessity of being loved back.  I
+love on and suffer on.
+
+  "'It is not for our good in ease to rest;
+  Man, like to cassia, when bruised is best.'"
+
+
+"I will never love you, nor marry you.  Is not that enough?"
+
+"Too much--more than I could bear, if I believed it.  But
+you are very young, Grace.  I am often relieved to remember
+that you are too young to know your own mind."
+
+She was going to deny it indignantly; but stopped, vividly
+conscious that he had come near the mark.  Therefore sadness
+followed anger in her face and cooled her cheek.
+
+"I do most seriously believe that before next year you will find
+me a continual joy," declared Peter.  "'Tis high time the world
+should see what a husband awaits the making in me.  Too long
+I've pined alone.
+
+  "'Life's a short summer--man a flower,
+  He dies--alas! how soon he dies.'"
+
+
+"'He lives--alas! how long he lives!'  So has many an
+unhappy wife breathed to her soul; and so should I."
+
+"You might, indeed, if, like certain foolish but authentic
+virgins, you married out of your status.  Now John Lee----"
+
+"Have done, or I'll never speak to you more!" cried Grace
+passionately.  "I had rather a thousand times marry John Lee
+than you; and if I please, I will."
+
+"Frankly, my poppet, you are something too much of a child
+to marry anybody yet.  'Winter and wedlock tame maids and
+beasts.'  A true West Country proverb that.  But I'd be your
+lover still, not your master.  Vile word!  In sober honesty,
+however, you can be very provoking, mistress."
+
+"Never less than now.  Walk quicker and save your breath;
+more snow is coming."
+
+The transient gleam of sun that had drawn them out on to the
+Moor departed, and snow began to fall again.
+
+"I've wanted that to happen," said Mr. Norcot.  "Now you
+shall hear a charming thing--not my own, I regret to say, but
+from Petronius Afranius--translated by one Smart.  For its
+perfection you must make a snowball and hurl it at me."
+
+"I'm in no mood for fooling."
+
+"I beg; I implore.  'Twill be worth your pains."
+
+She bent and picked up some snow.
+
+"Don't miss my manly bosom, or you'll spoil all," he said.
+
+"There--I would it could cool your heart and freeze every
+thought of me out of your head!"
+
+Grace flung the snow, and, letting it melt upon his coat,
+Mr. Norcot struck an attitude while he recited another rhyme.  His
+eyes were full of the snow light and seemed harder and brighter
+than usual as he gazed at her.
+
+  "'When, wanton fair, the snowy orb you throw,
+  I feel a fire before unknown in snow,
+  E'en coldest ice I find has pow'r to warm
+ My breast, when flung by Gracie's lovely arm!'"
+
+
+He swept off his hat and bowed; whereon she laughed outright.
+
+"You should have been a player, for you are a most
+unreal man--for ever feigning to be something else than you
+are."
+
+"Then marry me and find the kernel in the nut."
+
+"How can I marry one I do not know?"
+
+"Even such you should choose if you are wise; for the following
+sufficient reasons."
+
+He prattled on, and presently Maurice Malherb joined them.
+The master had been that day in Prince Town upon various
+business, and he returned with news of a sort to interest his
+daughter.  Now her eyes asked him a question and he answered
+it.
+
+"I paid my respects to Commandant Short at the Prison.  He
+is a gentleman, but I think the business of that place will tax his
+authority.  A saint would grow impatient with the knaves."
+
+"And your visitor?" inquired Mr. Norcot.  "'Twas a wonderful
+Providence that sent him here."
+
+"The rascal!  And yet Stark was one worthy of respect, had
+he been properly educated.  He listened to me, as a young man
+should listen to his elders and betters.  I could have found it in
+my heart to like him, but for his soaring nonsense and his
+disinclination to call treachery and revolt by their true names.
+Doubtless his ideas are the common property of his country.
+He suffered but a week's detention in the cachot and is now with
+his friends again."
+
+Peter Norcot from under amber eyelashes studied Grace and
+found further material for interest.
+
+"Another!" he said to himself.  "An inflammable wench
+truly!  Quick to catch fire from every torch but mine.  Well,
+well--may war last until we are wedded.  I ask no more."
+
+"There's further news of a parochial sort," continued Malherb.
+"What think you, Grace?  The old hag on the hill is off!  She's
+left Siward's Cross and gone to a hovel near the Prison, where a
+few acres of land were to be let.  She represented to the High
+Bailiff, the Duchy's man, that I'd robbed her of her best cattle
+lairs when I raised my boundaries!  The old liar has money
+too--ay, and more than money."
+
+"A wonderful creature.  I mind her eyes that sparkled with
+gorgonian fire; her starved abode, and her penury.  It called to
+my recollection Lucilius--his miser and his mouse:--
+
+  "'"You greedy rogue, what brings you to my house?"
+  Quoth an old miser to a little mouse;
+  "Friend," says the vermin, "you need have no fear,
+  I only lodge with you; I dine elsewhere."'
+
+Ha-ha-ha!  She feeds on snails and berries.  Such was Sycorax."
+
+"She's worth above twenty thousand pounds, nevertheless,"
+declared Malherb.
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"True and not true.  She has stolen my amphora.  She
+confessed it when we were without witnesses."
+
+"Now here's a matter indeed!  Can you be sure that she is
+not deceiving you?"
+
+"She has it.  It is her very life."
+
+"Then we'll be innocent murderers and deprive her of life at
+the first opportunity.  Nothing shall become her life like the
+leaving of it."
+
+Malherb turned and addressed Peter out of Grace's hearing
+Indeed, the girl's heart beat fast at this conversation, and she
+was busy with many private thoughts.
+
+"You speak unselfishly, for the jewel will be my son's--that is,
+Grace's son's.  It must remain under a Malherb's roof for ever,
+not under yours, Peter."
+
+"Most just.  The amphora is an heirloom."
+
+Norcot glanced at Grace and marked her profound indifference.
+A wave of real indignation made his forehead hot and much
+astonished him.  It was a revelation of himself.  Then his mind
+chanced to roam towards Prince Town; he thought upon Cecil
+Stark and speculated whether the American could be of any
+service.  While he thought clear prose he continued to utter
+epigrams for Grace's amusement.
+
+  "'The wanton snowflakes to her breast
+  Flew down, like birds into their nest,
+  And, vanquished by the whiteness there,
+  For grief they thawed into a tear.'"
+
+
+Then he turned to Malherb again.
+
+"The amphora must be recovered at any cost.  I need not ask
+whether you have plans.  Do you seek assistance, or undertake
+the affair single-handed?"
+
+"I work alone.  Bow Street runners would not run far on
+Dartmoor.  Lovey Lee may well be left to my mercies.  It shall
+never be said that an old and ignorant woman outwitted Maurice
+Malherb."
+
+"Spoken well!  I'll wager the amphora will grace dear
+Annabel's cabinet before wool-shearing.  To think of that
+priceless fragment of glass in the keeping of such a bag of bones!"
+
+"And to know that she gets joy of it," said Grace, "that is
+the amazing matter.  She, who eats vermin and wears old sacks,
+to find her greatest earthly pleasure in the plump Cupids upon
+that antique!"
+
+"Human nature is full of these tricks," answered her father.
+"I have studied such freakish traits in mankind so long that
+nothing now has power to surprise me."
+
+"Not even yourself?  Now I, though so near to forty, can yet
+astonish myself.  I have done so within this hour," confessed
+Peter.  "As to Lovey," he continued, "she'll clothe herself with
+ashes as well as sackcloth when she loses her treasure."
+
+"Well, well, the snow increases.  Hasten home, the pair of
+you," answered Malherb; then he left them together, and turned
+to an outlying shed where two men worked.
+
+"What a fate!" murmured Norcot when he had gone off;
+"what a pleasing fate, Grace, to be imprisoned here, even as Cecil
+Stark was imprisoned!  How gladly I'd make exchange with
+him--the rough with the smooth."
+
+She made no answer, and he continued--
+
+"Talking of Loves, 'twas a pretty thing that Antonius Tebaltius
+wrote, and Thompson paraphrased, and Norcot improved--
+
+  "'Venus whipt Cupid t'other day,
+    For having lost his bow and quiver;
+  The which he'd given both away
+    To Gracie by a Dartmoor river.
+  "Mamma! you wrong me while you strike,"
+    Cried weeping Cupid, "for 'tis true
+  That you and she are so alike,
+    I thought that I had given 'em you!"'"
+
+
+"You've missed the gate while you chattered," said Grace;
+"now we must climb over the wall."
+
+"I generally do miss the gate with you," he answered.
+"Don't these beautiful pearls that I utter move even a spark of
+pity?"
+
+"Of pity--yes."
+
+"'Tis akin to love."
+
+"As often akin to contempt."
+
+"In mean natures; never in yours."
+
+He helped her over the wall, then spoke again as they hurried
+on with heads bent to the snow.
+
+"'Twas that young American then?  Why so silent about it?
+Why ashamed to tell frankly who 'tis you really do love?  I
+blazon my emotions to the world and do it proudly.  Can you
+not be as open?"
+
+"I hate everybody; and it's all your fault."
+
+"Well, well; mend your pace; we shall be frozen.  And if you
+hate me, change every garment that you wear.  I much fear that
+you are wet and cold."
+
+This practical thought touched the woman in Grace and
+softened her a little.
+
+"I wish I could love you, Peter, for it would be better for
+me and happier for us all if I did.  But I never, never
+shall."
+
+"Well, try to tolerate me--fitfully.  Even a fitful toleration is
+something, and perhaps more beautiful than a fixed and steady
+flame--just as moonlit clouds are lovelier than the moon
+herself."
+
+They talked awhile longer, then reached the house.  Grace
+retired immediately to don dry clothes, while Mrs. Malherb spoke
+with Peter.
+
+"Lord! what a poet was marred when you commenced wool
+merchant," said she, while he drank a jorum of hot spirits and
+held his coat to the fire.
+
+"Nay, nay, Annabel, the same man can serve both mistresses.
+Thus, if I might but come at it, I would weave wool shorn off the
+sheep in paradise for Grace's tender limbs; and I would clothe
+her mind also with a robe spun of the best and the most beautiful
+thoughts to be gleaned from books.  But she'll none of me nor
+my stock-in-trade.  'Tis the weather, not my prayers, that makes
+her wear flannel next her skin.  Yet I told her that I'd gladly be
+the wether that furnished the wool."
+
+"And what said she?" inquired the lady.
+
+"I will be honest with you," answered Peter.  "I will conceal
+nothing.  She replied in one word, 'Baa!'  Believe me, Annabel,
+that never since this mundane egg was hatched did such a
+maddening maiden appear to torment honest men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE OATH
+
+The reign of the new Commandant opened auspiciously at
+Prince Town, for Captain Short came to his work with
+understanding and sympathy.  He was still young, and his heart
+had not grown callous before the spectacle of human misery.
+Compassion filled him at the sufferings of those half-naked hordes
+who wandered through the War Prison; he countermanded many
+of his predecessor's egregious enactments, and stated in feeling
+terms to the Board of Transport the conditions that he discovered.
+The zeal of a reformer first marked his achievements; then he
+grew discouraged, erred, lost heart, and fell from his own ideals.
+
+Cecil Stark served a term of imprisonment in the cachot, after
+which he returned to his compatriots and found familiar faces
+missing.  Some among his acquaintance were exchanged; not a
+few had passed away.  Caleb Carberry perished soon after his
+punishment; Burnham had also suffered as a result of that awful
+penance in ice and granite; but he was now restored to health.
+Of the Seven, two were dead, and James Knapps remained hidden
+with Lovey Lee.
+
+Now, even as the lowest note of their sad hearts had sounded,
+came light upon the darkness of the Americans.  While they
+hung their heads and mourned as men forgotten of their country;
+while hundreds daily threatened Mr. Blazey with letters and
+vowed to transfer allegiance to Britain if he did not better their
+case, good news arrived, and the first written communication ever
+received from their representative reached the prisoners.
+
+Cecil Stark read Blazey's message aloud in the exercise yard of
+No. 4, and jubilant crowds gave ear to it.
+
+"Fellow Citizens," wrote the Agent, "I am authorised by the
+Government of the United States to allow you one penny
+half-penny per day for the purpose of procuring you tobacco and
+soap, which will commence being paid from the first day of last
+January, and I earnestly hope it will tend towards a great relief
+in your present circumstances."
+
+A roar of delight greeted the announcement.  Men cheered
+and wept flung their red caps into the air, fell upon each other's
+necks, embraced, danced wildly, sang and laughed.
+
+"Not forgotten!  Not forgotten!" was the burden of their cry.
+A great emotion of thankfulness animated the mass and woke
+fire in the meanest spirit amongst them.  The actual blessing of
+this pittance seemed less to that forlorn gathering than the
+thought that had inspired it.  A link, sorely tested, stood firm.
+Now all again gloried in their sonship with the mother country;
+for Congress had remembered.  Every man viewed the news
+through the glass of his own nature; but pride in their nation
+glowed upon each face, and trust renewed uplifted their sinking
+hearts.  From the powder-monkeys and negroes to the Committee
+of six leading men now appointed to administer the moneys all
+rejoiced and blessed their native land.  Their trustful natures
+shone out of them, and Congress received many a cheer; Captain
+Short was also saluted; and even the sluggard Blazey won his
+meed.
+
+"Burn the old country; it ha'n't thrown us over after all,"
+said David Leverett to a companion.  "I guess my first dollop
+of money will go in drink, for we've done so long without soap
+that we can easy keep dirty a while more.  We've come out of
+a tarnation tight snarl at last, and nobody's better pleased than
+me."
+
+"Such a swipe ob money, gem'men!" cried Cuffee.  "De Lord
+Him send back Marse Stark; den he send free cents a day.  Our
+own mudders won't know us, nebber no more."
+
+"We-alls shall be eating money presently," laughed Leverett's
+friend.  "Things is on the bounce for sartin.  We've got our
+monkey up agin; and if we can't follow that chap's lead--Stark
+I mean--and hev another try to quit this place, 'tis pity."
+
+"No smouch him," admitted Leverett.  "If there's any hanky-panky
+in the wind, we'll do well ter let him boss it.  'Tis the
+differ between a man well aggicated and you and me.  We'd be
+as good as him if we'd had his luck and his money."
+
+"Maybe we should, maybe we should not," answered the
+other.  "Anyway, if we pull together and let him lead I lay
+he'll hit on a contrapsion ter get every doodle of us clear of
+this."
+
+Something prophetic marked the sailor's speech, for within
+two months of that conversation Cecil Stark, Burnham, one Ira
+Anson and other leaders in No. 4, were maturing their historic
+scheme to liberate the whole of the American prisoners at one
+stroke.  Enthusiasm, like a subterranean fire, burnt in every man
+when the project was whispered abroad, and each entered upon
+his part with determination and courage.  Until this enterprise,
+defections, while rare, were yet regularly recorded.  Nearly a
+hundred Americans had entered British service rather than
+endure the plagues of longer durance; but henceforth none could
+be persuaded, despite well-directed efforts to win them.
+
+We are now concerned with an extraordinary undertaking.
+The Seven were separated by death and other accidents, but
+James Knapps was free; and henceforth the boatswain of the
+_Marblehead_ enjoyed an importance beyond his ambitions.  In
+connection with Lovey Lee, Knapps was able greatly to assist his
+countrymen in their endeavour; and first, he proved by the fact
+of his personal safety that Mrs. Lee remained, after all, faithful
+to the cause of the prisoners.  It was agreed, therefore, that
+Lovey might be further trusted, and she immediately received a
+gift of ten guineas; while within a fortnight, and upon payment
+of a much greater sum, she accepted Stark's proposals and
+prepared to alter her manner of life accordingly.
+
+The markets reopened when the weather broke, and a brisk
+correspondence with the miser and James Knapps was established
+from inside the Prison.  Thus Lovey learned that her co-operation
+must be secured at closer quarters than Siward's Cross.  She was
+bidden to establish herself as near the War Prison as possible,
+and chance enabled her to take up the identical position desired.
+Mention has already been made of a ruinous cottage immediately
+without the Prison walls.  Some acres of rough land went along
+with this deserted "newtake," and the authorities were well
+content to let the worthless place to a tenant.  Instantly grasping
+the significance of the manoeuvre, and alive to the importance of
+blinding all official eyes, Lovey, for the first time in her life, spent
+the prodigious sum of twenty pounds in a week.  She had the
+old cottage thatched and rendered storm-proof; she ploughed up
+a part of the land and fenced all in.  She continued to traffic
+among the Americans, and no question of her integrity had ever
+arisen.  Her stock increased and she became one of the most
+important among the small merchants.  She sold tobacco and
+potatoes; she also smuggled many prohibited articles, such as
+candles, alcohol, oil.  She paid private taxes upon these things to
+the turnkeys, but nobody in high authority ever heard of the
+matter.  Lovey even made the Commandant a friend, and
+regularly provided his table with poultry.  She deceived him by
+her independent manners; and he fell into the common error
+of supposing that one who is laconic, businesslike and dour, must
+of necessity be honest.
+
+A general escape having been planned in every detail, conventions
+were ordered, the plot revealed, and the Americans sworn
+to secrecy.  Such liberty did these prisoners of war enjoy within
+their own confines, that their assemblies were never interrupted
+nor their meetings for entertainment opposed.  On this occasion,
+however, special guards were set by the captives themselves and
+every precaution taken to prevent surprise.
+
+Then Stark addressed his fellows, for by common consent the
+ringleaders appointed him their spokesman.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "as honest Americans, born under the
+Flag of Freedom, it becomes us to attempt escape.  Our condition
+of late has been much bettered, and I, for one, owe no grudge
+against our present guards or their Commandant, Captain Short.
+He is honourable, and does what he may to lessen our tribulations;
+he is also generous; he has increased our privileges, and
+by throwing open the new yards and admitting us to larger
+quarters for exercise and the amusement of games, he has earned
+universal blessings.  Our bill of health is greatly improved,
+thanks to him; he has, indeed, put fresh life into us.  Yet are
+we prisoners, and, upon careful study of the journals smuggled to
+us, it is clear that no immediate hope of peace or of further
+exchange can be held out.  Our country is suffering a period of
+sea losses, and it is not in the moment of these reverses that she
+will tune her ear to peace.  Our circumstances have, therefore,
+prompted us to plan a scheme of escape, and we now submit it
+to your opinions.  Immediately the pending changes in our
+disposal are made, and we have wider fields to work in, we mean to
+dig under these walls a tunnel, that must be two hundred and
+eighty feet long.  It is planned and calculated most fully.  It
+will be sunk in Prison No. 6, and, concerning the exit of it on
+to the Moor, no more need yet be said than that we have stout
+friends outside who will look to that.  Our numbers, as you
+know, increase very rapidly, because our ships have fallen upon
+a bout of ill-luck; but ever recollect that these relays of our
+countrymen from Plymouth and elsewhere only represent American
+mishaps.  Our successes are hidden from us; yet our hearts
+tell us that they exist and occur.  Many English doubtless
+languish in American prisons.  So thus it stands.  I speak to
+two thousand men, and I ask them all to swear secrecy before
+Almighty God."
+
+A dozen Bibles were circulated, and there arose a strange and
+solemn murmur throughout the company as every man swore to
+his neighbour that he would maintain absolute silence concerning
+this matter, and that neither by word nor pen, by look nor
+gesture, would he divulge the secret to any among those set in
+authority.
+
+"To break this oath is death," said Stark.  "You have now
+sworn to keep the secret; and we, your leaders, have also sworn
+that the man who gives one hint of this business to those whose
+duty it is to stop it, will be cut off.  He shall not escape.  In
+ancient Sparta there was a society called Crypteia who slew by
+night.  The Helots perished at their hands, but none knew who
+struck the blow.  They only left corpses behind them.  So will
+it be with us.  Eyes are upon every one of us, and he that
+watches has eyes upon him also.  A traitor will most surely fall.
+He will vanish from amongst us; his place will be empty, and
+none will ever know where his dust lies rotting.  I who speak to
+you have been once betrayed with others whom death has since
+freed.  Woe to that man!  Let him tremble yet while he hears
+me, for his hour will surely come."
+
+The meeting disbanded, and a small sub-committee sat to select
+five-and-twenty trustworthy persons who should fulfil the important
+office of spies upon the majority.  Many refused this unpleasant
+work, until it was explained to them that they incurred no shame.
+Among those finally chosen were Leverett and Samuel Cuffee.
+The negro had work apportioned him with his kindred, while it
+was the duty of Leverett and others to keep in touch with the
+general throng, glean public opinion and report upon any sign of
+unrest, disaffection, or other danger.  A martial system marked
+the plot.  Every sentry and turnkey was under close surveillance;
+the digging parties were chosen for their strength and sobriety;
+while the work itself had been so planned that it proceeded night
+and day without intermission.  A pit was first sunk perpendicularly
+to the depth of twenty feet, and then pursued upon a
+horizontal plane.  This tunnel, if extended for ninety yards,
+would clear the foundations of the outer wall and reach beneath
+Lovey Lee's cottage.
+
+While Stark and his companions cautiously opened their enterprise
+in Prison No. 6, to which they were now admitted, James
+Knapps, snugly hidden with Mrs. Lee, was engaged upon a
+similar task.  Here, when Lovey kept watch, the boatswain
+laboured; and if she went abroad: to the prison, or upon other
+business, he hid himself closely and smoked his pipe in a hole
+under the roof of the cottage.
+
+As for Cecil Stark, a passionate zest marked his attitude to the
+plot, and for mingled reasons he permitted it to fill his mind.  But
+greater than patriotic ardour or personal thirst for freedom, was
+the desire to escape his own thoughts.  He believed that liberty
+could never more be anything but a word to him, for his soul was
+for ever fast bound.  One girl's face haunted him; one voice rang
+musical upon his ear by day and night.  He suffered enough; but
+no man guessed it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+JOHN TAKES HIS ROAD
+
+To move her household goods from the hut by Siward's Cross
+was no great matter for Lovey Lee.  A donkey carried all and
+found the burden light.  The things about which her life's interest
+centred were buried deep in Hangman's Hollow, and her only
+hesitation, when the great enterprise at the War Prison was
+broken to her, arose out of the knowledge that she must now
+abide three miles further from her treasure-house.  To this fact,
+however, the old woman grew reconciled, when she considered
+the nature of the promised reward.  She settled down beneath
+the Prison walls; and now not the least of her grievances was the
+enormous appetite of Mr. James Knapps.  He worked exceedingly
+hard and insisted upon having wholesome food and plenty
+of it.
+
+"We're not all built like you, ma'am, ter do our stint of work
+on ditch-water and shell-snails," he explained.  "Victuals and
+drink I'll have; else I must grumble ter them over the wall.  I
+can't dig my best on offal."
+
+There fell a morning when John Lee visited his grandmother,
+and she saw by his face that a climax had come in his fortunes.
+He was gloomy and sad, yet of his own affairs he said nothing
+until Lovey mentioned them.
+
+"I'm on a private errand," he said, "and since 'tis too early
+yet to see the prisoners, I thought I'd drop in and learn how
+you're faring."
+
+She suspected that he was sent to spy by his master.
+
+"I keep body and soul together, an' that's all I ever shall do,"
+she answered, little thinking that John Lee had counted her
+guineas but a few weeks before.  "Even so I have to thank they
+Yankees to the Prison."
+
+He marvelled at her cunning.
+
+"Do you hear anything of that fine gentleman, Master Cecil
+Stark?" he inquired.
+
+"Ah, you was all in love with him to Fox Farm, I hear.  I wish
+there was more like him."
+
+John did not answer, and his grandmother jeered.
+
+"I see how 'tis!  Your nose be out of joint.  What did I tell
+you, Jack?  Broken hearts--broken fiddlesticks!  Ban't the
+wench's heart as have broke, anyhow.  So her throwed you over
+for a properer man?"
+
+"No, by God!  But----"
+
+"You'm minded to let her off her bargain?  Then the bigger
+fool you!"
+
+She hit the truth in her brutal fashion.  Lee had not trusted
+himself to pursue the matter of his attachment; yet, as time
+progressed, he saw more clearly what Grace strove with might and
+main to conceal.  The accesses of her affection, the thousand
+little kindly thoughts for him--all wrote truth in letters of fire
+upon his aching heart.  True love had acted differently--had
+claimed as well as given; and he knew, despite her assurance
+oftentimes repeated, that her attitude was founded on another
+impulse.  Now, after grief and pain, his thoughts moved slowly
+to Cecil Stark.  In turn he was attracted by and repulsed from
+the prospect of speech with the young prisoner.  Finally he
+braced himself to the ordeal; yet he knew not what he would say
+when they stood face to face.  He felt as a man in a dream at
+this period.  A most unreal and monstrous task lay before him.
+Deliberately he was turning his back upon all that made life
+precious; consciously he was hastening out of day into eternal
+night.  He chafed against the noble impulse that drove him
+onward; for a season he resisted it; then Grace Malherb's own
+steadfast purposes warmed his inspiration.  Her delicacy, her
+gentleness, her courage cried to him.  Must he prove less brave
+and more selfish than she?
+
+It was indeed sheer suffering that supported the girl now; but
+her strength rose superior to it, and only one who knew and loved
+her as this man knew and loved, had guessed at the things hidden
+in her heart.  The torture simulated Grace to a surface brilliance,
+as a bird will sing out of pure misery in sight of his robbed nest.
+Her eyes were ever bright, but unshed tears made them so; her
+plots and plans were ceaseless and sanguine; but he knew that
+she rushed into them to escape from her heart.  Love, indeed,
+had found her at last, but she struggled fiercely to shut him
+out since he had come too late.  She never wearied of plans
+concerning the Malherb amphora, and of the future for John Lee
+when he should discover it.  And he humoured her and himself
+a little longer, so that she scarcely realised that he had grasped
+the truth, despite his first sure guess thereat.
+
+Now the story was told.  He had wandered through the last
+autumnal glade of his fool's paradise; he had witnessed the red
+sunset of his dying romance; and he stood patient and strong
+under the cold starlight at the end.
+
+John Lee was come to speak with Stark, for at certain times in
+the War Prison visitors were permitted to enter and have
+conversation or transact business with the captives.  A tall grille
+of iron alone separated them, but to this grating all men might
+approach on certain days and traffic with the imprisoned for those
+trifles which they wrought and sold to any purchaser.  Work-boxes,
+dinner mats, hand-screens, bone toys and ornaments they
+manufactured; and many persons came from Plymouth and other
+towns to see the spectacle of the great moorland limbo and carry
+from it some memento of the sufferers there.  Nefarious and
+doubtful trades were also practised in the secret fastnesses of this
+gaol.  Exceeding good imitations of the eighteenpenny and
+three-shilling pieces then current passed into the world from Prince
+Town, and forged bank notes also circulated.  Venal soldiery
+helped the prisoners in the business of uttering base money;
+but such simple and honest trash as passed to the visitors
+between the bars of the grille, was openly sold.
+
+Hither from his grandmother's cottage came Lee, and soon he
+noted the tall form of Stark standing with Burnham and Ira
+Anson.  They had nothing to sell, but watched the visitors with
+interest.  Then Cecil caught sight of John Lee, hastened to the
+barrier and shook hands heartily through the bars.
+
+"Well met, well met," he said.  "I'm right glad to see you,
+Jack.  Would that I could give you such a welcome as your
+master gave to me!"
+
+"I hope you are well and strong again, Mr. Stark."
+
+"Well enough----"
+
+The American looked at Lee with intense scrutiny and wondered
+how much or little he might know concerning the affairs of his
+mistress.
+
+"All are happy at Fox Tor Farm, I trust?"
+
+"Well enough," answered the other, as Stark had answered him.
+
+"That means not absolutely well," replied Cecil quickly.
+"Miss Malherb--all at least is well with her?  Yet--Mr. Norcot.
+'Tis intolerable, you know, Jack Lee, that I should speak of that
+man except to bless him for his goodness.  Nevertheless--Miss
+Malherb--but this is none of your business I doubt?"
+
+"It won't be much longer; for the present it is," said John.
+"I know she hates Mr. Peter Norcot.  She's bound to hate him
+in self-defence.  But, nevertheless, 'tis intended she shall marry
+him within six months."
+
+"Yet there's a man she--she loves.  It's too terrible!  She
+suffers--she must suffer horribly.  And this other--why doesn't
+he come forward and sweep Norcot out of her path?  What clay
+is this creature made of that he holds back?"
+
+"The man?"
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then tell him from me--but what's the use of bellowing like
+a pent-up bull?  Can't you, at least, assure him from yourself
+that he must be up and doing?  You're in your lady's good
+graces--therefore justify her trust.  Seek this laggard and explain how
+the land lies.  Maybe 'tis her tyrant father he fears."
+
+"The man knows everything.  He can't help her."
+
+"Cannot!  What's the matter with him?  Has he no arms,
+nor legs, nor courage?  Is he made of gingerbread?  Oh, if
+I----  But perhaps I speak ignorant of facts.  Maybe he's
+chained fast, too."
+
+"Yes, he's fast enough."
+
+"Then 'tis your duty to do what a man may, Jack.  You, at
+least, are free as well as faithful; and in love with Miss Malherb
+also, I'll wager.  You must love her if you're a man."
+
+"I do love her."
+
+"And can see her and speak to her every day of your blessed
+life!  Oh, if I might but help you; if I might come between her
+and trouble----"
+
+He broke off and ended his aspirations to himself.  Then Lee
+spoke.
+
+"Could you escape from this place again?"
+
+Stark started and looked round about him.
+
+"For that cause--yes."
+
+"There may be good reason why you should presently--not
+yet.  The first thing----"
+
+Here Cecil interrupted.
+
+"'Good reason--good reason'?  You know so much that you
+must know more.  And you must tell me more."
+
+"I'll tell you this.  We are at cross purposes.  I let you talk
+because--because it amused me in a strange sort of painful way.
+But the truth----"
+
+He hesitated, and the full, fatal significance of the next few
+words impressed itself vividly upon his soul.  There was no
+blinking it.  The fact stared pitiless.  He stood at the cross roads
+of fortune, and with his next word to Cecil Stark, his own path
+would be chosen, his own desire renounced, for ever.
+
+The American saw that great emotions fought in this man's
+mind, and waited for him to speak.
+
+"The truth is that Miss Malherb is a free woman--so far as
+love is concerned."
+
+"She told me when I----" began Stark; then he looked
+guilty and held his peace.
+
+But Lee understood.
+
+"When you asked her to marry you?  I know.  She could not
+say otherwise then.  Bide bold and patient; the time will come
+when she may answer differently."
+
+The other was terribly moved.  A great expiration burst from
+him, half an oath of astonishment, half a hallelujah.
+
+"In God's name what are you that dare to speak these great
+things?" he asked under his breath, as though he apostrophised
+a sexless spirit.
+
+"Her servant--her slave.  At least I tell truth.  Thus it
+stands--that other--he will not marry her."
+
+"And she still loves him?  This is damnable!  Let me but
+meet that man!"
+
+"No need to rage against him.  He's a harmless fool enough
+and would be your friend--anybody's friend but his own.  'Twill
+be no grief to her, a joy rather to find that she's mistaken in
+him."
+
+"She never really loved him then?"
+
+"She didn't know--she didn't know.  You forget how young
+she is.  I think she loved him with an innocent, baby love; I
+think she'll always love him a little for the sake of--but let that
+go--she's free--free to listen to a lover.  Now you know what I
+came to tell you."
+
+Stark stared silently up into the sky and John Lee saw a light
+dawn upon his face, as though some angel passed in the air and
+shone upon him.  Then the prisoner turned to Lee and spoke
+slowly and solemnly, for he was awestruck at the magnitude of
+this great revealment.
+
+"If I owned a kingdom it should be yours this day.  Please
+God I can do something, though nothing worthy such news.  If
+you will, you shall have an acre of good Vermont earth presently
+for every word you've spoken to me.  Yet earth's a pitiful payment
+for the hope of heaven on earth you've given to me."
+
+He knew not the sufferings he wakened or the wounds he tore
+open.  Voices laughed in John Lee's ears and told him that he
+had sold his heart.
+
+"Leave that," he said roughly.  "You mistake me.  I'm here
+for love of her--not you.  Listen, then I'll be gone.  You must
+get in touch with her very gradual and delicate.  I can go
+between you."
+
+"I see; I see.  What a learned man you are in these matters,
+Jack!  With your Apollo's face you've had your experiences, I'll
+wager!  But wait; I'll be gone and write a letter--just a reminder
+that I live.  I'll sell you a little bone windmill I made for a
+turnkey's child; and in it I'll place a note.  You must give me a
+coin for it, but you shall find a larger one inside for yourself."
+
+He was gone, and Lee waited, seeing but not perceiving the
+throng around him, hearing but not heeding the medley of voices
+and the tramp of many feet.  Aloft in the blue a hawk hung
+poised upon trembling wings.  It surveyed the bustling scene,
+then glided away to the Moor.  The American, David Leverett,
+approached Lee and invited him to purchase a little mat of
+woven grass.
+
+"Here, young feller," he said.  "I reckon now your gal's just
+fretting herself silly for a keepsake, whoever she is; and you'd
+best not displeasure her by refusing.  This was woven by a
+one-armed man, you see, and that makes it worth twice as much
+as any other mat.  So 'tain't no manner o' use ter offer less than
+ten cents for it.  Hev a squint at the workmanship--not bad for
+a crab with one claw--eh?"
+
+Lee shook his head and the sailor gibed:--
+
+"Not ten cents!  Then by God! you don't love her, and she
+shall hear of it.  Come now--fourpence, then--only four dirty
+pennies.  Think o' the kisses she'll give for it."
+
+Still Lee declined, his thoughts elsewhere, and Leverett cursed
+him for a fool, shook his stump in John's face, and turned to find
+a customer.
+
+A few minutes later, as bugles were sounding for the visitors to
+depart, Cecil Stark came back with a little toy made of mutton
+bones.
+
+"Hand me any small coin you have about you," he said.
+"You'll find a billet for Miss Malherb and two guineas for
+yourself in the drawer at the bottom."
+
+These simple words hurt poor John cruelly, for their business-like
+and even sordid tenour jarred upon his own great renunciation
+in a way that Stark little guessed.  Lee's heart was numb;
+his mind had grown dreamy and incoherent now.  Mechanically
+he took the windmill and handed Cecil a shilling.  Then, without
+any word of farewell, he turned away and followed the departing
+crowds.  He heard Cecil Stark say "God bless you!" as he
+went; but only a strange loathing of the money he carried rose in
+his mind.  This mean detail of two guineas fretted him to madness.
+He could not see the matter as Cecil saw it; he jealously
+muffled his reason, and refused to behold in himself henceforth
+no more than that necessary thing--a lover's messenger.
+
+Slowly he returned over the Moor towards Fox Tor Farm, and
+the thought of all that he had lost swept down upon him like a
+storm in the wilderness.  Temptations shook him then.  He
+turned the toy of bone about in his hand.  He might have
+crushed it and stamped it down under the bog in a moment.
+But nothing could crush the deed done.  He relapsed into a
+sullen and ferocious sorrow.  His feet dragged under him.  A
+sense of age swept over him, and along with it came bitter
+remorse that he had flung his fate away to another man and set
+no store upon fortune's priceless gifts.  A savage loathing of
+himself awoke in his spirit.  He hated the flesh that he was clad
+in, poured contumely upon his own head and cried out aloud in
+the loneliness that his repulsive weakness proclaimed him what
+he was: a bastard and a creature fit only for the scorn of men.
+He cumbered the earth.  None was the better for him.  The
+cur that fled from a badger had greater courage; the baying
+foxhound more pluck, than had he.  His grandmother's words in
+the past returned to his memory and clashed in his head like
+bells rung by demons.  This was how he had employed her
+wisdom; this was how he had cast away his grand opportunity to
+win fortune and love.
+
+Siward's Cross rose before him and he stood near the home
+of his childhood.  He sat awhile beside the hoary monument
+and leant his back against it.  Then he turned and examined
+it with listless eyes, and watched the shadow cast by its squat
+arms darken the heather.  Long he delayed; and, at last, as
+the sun, turning westward, warmed the Moor and touched the
+cross with a gentle and roseate glory, the benignant, evening
+hour found out John Lee, soothed his giant sorrow and set its
+seal upon him.  This venerable stone had power to comfort the
+lad's grief.  He began to think less of himself and more of Grace
+Malherb.  Her joy grew out of the sunset light; her young life's
+story opened before him; he saw a ribbon of pure gold stretching
+down into the West, where the sun was setting beyond a
+distant sea; and he knew that it was her road home.
+
+Great words came to his recollection: "He that loseth his life
+shall save it," was written for him in the soft and mellow
+earth-shadows of sunset.
+
+"My life shall be lost in her life," he said; "and if she's saved,
+I'm blessed above all deserving."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+STARS AND STRIPES
+
+When Mr. Mordecai Cockey entered Fox Tor Farm the
+spirit of Grace Malherb sank within her.  Had an executioneer
+appeared, she had felt no greater horror; for Mr. Cockey
+was a journeyman tailor, and, according to the custom of that
+time upon Dartmoor, when clothes were needed, the maker of
+them came to his customers and took up his abode in farm or
+hamlet until local requirement was satisfied.  A month's work
+or more awaited Mr. Cockey, and first among the articles to be
+fashioned with his skilful needle were certain gowns--a part of
+Grace's wedding trousseau; for all men now knew that within the
+space of a few weeks Miss Malherb was to become Mrs. Peter
+Norcot.
+
+Two trestles and a dozen boards completed Mr. Cockey's
+professional requirements in the servants' hall; and here, day by
+day, he sat and snipped and sewed, and sewed and snipped.
+He was a very full-bodied, pallid man, with flabby cheeks, mournful,
+watery eyes and a puzzled expression.  He came from Totnes,
+and often mourned that his itinerant labours required him to be
+much away from his wife and family.  This tailor descended in
+direct line from Mordecai Cockey, the famous seventeenth-century
+bell-founder; and when he heard any one of those seven great
+bells that the bygone Cockey had cast, he would lift his head
+where the musical monster thundered from some Devon belfry,
+and nod respectfully, as to the spirit of his ancestor.
+
+Now Mordecai worked at the wardrobe of the farm, and,
+elevated upon his trestles, held a sort of conference, and told the
+things life taught him.  Once during the dinner hour, several
+farm folk were at Mr. Cockey's feet, as he sat cross-legged amid
+his tools and ate his meal of bread and cheese.  Meat he might
+have had in plenty, but he explained to Dinah Beer that his
+sedentary life had long since turned him vegetarian.
+
+"By God's blessing I can stomach cheese," he said, "an' if so
+be as a body's humours will cope with vinnied cheese, he may
+hope for a long life."
+
+"Be my breeches mended, Mister?" asked Tom Putt.  "'Cause
+if so, I should like to don 'em afore afternoon.  I've got a riding
+job as'll take me to Holne by-an'-by."
+
+"They'm done.  I've double-seated 'em for 'e."
+
+Mr. Cockey nodded towards the garment.
+
+"You'm always as good as your word, I'm sure," said Harvey
+Woodman, "though how them fat hands of yours--as look more
+like bunches of parsnips than hands--can do such finnicky work
+makes me wonder."
+
+"Ah, I dare say a lot of things make you wonder," answered
+the tailor.  "Not but what I envy you your way of life, for 'tis
+healthier'n mine.  You chaps, as till the earth, have no time to
+fret your intellects like what I do.  Ploughmen never band
+together and make trouble in the world.  Tailors be a very
+thinking race; but you'll not find they takes a hopeful view of
+human nature."
+
+"Then they'm small-minded," said Beer firmly; "for, looked
+at all round, human nature be a very hopeful thing."
+
+Mordecai Cockey sighed.
+
+"You may be in the right.  Perhaps building of clothes do
+narrow the heart, for we grow apt to think 'tis our feathers make
+the birds.  For that matter the world counts us but light.  We'm
+slighted tradesmen, we tailors.  They say it takes nine of us to
+make a man; though it only takes one to get a long family, as
+I know to my cost.  Thirteen children have I, an' all with the
+tailoring spirit in 'em except my eldest son."
+
+"An' what might he be doing?" asked Putt.
+
+"Well, he's a baker."
+
+"A very honest trade."
+
+"That's just what it ban't," declared Mr. Cockey.  "They'm
+sly as lawyers; an' there's a damned sight more in bread than
+corn nowadays.  A man may be eating his own great gran'faither;
+as I've said openly down to Totnes, an' nobody contradicted
+me.
+
+"God's word!  They don't rob churchyards for their bones, do
+they?" asked Woodman.  "If I thought that, I'd never take bit
+nor sup to Totnes no more."
+
+"There's ways an' ways," explained the tailor.  "Bone goes
+in; as thus.  Man is earth, an' earth is bread; an' when they
+take the top spit off what was thought to be an old burial place
+of the ancients an' turn it over an' make a wheat field--what
+then?"
+
+"'Tis just short of a cannibal act!" declared Woodman; for
+they never buried deep in them days."
+
+"Rubbish, Harvey!" answered Beer.  "We ourselves be only
+the fatness of the earth when all's said.  'Tis nature's plan; an'
+I see no harm in it at all."
+
+"More don't I for that matter," declared Cockey.  "With my
+well-knowed feelings about human nature, you won't be surprised
+if I say that many a man's better as corn or cabbage than ever he
+was on two legs."
+
+"Then you don't believe in God, same as me," said Kekewich
+grimly.
+
+"Not at all, not at all," answered the other.  "I'm only saying
+a man's body is mud, an' his clothes is mud in shape of wool
+or flax; an' he's all mud to the eye; but as to his soaring spirit
+I won't hazard a word.  A tailor must believe in God.  'Twas
+Him as gave the word for clothes an' put Adam an' his lady into
+their first shifts of His own Almighty making."
+
+"You meet men whose spirits be the muddiest part about 'em,
+all the same," declared Kekewich.
+
+"So you will; but every thinking creature turned of fifty must
+have come across folks with souls looking out of their eyes.
+Why, I've seed pictures in big houses where the paint had a soul!
+Ess fay--beautiful dead an' gone women have pretty nigh spoke
+to me where I sat an' worked below their gold frames."
+
+"I'll never believe in souls," said the older man.  "We'm
+a vile race, an' no God of Heaven would ever make such a poor
+bargain as to overbuy such trash as us at the price of His only
+Son.  Why for should He?  If He'd but lifted His finger, He
+might have had us for nought."
+
+"The devil must be itching for you, Kek," said Harvey
+Woodman.
+
+"You'm no hand at argument, Mr. Kekewich," continued
+Cockey; "for half the beauty of argufying is to hold close to the
+matter.  You was saying as you didn't believe in souls; an' I was
+saying as I did.  Well, take an instance.  There's Miss Grace
+Malherb for who I be making this here lovely vest.  Be that
+bowerly maiden no more than the pink-an'-white china dust she
+goes in?  If so, she's no better'n this bit of flowered silk."
+
+"People can be good or evil, an' yet have no more souls than
+dogs," began the head man; but at that moment Miss Malherb
+herself entered as a bell rang to tell that the dinner hour was
+done.
+
+The labourers departed to their work, and Grace was left with
+Mr. Cockey.  She came to beg a secret favour and now whispered
+it into the tailor's ear, though there was none but himself to
+hear it.
+
+"If you command, it must be done," he said.  "I know a
+mariner to the harbour at Totnes, where the Holne timber goes
+down Dart to build His Majesty's great warships.  The man has
+goodly stores, an' will sell me so much bunting as I want--red,
+white and blue.  I'm going down to-morrow for the day to get
+more cloth."
+
+"And, before all things, keep it secret.  Not a whisper!"
+
+"It shall be as you please, Miss.  An' I'll ax you to take this
+here vest along, an' put it on, an' let me see if 'tis all right."
+
+"You work so dreadfully quick!  You're sewing a shroud,--d'you
+know that, Mordecai?"
+
+"What a word!  How comes it you want stuff for flags
+then?"
+
+"Ah! 'tis not for my wedding day.  Now, if you could fashion
+me a pair of wings to fly with----"
+
+Mr. Cockey drew a thread through his needle.
+
+"Fine clothes don't make a happy marriage, I know," he said;
+"but they do put heart into a wedding party, an' speaking
+generally, they'm a great softener of life to females.  A parcel
+from me has dried many tears--poor fools."
+
+"I'm not married yet, however."
+
+"No, but--Lord! what's that?"
+
+The tailor sat with his back to the window, and, unseen by him,
+a horseman had ridden up to it.  Now he stopped, rapped upon
+the casement with his whip, doffed his hat and grinned at Grace.
+The glass was not good, and it distorted a countenance generally
+esteemed amiable and handsome.
+
+"Mercy on us, what a chap!  'Tis a face like to Satan!" cried
+Cockey.
+
+"That's the gentleman my father wishes me to marry," answered
+Grace quietly.
+
+"Then I'm sure I beg pardon, Miss.  'Twas a twist in the
+glass."
+
+"You caught sight of his soul--not his face," she said.  The
+girl had turned pale, and now she hastily left the room.
+
+
+Much had happened since Mr. Norcot's last visit, and soon
+accident was to enlighten him in certain directions.  Mordecai
+Cockey went off on the following morning and returned in
+eight-and-forty hours with various bales and packages.  One of these
+he handed to Grace in private, and she conveyed the parcel
+unseen to her chamber.  Its nature will presently appear.  For the
+moment it suffices to say that Miss Malherb's secret concerned
+Cecil Stark, with whom, thanks to John Lee, she had now
+established a correspondence.  Their letters Grace showed to
+John openly for some time, but, perceiving that they were the
+joy of two lives, the messenger refused to read these missives
+more.  Grace still stood at the parting of the ways, nor knew that
+John Lee's road was already chosen.  The relation of three
+became difficult beyond endurance; Stark understanding that
+John had access to all letters, chafed at the mystery, and naturally
+found little to admire in such control.  He was meditating action
+when a sudden incident upset their former relations and quickened
+the catastrophe.
+
+Peter Norcot, upon this, his last visit to Fox Tor Farm before
+the wedding, pursued a customary course and endeavoured by
+imperturbable good humour and kindness to soften his lady's
+temper.  He well knew the futility of the task, yet persevered.
+
+On the night of his arrival Grace had a headache and did not
+appear, whereupon he wrote her a letter and sent it to her by the
+hand of Mary Woodman.
+
+"Dear Light of my Eyes," said he, "I am quite broken-hearted
+to know that Mordecai Cockey has a greater place in your
+affections just now than any other man.  It is the Tailor's Hour!
+Well, well!  I must be patient.  Yet what can a tailor do to make
+Grace more graceful?  Here's a beautiful epigram from our own
+Devon poet, Browne.  I transcribe it for you:
+
+  "'To CUPID.
+
+  "'Love! when I met her first, whose slave I am,
+  To make her mine why had I not thy flame?
+    Or else thy blindness not to see that day;
+  Or if I needs must look on her rare parts,
+  Love! why to wound her had I not thy darts?
+    Since I had not thy wings to fly away?'
+
+How cruel well these lines fit one Norcot!  But I would never
+fly.  True love is patient--like charity it suffereth long; like hope
+it is eternal; like faith it keeps its course with the stars.  Bless
+you!  May the morning light restore you to health, and to the
+presence of your devoted Peter.
+
+"Postscript:--
+
+  "'If all the earthe were paper white,
+    And all the sea were incke,
+  'Twere not inough for me to write
+    As my poore hart doth thinke.--LYLY.'"
+
+
+To this letter came no reply; but in the morning Grace
+appeared as usual and spent a reasonable portion of her time
+with the wool-stapler.  For once Mr. Norcot tried an erotic vein,
+quoted the most passionate things he knew and attempted to
+warm a heart that--moonlike--ever turned one face to him.
+But it was the dark frozen side he saw.
+
+"My ideas are boundless," he said.  "I spurn space on the
+day I call you my own.  You were meant to mirror the Mediterranean
+in those wonderful eyes of yours, and you shall.  We'll
+sail away to the land of wine and song--to Provence, the cradle
+of the troubadours.  It can be done now that we are friends with
+the French again.  Yes; and I'm going also to take you to Italy;
+I----"
+
+"At the beginning of the hunting season?  How ridiculous
+you are, Peter.  Why, even if I married you--which you know I
+never shall--I would not----"
+
+"Grace, you must marry me.  It is an accomplished fact.  The
+banns have been read for the first time of asking at Widecombe
+and at Chagford.  Nobody forbade 'em.  You are absolutely
+vital to my peace of mind, to my well-being, to my sanity.  You
+may not love me yet, but soon enough you'll look back to these
+wayward days and mourn 'em."
+
+"Indeed I shall."
+
+"Mourn 'em, that you could so often have made so true a man
+sad.  You won't understand me."
+
+"Yes, I do--perfectly.  If there is one thing about our dreadful
+relations that I do see clearly, it is your nature.  You have
+been peculiarly and horribly clear of late.  You want me--what
+you call 'me'--my curls, eyes, lips, and all the rest of a wretched
+girl.  But you don't care a feather for the part of me that matters.
+You never consider that I've got a soul, and that it's always sad
+and sick and sorry when it thinks of you.  You don't mind that
+you're killing all my higher senses and instincts--poisoning them;
+you----"
+
+"Now, my dear Grace, these assumptions are nonsense, and
+show first how little you really know about me, and, secondly,
+how absurdly scant attention you pay to my conversation.  It is
+a union of souls that I sigh for and shall assuredly establish when
+the time comes.
+
+  "'Tell me not of your starrie eyes,
+    Your lips that seem on roses fed,
+  Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
+    Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed--'
+
+George Darley--a pretty boy-poet who has not published yet."
+
+"Really, Peter, you're impossible!"
+
+"I say tell me not of these things, Grace, because they are
+nothing whatever to me.  I don't want to hear about 'em.  Soul
+to soul--that's all I ask; and that is what I will have."
+
+"Never!  It takes two people to be married, and they've got to
+be of the same mind."
+
+"Happily you are mistaken in that last assertion.  Your idea
+is that one lover may take a maid to church, but the Bench of
+Bishops can't make her his wife if she's averse.  Tut, tut!  What a
+violent thought!  We'll find ourselves of one mind yet.  Greater
+things than matrimony have happened in less time than lies
+before us."
+
+"Plain English is wasted upon you, Peter Norcot, and upon my
+father too."
+
+"I'm much afraid you'll hear some exceedingly plain English
+yourself before long--from that same father.  He grows singularly
+savage of an evening when you have retired.  How clear lies your
+duty--why do you so shirk it?  Is your conscience taking a
+holiday?  You know better than you speak--I'm positive you
+do."
+
+Many such-like futile conversations passed between them; then
+befell the accident aforesaid.  It placed some sensational
+information in the hands of Peter, and, little guessing at the result,
+he hesitated not to avail himself of it.
+
+There came an afternoon when he sat with Maurice Malherb;
+while the master mentioned Grace and inquired how matters
+progressed in the affair of Peter's courtship.
+
+"To tell you truth, a very retrograde business.  I had done
+better to have copied your own unbending methods.  But I'm a
+soft-hearted fool.  What says the poet?  Those writing men
+always know such a deal about it!
+
+  "'He that will win this dame, must do
+  As Love does, when he bends his bow;
+  With one hand thrust the lady from,
+  And with the other pull her home!'"
+
+
+"I'm amazed that any child of mine--but words only waste air
+now.  The wedding day's at hand.  She'll be the first to see her
+own folly when she looks back upon it.  Obey she must and shall.
+To-morrow I purpose to have speech with her.  Things have
+reached a climax.  Heaven knows whence she got this sullen
+and mulish humour.  Not from me."
+
+"Nor from her mother, I'm very sure.  Would she was more
+like your wonderful lady.
+
+  "'Prudently simple, providently wary,
+  To the world a Martha and to heaven a Mary.'
+
+Annabel is a jewel among her sex."
+
+"A wise man chooses his wife," said Malherb, "but it is denied
+him to choose his daughter.  To-morrow, at any rate, we'll try
+and make the matter clear to her.  I hate force.  I am naturally
+a man of mild manners; yet this thick-headed world will never
+understand me until I clench my fist."
+
+"One thing I must beg," interrupted Peter.  "Don't surprise
+her.  Don't suddenly appear before dear Grace.  It would not be
+fair.  I passed her chamber door yesterday, and by chance it
+stood ajar.  She sat there busy with her needle; and the purpose
+to which she was putting it nearly startled me into an ejaculation.
+She does not know that I saw her.  Candidly, I wish that I had
+not done so.  There are sad secrets--'She loves a black-hair'd
+man.'  In fact, there is somebody dearer to her than either you or
+I.  What did I see?  'Sight hateful--sight tormenting!'  Stars
+and stripes--stars and stripes--but all stripes to me.  I'll swear
+each one has left a bruise upon my soul!"
+
+"What, in God's name, are you ranting about?" cried
+Malherb impatiently.  "Is everybody going mad, or have I
+already become so?"
+
+"You must ask Gracie that question.  I saw her enfolded in a
+mass of red, white, and blue bunting.  There is nothing in that.
+Bunting may stand for joy.
+
+  "'The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
+  But wonder how the devil they got there.'
+
+And I wondered the more since these coloured rags were taking
+upon themselves the likeness of the United States national flag.
+Now, what is that notable emblem doing under this roof?  I
+would not deny my future wife any rational amusement, but----"
+
+Peter stopped, for Maurice Malherb had hurried from him.
+
+The father strode straightway to his daughter's room, found the
+door locked and kicked it open with a crash, to see Grace sitting
+beside her window half hidden under billows of bunting.
+
+In the year 1814, America's banner consisted of fifteen alternate
+red and white stripes with fifteen stars arranged in a circle on the
+blue canton.  Helped by designs from Cecil Stark, Grace was
+carefully reproducing the historic standard upon a generous scale;
+and her father surprised her in the act to fit the last star into the
+circle.  Upon one star was the word "Vermont," embroidered
+with white silk, and round about it ran a tiny margent of golden
+thread.
+
+"What means this, woman?" roared Malherb.
+
+"Why, that you've broken into my private chamber, dear
+father, and kicked the door down.  And this--this, that I am
+making, is a flag of freedom for Mr. Cecil Stark and his friends.
+They hoped to hoist it above their Prison and rejoice at the sight
+of it on the Fourth of July--a very glorious day among them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY
+
+No man nor woman at Fox Tor Farm had ever witnessed an
+explosion of human passion so awful as shook Maurice
+Malherb upon his discovery.  Annabel, in tears, confided to
+Peter Norcot that her husband had taken his daughter by the
+shoulders, shaken her nearly senseless, then flung her upon her
+bed.  He had raged and roared until the house was a cave of
+harsh echoes; he had made fast his daughter's chamber door
+from the outside, and dared any living soul to approach the
+sinner without his permission.
+
+"In the case of these tropical tempests," explained Peter,
+"nothing can be done.  Happily they are short.  'In rage deaf
+as the sea, hasty as fire.'  For my part, I return home
+immediately.  Everybody here must get under shelter and wait for a
+change of wind."
+
+"Argument is vain," said Annabel.
+
+"Tut, tut!  Who argues with a volcano?  Write to me in a
+day or two; and have no fear for the dear girl.  Half his rage
+now is because he so far lost his self-command as to shake her.
+A shaking after all--well, by my faith, she deserves it.  To
+correspond with Cecil Stark!  When I say that it was naughty,
+I understate the offence.  However, that matter lies in a
+nutshell.  Get rid of her messenger.  John Lee's the man.  Despatch
+him; and let him know that I'll befriend him.  Farewell, until a
+brighter star shines over us, my dear Annabel."
+
+Towards evening, when his wrath had somewhat abated, Mrs. Malherb
+told her husband of Norcot's departure--a fact he had
+not noticed for himself.  She added particulars of his last advice;
+and before the moon rose John Lee had passed out of Fox Tor
+Farm for ever.  With difficulty Beer and Kekewich withstood
+their master, for he had rushed among his people with a horsewhip.
+
+"I was her servant, sir, to do her bidding," said Lee quietly;
+then he rose from his meal to depart.  One ghastly blow he
+received across his face; and he clapped his hand to it and went
+out, while Kekewich interposed his stunted figure between Malherb
+and the groom.
+
+"You've done enough for one day," he said without flinching.
+"Best to cool down, else your raging fires will set your brain on
+light and cast you into Bedlam."
+
+"'Enough'!  Is it enough that a man's daughter----?" began
+Malherb.  Then he broke off and rolled his eyes upon their
+frightened faces until the pallid and rotund orb of Mr. Cockey's
+countenance challenged his glance.
+
+"And you, tailor, work as you never worked yet!  Let your
+trash be done next week, or take it back again."
+
+He quitted the hall abruptly; and for the rest of that dim day
+his wife suffered him alone.  Her prayers he cried down; her
+tears he dried by terror.  He ordered her not to weep, and
+frightened her into obedience.  She believed that he was going
+mad and suffered untold dismay until, cast up like a drowned
+thing by the waves of his passion, physical nature collapsed and
+Malherb slept.  Groaning and moaning in the dream scenery
+begot of his wild spirit, she left him, crept to the prisoner and
+took Grace to her bosom.
+
+For an hour they held mournful discourse, but Annabel did
+all the weeping.  Her father's temper animated the girl and she
+panted with indignation.
+
+"I weary of your tears, dearest mother," she said.  "If you
+may fetch me some food I should be thankful for it.  That smooth
+coward to peep into my room!  And to tell!  I will jump from
+my window on to the kind granite sooner than marry him!"
+
+Annabel mourned her daughter's folly; she explained how that
+John Lee had been dismissed at a moment's notice; and then,
+changing her mood, she talked herself into quite another frame
+of mind, and began to upbraid the sinner with all her might.
+
+"'Twas a very unmaidenly thing, and that much I stoutly tell
+you.  To have an understanding with a man, and one who is
+your country's enemy!  Your father has destroyed the flag.  He
+thrust it into the red-hot peat and scorched his own hand badly.
+He raved against the very foundations of the earth when he
+burnt himself.  Like Samson, he would have dragged down the
+house if he could.  Oh, you are a thorn, not a daughter!  He is
+breaking his great heart.  Treachery is beyond his understanding.
+I blush for you, Grace Malherb."
+
+"I wish you would get me some food; I'm starving," said the
+girl wearily.  "He would not grudge me bread and water."
+
+"That is what he said just before he slept.  'Bread and water,'
+said he; then his voice grew softer on the brink of sleep, and he
+said, 'She may have milk too.'"
+
+"I love him through it all!"
+
+Mrs. Malherb's tears flowed again.  She left her daughter and
+presently returned with the food.
+
+"He didn't say 'twas not to be warmed, so I've heated it for
+you.  Oh, my pretty, wicked sweet--how could you do a deed so
+unbecoming?"
+
+"I don't know, mother," answered Grace, beginning to eat.
+"These things happen.  I liked Mr. Cecil Stark very much, and
+I like his country and his ideas about right and wrong."
+
+"A young man's ideas upon such subjects are usually very
+mistaken."
+
+"In the third letter he wrote me he asked me to make a flag
+for him, and I consented after carefully weighing the matter in
+my mind."
+
+"What should he want with a flag, poor soul?"
+
+"'Twas for the Fourth of July--the Anniversary of their
+Independence.  There--the bread and milk are gone.  Good night,
+kind mother.  I'm sorry you ever had a daughter."
+
+"The female character has always been beyond me," confessed
+Mrs. Malherb.  "The difference between a boy and a girl, as
+Peter once said, is the difference between a dog and a cat.  A
+dog is so much more reasonable, so much easier to comprehend
+and direct.  Slyness: 'tis a feline thing; and as to obedience, it
+certainly comes more natural to a son than a daughter, though I
+know not why.  At any rate, it is so where a mother's concerned.
+A son will do anything so gladly for his mother--if you don't ask
+him to interfere with his own comfort.  And what mother worthy
+of the name would do that?  Not that disobedience to parents
+was ever recorded against either sex in our rank of society when I
+was a girl.  Now good night, child.  Try to sleep, and let your
+prayer be the same as mine--that it will please God to lift your
+dear father's wrath by morning."
+
+But with the return of day Malherb still wasted his nervous
+energy in anger.  He refused to see his daughter or to liberate
+her.  He wandered miles upon the high Moors alone; then going
+back again, he returned to the infamous treatment he had suffered
+and the torment of possessing a thankless child.  Presently
+he attacked his wife, and cursed her past folly and ignorance.
+
+"You are to blame for all!" he said.  "'Twas your upbringing--so
+weak, so fond--that bred this devil in her.  Would to
+God you had more of my own mother's spirit in you.  Look at
+me.  I owe everything to my education.  She was a Roman
+mother.  Had you been more like her, this minx had never
+dared to flout a father.  But, by God, I'll break her now or
+never!"
+
+Within the day Malherb arrived at a determination; but he
+told his wife and Kekewich only.  Then a letter reached Peter
+Norcot.  The secret, however, leaked out, for Kekewich confided
+it to Mordecai Cockey, and Mr. Cockey uttered it aloud as a
+mournful fact in the hearing of Dinah Beer.  That night Richard
+Beer naturally heard it; and then the news reached Harvey
+Woodman's ears.  Finally it came to the intelligence of Tom
+Putt, and made his heart quicken by a stroke or two in the
+minute.  For Putt had taken this matter much to heart.
+
+"'Tis become a common prison, wi' that lovely miss locked up
+as if she's done a murder, 'stead of fall into love with a fine
+gentleman," grumbled Thomas.  "For my part, I can't stand it
+very much longer.  Ban't a manly thing for us chaps to bide here
+an' know a maiden's being starved to death on bread an' water
+under the same roof with us."
+
+"Her done it underhand," said Woodman.  "If it wasn't for
+that, I'd feel the same as you."
+
+"Well she might do it underhand wi' a tiger for a parent."
+
+"Best you pick your words, else you'll go after Jack Lee, wi' a
+flea in your ear," returned Woodman.  "I say 'tis a very terrible
+proceeding," he continued.  "An' seeing the chap's a Yankee,
+nought can be done.  'Tis an unthinkable thing for one of our
+bettermost young women to marry an American.  I'm 'mazed
+she could give her mind to such a rash deed."
+
+"That's because you haven't got more ideas than a cow," said
+Mary Woodman firmly.  "What's the matter with the man--Mr. Stark,
+I mean?  God's goodness!  You talk as if he was a
+monkey, or some foreign savage as scalped people for his pleasure.
+He'm good to look at, an' he had a beautiful gentle way with him
+for all his fighting face.  An' so straight as a fir tree a was, an'
+full of learning, an' civil to the least of us, an' gave you a golden
+half-sovereign afore he went away.  So you'm a traitor to miscall
+him.  I won't have no narrowness, Harvey, an' you well know it.
+You used to be so broad as Bible in your opinions, an' very
+charitable-minded for a common man.  But to tell such things
+because a young gentleman be born out of England--I'm shamed
+for 'e!"
+
+Woodman had little to say before this wifely rebuke.  They all
+talked on and expressed their concern; but Thomas Putt did
+more than debate the situation and regret it.  Despite lack of
+opinions on all matters save sporting, he had plenty of common
+sense and courage.  He could act promptly, and danger or any
+consciousness of unlawfulness in a task usually stimulated him to
+successful achievement.  On his own responsibility he took up
+the cause of the prisoner.  While there was yet time, Grace
+Malherb must know the thing determined; so argued Putt; and
+in that conviction he took a definite step, and conveyed his
+information to another.
+
+Then came a morning when Grace from her prison window
+witnessed the departure of Mr. Mordecai Cockey.  She shivered
+as he went, for she knew that his work was done.  Some six
+weeks yet remained before the day appointed for the marriage,
+and gloomily she speculated as to whether her father could find
+it in his heart to keep her thus shut up throughout the whole
+splendour of summer.  Annabel visited her daughter thrice daily;
+but she brought little news and no comfort.  Grace soon
+discovered that her gentle parent suffered much under weight of
+secrets.  The mother felt often tempted to reveal what was now
+afoot; but she had promised her husband to say nothing.
+
+"Mr. Cockey has gone off much earlier than it was proposed,"
+said Grace upon the evening of the tailor's departure.
+
+"He has done his work."
+
+"And wasted much good cloth."
+
+"I pray to Heaven that you will listen to reason when the time
+comes to do so, Grace."
+
+"I shall never hear reason under this roof, mother.  To think--a
+grown woman so treated!  How can father heap such insult
+upon his own flesh and blood?  How he would have scorned any
+other man in the land who had treated a daughter so!"
+
+"It has pleased God to perplex his noble nature; and he
+knows his own weaknesses.  He has come near relenting more
+than once.  But, like Pharaoh, he hardens his heart again.  He
+suffers worse than you do.  He has quite lost his appetite--a
+very alarming symptom, I think.  At table he helps himself, as
+he helps everybody, with his usual generosity; then I see you
+come into his mind, and he fumes and frets and thrusts his meat
+from him.  There is trouble, too, that I know not of.  We are
+much straitened.  I shall hear all about it some night, when he
+is in a soft mood."
+
+"Nobody can help him--that's the cruel thing with dear
+father."
+
+"He'll not listen to his kind.  It is as though God had cursed
+him and said, 'Thou shall trust no judgment but thine own.'  So
+warm-hearted and so beyond reach of other men's wisdom as
+he is!"
+
+"I trust in Heaven to bring him to his better self.  There are
+yet many weeks before this dreary farce is ended," said Grace.
+
+Mrs. Malherb looked exceeding guilty as her daughter uttered
+these words.  She answered nothing and prepared to depart; but
+she hesitated at the door as though about to speak.  Then she
+changed her mind and withdrew quickly.
+
+Ere the morning's dawn, however, Grace heard the thing so
+studiously concealed from her.  She slept but little at this period
+and busied her mind with futile thoughts.  She did not doubt
+that John Lee and Stark knew all and were busy upon her
+behalf.  Therefore, when a gentle tap fell on her casement an
+hour after midnight, she felt neither fear nor astonishment, but
+welcomed it as a thing expected.  She struck a light to show that
+she had heard, wrapped a gown about her and came to the
+window.
+
+A scrap of paper tied round a pebble lay on the sill, and upon
+the paper was written one word: "PULL."  She obeyed and found
+that a thread communicated with the ground below.  At the
+other end of this string was a length of whipcord, and when that
+also had been drawn up, she found that it brought after it the
+head of a slight rope-ladder.  A further laconic direction appeared
+upon another scrap of paper: "MAKE FAST."  Grace fixed the
+ropes to the iron grate of her fireplace and extinguished the light
+for safety; then her heart beat fast as the cords strained and a
+man rose up from the darkness of the earth below.
+
+Not until he was at the casement and she heard him whisper,
+did she know that it was John Lee.  A wave of disappointment
+swept over her; and to hide any ray of it, she bent and kissed
+his hand.
+
+"'Tis only me," he said; and his voice that read her heart so
+clear, cried to her to be honest with him and speak the thing she
+had longed yet feared to say.
+
+"Dear, dear John.  I wish I could say what you deserve to
+hear!  You risk your life for me, for father would surely kill you
+if he knew of this.  Yet what have I to give you back for such
+devotion?  'Tis no time for anything but solemn truth.  I've
+long feared to face it, dear John; but now I'm grown older and
+braver.  I will marry you, John, but I do not feel all that I
+thought I felt.  I am not the true, trustful girl you think me, but
+a flighty fool who did not know her own mind.  There--you
+know--and I'm thankful that you should know, though you must
+hate me and condemn me evermore."
+
+"Think you this is news, my pretty Grace?  How strange to
+hear these things retold after so many days!  I'm long since
+schooled to this cold truth.  Dear heart, your eyes never hid a
+secret--nor your soul!  I know--I know everything--all that
+you feel--all the sorrow you've suffered for me--all that you
+cannot say--all--all--to the secret prayers you've prayed to
+Christ about it!  Suffer no more.  The man you love will soon
+be free to stand between you and trouble.  And you'll never
+quite forget me neither--never forget me--I know that.  I'm
+content; and I'm selfish too, you see.  I've claimed one great
+payment--the right to rescue you, and the joy of it.  'Twill be
+his turn next.  I'm saving you for him.  You can trust me if he
+does?"
+
+"Whom should we trust?  We're both in prison now.  'Trust
+you'! faithful, generous John!"
+
+"You must be so good as your word at once then.  Your banns
+have been asked out thrice.  To-day is Saturday; you are to be
+married on Monday.  The date is changed.  Putt brought me
+the news where I dwell now.  I have returned to my grandmother.
+There's much to tell about what's doing at the War
+Prison, and about him--Master Stark--but that must wait until
+you're safe."
+
+"They have plotted to marry me--to dash me into it by a
+surprise?"
+
+"They have."
+
+"I'll stay and brave them!"
+
+"No, no--what's one girl against two resolute and determined
+men?  Terrible things happen--women have been drugged as
+maids and come to their senses wives.  Don't pit yourself against
+them.  Stark knows that you must escape."
+
+She reflected a moment.
+
+"If he wishes it--if you wish it--yes.  But not now.  To-morrow
+night, John."
+
+"All's ready.  Your parents shall learn that you are safe and
+well.  But to find you will be beyond power of man.  So that
+you can trust me----"
+
+"To-morrow night, then, I'll be furnished for flight.
+To-morrow--kiss me, John."
+
+"For him?"
+
+"For yourself.  Is not my life worth that?  Yet 'tis poor
+payment for a poor thing."
+
+"For the last time before God."
+
+He bent over her and folded her in his arms.  She felt his
+young heart against her own.  Then he kissed her lips.
+
+"Your lover no more; your slave for ever," he said.
+
+A moment later he had descended to earth, and Grace shed
+tears for the first time since her imprisonment.  She drew up the
+ladder as he directed, hid it close and watched John Lee vanish
+into the dim dawn.  Then she turned into her room and felt
+already that it was a memory of the past--a nest of youthful joys
+and sorrows, of many a girlish fancy and old dead dream, now
+left behind for ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE TUNNEL GROWS
+
+Cecil Stark and William Burnham walked side by side
+in their exercise yard and discussed the affairs of the world.
+While the American prisoners toiled like moles underground,
+great events marked the time.  The Allies were in Paris;
+Napoleon had abdicated and, for a moment, the war with France
+was ended.  The Peace of Paris had been accomplished, and
+Europe took breath.  Yet liberty's glorious reveille woke the
+French at Prince Town to more grief than joy.
+
+"I can find it in me to be truly sorry for them," said Stark.
+"They have starved and frozen and suffered for an ideal cause
+and the ideal is shattered.  They trusted Bonaparte as our people
+trust God; and now the idol they adored is fallen, and the master
+they hate is lifted up again."
+
+"Men from Plymouth presented them with their old national
+flag and advised them to wear the white cockade," answered
+Burnham; "but every mother's son of 'em sticks to the tricolour
+and has pinned the Bourbon favour to his dog!"
+
+"They cry out that Elba is too small to hold the spirit of
+Napoleon.  Perhaps they are right.  Time will show that," said
+Stark.
+
+"Their wives and children will soften their griefs when they
+get home."
+
+"Doubtless.  And their common sense, so soon as the first
+smart of failure is past.  War teaches men to look twice into the
+claims of kings."
+
+Burnham did not immediately reply.  Then he said--
+
+"I've noticed a change in you since that awful experience when
+Miller perished.  You seem--forgive me--less patriotic-minded
+than of yore."
+
+"I have wider interests than of yore.  I get important private
+letters."
+
+"From home?"
+
+"No--from friends in this country.  To be frank, I have now
+a personal stake in life that I lacked until recently.  We cannot
+live to the State only.  We must also live to ourselves."
+
+"Do those interests of self and State clash then?"
+
+"As to that, my lad--why, mind your own business," replied
+Stark.  His tone was amiable, but Burnham knew the subject
+could not be reopened.
+
+Presently others joined them and conversation turned to the
+subterranean works.
+
+A shaft, whose adit was carefully concealed, now sank upon
+the tunnel under Prison No. 6.  The mouth was narrow, but
+within it space had been dug for four men to work abreast.  A
+grand difficulty was the disposal of the excavated earth; and
+ingenious methods had been taken to get rid of it.  A stream,
+which ran through each prison yard at the rate of four miles an
+hour, carried away many tons of fine dirt, while much was mixed
+with lime, plastered over the prison walls and then whitewashed.
+A large cavity discovered under Prison No.  5 proved also of great
+service, and many tons of surplus soil had been cast into it.  Now,
+as their passage crept yard by yard nearer to the outer walls, the
+workers suffered for want of air; but means to eject the azotic gas
+were devised; a system of lighted lamps answered this purpose;
+and to Lovey Lee fell the task of smuggling large quantities of
+oil into the War Prison.
+
+The leaders spoke with hope and enthusiasm.  A week or less
+would see the completion of the tunnel, and already plans were
+being developed for the great exodus.
+
+Burnham, fresh from his conversation with Stark, found David
+Leverett at his elbow; whereupon he discussed his recent rebuff
+with the sailor.
+
+"Stark was wont to be open as daylight.  But now there's a
+bitterness about the man, and his mind wanders.  To-day he
+confessed to other interests than our common interests.  And
+at such a critical time!"
+
+"You can't trust any human in this world," said Leverett.  "I
+tell you there's not a doodle inside these walls--narry a Yankee
+or Britisher--who hevn't got his figure.  Man's built so; so's
+God.  You can't even get into Heaven for nought.  'Tis a
+question of price.  Only Hell lets you in free."
+
+"You don't mean----?"
+
+"I don't mean nothing.  'Tis dangerous ter mean anything in
+this place, when you've always got unseen eyes watching you,
+like a hawk watches a sparrow.  But let the highest amongst us
+be watched as well as the lowest--that's all.  No treason in that.
+I hevn't got any ill-will against Cecil Stark, though I know
+you was always jealous of him.  He's a good boss, and I trust
+him as much as I trust anybody else.  But liberty's sweeter than
+love of man or country; and money with liberty would tempt the
+angels I reckon, if they found themselves in this place.  Money
+and liberty's all the world can give a man."
+
+"What's money to him?  He's made of money."
+
+"So much the more might he want ter be free ter spend it.
+He's not the sort to stop home nights anyhow."
+
+"For that matter, there's money for all since the French
+departed.  Their offices fall to our men now.  The prisoners
+are making fifty pounds a week or more--apart from home
+allowances."
+
+"Yes, an' that tarnal miser, Lovey Lee, pouches half of it,"
+grumbled Leverett.  "Talk about money!  If I'm first through
+the rat-hole, I'd like ter get my four fingers on ter her windpipe
+and strangle her by inches.  That's the payment she deserves!"
+
+"We shall be through in four or five days.  Knapps sends in
+word that since they got a recruit--Lovey Lee's grandson--their
+rate of progress has increased.  'Tis the letters that John Lee
+gets to Stark that make him so unrestful, I believe."
+
+"Stark could give 'em the slip for that matter," said Leverett.
+"Scores of Yankees as can speak the lingo have given up the
+names of Frenchmen and gone out.  I'd hev done it myself if
+I could parley-voo."
+
+"Yes," admitted Burnham.  "He's a good scholar.  He could
+go to-morrow; but if he did he would be a coward and a knave.
+He knows that it is his duty to stop and see this thing through."
+
+"'Duty'!  Well, I haven't got much more use for duty myself,"
+replied the other.  "Life's short, and there's nobody on earth or
+in heaven cares for me but David Leverett."
+
+"Stark happens to have bigger ideas than you," answered
+Burnham coldly.
+
+"'Tis easy for the rich ter hev big ideas; but they ain't no
+good to the likes of you and me."
+
+William Burnham resented these sentiments and turned on
+his heel; while Leverett addressed Mr. Cuffee, who passed at
+the moment, and, in default of a better listener, grumbled to him.
+
+"Devil take the hot-heads; and Devil take the hindermost!
+'Tis every man for himself in this world, so far as I've seen.  And
+when all's done, and we're free--what?  How's five thousand
+unarmed men ter get ter Tor Quay and take ship ter France?
+We want a fleet o' vessels!  They'll send the sojers after us, and
+they'll lick up and overtake us and cut us ter ribbons--that's
+what they'll do.  'Twould be truest kindness ter stop the whole
+thing."
+
+"Marse Stark he lead de way.  He wiser den us."
+
+"You think so--and the rest likewise.  But I say this snarl
+is beyond his powers ter loose, and we're going the wrong way
+about it."
+
+"You no blame Marse Stark?"
+
+"I duz then.  He ought ter know, if he's so tarnation wise,
+that it can't fall out right."
+
+Sam Cuffee shook his head.
+
+"If you fink Marse Stark ebber make a mistake in him life,
+you no fren' ob mine no more," he said.
+
+
+Elsewhere the subject of these criticisms was fighting with
+mingled interests, and found himself torn in half between the
+prisoner at Fox Tor Farm and the prisoners at Prince Town.
+Escape was now easy enough for any intelligent man; and with
+each draft of French prisoners many Americans had got clear off
+by giving up the names of the dead; but in Stark's opinion, the
+fortunes of the plot were his fortunes.  Daily the difficulties
+increased, and as larger numbers of prisoners became familiar
+with the secret, the chances of treachery grew.  A week or less
+must see the tunnel bored; but meantime the temptation to
+desert his post was terrible.  Through John Lee, Stark had
+learned of the catastrophe at Fox Tor Farm, and now understood
+that secret means were afoot greatly to hasten Grace's marriage
+with Peter Norcot.  The American also knew clearly that, while
+a prisoner in body, Grace Malherb was free in heart, and that
+she loved him.  His soul longed with a frantic desire to reach
+her side and save her.  By night he dreamed wild dreams of
+rescue; in sleep he saw himself conveying his love to France,
+wedding her there, and returning to England again that he might
+face her father's fury; but with day his obligations to his
+countrymen banished this picture.  To desert the cause now was
+impossible, for his escape would awake sleeping authority and
+unsettle those he left behind him.  Every hour new problems
+had to be met and solved.  Rumours of disaffection reached him
+often.  In this predicament he did not trust himself to think of
+what he might do, had it not been for the presence of John Lee.
+The vital matter of Grace's escape rested with John, and even
+now, as Stark tramped the prison yard, he scanned the grille,
+impatient to see his friend.  For upon the preceding night Grace
+had been rescued from her home and now hid in Lee's safe keeping
+until Stark himself was free.
+
+As for John, no personal hopes and ambitions longer remained
+in his mind.  Never keen, they had waned utterly with his life's
+sole joy.  Now he stood for nothing but the happiness of Grace
+Malherb, her safety and her welfare.  She alone acted as an
+incentive and made his life continue to possess attraction.  For
+her he entered into the plot of the Americans; for her he toiled
+beside James Knapps to hasten the ends of Cecil Stark; for her
+he now ran countless personal risks and came safely out of them,
+helped by his very indifference to danger.
+
+Upon the day that was to have seen Grace married to the
+wool-stapler, Lee appeared among the spectators at the barriers,
+and pulled some small coins from his pocket as Stark approached
+with one or two trinkets of prison manufacture.
+
+"All's well," he said shortly.  "I brought her safely off.  Even
+now Norcot must be cooling his heels at Widecombe Church; for
+when they discovered this morning that she had escaped 'em,
+there was no time to communicate with him."
+
+"She is unhurt?  No harm befell her?"
+
+"To earth she came like a pretty dove, and by sun-up she was
+safe.  She's not far off neither."
+
+"To think of another doing these things that should have
+been my blessed privilege!"
+
+"D'you grudge me that much?"
+
+"No, no, Jack; but consider--her lover.  Yes--I'm that now,
+thank God."
+
+"This was what I could do for her and you could not.  She
+is out of danger now, and will be for a week--not longer."
+
+"In less time than that my work here is done and we shall be
+free," answered Stark.  "Then 'tis my turn; then I must----"
+
+"The tunnel will be through in less than four days--perhaps
+three," interrupted John.  "Knapps works eighteen hours a day
+and I do my stint.  He's made of iron.  By night we get rid of
+the soil; by day we work while my grandmother keeps guard.
+When the time comes, we shall knock out the side of the cottage
+so that the open door shall be as large as possible."
+
+With difficulty Stark brought his mind back to this great
+matter.
+
+"She--yes--the exit must be as wide as you can make it.  We
+are planning the final stroke.  At best it will take some hours,
+however good our method and discipline.  The danger of alarm
+is manifest--also the danger of false alarm and panic."
+
+"You deserve to succeed.  You have great authority over men."
+
+"My obligations cease when I take my turn with my fellows
+and come through the tunnel.  It is each man for himself then.
+But I have given my word to depart no other way.  Then!  How
+shall I pay you for all I owe you, Jack?"
+
+"Name that no more.  You cannot.  She will pay me.  Her
+future happiness is my payment."
+
+"And her future will rest with me.  'Tis a solemn thought
+for one so little worthy of such a trust.  Shall you see her
+to-day?"
+
+"Every day until you are free and beside her."
+
+"My purpose is to get to Dartmouth and hire a vessel that
+will take us to France.  I have heard all about the place, and
+believe that a little ship can lie hid at some appointed spot where
+the trees hang over the river."
+
+"Such spots abound.  I might see to that.  When once you
+and your countrymen are free, her hiding-place must be left
+instantly, for another will come to it."
+
+A shadow of lover's jealousy clouded Stark's face; but it was
+gone in an instant.
+
+"If we get successfully out of this, you and you only must be
+thanked for all.  I lag behind you every way.  But I'll do my
+share, Jack, when I get opportunity."
+
+"No fear of that.  To-morrow I may beg a mount at Holne
+and get to Dartmouth.  But, to be frank, 'tis more vital that I
+should watch over her than do any other thing just now.  If
+Norcot lays hands upon me, all may go wrong.  He'll know right
+well that I've a hand in this."
+
+"Then think first and only of her, and guard your own safety
+before everything, for her sake."
+
+A mat of dyed grass and a little box of coloured wood passed
+between them, while Lee handed a coin back through the bars.
+
+"Her letter is under a false bottom in the box," said Stark;
+then he turned to some friends and Lee went his way.  In his
+mind was a great desire to visit Dartmouth and complete these
+secret plans.  Yet the awful danger to Grace if misfortune
+overtook him and kept him from returning, made him hesitate
+to incur other risks than those already run.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HUE AND CRY
+
+When Thomas Putt reached Widecombe Church on the
+morning of the wedding, he found the company from
+Chagford had already arrived.  Peter Norcot's bottle-green coat,
+gilt buttons, and noble shirt frill, presented an imposing and
+attractive appearance; his sister Gertrude was attired in lace and
+silk of a faded lavender hue; his man Mason wore a mighty
+bouquet of flowers on his new livery.  Last of this party was
+the bridegroom's cousin from Exeter--a young Clerk in Orders,
+one Relton Norcot, whose flat and somewhat vacant countenance
+grew pale as he heard the news.  He feared the issue and
+expected an explosion, but his knowledge of Mr. Norcot was small.
+
+When Putt announced that Grace Malherb had vanished in the
+night, Peter's eyes contracted a little; he rose from his seat, thrust
+his hands deep in his breeches pockets, and began to pace up and
+down in front of the altar rails, regardless of the whispering crowd
+in the church.  His reverend cousin drew him to the vestry; then
+the disappointed lover spoke.
+
+"I'm very little surprised.  We must act with the utmost
+promptitude.  She's not done this thing single-handed.  I'll wager
+that groom John Lee's in this, and, like enough, Stark, too.  He
+is the rascal for whom she suffered imprisonment."
+
+Peter next turned to Putt.
+
+"Tell us all you know," he said.
+
+"Only that the window was open, your honour," answered Tom,
+who secretly prided himself on the entire conduct of the affair.
+"'Twas by the window Miss Grace went out.  Her left a letter for
+her mother.  They do say--Mrs. Beer I mean--that her wrote
+her'd rather die a thousand deaths than have you, begging your
+honour's pardon for mentioning it.  She said as she was going to
+be in trusty hands also."
+
+Peter nodded, while the young clergyman with the fatuous face
+began to get out of his surplice.
+
+"She must have been very badly brought up," he remarked, and
+Norcot stared at his cousin; but his mind was on the matter in
+hand.
+
+"I shall proceed instantly to Dartmouth," he said.  "Tell
+Mason to saddle my horse and his own.  Either from Dartmouth
+or Tor Quay they will endeavour to leave the country.  Mark me,
+that man Stark has broke prison again.  Is Mr. Malherb in
+communication with Prince Town?"
+
+"Not that I knows about," answered Putt.  "Master be like a
+bull of Bashan--to say it with all respect.  He've made Fox Tor
+Farm shake to its roots.  He's lamed two horses a'ready afore I
+started, an' he's been tearing over the Moor since dawn, like the
+Wild Hunter.  He 'pears to think he's been hardly treated by
+Providence; an' he's called down fire from Heaven, by all accounts,
+on pretty near everybody as lives on Dartymoor.  A proper
+tantara, I warn 'e!  God knows how 'twill end.  He roareth against
+all things but hisself."
+
+"'Tis a shattering stroke," wept Miss Norcot, "and you are a
+marvel, Peter, to bear it with such composure."
+
+"Tut, tut!  Get you home, you and Relton here.  The marriage
+is postponed.  See her home, Relton, and bide my coming.  I
+may not be back for a day or two, but don't return to Exeter until
+you hear from me."
+
+Then he again addressed Putt.
+
+"Ride back at once and direct your master to set a sharp watch
+about Holne.  They are lying close to-day; but they will doubtless
+try for the coast at nightfall.  First ascertain if Mr. Stark has
+escaped again from the War Prison; next do all in your power to
+capture the person of that groom.  I've a hundred pounds for the
+man who takes John Lee and keeps him fast.  Now be off; and
+let them know that I will be at Fox Tor Farm by midnight or
+later."
+
+His horse was waiting for him, and quite indifferent to the
+crowd that had assembled round it, Peter mounted, bade the
+children get out of his way, and galloped off with his man after
+him.  The disappointed bridegroom purposed to inform the
+authorities and place patrols above Dartmouth, both upon the
+roads and river.
+
+As for Tom Putt, he rode home; while Miss Norcot and the
+clergyman returned to Chagford.
+
+
+At Fox Tor Farm, as the day wore on, wild turmoil reigned,
+and the flock-master in fury was urging his exhausted labourers to
+further efforts.  Every spot for miles around about was searched;
+the industrious Mark Bickford even tramped over Cater's Beam
+and through Hangman's Hollow; but Grace Malherb, securely
+hidden in Lovey's treasure-house, was beyond reach of discovery.
+John Lee had laid his plans with care, and knowing that his
+grandmother would stop at Prince Town until the completion of
+the tunnel and the liberation of the Americans, he selected her
+secret hiding-place for Grace.  Here, until Lovey's next visit, she
+was safe; but the miser would soon herself be flying hither with
+her reward; and before that moment Grace must be gone.
+
+"When she does come," said Lee on the night of the rescue,
+"she'll bring some fat money-bags with her; and she'll have to
+lie low henceforth, for if they catch her----"
+
+"And there's danger for you too?"
+
+"None to name," he answered.  "My fear is only for your
+health--that you may suffer in this dismal pit.  It is damp.  But
+here's a snug cubby-hole I've found--dry as a bone--and I've
+filled it with sweet dead fern and heath.  The water that trickles
+yonder is pure.  And upon that shelf, beside the money-bags,
+you'll find bread and bacon and a jug of cider.  'Twas all I
+could furnish yesterday, but I'll come back to-night with better
+fare.  Here's a few candles too, and a flint and steel.  And--and
+he'd be here now if he could--Master Stark--you know that
+right well; but he's got a great weight on his shoulders--five
+thousand fellow-men to answer for; and he knows you're safe
+while I draw breath."
+
+"I can't thank you.  Each word you say stabs me and makes
+me ashamed to live."
+
+"Sleep--sleep soft and safe; and dream of him.  'Tis not
+going to be long before he comes to you; but it won't be here.
+To-morrow I see him; to-morrow night I'll return again.  Don't
+fear for him.  Think of the light he's got to show him his road!
+You're safe as sanctuary here.  And remember, if time hangs
+heavy, that you may be within touching distance of the amphora."
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"Father will never forgive me now.  I have done a deed
+unpardonable.  He cannot understand that I love him with all
+my heart, and yet deem my poor, wretched body a sacred thing--beyond
+his right to dispose of as he pleases.  I only pray this
+will not drive him to distraction."
+
+The man left her, and during that day had speech with Cecil
+Stark at the War Prison, as we have noted.  He worked also for
+several hours beside James Knapps, and then, towards midnight,
+returned to Grace.  So silently did he descend into her
+hiding-place that he did not waken her.  She slept snug in the russet
+sweetness of last year's bracken, and the candle by her side made
+a play of great black shadows broken by the glow of the fern.
+Her young shape was sunk in this soft resting-place, and her lips
+shone very red in the candle-light.  They held his eyes, since her
+own eyes--those lovely lamps that generally attracted a
+beholder--were hidden.  Long he watched her peaceful breathing, and
+stood fired to his heart, unwilling to rouse her.  Once she half
+awoke, and moved and lifted her head; then she cuddled into
+the fern, sighed softly and slept again.
+
+Presently he called her in gentle tones, and she sat up, still
+dreaming; then came to her senses and remembered.
+
+"Great news," he said.  "First, here's some fresh wheaten
+cake and some butter and three hard-boiled eggs.  Next, you
+must know that the tunnel is just finished.  We were nearer
+by five or six yards than we thought.  To-day we heard them
+knocking."
+
+"How is it with my mother and father?"
+
+"I have seen Putt within the last two hours.  He stole out to
+Fox Tor and met me as I came.  Your mother keeps calm,
+for she knows that you are safe; but Mr. Malherb is like one
+possessed."
+
+"Alas, I can see him and hear him as though I was by."
+
+"Men fear to come to him.  There is a settled battle in him
+against every human soul.  Yet a strange thing happened: at a
+lonely cot yesterday, where he called to learn if they had heard of
+you, a little girl stood by the door; and he looked at her, then
+suddenly caught her up and kissed her before he got on his horse
+again.  The child was not feared at his fierceness neither, but
+laughed into his bloodshot eyes.  The mother told Tom Putt."
+
+"Oh, why was I your daughter?"
+
+"Norcot went straight from Widecombe to Dartmouth, so Putt
+also tells.  A deep man--how he hit the critical point--how he
+knew what was in our heads!  He'll have watchers on all the
+beatable waters, and to-morrow he'll set to work to hunt himself."
+
+"If he should find me, John!"
+
+"Then I'll forgive him.  Now farewell for a while.  I shall see
+you again to-morrow night."
+
+They parted, and Grace read the letter that John had brought
+her.  Stark was deeply concerned at her escape; but he wrote
+not one word of love in this missive.  She missed that word, yet
+knew well how much he had upon his hands and how that this
+was no time for softness.
+
+And Lee, returning over the Moor, heard a horse's hoofs
+behind.  He had scarcely dived into some old tin-streamer's
+workings and flung himself flat behind a furze-bush, when Peter
+Norcot went by in the dim tremor of dawn.  So close was he that
+John saw his eyes were half shut, and that he nodded and nearly
+slept in his saddle.  Light had broken eastward, and already the
+small life of the Moor stirred amid glimmering grass-blades.
+
+Norcot jogged onward to Fox Tor Farm, and Lee, wondering
+whether the lover or himself had worked harder during the past
+day and night, got back to his grandmother's cottage at Prince
+Town.
+
+Great bustle marked the farm when Peter reached it.
+Mrs. Malherb, haggard and careworn, greeted him where sleepy-eyed
+men and women were collected in the servants' hall.  For a
+moment there was respite, because Malherb had already risen and
+ridden away.  Norcot followed his kinswoman to her parlour,
+then sank into a chair and began to drag off his top-boots.
+
+"Any news, Annabel?  I see from your face that there is none.
+This mad business of keeping her chained up!  It was bound to
+end thus."
+
+"Maurice has started again--this time to Prince Town.  Oh,
+Peter--his reason--I fear terribly for it!  No human creature
+could endure what he has endured and keep sane.  I assure him
+that she is safe on her own showing.  I have it under her hand
+and seal.  But he will not believe me or her.  He is like the sea
+breaking on rocks--he never tires.  After midnight he leapt up
+and was soon in the saddle again.  He has gone to the War
+Prison now."
+
+"He should have gone there first.  Many hours have been lost."
+
+"He will make trouble with Commandant Short, for he is in
+no mood to be denied."
+
+"What news had he of Stark's escape?"
+
+"We did not so much as know that the young man was
+escaped."
+
+"I feel little doubt of it.  However, he'll hardly clear
+Dartmouth, or Tor Quay either.  Grace, Grace!  Poor child--how
+true--Hesiod--Earth and Chaos are the parents of Love.  Now
+I must lift myself out of this chair again!  Fifteen hours in the
+saddle--three horses.  Do for pity's sake get me a bumper
+of strong drink, Annabel.  And my wedding breeches--worn
+out.  Only just now off to the War Prison!  Tut, tut!  His rage
+has made him blind."
+
+"He has been brave as a lion and done ten men's work."
+
+"Ten fools' work, you mean.  'When valour preys on reason,
+it eats the sword it fights with.'"
+
+"I fear, indeed, for his reason, and for his precious neck.  He
+is worn out in mind and body, and ought to be in bed instead
+of on horseback."
+
+"So ought I.  Send the drink to my usual room, my dear.
+And bid them call me in three hours.  Make 'em wake me
+whether I will or not in three hours' time."
+
+"If my Maurice would but listen to sense!"
+
+"Men don't change the habits of a lifetime at fifty.  What
+does Cicero say?  '_Utatur motu animi_----' I'm too sleepy to talk
+English, let alone Latin.  'He only uses passion who cannot use
+reason.'  A very unreasonable man is Malherb."
+
+"You shall not criticise him at such a pass, Peter.  None
+shall.  This wicked girl may cost him his life--you and she
+between you.  No man ever led a more honourable and
+single-hearted existence.  He is always trying to do right."
+
+"Yes, I know all that.  A man trying to do right is only
+interesting as long as he fails.  Malherb has never yet ceased to
+interest me."
+
+"Go sleep, cousin.  You are saying things you would not say
+in your proper senses."
+
+He rose with a groan and hobbled painfully to the door.
+
+"Death and fury!  I'm an old man myself this morning;
+gone in the hams and gone in the head!  How I ache!  But
+wait until to-morrow.  'When Greeks joined Greeks, then was
+the tug of war.'  We'll catch my gipsy to-morrow.  Don't forget
+the beverage, Annabel.  Half a pint of champagne and a little
+drop of brandy in it.  A drink for heroes.  And a hero I am,
+if ever there was one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FIRST THROUGH THE TUNNEL
+
+Maurice Malherb, worn with futile rage and toil,
+now turned his face towards the War Prison, and cursed
+himself as he rode along, because he had left this vital business
+until now.
+
+Dawn saw him far upon his way, and its grey light touched his
+grey face and revealed new marks of storm for ever stamped
+there.  His cheeks were somewhat sunken; his life and energies
+seemed concentrated in his eyes.  He sat heavy and inert upon
+his horse, yet sometimes spoke aloud.  His eyes were never still.
+Their dark gaze ranged the desert, and nothing, near nor far,
+escaped his scrutiny in the murk of the dawn.  The chill hour
+cooled his forehead and helped him to reflect.
+
+"A man's daughter of all things living to turn upon him!  And
+of all daughters mine!  She who has lived long enough to see
+me in the right a thousand times.  The only one left to me.  And
+knowing the deep love I bear her!  And knowing how that my
+judgment errs not.  'Tis beyond belief that we should bring out
+of our own blood a thing that can feel so little thankfulness for
+the blessing of worthy parentage.  I grudged her nothing.  I
+gratified her every wish from childhood.  And the only one left
+to me!  Oh, God, how comes it that a man's own offspring can
+show him so little of his own self?  She should be my image
+and her mother's blended together.  Yet what is she?  An
+exemplar of all that is hateful in woman.  And yet--and
+yet--when she was not crossed she could be as other
+maids--sweet and daughterly to those that doted upon her.  She
+has made me think that I was all in all to her.  But
+disobedience--to break from the control of her father.  And
+to love an American!  Fiends of hell, to love one of them!
+Madness--'tis some strain of erotic madness that turned her eyes
+to this enemy.  The love I've wasted there--and would
+again--and would again!"
+
+His mind broke off, then returned to the matter.
+"But no--never again.  She shall be nothing now--I've cast
+her off; I have prayed to God that she may be dead--rather
+than----"
+
+He yawned and his sleepy brain relaxed its grip upon his
+wrongs.  Memory was worn out.  He stopped once and actually
+asked himself upon what mission he rode thus in the dayspring
+hour along this solitary waste.
+
+The morning star waned above the Prison and another dawn
+broke to the murmur of many waters.  Light stole out of the
+thin sweet air; a rosy illumination washed the sky, tipped the
+tors and spread beneath his horse's feet.  Prince Town stretched
+its granite rings before him; and some fairy tincture of light
+touched even those solemn walls.  They glowed as the morning
+opened golden eyes, and the ascending sun arose from a pillow
+of fire.
+
+The master rode straight to Ockery Bridge, where Captain
+Short's cottage stood; and upon his demand instantly to see the
+Commandant, a servant assured him that it was impossible.
+This he expected, and it did not suffice.  Before the man could
+interpose, Malherb had pushed past him and entered the little
+dwelling.  He shouted aloud for Captain Short, and was about
+to lift his voice again when the officer himself appeared.  He
+was dressed in full uniform.
+
+"They refused me, Short, but I would take no refusal.  Matters
+of life and death may be afoot."
+
+They were acquainted, and the soldier answered civilly.
+
+"Good morrow to you.  As for life and death--why, I believe
+it is as you say, though I pray the affair may end sans bloodshed.
+My patience is near gone, however.  These men have the devil
+in them, but, luckily, there is always a traitor to reckon with.
+Cottrell also found it so."
+
+"I am concerned about one man."
+
+"Then your business can wait, my dear sir; for I am concerned
+about several thousands.  You come at a momentous time.  Look
+yonder.  Within eight-and-forty hours my hive would have been
+empty and my bees swarming--God knows whither."
+
+Commandant Short laboured under excessive emotion.  He
+was very red and excited.  His hands continually failed him while
+he endeavoured to buckle on his sword.
+
+"I desire to learn all you can tell me of Cecil Stark," said
+Malherb, "and know I must at once."
+
+"In good time.  What think you of a tunnel burrowed under
+those walls?  They have done it--scraped a hole clean through!
+At midnight came a message for me, and in secret I received the
+news from one of themselves.  Two hundred pounds and liberty
+was his reward."
+
+"Not Stark!  You do not say that he turned traitor?"
+
+"The rascal's name cannot be divulged.  But at least you
+shall see the sequel."
+
+"Stark has escaped--I know it."
+
+"Then you know more than I do.  'Tis a scheme almost wins
+my admiration.  Yet I should have had little admiration to waste
+had they succeeded.  Now I crush 'em--within this hour.  All
+is perfected by their leading men--and by me."
+
+"So much to your credit; but I must see Stark if he is yet
+there."
+
+"It is not possible to have speech with him before my coup.
+Afterwards I may arrange for it.  You shall come with me, if
+you please.  To think that within two days my Yankee rats had
+all been away to the sea!"
+
+The soldier's fervour grew.  He had planned a dramatic
+answer to the plotters and now set about it.  Malherb rode
+beside him to the War Prison; but first they visited the barracks,
+where a regiment of soldiers was drawn up under arms.  One
+company immediately marched to the cottage of Lovey Lee
+outside the walls; the remainder proceeded with Commandant
+Short.
+
+It was then that Sam Cuffee, while engaged in preparing his
+master's breakfast, caught sight of the troops, dropped a pot of
+coffee, and came flying to Stark with his news.
+
+"Dey come, sar--de lobsters--tousands ob dem!  And de
+officers an' Marse Commandant wid de plumes in him hat.  Dey
+march straight off to No. 6.  It am all ober wid us--we cotched
+sure--damn de debbil!"
+
+Stark cried that discovery was impossible; but a moment later
+he saw the truth for himself.  Many hundred half-dressed
+Americans swarmed into the yards and a hedge of steel
+confronted them.
+
+Captain Short stepped to the front of his forces, and a subaltern
+in a loud voice cried out certain names from a paper.  He
+rehearsed correctly every member of the prisoners' committee.
+Stark, Burnham, Ira Anson, and the rest stood forward in turn as
+they were called.
+
+"Follow me, gentlemen, if you please," said the Commandant;
+then, while a growl of rage went up from the assembled masses,
+Stark and the leaders, heavily guarded, were marched to the
+scene of their operations in Prison No. 6.
+
+Short, who had been informed most punctually of this affair,
+marched straight up to the flagstones that concealed the descent
+to the tunnel.  He bade two turnkeys raise the pavement, and
+then all marvelled to see the perfection of engineering work
+pursued under such difficulties.
+
+"A notable feat!  Accept my hearty congratulations," said the
+Commandant drily.  "And when was this accomplished, good
+sirs?"
+
+"It has taken many months, Captain," answered Cecil Stark.
+"'Twas finished but yesterday at midnight."
+
+"I know that; one of your friends has thought better of the
+matter and sold you all."
+
+"No true American," said Anson hotly; "I'll stake my life
+'twas a renegade Britisher."
+
+"No, no.  Don't imagine that.  He is one of yourselves.
+However, you'll not have any more to do with him.  He has his
+reward.  Now tell me--where in thunder did you dispose of
+the enormous quantities of soil you must have displaced in this
+business?"
+
+"Ate it--to make up for short rations," shouted David
+Leverett.
+
+"A good idea; but there will be no burrowing out of the
+cachots, my man.  'Woe to the vanquished' is the tune now.
+Away with them!"  Then he added to the guard: "Let them
+be separately confined.  I will question each man in turn later
+on.  Now for their tunnel!  You little thought, gentlemen, that
+I, your Commandant, would be the first through this ingenious
+exit!"
+
+The soldiers separated.  A company one hundred strong, with
+loaded muskets, marched Cecil Stark and his companions to the
+cachots; while thrice that number of soldiers formed square and
+stood facing all ways about the pit mouth.  Then Captain Short
+and two of his officers with lighted torches descended.  Once
+there was an ugly rush of prisoners in the confined space above
+them; but the bayonets kept all back, and before any organised
+resistance or counter demonstration was possible, the Americans
+had been driven out of No. 6 and the doors locked against them.
+
+Meantime, while Captain Short crept from end to end of the
+tunnel and presently thrust his head through the floor of Lovey
+Lee's empty cottage without the walls of the War Prison, Malherb
+had followed Stark and endeavoured to get speech with him.  But
+an officer in charge knew nothing of the master of Fox Tor Farm,
+and ordered him back.  Malherb made a rough retort, and the
+soldier promptly sent him out of the Prison precincts.
+
+"I would serve you if in my power, sir," he said, "but to allow
+any speech with these men at present is out of the question.
+Get you gone, therefore, and impede us no more."
+
+"You whipper-snapper--what know you of this?  There are
+affairs of vital importance that demand my speech with that
+rascal.  I will speak with him!  Have I toiled through a century
+of suffering to be denied by a starveling subaltern?  And the
+knave actually under my eyes!  Speak with him I will, so stay
+me at your peril!"
+
+He woke the echoes from many walls; he fumed with indignation
+that a youth should affront him thus; while the officer,
+ignorant of all that boiled in this man's mind, and conscious of
+the gravity of his own charge, made short work with Mr. Malherb.
+He called a sergeant.
+
+"Take half a dozen men, Bradridge, and turn this lunatic out.
+If he won't go, rogue's-march him!  We've enough on our hands
+without madmen to-day."
+
+As though to confirm his assertion, a great uproar rent the air
+behind them--a clamour like the wind-driven sea breaking upon
+some mighty cliff.  The nature of their disappointment had
+permeated through the prisons; and thousands of baffled captives
+cursed their fortune and threatened those dangers that lie in
+concerted action of desperate men.
+
+Sergeant Bradridge obeyed the word of command, and, despite
+his impotent raving, Malherb was thrust forth by force.  He called
+down destruction upon the great fastness behind him; he wished
+the Americans all free to overwhelm their guards; and then, at the
+entrance, another company of soldiers appeared with two prisoners
+handcuffed together.
+
+"Waal, I guess they'll be astonished--some of 'em--when they
+see me alive and hearty," said James Knapps to his companion.
+"Not many knew as I was snooking round t'other side that wall,
+and digging like hell day and night."
+
+John Lee did not answer, for he had observed Maurice
+Malherb.
+
+"I must speak to that man!" he cried to the soldiers.  "For
+God's love do not deny me!  'Tis like to be death for an
+innocent woman if I don't!"
+
+"Not your grandmother--eh?" asked Knapps; "I reyther
+reckon she can take care of herself."
+
+John had now turned to Sergeant Bradridge, and earnestly
+addressed him.  The sergeant was a local man--a native of
+Buckfastleigh, and the uncle of Mr. Putt.
+
+"Sergeant," he said, "you know your nephew Tom: he's my
+friend, and I beg you to let me speak to Mr. Malherb there.  It's
+a fearful thing if I'm denied."
+
+Then he lifted his voice to his old master.
+
+"I implore you, sir, to give heed.  There's danger threatening
+Miss Grace--I alone----"
+
+But the other turned and roared him down.
+
+"You hound--you lying rascal; you, that plotted to help this
+knave Stark!  Shall I hear a groom when I may not hear his
+master?  Take him away and shoot him for a traitor to his
+country!"
+
+"Your daughter, sir!"
+
+"Keep her off your lips, or I'll strangle you with my own
+hand," bellowed the other.  "You're at the bottom of half this
+cursed business--I know it--I know everything!"
+
+"Her life, I tell you----"
+
+"Is not in your keeping.  I'll not hearken to a word from you.
+Take the damned dog away and let him die as he deserves to die.
+My horse--my horse!"
+
+Sergeant Bradridge addressed the raving man aside.
+
+"If he's got aught to say, your honour, best hear it.  You may
+not have another chance."
+
+"Never!  He has nothing to do with my daughter.  Is she not
+a Malherb?  Hang the lying, infamous scoundrel!  Take him
+from my sight.  Let all such be hanged.  I would say it if he was
+my son!"
+
+A moment later he rode away full charged with frenzy: while
+Lee and Knapps passed into the War Prison.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A GOD OF GLASS
+
+It had been Lovey Lee's part to keep guard during the
+operations beneath her cottage, and, on the morning of discovery,
+while Knapps was underground and John Lee lay in a heavy
+sleep, she stood at her door and scanned the morning.  Her
+mind was on money; within eight-and-forty hours she would
+receive her reward; and now every glittering dewdrop of the
+dawn shone beneath her eyes like a gold piece.  Then it was
+that another scintillation--that of steel--struck upon Lovey's
+sight, and she saw the flash of bayonets and the gleam of red
+coats.  They approached swiftly across the Moor, and, divining
+their significance, the old woman instantly fled out at the rear
+of her cottage, and climbed and crept with amazing speed into
+the lonely fastnesses of North Hisworthy Tor above Prince
+Town.  Here, safe as a fox in earth, she remained close hidden
+until nightfall, and then started for her holt at Hangman's Hollow.
+The fate of the men she had deserted troubled her not at all.
+To have informed them of danger would have been to lessen her
+own chance of escape by a full minute, and she had felt no
+temptation to take such risk.  Now was all lost but her liberty;
+and as she stalked along the nocturnal Moor, like a dark and
+gigantic bird, the miser swore aloud and cursed fortune at every
+step.  A live thing in the path reminded her that she had not
+eaten food for six-and-thirty hours; stooping, therefore, she picked
+up a luckless frog, tore it asunder, and stayed her stomach with
+its quivering hind legs.  Never had Lovey fallen into a temper
+more ferocious and brutal.  Months of patient fraud were thrown
+away, and she found herself actually out of pocket upon the
+venture.  This reflection maddened her.  In a delirium of
+disappointment she strode forward, and once, when an owl screeched
+out of the coppice at Tor Royal, she screeched back at it like a
+fury, and swung her long arms, and cursed the stars because they
+looked like good money scattered and wasted upon the sky.  She
+sank into a calenture of crazy wrath; frantically she longed for
+some object upon which to vent her mania of disappointed
+hope; and every moment she hastened unconsciously nearer a
+victim.
+
+Grace Malherb grew weary of the long hours that separated
+her from John Lee's next visit.  An eternity of time crawled by,
+and the very hands of her watch appeared to drag as she sat with
+it before her.  Only once a sound fell on her ears through that
+protracted day.  Then she heard a bell, the fall of many feet and
+the bleat of flocks.  Soon the grazing sheep wandered away and
+silence fell again.  The tinkle of the dropping water and the
+throb of her own heart were all her company.  The gloom and
+the chill of her hiding-place crept to her bosom and froze the
+hope there.  She fell to weaving fearful fancies; she pictured
+failure in a thousand shapes.  The rusty and glimmering gold of
+the moss upon the walls grew hateful to her eyes.  Yet it attracted
+them and held them, so that hour after hour she scanned the
+luminous cavern, and saw faces in it and read words scrawled in
+dull fire there, like the Handwriting on the Wall.  She ate and
+drank a little, but her appetite failed her.  All her emotions
+merged into intense longing for John Lee.  Her watch told her
+that it was noon at last.  Then she fought with herself to escape
+forebodings and set about occupying time with a search for the
+amphora.  That treasure possessed none of the old fascination
+now; yet, thinking upon her father, she much desired for his
+sake to discover it, and made a diligent search both high and
+low.  Her explorations revealed two other boxes tied with cords;
+and these she opened, only to find Sheffield plate in them.
+
+An eternity of twelve more hours crawled by; then, when midnight
+had passed, Grace began to strain her ears for footsteps.
+It was a close, black night, with thunder in the air; but as yet
+no elemental murmur broke the stillness.
+
+At three o'clock, worn out and full of foreboding, the girl crept
+to her fern bed and prayed long prayers.  Finally she slept,
+soothed by a determination to fly from this hated hole in the
+morning and hide elsewhere, if John Lee did not come.  Her
+last waking thought turned to her father.  "I will continue as
+firm as he is firm," she whispered to herself.  "Would I had
+been different--for his sake; but not for my own."
+
+Within an hour she slumbered, and when Lovey Lee sank
+silently down into her den, the girl heard nothing.  Grace
+was hidden within a deep alcove of the wall, and she slept
+without a light.  The miser, once in safety, stood silent and
+listened.  It was for a growl of thunder that she waited; nor
+did she expect another sound.  Heavy drops of rain began to
+fall, but as yet no storm awoke, though so inky was the east that
+dawn seemed delayed.
+
+First Lovey ate a loaf of bread from her mouldering stores;
+then she sat down by the stone table in the midst of the grotto,
+rested her head on her hand and considered the position.  The
+future bristled with dangers and difficulties; turning from it,
+therefore, she rose, lighted a candle and drew forth her treasures.
+The money she had not fingered for three weeks, and now she
+counted it, and the steady stream, sliding through her fingers,
+served to soothe her.  Miser-like, she kept her supreme possession
+to the last, and before she brought it to the light, her mouth
+began to water and her eyes to glow.  Though now crushed by
+an uncontrollable weight of weariness and sleep, she prayed to
+her glass god and performed his familiar rite before she slumbered.
+From the ground at the foot of her granite altar, the old
+woman scratched the soil, then drew forth a metal box.  It
+clashed as she picked it up, and Grace waking at the sound, was
+just about to hasten forward when she heard the old woman's
+voice lifted to address her deity.
+
+"Come to me, my purty blessing!  To think as I haven't had a
+sight of 'e for nigh a month!  An' the devil's luck fallen to me
+since I seed 'e!"
+
+The girl shrank back and watched, breathless, while Lovey
+drew a mass of cotton wool from her box, and then, revealing
+the Malherb amphora, placed it reverently on her granite table
+and lighted other candles around it.  Now she squatted down
+before the vase and remained motionless, like a toad watching
+a fly.  Here was her support and power, the spring of her
+existence, her sustenance, and the foundation-stone of her life.
+She gazed and gazed with greedy eyes; she licked her lips and
+nodded slowly, like a china image.  The amphora, against its
+gloomy background, flashed in the candle-glow.  Its azure
+splendours shone in the cavern's darkness; the acanthus leaves
+were touched with flickering gold, and the Cupids seemed to
+move and peep about behind the foliage.
+
+"Dance! dance, my naked boys!" said Lovey.  "Though
+there's nought to dance about to-night.  All lost--an' me a
+runaway!  Where shall us go to next?  Us can't live underground
+like a badger for ever.  But I sold my cows a fortnight
+agone--that's something.  Dance, you little devils;
+dance--dance!"
+
+She gloated upon her treasure and trembled with joy of
+possession.  Presently she put out her hand gently, like a
+cat touching a dazed mouse.  Then the fit grew upon her.
+With each hand in turn she stroked the amphora and twisted
+it round and round.  Anon she lifted it and brought it close
+to her face; she kissed it and cuddled it against her breast,
+and rubbed her cheeks upon it and slavered it, as might a fond
+mother lust over her child.  Grace Malherb heard a harsh
+vibration, like a tiger purring.
+
+"I've got you, my heart an' liver an' reins!  I've got you,
+come what may, my lovely joanie!  And the day I die, you'll
+die too; for I'll grind you to powder an' eat you--fat babbies
+an' all!"
+
+She laughed and nuzzled the glass, crooned to it and licked it.
+Then her frenzy waned; she set the treasure gently down and
+fell back exhausted.  Her passion cooled; her eyes went out, like
+extinguished lamps; she shrank as she sat there; and soon she
+began to whine again before the thought of her losses.
+
+"Christ! what a cursed day!  What----"
+
+A sudden sound struck her silent.  Grace had moved and
+loosened a fragment of stone.  The noise, though slight enough,
+reached Lovey's ear.  She snatched up a candle and, hastening
+into the recesses of the cavern, came face to face with her visitor.
+
+Amazement so absolute overwhelmed the miser at this discovery,
+that for a space it smothered every other emotion.  She
+glared speechless, then fell back and at last spoke.
+
+"God's word!  Be I drunk or dreaming?  Are you alive, or
+dead an' prying here a ghost from the grave?  If you'm dead I
+don't care a button for 'e!  An' if you'm alive----"
+
+"I'm quite alive, Lovey Lee," said Grace without flinching
+before the ancient's terrific face.
+
+"Alive, be you?  Then 'tis the last minute you shall live to say
+you'm alive!  How did you get here?  Tell me, or I'll kill you
+by inches--a finger to a time!"
+
+"I've done you no harm, Lovey.  And I'll thank you to speak
+more quietly.  There are men hunting for me on the Moor, and
+I've no wish for them to find me," said Grace firmly.  As yet no
+fear had touched her heart.
+
+"Find you!  They'll not find you!  God A'mighty won't find
+you.  You'm dead a'ready!"
+
+"I'm not dead at all; and I'm not going to die.  If you'd
+listen, instead of screaming at me, I might tell you why I am
+here, and how I came here."
+
+Lovey put the candle on a ledge above their heads; then
+she sat upon the fern couch that her grandson had spread for
+Grace.
+
+"Get you up on your feet and stand afore me!" she said.
+"I'm mistress here--not you.  Death! to think as ever I should
+allow any human but myself in this pit.  Tell me truth how you
+found it--else I'll strangle you."
+
+"The truth is easily told: and you shall pay dearly for these
+insults yet, you wicked woman!  It was meant to marry me to
+Peter Norcot; and your grandson helped me to escape from that
+fate.  John is always on the side of the weak.  I owe my
+salvation to him.  I am waiting for him now."
+
+"Jack Lee found out then!  Blast--but I needn't waste no
+words there.  His thread's spun.  So you runned from your
+faither an' that man?  You might so soon think to trick Satan as
+Norcot.  But I'll trick him.  He can't marry dead bones.  An'
+yet--there's money to it.  Only I be so tight placed myself."
+
+"That candle-flame will crack the Malherb amphora, Lovey
+Lee, if you don't move it," said Grace.
+
+The woman sprang up and extinguished a dip that flamed too
+near her treasure.
+
+"There's the answer to my doubts.  You know too much now.
+I'll never sleep in peace no more while you are alive.  There's a
+dead dog in yon corner--shrivelled to bones an' leather.  He'd
+lost hisself 'pon the Moor and followed me here.  I carried it
+down the steps, for it stood and barked outside.  But I never
+carried it up again.  None leaves this web but me, come in who
+may.  You ran choose how you'll go out o' life--an' that's all
+the mercy I'll show 'e, Grace Malherb.  You can starve, or you
+can kill yourself, or I can do it for 'e; but die you shall--sure as
+I'm a woman."
+
+The girl regarded her steadily, and measured her huge body,
+long arms and broad chest.  She knew that in a physical struggle
+she must quickly have the life crushed out of her, and for the
+first time she feared.  Then she wondered if Lovey's heart was
+inflexible, and whether a way to bend her will might not exist.
+
+"Is there no humanity in you--you who have been a mother?"
+
+"No more than a mother wolf--not for you.  I was a grandmother,
+too, wasn't I?  I brought Jack up from childhood--an'
+he spied upon me.  He'd have robbed me next--maybe he has."
+
+"Not of a farthing."
+
+"You've met me in a black hour.  All's lost to the Prison.
+Some Judas have told the secret; an' as for me, I dare not show
+myself to the daylight.  So there's nought to be made out of
+you."
+
+"You might trust me."
+
+"Not since you've seen that."
+
+Lovey pointed to the amphora.
+
+"My father rates me higher than a bit of old glass."
+
+"You'm daft to think so!  Why for should he care a cuss for
+you?  More like he hates you, for you'm no daughter worth
+naming to him--a froward, man-loving minx, as plays fast an'
+loose with them he hates, an' defies him.  Love the likes of you
+better'n fifteen thousand pound!  He'm not all fool."
+
+Thunder suddenly broke overhead, and subterranean echoes in
+the grotto answered it.  The noise punctuated Lovey's speech
+and appeared to affirm her purpose.
+
+"Die you shall," she said.  "God do so to me if I don't mean
+it."
+
+"I know you mean it now," answered the girl.  "And, since
+everything is lost at the Prison, I care not very much about
+living.  Yet, after all, 'tis only a passing reverse; therefore,
+I plead to live.  Life is life.  Somehow this choking hole makes
+me long to live.  I hate your money and your treasures.  I hate
+the gold in your bags as much as I hate the moss on these walls
+that mocks it.  I want to breathe sweet air and see the sky
+again.  I'll keep your secret.  Don't kill me, Lovey.  'Twill
+ruin your own life if you do."
+
+"Life's worth living, as you say.  For all my cares and years
+and cruel disappointments, I like it.  But you hearken to the
+thunder--I knowed 'twas brewing--you know too much.  Let it
+rage!  I wish 'twould drown Short's cottage, an' him in it, an'
+the Prison, an' the prisoners, an' the sojers, an' every living thing.
+You know too much an' I won't take your word."
+
+"You're worn out and frantic.  Sleep upon it."
+
+The old woman reflected.
+
+"So I will, then," she said.  "Never heard better counsel.
+But you--you must sleep too----"
+
+She came forward slowly, like some feline thing that stalks its
+living food; then she lifted her hands to Grace's throat.
+
+The girl did not flinch, and Lovey dropped her great fingers
+again.
+
+"You'm Malherb, I see--but I lay your heart's beating to a
+merry tune!  Let it beat--its beating be near done.  Them
+steady brown eyes too!  I'll blind them, if you please, afore I put
+my little god there to bed again.  No, I won't kill you this
+minute.  I'll sleep on it.  If you don't mean money from your
+wool-stapler, I never counted money.  An' Norcot wouldn't give
+a poor, old, harmless granny up to the soldiers.  Too much of the
+milk o' human kindness in him for that.  What's his figure,
+I wonder?  I must have a big one, an' my safety along with it."
+
+She hunted her stores, found the boxes, removed their cords
+from them and approached Grace.  "Here's a rope's end for 'e!
+No, not for your neck--for your heels.  I must sleep--my senses
+are all addled--I can't think clear.  An' you must watch--so no
+harm befalls me.  Ha-ha-ha! us'll bind they neat limbs an' little
+ankles a thought tight, just to keep you from slumbering.  'Twas
+a pretty young Yankee's arms you counted to have round 'e, not
+a bit o' biting oakum!"
+
+She made Grace fast with unnecessary severity.  Then, tearing
+a strip from the girl's dress, she bandaged her prisoner's
+eyes.  Next Lovey extinguished all lights and, in the blank
+darkness that followed, restored the amphora to its wrappings,
+placed it within the metal box and put the box underground.
+Then soil and stones were heaped over it, after which the
+woman threw herself down on the earth above her treasure and
+quickly fell into heavy sleep.
+
+The thunder roared, and through her bandages Grace was
+conscious of lightning.  The glare of the sky penetrated some
+chance chinks above and found her.  Close at hand she heard
+Lovey snoring.  The ropes began to burn as though red hot, and
+each minute the torment grew.  The storm died slowly, and she
+missed its companionship when it was gone.  She envied the
+cattle that roamed free above her; she prayed fervently; but
+physical pain continually distracted her devotion.  After two
+hours the agony became sharper than she could endure, and at
+the risk of angering her conqueror, Grace cried out sharply and
+woke Lovey from slumber.
+
+The miser was up in an instant, her senses alert and her frame
+refreshed.  She struck flint on steel and turned to the prisoner.
+
+"Morning light," she said.  "And how be you fairing, my
+pretty maid?"
+
+"I am suffering very terribly, Lovey.  I could endure no more
+without crying out.  These ropes are gnawing into me as though
+they were alive and had teeth."
+
+"Bah!  You'm more fretted for your raw wrists and ankles
+than for them poor, brave fools to Prison as meant to save 'e!
+Bide as you be an' smart on a while.  Your good time be
+coming--when you go to church with Peter Norcot.  Now I shall set
+out to get a bellyful o' fresh air an' see to the weather.  No
+human foot will tread Hangman's Hollow for a week after the
+flood us had last night.  But don't you fear.  You chose sure
+hiding!  I shall soon be back.  An' if the rope hurts, just think
+if 'twas round your neck instead of your leg!"
+
+The old savage sought her stores; and then she discovered the
+bread and meat and eggs that Lee had brought for Grace.
+
+"My jimmery!  This was what made Jack so hungry of
+late!  Well, us will have bit an' sup when I come back.  I
+must keep you fat and plump for Mr. Peter now.  Afore sun's
+up I'll be here again.  Me an' the sun ban't like to be friends no
+more this many a day.  For that matter moon's always more
+kindly to me."
+
+"Will you, at least, loose my eyes?  I promise you faithfully
+I'll make no attempt to escape while you are away."
+
+Lovey laughed and took the bandage from Grace's face.
+
+"Since there's nought to see but the gold moss you hate, look
+about so much as you please; an' as for escaping--I'll give 'e
+full leave to do it if you can.  A horse couldn't break that rope,
+let alone a slip of a girl."
+
+Lovey now climbed carefully out of her treasure house and
+Grace saw one blessed gleam of blue daylight before the great
+stone above was swung back into its place and Mrs. Lee tramped
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+APOCALYPSE
+
+Now were the threads of three lives to be tangled by Fate
+upon the vast bosom of Cater's Beam; and here, within
+the secret morasses beneath that great hill, walked Maurice
+Malherb under the dawn and tempest.  He ranged with the
+thunderbolt, for the storm had called him from his bed; the
+elemental chaos echoed his own heart and drew him forth into it.
+
+He suffered such misery as only men built in his great, futile
+pattern are called to suffer.  The calculating and responsible find
+themselves in no such sea of troubles; for their flotillas hold
+inshore; their sapient eyes ever scan the weather of life, and
+their ready hands trim sail to it.  But this faulty fool with his
+mad temper and sanguine trust in self, had listened to none,
+marked no sign, heeded no warning.  He had played the greatest
+game that he knew, in hope that an unborn babe might some
+day bless his name and perpetuate it.  He had staked all and
+lost all.  His daughter was driven from him; his wife, in the
+agony of her bereavement, had shed bitter tears, and, for the
+first time in her life, lifted up her voice against his judgment.
+His plans had miscarried; his money was nearly all lost.  He
+stood under the storm bankrupt of everything that he had worked
+for and hoped for.  He felt naked when he thought of his life,
+now stripped so bare; for every interest was torn out of it, and, as
+a tree robbed of leaves, it threatened to perish.  Present
+tribulations thundered on his heart as the storm upon his ears.  His
+soul felt deafened and bewildered; therefore he ran for shelter
+into the past.  Time rolled back for him and he saw the tortuous
+journey of his days stretching into childhood.  The vernal, sweet
+delights of youth appeared again, and he remembered old forgotten
+springtimes--birds' eggs--minnows--his first pony--the
+scent of the new-mown hay.  Then his own disposition developed
+and darkened the hour.  Puberty was past; freedom became his
+and he abused it.  Manhood plunged him into gloomy and
+sombre avenues of years, lighted only by the flashing flame-points
+of his own temper.  He marked how ungoverned wrath had at
+last grown ungovernable, and had risen, time out of mind, like a
+demon, between him and wisdom; how his own action had
+ceaselessly turned him out of the proper road, had clouded
+justice and threatened honour.  He clung to honour as a drowning
+man to a straw.  He fought the cruel white light of truth
+and strove to shut his eyes to it; for soaked in that blinding ray,
+honour stood no longer undefiled.  A canker grew there; a blot
+dimmed it; and the spectacle, shattering self-respect, hurt him
+worse than loss of friends and fortune and his only child.
+Cowardice and high honour could not chime together; and light
+showed him that the canker-growth spelt cowardice.  He had
+outraged the freedom of his daughter; he had used force against
+her liberty; he had denied her sacred rights in the disposal of
+her own life and body.
+
+Before this thought he came to his better self through his
+worst.  He called down a curse on the forces that played with
+his convictions; he damned the inner voice of reason that showed
+him what he had deemed duty was an interested crime.  Standing
+beneath the storm he put bitter facts behind him for vain
+phantoms, and maligned the awful ray of truth.  Then, moody
+and sick in spirit, he leapt suddenly to sweeter and cleaner
+thinking.  Some phase of mind, some physical conjunction, or
+some psychic crisis pervious to the influence of Nature, lifted
+him, as often happened, into great longing for the better part.
+The dawn showed him what no dawn had ever yet revealed.  He
+turned to the East and prayed to it.
+
+"Before Heaven I mourn for what I am!  I see myself
+cursed--self-cursed.  Oh, God, give me back my child again, and I
+will be a wiser man!  Only my child--only my Grace.  I humble
+myself.  Punish me, great God, but not by taking her--my only
+one.  I repent; I will mend my life if I may but have my child
+again."
+
+The sun, struggling above wild new-born day and dying tempest,
+answered his petition with shafts of flame, and wrapped that
+desolate wilderness in a mingled splendour of mist and fire.
+The pageant of the sky uttered a music proper to the man's sore
+spirit, and unrolled with solemn glory.  Heaven glowed and burnt,
+or frowned and shuddered in black precipices of storm-cloud that
+sank upon the West.  Into the deep senses of the watcher these
+things penetrated graciously.  They touched the ragged wounds
+of his heart and helped to heal them, while a harmony, as of
+music, fell upon his helpless, hopeless soul.  All the wonder of
+the sky filled Malherb's dark eyes as he lifted them; but a light
+greater than the sky or any inspiration born of day shone out.
+Upon the verge of apocalypse he stood; yet gulfs unseen separated
+him from it.  His days were not accomplished; his darkest hour
+was not yet come.
+
+Now, where a rock rose at a point not far distant, there
+appeared Lovey Lee.  She stood like some night-spirit, surprised
+by dawn, blinking and disarmed in the unfamiliar sunshine.  For
+a moment she hesitated at the sight of Malherb; then approached
+him, conscious of her complete power.  This man, and perhaps
+only this man in the world, was impotent against her.  Not a
+finger could he lift.  Harm done to her must bring far worse
+upon himself.  Her wits planned a cunning lie and she advanced
+to utter it.
+
+"You'm stirring early, Maurice Malherb.  'Tis strange that
+you an' me should both choose to walk this here ill-wisht heath
+all rotten wi' bog and water."
+
+"I came to seek peace--not you.  I ask you to quit my sight
+without more words.  There is no anger in me now."
+
+"'Peace'!  Do 'e find peace in your own company?  I'll swear
+you never have, nor never will.  No peace for the likes of you
+till you be dead.  Come, let's talk secrets--shall us?  I've got
+things you'd dearly like to hear about."
+
+"Leave me," he said.  "I've done with cursing and swearing.
+There is much upon my mind.  I will not be angry with you.
+My daughter is lost."
+
+"They say you drove her away with a whip."
+
+"They lie!  'Twas her own damnable folly that drove her
+away."
+
+"Maybe you lie too, to say it.  You've held me in such contempt
+and scorn--you've treated me so vile--that it's good, even
+at a time like this, to make you bleed a bit.  An' I'm going to
+now.  You shall cringe yet, though I have got the gallows hanging
+over me; you shall grovel yet, though I do stand an
+outlawed, doomed woman for helping them at the Prison.  I'll crack
+your heart first; then I'll ax you to save me from the soldiers.
+And yet I doubt if t'other ban't a more solid man to trust--Norcot
+I mean.  Anyway, he's a wiser one, and can pay better, too."
+
+"Do you dare to mean that you know where Grace Malherb
+is hidden?"
+
+"Ah! that wakes you up--you that have done wi' cursing an'
+swearing--you that stole my grazing rights and called me 'hag' and
+'miser'!  I've got your fortune in my hand still, for all your bluster
+and great oaths.  And I've got your daughter, too!  Now you can
+listen--eh?  Now I don't worrit you no more?  Yes, I've got
+her hard an' fast, wi' cords biting at her wrists an' ankles like
+poisonous snakes--she said it felt so.  I told you I'd wreck your
+stupid, brawling fool's life; an' I have.  You owe every pang you
+suffer to yourself--then to me; every curse you utter hops back
+to roost on your own head--so grey it grows with their droppings!
+My work--all mine!  Now howl an' roar--I want to hear you!"
+
+The man preserved an astounding self-control before Lovey's
+confession.
+
+"This is what her grandson tried to tell me yesterday, and I
+would not listen," he said aloud.
+
+"Ah!--you was ever a poor listener.  More poison for 'e!
+He was your nephew--Jack Lee--the son of your younger
+brother, an' so like him as peas in a pod!  He knowed, but you
+wouldn't heed him.  But you always heed me, Malherb--doan't 'e?"
+
+Still he spoke no angry word, though his great chest rose and
+his face grew dark.
+
+"If you tell me the truth--that my daughter is alive and in
+your keeping--that is well.  Much has happened since she went
+away.  If she knew, she would be glad to come back to me.  I--I
+am not faultless--I have erred.  My eyes are opened.  Give me
+back my daughter, woman--I will reward you."
+
+"'Give' her back!  When was I ever knowed to give aught
+to anybody?  That's your own fool's way--give--give--give.  I
+might sell her; but you've not enough money to buy her.  I'd
+rather kill her by inches under your nose an' see you wriggle an'
+rave till them black veins on your brow burst!"
+
+His passion began to beat up strong and tempestuous under her
+lash.  The spiritual dawn-light was still-born.  Storm awoke in
+his soul before this infernal provocation and the sea of his mind
+fell into its accustomed waves before the wind of wrath.  He
+forgot the danger of passion now; he did not appreciate the
+importance of self-control.  His voice rose to the familiar roar
+and he clutched his riding-stock.
+
+"What a loathsome reptile can a woman be!  No man would
+descend to such filthy degradation.  To treat you like a fellow-creature
+is vain; you are a beast, and must feel like a beast, and
+understand like a beast.  Force at least you recognise; then see
+force here figured in me!  Disobey at your peril, for I'll not stand
+upon words with you again.  Get before me to my daughter!
+Instantly lead the way.  Deny me, and I'll destroy you and rid
+the world of a venomous fury who has lived too long."
+
+She did not guess that he intended actual and instant violence,
+but supposed he threatened to give her up to the authorities.
+
+"Lies--lies!" she answered, mocking him.  "You kill me?
+I know better.  You're not mad every way.  Do your own errands--I
+spit at you!  I wasn't born to obey a fool.  The hills and
+rivers laugh to see you dance an' blow, as if you'd got poison in
+your vitals.  Never--never again shall you see her; never, not
+for millions!  To give me up!  Bah! how's that going to help?
+An' I'd laugh to think of her starving alongside fifteen thousand
+pounds.  How black you get!  Why don't you use that great
+horn handle you're waving about like a lunatic?  Come, there's
+only white hair on my head, an' little of that.  Smash my skull
+in!  And then?  Kill me.  Ha, ha!----"
+
+For the first time in her life, Lovey Lee mistook the nature of
+a man.  That there was a sort of anger capable of rising high
+above its own interest her own cautious nature could not guess.
+She saw that the whole of Malherb's earthly desires were in her
+hand; and that he, who also realised this, would, with one mad
+stroke, rob himself of his last hope, she never imagined even as
+a possibility.  Had he kept his reason, she had never succeeded
+in goading him to this murder pitch; but now he grew insane, and
+the woman paid forfeit.
+
+She intended to show him the folly of threats.  But the words
+were never uttered; her laugh was not finished.  Beside himself,
+the master leapt forward; his whip shrieked across the air, and
+the massive handle dropped like a hammer on the miser's crown.
+To her knees she came, without a sound; next she fell prone
+before him.  Her legs and arms shot forth convulsively twice; a
+patch of blood swelled on her sun-bonnet, then soaked through
+and ran.  One groan came with it and only one.  After that she
+was still, and Malherb knew she was dead.
+
+He turned away and lifted his eyes and saw the golden reefs
+and rosy cloud-islands of that wonderful dawn.  Still the pomp
+and glory of sunrise filled the sky, for only minutes had passed
+since he stared upwards and prayed and uttered premises.  He
+marvelled that so much could happen in such a brief compass of
+time.  He mused of this experience and of his former hatred of
+a psalmist's curse.  He had rebelled against that awful petition
+as being the demon's plea, beyond a good God's power to grant.
+Yet the thing had happened to himself in this hour: his prayer
+was turned into sin.
+
+And then he hid himself within the hollow and lonely
+antres of the land.  From dawn till dusk he tramped the desert
+beyond man's sight, and called on darkness to inspire him.
+Once without set purpose, he returned within sight of the spot
+where Lovey Lee had fallen.  She lay there just as he had
+struck her down; and there she would lie until the carrion crows
+scattered her bones.  His crime was safe enough from discovery
+unless it pleased him to reveal it.  The deed he gradually grasped;
+its consequence still evaded his mind; but as he worked backwards
+in thought he came to Grace.  Then he stood still before
+the vision of her perchance perishing of starvation.  He was
+doubly a murderer; and, to escape that awful imputation, he told
+himself that the dead woman had lied to torture him; that her
+tales concerning his amphora were as untrue as the things that
+she had asserted concerning his child.  He strove to find comfort
+in the thought that her life had stood forfeit to the State; then
+sophistry faded from him and a man, at best but little versed
+in the force of speech, stood dumb before a terrific truth.
+Murder overtook him and stuck to his side like a ponderable,
+shadow-casting shape.  Far away he knew that foxes were
+creeping at the dim edge of dusk and barking of what they had
+found.  First an aversion from any thought of a human face
+crowded upon him; then as the stars began to shine, he found
+himself craving hungrily for the companionship of man.  He sat
+and rested for a while; he drank and watched a young moon in
+a green sky.  The heath rolled here in deep billows, unfretted by
+stock or stone.  As it held unshed waters, so it could suck up
+darkness; and already detail was dying out of it ere twilight fell.  He
+rose and walked onwards, careless of direction, into a chaos of
+marsh and broken peat hillocks.  His mind worked quicker
+while his body moved; it stagnated into a slough of sheer blood
+when he sat still.  Deep longing to see a fellow-creature held
+him; and suddenly, though he was got beyond the power of
+astonishment, a thing astonishing happened, and he found another
+man.  It was improbable that two human beings had met in this
+shunned spot for years; perhaps no foot of man had trodden it
+since some storm-lost miner wandered that way when Elizabeth
+was queen.
+
+Here now Malherb chanced upon one who sat motionless
+on a bank with his feet in the mire.  He turned as the other
+approached, but showed no interest at sight of him.
+
+"What lonely soul art thou?" cried Malherb; and as he spoke
+he remembered that for the first time in his life he heard a
+murderer's voice.
+
+The figure revealed a strange countenance, made stranger still
+by suffering.
+
+"No man me--just a skinful of hell-fire burning itself out!
+Get gone, for I poison the air around me.  I never want ter see
+no human more."
+
+The speaker's awful despair had power to arrest one, himself
+despairing.  Malherb came nearer, and sought confidence.  His
+crime had shaken his nature and unsettled the tenour of his
+disposition as a drug unsettles human organs.  Now he thirsted to
+talk.
+
+"You can rail so loud and confess so much!  And yet here I
+stand; and to my misery yours, be it what it may, is the short
+grief of a child to a man's abiding woe."
+
+"Lordy, what big words!  You to prattle about trouble,
+stranger--ter me--ter me--a man who's touched bottom deeper
+than any man since Judas hanged himself.  Away you and
+sorrow that can bear speech!  Leave me ter burn."
+
+An opal light from the West was in the speaker's eyes, and
+they glittered green.  Their dreadful expression held Malherb,
+for agony far beyond the fear of death looked out of them.  The
+sufferer's head was bare and nearly bald; his face was
+hatchet-shaped and narrow; the yellow skin seemed drawn to bursting
+over his high cheek-bones; and upon his chin was a fan-shaped
+and grizzled beard.
+
+"I perceive you are an American--a lonely wretch who might
+carry all his cursed country's crimes and sorrows on his own
+forehead.  Yet what are national troubles to a man's own?  You sit
+gazing and glaring.  What then have you done that makes such
+a night of life for you?"
+
+"A thing Satan's self never did--a thing as would heat hell
+again if 'twere cold--a thing not yet writ against any starving
+ragtail on God's earth.  Past hope--past praying for.  And it seemed
+nought until it were done; but after--it's brought me ter this.
+Tell me, you who talk as if you knew big trouble, why did it seem
+nought till afterwards?"
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"It seemed nought till afterwards, I tell you.  Then it grew up
+into a mountain.  The fallen angels will be took back ter heaven
+sooner than me.  Prayer's vain beyond a certain pass.  Has life
+showed you that?"
+
+"It has.  Yet what is there in your torture that can make me
+unbosom mine?"
+
+"Because 'tis the first longing that comes after crimes--to tell
+'em," said the American.  "So you've prayed too?" he added.
+
+"'Prayed'?  Yes, I've prayed hard and earnestly.  I've
+frightened my horse by night as I suddenly challenged my God.  I
+have dismounted and fallen upon my knees by lonely roads and
+secret places.  I've bruised my soul and cried aloud to the
+Almighty and bade Him touch my fiend's temper and give me a
+clean heart."
+
+"Never had no truck with Heaven myself.  Kinder knew I'd
+have no use for it."
+
+"Heaven--Heaven--you talk of Heaven!  Another heart--a
+humble heart was all the heaven I wanted.  To be at peace with
+myself--to learn patience: that was my unanswered prayer.  And
+now the deed I have done has made me mad.  Mad must I be,
+since I can talk of it to you.  Yet 'tis to the thing looking out of
+you--not to you--I speak."
+
+David Leverett stared into the dark face above him, and his
+starved, hollow countenance grew hard.
+
+"What a trumpet!  Ter bleat because you've got a nasty
+temper!  What full-grown baby are you, that thinks God's its
+nurse, and cries becuz it's lost Him!  Look at me!  Like the
+rest of men, you've lived ter find your puny misery capped by
+worse.  But look at me!  Christ's sweat! you're an angel of
+light beside of me!  A short temper----"
+
+"That has driven me into murder."
+
+"Murder--what's that?  David was a murderer.  So was
+scores that have marble stuck up to 'em all over the earth.  'Tis
+worse ter bring life inter the world than put it out.  Have you
+never larned that much?  You make a man in a moment of
+passion, and set another puppet strutting ter suffer life.  And
+you mar a man in a passion, and--well, journey's end is no evil;
+death's no evil ter them that die.  There's thousands of men
+this day as would tear me to pieces, limb by limb, and reckon
+they did heaven and hell both a service.  And so they would.
+Curse the man as got me; curse the woman as bore me; not
+him who would kill me."
+
+"All this is nothing; you are only mad," said Malherb.
+
+"Nothing at all!  See here now--this great bag of leather.
+I've dragged it thus far--further I won't.  That is what I'm
+damned for; that is why hell's gathering up heat for me."
+
+He dragged out a big knife; opened it with his teeth; then
+fell upon the bag and slashed the leather.  A flash answered
+every stroke, and gold coin tumbled and twinkled and fell in a
+shower upon the ground.
+
+"Murder--if I could murder that; if I could cut the throat of
+what that bag means!  But I can't--so I'll cut my own.  It
+seemed nought in the planning and promising--nought till after
+I'd done it and felt the weight of the money here--here."
+
+He beat at his chest.
+
+"Murder--killing kittens!  I've murdered a whole country--murdered
+America!  For this filth here mixing with the mire--for
+this and for liberty!  Whoever you are, help me ter curse
+liberty!  The name of a thing that is not.  Judas only betrayed
+one man.  A little matter that, come to think on it.  I betrayed
+my own flesh and blood--them that had wives and children
+yonder, and old, fond mothers.  Sold the whole of 'em--every
+blessed monkey of 'em; played God and Fate--for two hundred
+pound--and liberty!
+
+"I sold men who had shared their all with me--who had
+spared the coats off their backs when I was sick, the food for
+their stomachs when I was hungry.  They trusted me with their
+secrets.  I was a sailor--I'd had a hand shot away for my
+country.  God tell why my head wasn't shot away!  And first I
+betrayed my own true friends and hoarded the money, and felt
+no smart from that.  And next I sneaked upon a nation.  They
+took me along with the rest and put me in the cachot, that none
+might guess and turn and kill me.  Then, when night came, they
+thrust me out--me and my money and my liberty!  And out of
+the thunder came what I suffer now.  Tell me why I didn't see
+the punishment sooner and escape it?  Tell me why the money
+looked different till 'twas mine?  And tell me what's left for me?"
+
+"There's death for you and for me," said Malherb.
+
+"That's the same as hell.  Just judge!  Then take my knife.
+You that fear ter let blood--let more.  You was sent ter do it.
+Then you'll be forgiven, and your durned tender conscience will
+prune its feathers and pipe up again.  Kill me.  Let me get the
+worst of hell over; for thoughts of things are worse than any
+things themselves can be.  I hoped the lightning would do it;
+but 'twouldn't foul its blade with me.  I thought a great red-eyed
+bull would do it, and stood in his path; but he knew, and turned
+out of the road; he wouldn't red his horn with me."
+
+"You see yourself," said Malherb solemnly, "even as I see
+myself--too late.  You are the second who has asked me to kill
+them since the sun rose.  The first I took at her word, and she
+is dead."
+
+"A woman!  One less to breed men."
+
+"There may be repentance for you, if you can endure life till
+memory grows blunt.  For me there can be nothing but increasing
+horror at my crime.  Nothing can save me now."
+
+"I reckon we have done the worse that was in our nature ter
+do," said the American.  "That's nought--so have many and
+slept no worse.  The scourge is that we've been made ter feel it."
+
+"You are right; we feel; therefore we suffer.  Farewell,"
+answered Maurice Malherb.
+
+Leverett did not reply, and the other passed out of his sight.
+One man plunged onward, never resting, never halting; one
+sat like a stone with his chin resting on his palm and his
+handless arm hanging beside him.  The light of the stars was
+reflected on the knife at his feet; and presently a glitter caught
+his eye; whereupon he stooped and picked up the blade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE VOICE
+
+In the past--from a standpoint of fixed opinions and no
+experience--Maurice Malherb had condemned suicide and
+pronounced the action improper under any circumstances.  But
+now, in the light of that day's deed, it seemed that suicide opened
+the sole road which led from ignominy and disgrace immeasurable.
+He had forfeited his life.  His exhausted body cried out
+for food and rest; but his mind was active, and chaos, untouched
+by the light of any star, raged there.  He stayed his steps, sat
+down amid old ruins and brooded upon death.
+
+His purpose slowly established itself, and he determined to
+depart in such a manner that no man should know of his going
+or gaze upon his corpse.  He might perish in the tenantless
+wastes westward of the Beam, and feed vermin, and make the
+wild asphodel sweeter, as his victim would; or he might choose
+some forgotten cavern or deserted mine where ready graves
+yawned to hide dead things until doom.  He knew of such
+places, and recollected a natural chamber hard by Dartmeet.
+Here in the woods lay a deep hole that ran underground, and
+was known as the Pixies' Holt.  He determined to creep thither,
+as old dying foxes did, that he might perish in peace.
+
+Then it was that, rising again and stumbling forward, in doubt
+whether his strength would last to take him to his goal, a voice
+reached him and Malherb heard a faint cry for succour.  At first
+he thought it but a late lamb that had lost its mother's warm side
+and bleated for cold.  Then the sound became articulate, and,
+forgetting his own circumstances, he listened very intently.
+Presently he shouted with all his might, and from under the earth
+came instant answer.
+
+"Help me--help me!  Come back to me, Lovey, or I shall die!"
+
+Then were the man's ears opened, and he heard his daughter's
+voice.  She was buried alive and at hand, for he stood in
+Hangman's Hollow.  Now Malherb forgot everything but his
+girl.
+
+"'Tis I, Grace--your father!  Be of good cheer.  I'm
+close--I'm close!"
+
+He rushed hither and thither, bruising himself against the
+broken walls.  Then he entered the _cul-de-sac_, and stood, and
+cried out again.
+
+"Where are you now?  How shall I come at you?"
+
+"I am here beneath you, dear father!  There is a great stone--part
+of the floor where you stand.  It reaches to the left-hand
+wall.  Stamp every way, and when you stamp upon the inner
+edge the stone will turn slowly and show you a steep stair."
+
+She heard him grope about and stamp as she directed.  Then
+he struck the cover and it turned, and showed him steps that
+sank into the darkness.  Slowly he let himself down, and soon
+stood at the bottom with a starry space of sky above and the
+glimmer of the moss around him.
+
+"Move gently towards me," cried Grace.  "A flat stone lies
+between us, with flint and steel and candles upon it."
+
+The master obeyed, soon lighted a dip on Lovey Lee's altar,
+then hurried where his girl lay fast bound.  Malherb released her
+and she fainted.  He chafed her blue, swollen wrists and, for the
+first time, thought of the dead miser without a pang.
+
+Grace slowly regained her senses, but not her courage.  She
+clung to her father and wept and prayed him for the love of God
+not to loose her hand from between his own.
+
+"Save me--save me from her," she said.  "Let me die anywhere
+but here--not smothered and starved here.  Never let me
+see her and hear her voice again, or I shall go mad."
+
+"You are safe, my little child.  Cry no more; tremble no
+more; 'tis your own father has found you."
+
+"My own dear father!  My own dear father has saved me.  I
+called and called and counted the falling drops of water.  Sometimes
+I screamed when the ropes bit sharpest.  But I called after
+every hundred drops had fallen.  Then I heard a step----"
+
+She fainted again, and, seeking for the dropping water that she
+mentioned, Malherb found bread and meat where John Lee had
+placed it.
+
+He restored his daughter's consciousness, then made her eat
+and drink.  After she had done so he finished the remainder of
+the food, and marvelled at himself that his appetite was keen.
+
+"Come," he said, "now, with my hand to help, your strength
+will lift you out of this den for ever."
+
+Anon they reached the air.
+
+"A century has gone over my head since dawn," he said.
+
+The girl took deep inhalations and looked at the sky.
+
+"To see the dear stars again!  Speak to me, father--speak
+and hold my hand.  I have come to fear silence.  Have you
+forgiven--can you forgive me for all the suffering I have brought?"
+
+He held her hand and pressed it, but did not answer.
+
+Slowly they moved away; then Grace stopped.
+
+"Return, father--you must return and cover the mouth of the
+place, and make it fast against her.  Else, when she comes again
+herself, thinking to find me dead, and finds me vanished, she will
+fly and take the amphora too."
+
+"It is there, then?"
+
+"Yes indeed!  I have seen it with my own eyes.  She kissed
+it--her hideous lips kissed it!  Then she hid it again."
+
+"She will kiss it no more.  She will not come back.  The
+amphora and you--both in one moment!  And I had determined
+to----  The irony of God!  A banquet He spreads--but my
+teeth are gone.  Yesterday this would have turned me into a
+good man; to-day it is too late.  Lean on my arm, little heart.
+I'm strong enough to hold you up still."
+
+They spoke again of the past, and Grace told her father what
+he had already learned: that John Lee was his brother's son.  He
+heard the fact with indifference now.
+
+So they passed painfully and slowly to their home, and in an
+hour Grace was upon her mother's bosom.
+
+With wine came strength, and the suffering of her raw wrists
+was quickly lessened.  She sank to sleep holding Annabel's hand;
+and when she was in easy slumber, the wife returned to her
+husband.  He was sitting below beside a fire of peat, and he
+also slept heavily.  She loosened his collar, and, though the
+touch was light as down, her hand at his throat awoke him.  He
+leapt to his feet and cried out aloud and bade her stand back.
+
+"I meant to ease you," she said.
+
+Then he awoke and took her in his arms.
+
+"Forgive me.  I dreamed an evil dream.  Come, gentle nurse;
+I know that she sleeps, else you would not have left her.  And
+you are heavy-eyed with much prayer and thanksgiving to God.
+How well I guess what's filled your heart since I brought her
+home!  Now, wife, you may rest in peace."
+
+"Come you too," she answered.  "And have not you also
+thanked the watching God?  Surely I know that you have."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+PETER TRIUMPHANT
+
+Peter Norcot had left Fox Tor Farm the night before
+Grace's discovery and return.  Upon hearing this great news,
+he wrote a magnanimous letter of forgiveness, congratulation and
+quotation; but he did not follow it himself for the space of three
+days.  Then the richer by information of very significant
+character, he reappeared at the dwelling of the Malherbs.
+
+Meantime the sorry truth had come to Grace.  Cecil Stark
+and the leaders of the conspiracy at Prince Town were all
+suffering imprisonment in the cachots; John Lee was at Plymouth;
+Lovey Lee had vanished.  These things she comprehended and
+mourned; her mother's grief at temporal troubles she also shared
+and understood; only her father had changed in every respect,
+and she could find little explanation for his actions.  The crisis
+of his affairs approached, and yet he made no effort to avert
+it; once only she spoke to him concerning the amphora; but he
+desired her to leave the subject, and commanded her neither to
+return to her former prison nor mention the matter to anybody.
+
+"The affair is in my hands," he said; "I pray you, Grace, to
+leave it there for the present.  Utter no word upon this subject.
+I have reasons strong enough for desiring silence."
+
+She promised, bewildered to think why her father could thus
+desert his treasure now that she had restored it to him; then
+Norcot arrived without invitation to spend a day or two.
+
+He quickly perceived that mighty changes marked the situation.
+His first intention had been to let the past alone; but,
+finding that Maurice Malherb was indifferent to it, and would
+not so much as express regret at all the indignity Peter had
+suffered, the lover, for the first time in his relations with his
+future father-in-law, struck a firmer note and permitted some
+flash of that steel in him to catch the other's eye.
+
+They rode together upon the land, and the subject was opened
+by Peter.
+
+"You'll guess that I'm not here just now for rest and change,
+Malherb.  There's a good deal to be said between us.  But you
+seem indisposed to say it.  Naturally I should like to know all
+about this wonderful rescue.  Yet, since you are so taciturn, I'll
+leave that until it pleases you or Grace to tell the story.  Suffice
+it that she's alive and well, and I hope wise at last.  Now, how
+do we stand?"
+
+Malherb noted the difference of tone, but made no comment
+upon it.
+
+"She and I stand in the relation of father and daughter," he
+answered.  "That is not new; and yet it is new.  I have learned
+a good deal of late.  My judgment is shaken within me."
+
+"'Where the judgment's weak, the prejudice is strong.'  You
+talk as if you had been in fault, instead of your daughter."
+
+"You were not wont to speak so to me."
+
+"Nor you to act so.  Life is short, and even my astounding
+patience has run out."
+
+"Listen," said Malherb, reining up his horse and lifting his
+hand.  "Trouble has fallen upon me--terrible trouble.  You shall
+know--everybody shall know; but not yet.  It is in Job--set
+there in the awful words of Scripture: 'He discovereth deep
+things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of
+death.'  I have done evil, Norcot; I have fallen as I pray you
+may never fall.  Invisible powers have rent me and torn me.  I
+tell you that I have been through dark waters."
+
+"Bless my soul! all the deities in a rumpus over one man!
+Tut, tut!  What then?  If you've learned some wisdom--if you've
+found out that God is jealous and takes mighty good care none
+of us shall be wiser than He is--then there's hope for you."
+
+"I have learned much.  This girl--my girl--she has suffered
+a great deal.  Frankly, we have overlooked her rights."
+
+"What moonshine do you talk, my dear Malherb?"
+
+The other's eyes flashed--then dulled.  His rage was but a
+shadow of its old self, and, like a shadow, vanished.  He answered
+listlessly.
+
+"I am not what I was.  I have heavy anxieties, and I will not
+fight with my child.  My opinion is changed.  She is a woman."
+
+"'Little force suffices to break what's cracked already.'  You
+mean that she has prevailed with you to forswear yourself--to
+turn traitor to me.  You a traitor!  'Tis a thing impossible!"
+
+"What is impossible?  No depth of error is impossible to one
+who knows not himself.  To upbraid me is vain.  The solid
+earth has shifted under my feet, Peter Norcot.  But 'traitor'--I'll
+not brook that.  Worse than that I may be, but not that."
+
+"Not that, indeed!  If you only knew how I respect you and
+approve your staunch, fearless outlook upon life!  But I, too,
+have endured not a little.  Think of it--the marriage broken off
+at the altar rails!  And then fifteen hours in the saddle.
+Nocturnal adventures to fill a volume.  Terrific
+expenditure--wear and tear to body and soul and clothes.
+
+  "'And winged lovelings round my aching heart
+  Still flutter, flutter--never to depart.'
+
+
+"You cannot go back on your oath, Malherb.  If you did, you
+wouldn't be Malherb."
+
+"We are fighting against nature."
+
+"We are fighting against Cecil Stark, not nature at all.
+
+  "'Man's life is but a cheating game
+  At cards, and Fortune plays the same,
+  Packing a queen up with a knave----'
+
+as Bancroft so appositely remarks.  But the knave of hearts is
+hard and fast in a Prince Town cachot and like to stop there;
+and the knave of clubs--so to call that meddling rascal, John
+Lee--has stood his trial at Plymouth.  They are done with; and
+King Peter shall come to his own queen again.  I'm patient as a
+spider and sure as time.  I'm going to marry Grace Malherb,
+though the heavens fall.  I never change; but you?  Am I more
+steadfast than the man who taught me steadfastness?
+
+  "'An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven:
+  Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?'
+
+Ask yourself that question."
+
+"Let it rest awhile.  I have much else on my mind--far
+greater things even than this marriage.  There are heavy
+secrets--heavy secrets."
+
+"Who has not got 'em?  God knows how well I wish you.  But
+to behold you weak!  'Tis like believing that you see granite,
+only to find it painted paper."
+
+The other man's mind was running on.
+
+"I want no son of the next generation to be my glory and my
+hope.  I want no son, nor daughter neither.  I weary of the
+future; I turn from it; I have no longer any wish that my name
+should outlive me."
+
+"Why then, the case is clear: you're ill!  How blind one can
+be!  Somehow I'd never associated your iron constitution with
+physical griefs.  Yet you, too, can be sick.  Your vitality is
+lowered; I see it in your face.  At such times there is danger of
+cancers, declines and murrains.  They fix their dreadful fangs in
+us when we are enervated and weak.  Man! trust me more.
+I'm no wind-bag.  I can do things.  I have many very definite
+deeds to my credit.  Often I came to you for advice; now take
+from me what's better; coin of the realm.  Forgive bluntness
+and accept blunt.  This has nought to do with Grace at all.  'I
+will not purchase hope with ready money.'  There's no room for
+false pride between us, thank God!  I say you shall!  I hate to
+see you troubled over the trashy aspect of human life.  To be
+cornered for a little metal!  Consider:
+
+  "'Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul,
+  Sweet'ner of life! and solder of society!'
+
+Blair.  But what is friendship if we do not permit it to take shape
+or substance?"
+
+The older man was touched instantly and deeply.  He bent
+from his saddle and shook Peter's hand.
+
+"You've a great, generous soul, Norcot," he said.  "I thank
+you with my heart, but not with words.  You don't guess what
+manner of man you would befriend.  Yet thank you a thousand
+times.  No, no--such things have happened that I would starve
+sooner than accept a loan.  And you--if you knew--as you must
+know--you would desire Grace no more.  I am growing old,
+Peter.  Age surprises such men as I am--age and crime.  Yes, I
+say 'crime.'  But age creeps with calmer men.  Upon me he
+has sprung.  I'm not so wise as people have been good enough
+to think.  But I'm going to pay for that.  I'm going to pay for
+everything."
+
+"Leave your affairs for the present.  We'll return to them.
+You must see a physician.  Meanwhile I insist on your taking
+five thousand pounds.  'Tis pure friendship, and so I hope you'll
+hold it.  Now Grace--well, she is a woman.  You said that not
+long since.  I was struck with the remark.  Now, being a woman,
+she cannot possibly know her own mind.  Trite but true.  It is
+only fair that I should make a final appeal--only fair to both of
+us.  Something leads me to think that she may yet see the true
+and proper course.
+
+  "'Hope, heaven-born cherub, still appears,
+  Howe'er misfortune seem to lower.
+
+See! she comes out to meet us!  It is an augury!  How lovely
+she looks, despite her trying experiences.  Ride you off, Malherb;
+but hear me promise ere you go that I'll not distress her."
+
+"Better that you should leave us all and forget us all, Peter
+Norcot."
+
+"Ride on, I say, and let the maid come with me.  This business
+shall be ended for ever, before time for tea-drinking."
+
+Grace approached, and Peter waved his hat with customary
+politeness.  Malherb turned away and galloped off; then the
+girl, dismayed, was about to follow him, when she found Norcot
+already at her side.
+
+"Don't go!" he said.  "'Twas your father's wish that we
+should speak in private together.  Have no fear.  'Tis but a
+simple matter to do with the future, not the past.  But we'll get
+within doors, so please you.  I hate talking of anything important
+from the back of a horse.  I believe in transmigration of souls,
+you see.  Who knows what spirit inhabits your gallant 'Cæsar'?"
+
+Without answer Grace turned homeward, and ere long she sat
+in the dining-room of Fox Tor Farm, while Peter stood before
+her and twirled his seals.
+
+"Your father has explained facts, my dear.  He is very unwell,
+and his judgment has left him with his health.  He's haunted by
+something.  I hope drugs will lay the ghost.  Now you--I begged
+for the boon of a little talk.  Tut, tut! 'tis beginning all over
+again--and that after the banns were called for the third and last
+time!  Poor cousin Relton--how he squinted when Tom Putt
+brought the news of your retreat!"
+
+"'To begin again'!  Oh, Peter, have I not made my answer clear?"
+
+"No; because your actions were not clear.  They were very
+mysterious actions.  For two pins I was going to rescue you from
+your father myself.  But I had a suspicion that even if I brought
+wings you wouldn't wear 'em.  Really, Grace, you've wickedly
+wronged a good man, though I say it.  You've hurt me through
+and through."
+
+"And what of all that you have made me suffer?"
+
+"You haven't suffered.  You've merely enjoyed an extremely
+exciting experience.  Mentally you have not endured anything to
+name.  No woman can suffer acutely so long as she's interested
+in three men.  I say 'three.'  'Twas John Lee helped you to
+escape and risked his life and ruined his fortune for you.  First,
+how do you stand towards that romantic young fellow now?  'Tis
+rather important--for him.  To be frank, his life is in your hands.
+The law of the land has dealt with him finally; but the book of
+John Lee's days lies with you to shut or open at will.  Have you
+forgot him, or do you desire to?  That hardly sounds like another
+offer of marriage, does it?  Yet I'm proposing with all my heart."
+
+"Forget John!  Forget him--forget to love him?  Never.  He
+saved my life."
+
+"Indeed!  All these delightful incidents are still hidden from
+me.  But the question now is his life--happily not yours.  You've
+doubtless heard that he helped that formidable skeleton, his
+grandmother, to dig a tunnel under the walls of the War Prison.
+Maybe he did it as much for you as anybody--to assist the young
+hero No. 2--Stark of the 'Stars and Stripes.'  Well, call it what
+you like, 'twas high treason and poor John Lee must hang for it.
+I heard sentence of death pronounced at Plymouth yesterday--a
+solemn experience."
+
+"John Lee--John!"
+
+The girl reeled backwards, then started to her feet.
+
+"He must be saved; he shall be saved.  I cannot live if he
+dies.  The guards--the soldiers.  There must be some among
+them who would--oh, God, help me now!  He must be saved if
+I tramp to the King myself!"
+
+"Bravely spoken!
+
+  "'God and a soldier all people adore
+  In time of war--but not before.'
+
+Better leave the King out and trust to God and a soldier.  And
+we'll set the soldier first, since pounds get answered quicker than
+prayers.  There's no time to pray when the gibbet's up."
+
+"He must be saved."
+
+"He shall be--if I can save him.  He shall be saved, though
+the price should be my wool factory.  But this is a proposal of
+marriage--don't forget that."
+
+"He must be saved."
+
+Norcot nodded.
+
+"So be it.  'I'll dare all heat but that in Gracie's eyes.'  I
+may add that I'm probably the only man in Devonshire who
+could save him.  And even I must do it by foul means, not fair
+ones.  Say the word then!"
+
+"I implore you, if ever you loved me.  Oh, if I could do it
+myself I would not ask you."
+
+"You can't do it."
+
+"Then do you."
+
+"And afterwards?  Tut, tut!  I may dance on the gallows I
+rob of him!  One doesn't risk these highly coloured possibilities
+for a hand-shake.  What afterwards, Grace?"
+
+As she answered, Mr. Kekewich entered at the other end of
+the chamber, and he heard her reply.
+
+"If you save John Lee's life, I'll marry you."
+
+"Before Heaven you mean it?"
+
+"Before Heaven."
+
+"There's my brave heroine!"
+
+"Tea is served in the drawing-room, Miss Grace," said
+Kekewich.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+STRATEGY
+
+When approaching a problem Peter Norcot rarely made
+any error in his point of attack.  By nightfall upon the
+day of Grace's promise he had left Fox Tor Farm, and only she
+knew the reason.  But to Plymouth Peter did not go.  He returned
+home, visited his safe and took from it the sum of one thousand
+pounds in notes.  Any appeal to authority on behalf of John Lee
+must be vain.  He had been sentenced to death for high treason,
+and four days separated him from the gallows.  Norcot knew
+that the man would be hanged at Exeter, and that he was to leave
+Plymouth for that city under a military escort two days after his
+trial.  He had learned the route of march and the constitution of
+the company responsible for the prisoner's safe custody.  The
+journey would take two days, and the half-way house stood near
+Ashburton.  A non-commissioned officer commanded, and upon
+that man Peter Norcot centred his hopes.  Quarters for the
+company were already taken at Westover Farm, outside Ashburton;
+and here the wool-stapler designed to appear in good time.
+During the hours of that night he doubted little but that he would
+achieve his purpose.
+
+Meanwhile a lesser man--one Thomas Putt--commands
+undivided attention.  When Kekewich returned to the servants'
+hall after announcing tea to Grace and her lover, he found
+Mrs. Beer there.  To them entered Tom with a fine salmon; but no
+voice of approval rewarded his achievement, for Kekewich was
+full of the tragic thing he had just heard.
+
+"What a light it do throw!" cried Dinah Beer.  "Poor tibby
+lamb; an' the hunger of that dreadful wolf for her!  Now he'll
+get Lee off--see if he don't--though he's got to ax King
+George."
+
+"If Lee knowed the price, I'm thinking as 'twould be more
+than Norcot could do to free him," said Kekewich.  "I was for
+this marriage heart an' soul, so much as master; but he've changed
+since she runned away; an' so have I.  I'm generally of his mind
+in secret, though I never tell the man so."
+
+"'Tis too dreadful to think of," declared Dinah.  "Poor dear
+Jack!--yet the price of his getting off be dreadful too."
+
+"'Twill kill her to marry him--honest gentleman though he
+be," said Kekewich.  "An' she'll do it.  If Mr. Norcot gets Lee
+off, she'll take him without another murmur."
+
+Then Tom Putt spoke.  He knew a great deal about the
+matter of Lee, for he had been permitted to see John at Prince
+Town and had afterwards got a message to him, through Sergeant
+Bradridge, that Grace Malherb was safe.  To the sergeant fell
+Lee's custody, and Putt knew that on the morrow his uncle
+Septimus Bradridge would convey John from Plymouth a day's
+march to Westover Farm.
+
+Apart from any question concerning Grace, Tom had already
+determined to see his old companion once again, and he knew
+exactly where the soldiers would make their noontide halt upon
+the following morning.  Now his mind quickened and he showed
+a spark of the genius that had so often been wasted in successful
+poaching on Dart.  First Mr. Putt begged Kekewich to give him
+a few moments of private conversation, and then, when he and
+the old man were closeted together, John Lee's friend explained
+a part of his purpose.
+
+"My uncle's a fierce warrior, but he've always showed a great
+liking for me, and I know he'll not stand between me and a word
+or two with Jack.  The day's journey is to be broken where Dean
+Burn flows down out o' the woods between Buckfastleigh and
+Dean Prior.  'Tis a spot where two roads meet, and there's a
+bridge there.  Now I can get to that place afore they do; an' if
+I have speech with Jack Lee, 'twill put iron into his will."
+
+"You might see Norcot?"
+
+"I shall not.  Norcot will tackle my Uncle Septimus to-morrow
+night at Westover.  An' he'll find my uncle's a man as wants a
+tidy mort o' money to go behind his duty.  As to Norcot, he'll
+get Lee off, sure's fate; for Jack would run like any other chap
+to save his neck.  But not if he knowed what price Norcot be
+getting for saving him.  The gentleman may override Sergeant
+Bradridge, but he won't override Jack Lee."
+
+"You'll want a bit of money, won't 'e, to get leave to talk to
+him?"
+
+"Ess, I shall," said Putt.  "That's what I wanted to say.  A
+pound will go a long way with a common sojer, but not with my
+uncle.  I wouldn't dare for to offer him small money.  I shall
+just ax if I may speak to an old friend afore he's choked off; and
+I shall offer all you can let me have, an' hope for my mother's
+sake as Uncle Septimus will let me get a few private words."
+
+"I can give 'e twenty pounds," said Kekewich, "an' that's every
+penny I've got by me.  Money's scarce just now."
+
+Putt nodded gloomily, because the elder touched a thorny
+subject.  For the first time since Fox Tor Farm was built, had
+the master of it asked his men upon pay day to let their wages
+stand over for a week.
+
+"I've not got a farden.  Gived my maid to Chagford every
+penny," confessed Mr. Putt.
+
+The old man nodded and produced his cash in the shape of
+two notes.
+
+"I won't ax you your plans, Thomas, for you wasn't born
+yesterday.  'Tis a great source of strength that Sergeant Bradridge
+is your relation.  Be witty about it; an' if John Lee can save her
+by taking his bad fortune like a man--well, so much the better,
+though 'tis a poor come along of it for him, poor chap."
+
+Tom pouched the money carefully, but made no comment on
+the other's words.
+
+"I'll take my uncle this here fish I've catched," he said,
+"for he's a man fond of pretty eating, and was brought up on
+Dart salmon.  And I shall leave at cock-light to-morrow morning."
+
+"Good luck go with you.  Ban't often I wish anybody that;
+but this time I will for the maiden's sake.  An' her good fortune
+will be his bad, poor blid! unless 'tis good fortune to die in
+a good cause."
+
+"Us never knows what'll happen," declared Putt.  "An'
+whether or no, 'tis bad fortune to be hanged, for it stops a man's
+usefulness."
+
+The conversation ended with this just reflection, and very early
+next morning Thomas went his way.  Mrs. Beer provided him
+with plentiful supplies of food and, upon his own account, he
+visited the tool-shed and work-loft before setting out.  With him
+he carried a stout stick, and his salmon as a gift for Sergeant
+Bradridge.
+
+He struck into Dean Woods while it was yet early, then called
+at a farm hard by, where he was known, partook of a pint of beer
+and had some conversation with the farmer's son.  Presently,
+seated with this lad in front of a load of manure, Putt jogged
+onwards and proceeded to a cross-road not far distant from
+Robin Herrick's old home at Dean Prior.  Here ran Dean Burn
+from its fountains on Dartmoor; and to Mr. Putt this stream,
+now in full torrent after rain, offered interesting problems.  He
+examined the waters with a professional eye, and his friend upon
+the cart laughed at him.
+
+"Ever thinking of fish; even at such a time as this!"
+
+"No, by Gor!" answered Tom.  "I'm just wondering how
+shallow it runs to the bridge yonder.  Lend me your whip an' I'll
+find out."
+
+He proved to his satisfaction that there was deep water at
+hand, and then, while still in earnest conversation with the young
+farmer, Thomas heard a tramp of feet and saw the troops
+advancing.  Thereupon his friend drew his cart and its burden
+into a side path by the stream, and Putt, with the salmon well
+displayed, advanced to meet Sergeant Bradridge.  The halt
+sounded as he approached.  The troops grounded their arms
+and, weary and hungry after a march of fifteen miles, pulled food
+from their knapsacks and scattered in comfort by the grassy way.
+For drink, the river rolled at their feet.
+
+Sergeant Bradridge himself had selected a comfortable spot
+upon a milestone, with a bank behind it for his back, just as
+Tom appeared.  All the soldiers were now at ease, save two
+sentries, who kept guard over the prisoner.  Lee was handcuffed,
+but his legs were free, and he had walked with his guards.  He
+sat now, nodded and smiled at Putt, and welcomed him
+gratefully.  But Thomas held his nose high, walked past the
+prisoner, and treated Lee as one no longer to be recognised by
+self-respecting people.
+
+"Morning, Uncle Sep.  I knowed you was passing this way, so
+I took a half-holiday, an' made bold to walk across the Moor."
+
+The sergeant was an elderly man with a ruddy face, a pompous
+bearing, and a feeble, kindly mouth quite concealed under heavy
+moustaches.
+
+"Tom, to be sure!  Sit down an' have a bite.  'Tis dooty, an'
+a painful dooty.  But us safeguards of the land have to do dirty
+work so well as clean work.  That poor soul--well, but come to
+think of it, you knowed him better'n ever I shall.  'Tis a strange
+world.  Back along I had to march your master out of War Prison,
+'cause Mr. Malherb got in a rage the day we found out about
+that hole under the walls; then I had to take this here poor
+soul down along to Plymouth; an' now I be marching him
+to be hanged.  Talk o' wars!  Us as stays at home have just
+as terrible dooties thrust upon us."
+
+"You was always ready for anything.  Nothing never puzzles
+you.  My mother says that if an earthquake comed, you wouldn't
+run.  But as for Jack Lee--well, I grant us liked him very
+well.  But he turned traitor to please the women, an' I've done
+with him."
+
+"Ah!--a face like his was bound to get him mixed up with the
+female sex."
+
+"You didn't ought to pity him--such a renowned King's man
+as you be," declared Putt.
+
+"You'm quite correct," assented the sergeant, proceeding with
+his bread and cheese.  "But though a King's man, I'm one as
+looks to the bottom of my glass, and to the bottom of everything.
+Many a poisonous root do bear wholesome seed.  I've had
+speech with that chap, an' I'm devilish sorry for him--sorrier
+than he is for himself."
+
+"You'm such a large-minded warrior, Uncle Sep.  I wish there
+was more Bradridge and less Putt in my character, I'm sure.
+Bradridges is always heroes."
+
+"Always--to a man," admitted the sergeant.  "But your
+mother is a very proper-minded woman, an' you've got proper
+feelings, though you wouldn't go for a sojer when I wanted you."
+
+"If he'd 'listed now," said Tom, pointing with his thumb to
+John Lee, "he'd never have found hisself in this fix."
+
+"True for you.  I wish I could take him to barracks 'stead of
+Exeter gaol.  A modest man; and since I give him your message
+that 'twas well with the young lady, he's been quite content.  He
+told me he didn't fear death no more than I do."
+
+"All comes of bad company," replied his nephew.  "I was half
+in mind to take the man's hand just now, but I couldn't bring
+myself to do it."
+
+The sergeant shook his head.
+
+"That's the Putt blood in you, Thomas.  A Bradridge would
+never turn against a broken man just 'cause his life had fallen out
+crooked.  Granted he've done wrong.  Very well; he'm going to
+suffer for it.  If you'd been tempted by a pretty maid, mayhap
+you'd be in the same box."
+
+"He'm a traitor an' he tried to help they Yankees out of prison.
+That's enough for me," said Putt stoutly.  "Us'll leave him to
+his righteous fate.  See here, Uncle Sep, here's a brave fish I've
+brought 'e, knowing what a tooth you've got for Dart salmon.  I
+thought as Mother Coaker--to Westover Farm where you lie
+to-night--would cook it for your supper."
+
+Without words Sergeant Bradridge smelt the fish carefully; then
+his face shone.
+
+"Fresh as a rose!" he said.
+
+"Catched essterday morn."
+
+"You'm a good boy, Tom, an' I thank you.  Call that chap
+there who's just had a drink in the river.  I'll send him forward
+with this here fish an' give him a pound of it for his trouble.  He
+knows the way."
+
+Thomas obeyed, and in ten minutes a soldier had started off
+with his sergeant's supper, while Putt professed great amazement.
+
+"What power to put in one man's hands.  You can order 'em
+about seemingly like a shepherd orders his dog!  In these parts,
+of course, the name of Bradridge is a masterpiece.  I lay they'll
+all turn out at Buckfastleigh as you go marching through."
+
+"'Tis right a man's native town should mark his fame," said the
+soldier.  "Of course my name be a household word there; and
+for that very reason I'm going round by King's Wood and Bilberry
+Hill, so as this poor chap shan't have all the eyes of the town upon
+him.'"
+
+"'Tis a rough road."
+
+"Not to me.  I've knowed the way ever since I was breeched."
+
+"Well," said Putt, rising, "I wish you kindly, Uncle Sep, and
+I hope you'll take it proper in me to have come.  There's a chap
+going up through Dean Wood with a cart in a minute and I'll get
+a lift part o' the way to home."
+
+"Well, I'm much obliged to you and I won't forget it.  I've
+often thought, Thomas, as my maid 'Liza wouldn't say 'no' to
+you.  Hast ever turned your mind to her?"
+
+"Never reckoned I was good enough."
+
+"Well, modesty's a very proper part of youth; but in love-making
+it can be carried too far.  Think of it.  She'm homely,
+but for that matter so be you.  An' none the worse for that.  Us
+can't all have picture-book faces."
+
+"Like that poor chap-fallen gallows man there.  Well,
+good-bye to 'e.  An' my dooty."
+
+Tom shook hands with his uncle, moved a step or two off and
+glanced irresolutely where John Lee sat between the standing
+soldiers.  His hands were under his chin and his elbows on his
+knees.
+
+"Be damned if I can bring myself to do it!" said Putt aloud;
+whereupon Sergeant Bradridge rose from the milestone and laid
+a hand upon his nephew's shoulder.
+
+"Don't harden your heart against him, my lad.  He's in a
+tight place, and no man can ever give him more than a handshake
+and a 'God speed.'  It won't hurt 'e to wish him better
+luck in a better world; an', being your comrade, you ought to
+do it."
+
+Putt scowled in the direction of John Lee.
+
+"If you say it's my dooty--you're such a masterful man.  You
+get my secrets out of me like a lawyer!  To tell truth, I had a
+dozen messages for the fellow from Fox Tor Farm.  And a last
+word from a maiden too.  A good few tears have been shed for
+the chap, as hadn't an enemy in the world an' scores o' friends.
+'Twas Kekewich axed me to speak to him; an' I named you, an'
+said as you'd never let me do it.  And old Kek, he said, 'Your
+Uncle Bradridge is a man of valour an' a man knowed for his
+righteous character.  Such as him,' Kek said, 'with a wife an'
+children an' a good heart, ain't going to stand between an orphan
+lad on his way to the gallows, and a last message from his
+friends.'  He said also, 'Give the sergeant this here token with an old
+man's respects to a hero, an' ax him from me to let you just have
+five minutes with poor Jack Lee out o' ear-shot o' the sojers.  This
+money, he says, 'ban't no more'n a sign of respect for his character
+as a sojer and a Christian; an' if there wasn't such men as him in
+the nation, us would have had Boney over long afore to-day,' says
+Kekewich."
+
+"An' you wasn't going to deliver the old man's message?"
+
+"Didn't think 'twas worth while, for I never knowed, Uncle
+Sep, that you was so powerful a sojer you could allow me to go
+aside an' have a talk with the rascal.  Not as I wants to, I'm sure.
+'Why,' I said to Kek, 'a general couldn't do it, let alone my
+Uncle Bradridge!'  An' Kek, he says, 'Your uncle's every bit so
+good as a general in this job.  He've got sole command, and his
+word's law.  Sergeants be the very thews of an army,' said Kek,
+an' I suppose I ought to have believed him."
+
+"Certainly you did," declared the warrior.  "Every word he
+told you was truth.  He'm a wise old man, and knows very well
+what he'm talking about.  But as to money--'tis a ticklish thing
+to name it."
+
+"So I told him, but he said you'd understand better'n a green
+lad like me.  'Do 'e think I'd offer money to a great man like
+Septimus Bradridge?' I asked him.  An' he said, 'I've got far
+too much respect for him to dream of such an insult; but I want
+him to take this here twenty pound just as a token of admiration
+from an old man who once had a son a sojer.  And if he'll let
+you have ten minutes with poor Jack, so as to cheer him up afore
+he goes into the Valley of the Shadow--why, 'tis only a sign he's
+as big in his heart as his valour, and nought to do at all with my
+present to him.'"
+
+Tom pulled out the money and handed it to Sergeant Bradridge.
+
+"I'm glad you remembered your dooty," said his uncle sternly,
+taking the notes and putting them into his breast.  "An' 'tis lucky
+that I'm a parent and a man above suspicion of a mean trick; so
+I can take this here momentum just the same as I'd take a medal
+for valour--in a big military spirit.  You'll bear me witness I've
+twice axed you to speak to the prisoner afore; an' now I ax you
+to speak to him again."
+
+"If as my Uncle Septimus you command me, I must obey,"
+said Putt reluctantly; "but I vow I won't be left with him over
+fifteen minutes.  I can say all I've got to say inside that time.
+An', though the sojers mus'n't listen, I'd rather for 'em not to be
+too far off, for he might turn upon me."
+
+"A handcuffed man!  To think my sister's son be a coward!"
+
+"He'm a desperate chap, an' us ban't all born with your great
+courage.  If I sit 'pon yonder bank with him above the bridge, us
+won't be heard; an' if he sits 'pon top of the bank you can keep
+your eye upon us.  Out of your sight I will not trust myself with
+that man."
+
+"That's reasonable," admitted the sergeant; "let him keep
+his head over the grass, so as I can see him all the while I smoke
+my pipe."
+
+He looked at his watch.  "Fifteen minutes or so you shall
+have--him being an orphan."
+
+"Don't make it a minute longer, for 'tis a very nasty job for me.
+An' if I call out, I pray you'll run an' save me," implored Putt.
+
+With open contempt Sergeant Bradridge gave his order, and in
+a few moments Tom found himself alone beside John Lee on a
+shady bank above the stream.  Some thirty yards and a hillock
+of grass now separated him from the soldiers; while a little further
+off, sitting on the milestone, Tom's uncle lighted his pipe, felt a
+pleasant crispness at his breast, and kept his eyes firmly fixed
+upon the back of John Lee's head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SALMON IS SPOILED
+
+Sergeant Bradridge smoked his tobacco, thought of
+his twenty pounds, of his salmon, and of his high position
+in the world.
+
+"Some," he reflected, "might say that Tom there would never
+have seen yonder poor chap but for they two ten-pound notes.
+But old Kekewich knowed better.  'Tis merely a momentum.
+Give me an old man if you want an understanding man."
+
+Nobody had ever before presented the soldier with twenty
+pounds, and the sensation was not only pleasant, but tended to
+the increase of self-respect.  His days had been uneventful, and
+albeit an admirable officer, accident kept him at home despite
+the stirring times.  He was a great recruiter, and had sent many
+a lad to the wars, though never himself had he heard a shot fired
+in anger.  The hour was at hand when he would do so; and that
+in his own mother-county of Devon.  Now he thought upon his
+wife and family, and then concerning the prisoner.  Heartily he
+regretted John Lee's fate, but knew no way to mend it.
+
+Meantime the doomed man and Putt conversed with earnestness.
+Their talk was of a practical nature, and they wasted not
+a moment in vain sorrow.
+
+Tom told his friend the news and the solemn promise that
+Grace Malherb had given to Norcot.
+
+"No man can save me if I won't be saved," said John.  "It
+only makes death easier to know what hangs upon it."
+
+"We've got but minutes," answered the other; "an' 'tis a fool's
+trick to die if you can live.  Dead, you're no good to none but
+worms and body-snatchers; alive, you can't tell what might come
+along.  You've got to get out of this coil without Norcot's help;
+then she's free again.  'Twas only if he freed you--not if you
+freed yourself."
+
+"'Tis beyond human power."
+
+"'Tis as easy as eating.  D'you see that cart full of muck?
+Behind the tail-board there's a place scraped out big enough to
+hold you.  An' there's a knot-hole in the bottom of the cart
+where you can put your mouth so you won't be choked.  'Twill
+be a thought foul, but better'n a rope.  Here's a file for them
+bracelets presently.  Wait a moment and watch."
+
+Putt went across to the cart and opened the tail-board, behind
+which a space had been scooped in the farmyard stuff.  Then he
+took a bundle of the dirty straw, rolled it into a ball, and returned
+to John Lee.
+
+"'Tis a matter of moments now," he said.  "Yonder chap,
+pretending to be asleep under the trees, only waits for you to
+slip in the cart; then he'll cover you up deep and set off through
+Dean Wood."
+
+While he spoke Tom rolled his ball of straw into the shape of
+a head and stuck it upon his stick.  Next he watched his uncle
+through the grass, and when Bradridge had turned away for a
+moment to speak to a soldier, John Lee's hat was thrust upon
+the dummy, while John himself slipped down the bank.  Tom
+Putt's uncle, from his standpoint, still supposed that he saw the
+condemned man's head, and his nephew talking earnestly beside
+the prisoner; but in reality John was already under a mass of hot
+ordure behind the tail-board of the cart; and a moment later the
+vehicle took its lumbering way among the soldiers.  It crept
+through the little camp, then ascended a hill upon the driver's
+left hand, and slowly disappeared from view in the direction of
+Dean Wood.
+
+Meantime Putt sat by John Lee's hat on the stick and watched
+his uncle.  The precious minutes passed until at last Sergeant
+Bradridge looked at his watch again, rose, and knocked the
+burning tobacco from his pipe.
+
+Thereupon Thomas played his part.  He removed Lee's hat
+and flung it into the river, where it floated fast down stream; he
+then struck himself a formidable blow on the side of the face
+with his stick, and shouting with all his might, himself leapt
+down into the water.  It took him to his middle, and he waded
+deeper.
+
+"Help, help, Uncle Sep!  Help, sojers!  Help; you'll never
+hang him, for he'll drown hisself, sure as death!"
+
+A dozen redcoats answered Tom's bawling, and Sergeant
+Bradridge also ran to the spot as fast as he was able.
+
+"He's done for me--I shall die!" cried Putt, holding his face;
+"I know'd how 'twould be.  He leapt up like lightning, and then
+struck me with his handcuffed hands.  I'll swear my jaw's broke.
+'Death by water's better'n hanging!' he says, an' flings hisself
+into the river!"
+
+"There's his hat," said a soldier; "but his head isn't under it."
+
+"Get in the water!  Get in the water!" shouted Sergeant
+Bradridge.  "With his hands fast together he'll be drownded
+like a dog wi' a brick round his neck!"
+
+"If he's carried under the bridge you'll lose him sure as
+death.  Oh, my head! an' I never said a hard word to the
+man."
+
+They waded in the rolling reaches of Dean Burn, but found
+nothing; then, at the sergeant's direction, his men prepared to
+make a drag that they might scrape the bottom of the river.
+
+"There's scarce water to drown a sheep," said a soldier.  "Are
+you sure of this chap?" he added, and looked at Putt.
+
+Tom, still nearly up to his waist in the river, took the insult ill.
+
+"Sure o' me, you gert cock-eyed lobster!  Sure o' me!  Ban't
+your officer my own uncle?  Better you comed in the water to help
+than talk against your betters.  But you'm too frightened of
+wetting your pipe-clay and getting more work!  Do a man have his
+jaw split for fun?  I hope as you'll be shot first time ever you go
+to war; an' a good riddance!"
+
+"All the same," answered the soldier, "there was a cart full of
+straw went by ten minutes agone.  Might be wise to overtake it
+and see that all's open and honest."
+
+"I never took my eyes off the prisoner's head," declared Bradridge.
+"I suppose you'll not call my sight in question, Private
+Chugg?"
+
+"No, sergeant; no man living's got a sharper eye; but there's
+heads and there's hats.  How if his head weren't under his hat
+when you see'd it 'pon the mound there?"
+
+"Three of you run up along after thicky cart, an' us'll scour the
+river banks," said Bradridge; "an' if there's any hookem-snivey
+dealings, Thomas Putt, 'tis you who will swing at Exeter, not
+t'other."
+
+"You'll be sorry for that speech, Uncle Sep, when us gets his
+gashly carkiss out the water," answered Tom calmly.  "He's
+here, I tell you--sunk down into some hole at the bottom--and
+dead as a hammer by now.  An' if he ban't here, where is he?
+Tell me that?"
+
+The soldiers hunted and probed without success; then they
+went down the stream and searched beneath the bridge and in
+every place where a fugitive might lurk with his head above
+water.
+
+Meanwhile others, led by Private Chugg, ran fast, and soon
+overtook the cart that had conveyed John Lee.  It stood half-way
+up a steep hill in the woods, with a stone stuck beneath one
+wheel while the horse rested.
+
+Without ceremony, and despite fierce protests from Tom Putt's
+friend, the soldiers pitched the entire contents of this vehicle into
+the road.  But they found nothing.  Their prisoner had left his
+unpleasant quarters ten minutes before, and was now half a mile
+away in the deep woods of Dean.
+
+Throughout that night the screech owls heard a steady sound
+like their own harsh voices, but subdued to a murmur.  It was
+John at his handcuffs.  To separate them proved a difficult task,
+even with Tom Putt's file; but that done, the man was quickly
+free.
+
+
+Far away, as evening fell, Mr. Norcot waited with admirable
+patience for the arrival of Sergeant Bradridge and his prisoner;
+while Mother Coaker of Westover Farm mourned a good fish
+wasted.  Tom Putt's salmon, despairing of being eaten, had
+fallen to pieces in the pot.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+THE PEACE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOPE WAKES AND DIES
+
+On a day in late autumn, while sad winds whispered of
+winter and the heather blossoms perished, Harvey Woodman
+and Thomas Putt were setting up hurdles round about
+a portion of a turnip field.  Hard by Uncle Smallridge sat
+upon a stone, chewed tobacco and watched them.  This aged
+man had made a close study of Providence's work at Fox Tor
+Farm, and, finding that all the evils resulting from the
+demolition of Childe's Tomb had fallen upon the head of Malherb, he
+felt increased respect for the logic of Heaven.  Now he
+approached the labourers fearlessly, discussed the state of affairs
+with relish, and threw his weight upon the side of justice.  But
+the household of Malherb showed an inclination to think the
+farmer too hardly treated.  According to their measure of
+intelligence and gratitude, they mourned the master's evil fortune.
+
+"He's changed under our living eyes," said Woodman.
+
+"A scantle of his old self, an' goes heavily with backward
+glances as though the wisht-hounds was arter him day an' night,"
+declared Putt.  "So meek as Moses now most times.  I miss
+the thunder of him.  We'm so used to it that he seems like a
+new man without his noise."
+
+"Not but he flashes up, like a dying fire, now an' again,
+however," added Woodman.
+
+Uncle Smallridge chewed and nodded and uttered complacent
+platitudes.
+
+"What did I say?  What a picture of the wrath of the loving
+God!  You won't find in all Scripture no case where the Lord
+took a matter into His own hands quicker an' polished off a
+sinner so sharp.  First his son cut down; then his darter
+undutiful; then that tantara to the War Prison; then Lovey Lee
+carried away by the Devil, as I hopes an' believes; an' then Jack
+Lee vanished like a cloud; an' a bad wool year; an' wages
+coming by fits an' starts; an' doom writ upon the man's forehead.
+'Tis all the hatched-out egg of the Lord.  Full of meat--full of
+meat are His ways."
+
+"Hard enough to stomach all the same," said Woodman; and
+Putt viewed the ancient with considerable disgust.
+
+"You'm worse than Kekewich," he declared.  "You fatten on
+other folks' troubles, like a crow on offal.  I'd blush to smack
+my lips over a brave man's cares.  Who gave 'e that tobacco
+you'm chowing?"
+
+"Mr. Malherb," confessed Uncle.  "An open-handed gentleman
+as need be, an' a good friend to me.  An' why not?  'Tis
+the duty of the gentlefolks to support such as me.  I've growed
+two-double working for 'em.  An' now my balance of years be
+their proper business.  I've nought against him myself; I be
+only pointing out how much the Lord had against him.  We'm
+all corn for the A'mighty's grindstones; an' a very comforting
+thought that is for a common man.  There's justice there."  He
+waved to the sky.  "Us shan't be driven about to work for small
+money an' bad masters in Eternity; but sit 'pon golden thrones
+an' share the property with the best of 'em."
+
+"You're a Whig," said Woodman.  "They talk like that in
+the Parliament."
+
+"I be what I be.  I know there won't be no squires an' ban-dogs
+an' man-traps an' spring-guns to maim honest men up-along.
+If us be all equal in Heaven, that should be the rule on earth,
+same as the Lord prayed in His own Prayer."
+
+"You'd better keep them ideas till you get to Heaven then,"
+said Thomas Putt; "for they won't work on Dartymoor."
+
+As he spoke Mr. Beer arrived, and with him he brought
+interesting news.
+
+"Leave that, souls," he said; "since the weather's lifted, us
+have all got to go along with master to Hangman's Hollow 'bout
+that job there was talk of a fortnight since.  He's made up his
+mind all on a sudden.  Go back to the farm for ropes an' picks,
+then come along."
+
+"What's in the wind now, neighbour?" inquired Uncle
+Smallridge, and Beer answered him.
+
+"Why, 'tis the hole where Miss Grace was found.  'Tis said
+'twas old Lovey Lee's den afore she bolted.  Dinah heard a
+whisper of treasures there, too.  Anyway us have got to go an'
+pull the place down an' let in light an' air, so as us can see if
+there be aught worth fetching."
+
+Uncle Smallridge went his way speculating as to what was the
+next unpleasant surprise hidden for Malherb by the Lord of
+Hosts; while Putt, Woodman and Beer returned home.  They
+collected their tools and set out soon afterwards with Mark
+Bickford for Hangman's Hollow.
+
+The first result of his present experiences and position had
+been a development of astounding patience in Maurice Malherb.
+Patient, indeed, he was not in any real sense; but a self-control
+relatively wonderful marked his goings now.  He waited for the
+inevitable.  Every instinct called out to him to hasten it, yet he
+took no step.  This personal attitude amazed him in secret.
+Sometimes even a gleam of hope touched his darkness, and the
+fact that no word had been heard of Lovey, and no report of her
+death had reached mankind, awoke a shadowy thought that she
+was not dead.  But he knew right well that no human foot trod
+the desert south of Cater's Beam once in a year.  The dead might
+there mingle with dust and never be discovered or recorded.  He
+did nothing from day to day for thinking of his wife and daughter.
+They stood between him and open confession of the crime.  Yet
+each week of delay galled him worse than the last.  Memory kept
+such a vivid wakefulness as it only holds under conditions of
+remorse.  His sin coloured his life, and the hues of it faded neither
+by day nor night.  As the hideous incubus of a dream slowly crawls
+upon us, to fasten its fangs in our bosom, so this horror nightly
+destroyed sleep, and by day it rode abroad with him, ate with him,
+thought with him, thrust its shadow between him and the few
+things he still loved.
+
+A thousand times his feet turned to Cater's Beam, a thousand
+times he chose rather to live on and cherish the pallid hope that
+his daughter and his wife were not for ever disgraced.  For him
+the events of that appalling dawn were neither gyves nor ropes
+about his real nature.  He had long since retraced all in spirit,
+probed his act to the core, and even taken the consequences of it.
+For no thought of self-destruction returned to him; but his women
+came between and held his hand, and, though they knew it not,
+played the first part in his hidden life, as they now stood openly
+for all that he still held dear.
+
+Yet at last, by an indirect road, he consented to satisfy himself,
+and after countless petitions from Grace and from Annabel, he
+gave way and abandoned what, from their standpoint, was a
+senseless determination.  His daughter finally prevailed with him.
+
+"Lovey Lee fled to save her own life," declared Grace.  "Perchance
+she never returned to her hiding-place at all.  There, then,
+remain her treasures and the amphora that I saw with my own
+eyes.  Surely it is worth the trouble of a search?"
+
+"'Twould be fifteen thousand pounds at least to us.  Your
+brother himself might purchase it," said Annabel.
+
+"He at least never will," answered her husband.  "Rather
+would I grind it under my heel.  'Brother'!  'Tis too noble a
+title for him.  Norcot can offer to aid me in my extremity, yet he
+whose duty it should be, and whose privilege--does he come
+forward?"
+
+"For the best of all reasons, dearest.  You have not told him
+a word of your circumstances."
+
+"'Told him'!  Do such things want telling to a brother?  He
+ought to feel it in his bones; he ought to dream that all is not
+well with me; he ought to breathe it in with the air.  If he were
+in trouble, my blood would have beat it into my heart.
+Nevertheless, no farthing of his would I take to keep my wife and
+daughter from starving."
+
+"Yet here's your own money as like as not hid within five
+miles," said Grace.  "How I've longed to go!  Once I rode in
+sight, and I never felt so tempted to break my word to you, dear
+father.  But I was glad afterwards, for, looking back, I marked a
+man moving in the ruin.  He saw me too and vanished."
+
+The matter dropped then; yet, within a week Malherb resolved
+to permit a search.  To him the enterprise must be a crucial test
+of matters more vital than the amphora.  If it was there, then
+Lovey indeed had perished; if it was not there, then she lived.
+But the truth might still be buried in his own bosom.  It was not
+necessary that others should know of it; and, in any case, the
+circumstances of his family must be ameliorated by recovery of
+the treasure.  That fact alone he strove to keep before him;
+yet now, as he tramped over the Moor with his daughter, and
+saw wan sunlight all soaked in moisture, spread great fleeting
+vans along the way, he prayed very earnestly that his mission
+might fail.
+
+Grace was silent and busy with her own thoughts.  That Lovey
+Lee had long since escaped from Dartmoor and taken her treasure
+with her, the girl felt certain; but that John Lee might be using
+the cavern in Hangman's Hollow seemed likely enough.  His
+escape was a nine days' wonder, and some persons, Sergeant
+Bradridge among the number, stoutly maintained that John must
+have been born to drown and had met his destiny.  The
+sergeant was back at Prince Town; only Kekewich knew of
+Putt's successful proceedings; while, as for Peter Norcot, he took
+this further rebuff from fortune smiling, and absented himself
+from Fox Tor Farm for a considerable time.  For the present he
+was reported to be very diligent about his own affairs.
+
+"You dream," said Malherb.  "Twice I have spoken and
+received no answer, Grace."
+
+"I did dream--of the blessedness of finding this treasure; yet
+I am sure 'tis too late to hope."
+
+Her father sighed.
+
+"Who can tell?" he said.
+
+Only the carrion crows, that croaked aloft out of the morning
+air and flapped their sooty wings towards Cater's Beam, knew the
+truth.  Often with his eyes he followed them out of sight; with
+his mind's eye he saw what they saw; and that was never out of
+sight.
+
+Presently the labourers drew up in Hangman's Hollow and
+stood amazed at the secret which Grace revealed to them.  From
+the top, Beer and Woodman set to work; and Putt and Bickford
+attacked the place beneath.  They cut away the masses of briar
+and undergrowth that bound the foundations of the old blowing-house,
+forced a hole in the wall, and made entry from that point.
+Malherb also toiled and wearied his body with great feats of
+strength to distract his mind.
+
+"If us should catch the old cat-a-mountain now!" said Woodman.
+"My stars, she'd scratch our faces to the bone, I lay!"
+
+But the treasure house was empty.  They let in light from
+every side, and after two hours' hard work had dismantled the
+den.  Sweet air searched its dark corners; day illuminated its
+secrets.
+
+Malherb's heart fell as Grace pointed to two great boxes of
+plate and jewels; but it rose with a bound, for they proved to be
+empty.  Where Lovey's money-bags had stood and leered at
+Grace out of the darkness, like a row of little pot-bellied fiends
+roosting there, they found nothing.  The ledges were bare.
+Malherb made no attempt to conceal his exultation.  Dissimulation
+was impossible before his growing hope.  He toiled like a
+giant, tore his clothes and smothered himself in dust and dirt.
+
+"Not a watch--not a coin--not a teaspoon!" he shouted.
+"All gone--everything.  But don't give up yet; seek and seek;
+make very sure.  Tear every stone from another; break every
+stone in half.  Dig up the floors; sound the nooks and crannies.
+Let no shadow of doubt remain!"
+
+The men spoke under their breath to one another.
+
+"He'm going daft, or I am," said Putt.  "The less we find,
+the better he likes it!"
+
+"'Tis his troubles have turned his head," answered Beer.  "I've
+knowed it happen so.  Look at him--all in a muck o' sweat like
+a common man."
+
+Woodman, as he ripped up the floor, discovered a hole by
+Lovey's stone altar.
+
+"See here, your honour; I be much feared something's been
+took out of this place.  'Tis lined wi' stone an' the cover lies
+beside it.  But 'tis empty."
+
+Maurice Malherb smiled and approached eagerly.
+
+"Yes, yes; even here might she have hidden her treasure--not
+a doubt of it--not a doubt.  Say!" he continued to Bickford,
+who stood nearest to him, "don't stand like a clown carved in
+wood.  Speak.  Tell me--is it not clear something has been
+lifted up from here and carried off?"
+
+"Clear enough," answered the man in a surly voice.  "Us was
+only wondering, begging your honour's pardon, why for you was
+so mighty pleased to find your trouble wasted."
+
+"Then take yourself and your insolent wonder from Fox Tor
+Farm to-morrow at daybreak!" cried Malherb.  The old flash
+was in his eyes, the old deep thunder in his voice.
+
+"Jimmery! he'm coming back to hisself!" murmured Putt.
+
+Then Malherb spoke again.
+
+"Wonder as you will.  What are your thoughts to me?  Work--work
+on--all of you, and keep your wonder to yourselves."
+
+His daughter, like the rest, felt upon the brink of mystery, yet
+doubted not but that her father would presently explain.  She
+was bitterly disappointed yet not surprised.
+
+At last Malherb flung down a pick and mopped his forehead.
+
+"'Tis done--to the last corner!" he cried.  "And what have
+we found?"
+
+"A dead dog, some old rotten boxes, some-candle-ends and
+some crustes, your honour," said Mr. Beer.
+
+"So be it.  I thank God--before you all I thank God!  And
+let each man remember this day!"
+
+He pulled off two heavy signet rings, the only adornments that
+he wore, gave one to Beer and the other to Harvey Woodman.
+
+"Keep them for a sign of your fruitless labour.  And you
+men, come to me to-morrow: I've a guinea for each of you.
+Remember, all, that I'm your best friend for evermore.  I'll
+never forget one of ye!  You stare, you good, worthy clods--well,
+stare and wonder.  It is your part to do so.  Know at least
+that my heart is light."
+
+He turned, drew on his coat, then gave his daughter his arm.
+He seemed to have shaken off a weight of years with his hard
+work.  His step was elastic, his head was thrown back.
+
+"I cannot say that I am sorry any more when I see your joy,
+dear father.  Yet, like the men, I wonder too.  But I will not
+ask you why you are glad to have lost your treasure, or I may get
+answered as Bickford was."
+
+"The rascal had an impudent tone in his voice, though I'll
+swear he meant no offence.  But for you, indeed, do not ask, my
+little maid.  'Tis enough that what looks evil news is not so.
+This day, as the wrecked sailor, who, from his perilous spar
+floating on ocean, sees suddenly a great ship at hand, and finds
+salvation even in the grave of his hopes, even so am I.  I--I
+have been through dark waters--I have suffered to the very last
+hiding-places of the heart.  My life turned upon me and rent
+me.  My wrath roused up such a devil as I knew not man could
+harbour.  God hid His face and I was lost in the darkness.  But
+now--now my cup is full.  He has spared me; He has lifted my
+load.  I must commune with Him.  I cannot talk to mankind
+until I have praised the name of the Lord.  With David I could
+dance before Him, because He has made my heart whole again
+and lifted my head in my own sight."
+
+"Then will I bless God too, dear father.  Indeed, your face
+says more to me than your words.  You are grown young.
+There is even laughter in your eyes again."
+
+He held her hand and pressed it.
+
+"Money's not everything--how well I know that," she said.
+"'Tis nothing--less than nothing--glorified mould--scum--a
+dirty mantle on the deep water of life--the poisonous berries we
+children clutch at.  I hate it.  I scorn it.  The gilded moss in
+that hole there--the moss that will grow black and die in the
+glare of day--that is money.  Let in light and we see it as it is."
+
+"You never cared for money."
+
+"And now less than before.  A man might live in that den
+we've just torn down, and live happy, too, if he'd escaped from
+such dreams as have of late tormented me.  This hour, with my
+own hands, would I build up a hut of stone and shaggy heath and
+dwell therein for ever rather than go back to yesterday.  But
+yesterday is past, and to-morrow I shall make holiday and hold a
+revel that all must share if they still want my friendship."
+
+"You are your dear self again!"
+
+"What is myself?  What am I?  I have been a storm-cloud
+drifting over men's heads to burst in unseasonable hail.  Now
+will I be a sun to shine upon men's hearts and warm 'em.  Oh,
+I have learnt wisdom in a dreadful book; but leave that.  Talk
+about her--the old woman--so tough and so terrible in her ways.
+She's far enough off now--in France, I'll wager."
+
+"Indeed, she may be.  I hope rather that poor John Lee is
+safe.  He haunted me to-day.  It seemed so possible that he
+might have chosen this place.  Why, father, father! what has
+happened?  Forgive me; I should not have named him."
+
+She stopped, for Malherb suddenly stood still and stared up
+into the sky.  The gladness fell away from his face like sunlight
+suddenly shadowed.  He struck one fist thrice into his open
+palm, then dropped his hands again.
+
+"Forgive me--I have hurt you cruelly," cried the girl.  "I had
+thought you quite pardoned John Lee."
+
+"Yes," he said gently; "I had pardoned him and I had forgot
+him too.  Poor fool of one thought that I am!  He knew--he
+knew this secret place and the wealth stored in it!  'Tis
+possible--nay, certain--that he rifled all.  Who would blame him?
+'Twas he whom you saw from far off in the ruins."
+
+"Never!  Had he found the amphora----  Is he not a
+Malherb himself?"
+
+"Hold your peace," her father answered, in a voice grown harsh
+again.  "That man has all, and who shall blame him?  He may
+well hold it his dead father's portion.  I, that thought I had
+awakened, only dreamed.  Things are as they were."
+
+"Oh, if I could understand!  If I could help you in this
+suffering that you hide from us!"
+
+"It is impossible.  A dream, I say.  Things are as they were."
+
+He turned to her and she heard his voice sink down into a
+dreary lifeless monotone.
+
+"The ship has passed by; but no man has seen the struggling
+wretch in the water or heard him shout."
+
+"Come home," she said.  "This suffering will kill you.  If
+you would but let those who love you----  A great grief, though
+nothing shared by three, may break the heart of one."
+
+
+Next morning Putt and Bickford approached their master in
+the farmyard and ventured to remind him of his promise.  He
+had forgotten it, and now turned upon them and cursed them for
+a pair of greedy fools.
+
+"Guineas--guineas!  What have you to do with them?
+Madmen!  If you only knew.  There--take them, and get out of
+my sight.  You can grin still.  Gather enough of that and you'll
+grin no more!"
+
+He dashed down the money at their feet and turned his back
+upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ON CHRISTMAS DAY
+
+Mr. Norcot invited himself to Fox Tor Farm for
+Christmas, but Maurice Malherb begged him to change
+his mind.  Peter's generous offer of a loan had not been
+accepted; but he knew that Fox Tor Farm was now mortgaged
+to meet Malherb's demands.
+
+Within the home circle a great difference of opinion obtained,
+yet it was impossible to argue the matter out, because it referred
+to Lovey Lee.  Grace felt positive that the miser had returned
+to her hiding-place; the master expressed an opinion equally
+strong that John Lee had abstracted the fortune and hastened
+with it for safety to the Continent.  His reasons he would not
+give; but that made no uncommon difficulty, for he was not used
+to offer reasons.  His daughter marvelled at his obstinacy, for
+her heart well knew that John was incapable of such an act.  He
+understood the significance of the amphora, and would have
+gloried to restore it at any personal risk.  The matter slowly
+ceased to be a subject of conversation, not that Malherb forbade it,
+for he longed to discuss the possibility, and welcomed any shadow
+of hope; but now rumours of peace had grown into a promise.
+It seemed to Grace Malherb as though her ambitions for John
+Lee and Cecil Stark were to be realised; because while peace
+with America was soon to be declared, Bonaparte had left Elba,
+and Europe awakened from her brief respite.
+
+Malherb sank into a settled but a gentle melancholy.  Gloom
+folded him like a garment; yet he was kindly and even
+considerate to all.  He ceased to hunt, a circumstance that brought
+more tears to his wife's eyes than any other, for she appreciated
+its full force.  A thousand times he had dreaded the day when
+his passion for sport could be gratified no more.  She had heard
+him desire to die before infirmity should keep him from riding to
+hounds.  Now he abandoned his delight without a murmur; at
+a wrench he tore twenty years out of his book of life and
+performed the operation with indifference.  In secret he marvelled
+at himself and at the tremendous operations of chance that could
+thus alter the whole ingrained tenour and bent of his existence.
+
+Christmas came, and Grace with her mother rode to worship
+at Holne.  Harvey Woodman was responsible for Annabel's
+safety, since she sat on a pillion behind him; while Grace rode
+'Cæsar.'
+
+"Peace comes to us through every sense," said Mrs. Malherb
+as they returned homeward.  "It is in the air to feel, on men's
+tongues to hear, in their eyes to see.  'Peace on earth,' too, I
+pray.  Peace everywhere, but----"
+
+She broke off with a sigh.  To speak further was not possible
+before Mr. Woodman.  But now Harvey made a diversion.  They
+were at the top of Ter Hill, half a mile distant from home, when
+his keen eyes caught sight of a small black object afar off on the
+Moor.  He watched a while, then spoke.
+
+"If there ban't that baggering sow as got out a week ago an'
+master thought was stolen!  'Tis her for sartain."
+
+The wandering beast was a distinguished matron, and her loss
+had caused annoyance.
+
+"How glad the master will be!" cried Mrs. Malherb.  "Don't
+lose sight of her on any account, Woodman.  Indeed, you will
+do well to follow her at once.  I can easily walk home from here."
+
+She alighted, and Harvey galloped off to secure the pig.
+
+"Send Bickford or one of 'em after me!" he shouted back to
+the ladies.
+
+The day was fine and the Moor dry and frozen, but Bickford
+grumbled not a little at his duty, for the Christmas dinner only
+waited to be eaten when Mrs. Malherb and her daughter returned.
+The servants' hall was full of grateful savours; the peat blazed in
+a pure, still heart of red-hot fire under a purple corona of flame;
+the walls were decked with holly and fir; it was a scene painful
+to leave.  But the labourer soon returned, for he had not gone
+far when he met Harvey riding homeward at a great pace.
+
+"Where's the pig to?" he asked.
+
+"'Twas no pig at all, but a message from Heaven," gasped
+Mr. Woodman.
+
+"If I didn't know, I should say you was drunk," answered
+Bickford; "but you wouldn't have dared get in liquor, having to
+ride back with missis.  Be you mazed or pixy-led in daylight?"
+
+"Mazed I be--to think--but five mile from our very doors--that
+awful--my flesh be creaming to my bones with the sight, an'
+my scalp's crawling down my back."
+
+"You've catched the small-pox, I reckon.  I'd best walk to
+windward of 'e."
+
+"I can say nought till I stand afore the company.  Then I'll
+properly terrify the whole pack of 'e."
+
+As they entered the servants' hall Maurice Malherb was already
+standing over a great sirloin at one end of the table, while
+Mr. Beer carved two turkeys at the other.  Threads of holly berries
+glittered against the shining green.  There was a smell of gravy
+and evergreens in the air, and bright sunshine poured through
+the windows.  On Christmas Day the family dined with their men
+and women, for it was an old custom of the Malherbs to do so.
+
+Now appeared Harvey Woodman, and conscious that perhaps
+the greatest moment of his life had come, he determined to make
+the most of it.
+
+"For the love of charity a drop of brandy, souls!" he cried.
+"Oh, your honour's goodness--such a shock as I've had--such
+a thing!  I failed away in my middle when I seed it an' nigh
+dropped off the hoss."
+
+"Fegs!" said Bickford, "when I comed to un, the man looked
+as if he'd been drawed through a brimble hedge backwards!"
+
+Mrs. Woodman rushed to her husband's side, and Malherb,
+putting down the carvers, also approached.
+
+"Speak," he said.  "What has happened?  Are you ill?"
+
+"The pig, the pig, your honour.  To the Beam her went--straight
+as any Christian; an' me after her.  Then, far beyond, in
+they gashly bogs where the Jacky-twoads dance on moony summer
+nights, I seed the horridest sight ever these eyes rested on.  I
+knowed there was a dead thing there very soon, an' thought 'twas
+a pony.  But when I comed nearer--there--let me have another
+drink--my inward organs turn to vinegar when I think upon it."
+
+"Speak on," said Malherb.  He stood before Mr. Woodman
+with his eyes fixed upon him.
+
+"First I seed a great patch of rotted turf; for a dead body
+decays the grass under it, your honour; then I seed a litter of
+bones lying on the stones around about, where the crows an'
+buzzards had carried 'em for cleaner picking; an' then--lor-amercy! a
+human face-bone staring at me with hollow eyes an'
+grinning like Death!  I plucked up courage, however, an' got
+off my hoss an' went up to the rames of the poor soul.  An' next
+thing I knowed was that I'd found out the secret of that old
+mullygrubs, Lovey Lee!  To hell the old vixen went; not to
+France as was thoughted, for there was an awful crack in her
+skull upon the brow.  All rags an' bones she was; an' I seed her
+old petticoat made of stolen sacks, an' her sun-bonnet, catched
+in a thorn bush an' black wi' blood yet; an' the long white hair
+of her shed round about in locks hither an' thither, like the
+cotton grass that waves on the bogs.  Let me drink, for the
+picture of that unholy masterpiece do cleave to my brain like
+moss to a rock."
+
+A great hum of excitement followed upon this news.  Then
+Malherb spoke.
+
+"Let us eat our dinner with what appetite we may," he said, in
+a dull and hollow voice.  "Forget what we have heard until
+to-morrow.  Then we will go with a sledge and a pair of oxen and
+gather up her dust and coffin it."
+
+"Don't let the old varmint lie beside that American gentleman,
+your honour's goodness," said Dinah Beer; "for 'twould be an
+unseemly thing that such evil earth should rise, come Judgment,
+so near his clay."
+
+Malherb stared round the table and spoke again in the heavy
+accents of one who talks in sleep.
+
+"She shall lie at Widecombe in holy ground; and when we
+bury her I will tell you something concerning her."
+
+They supposed that he spoke of Lovey Lee's rumoured
+treasures.  Then the meal began, but no joy accompanied it.
+The men whispered, and Woodman repeated his story again and
+again, adding some particulars with each recital.
+
+The banquet had turned into a funeral feast, whereat nobody
+loved the dead.  This tragedy, indeed, added a zest to their food;
+they could not leave the subject, but returned to it between every
+mouthful.  Then, like thunder upon their whisperings and excited
+speculations, burst the master's voice.
+
+"Have done, ghouls!  Cease to speak of this matter any more.
+Do you not remember that the house honours your board to-day?
+Sweeten your speech, I pray you."
+
+Everybody lapsed into uneasy silence and soon afterwards
+Malherb, his wife and daughter, rose and left the company.
+
+Then the voices broke loose and this rare business was turned
+and twisted and tasted by many tongues.
+
+
+That night Maurice Malherb told his wife the thing he had
+done; and she thrust her meek disposition behind her and
+derided the crime as nothing, even while her teeth chattered with
+terror to hear him tell it.
+
+"We are the ministers of God," she said.  "To you fell this
+dreadful duty.  It is well, because you had to do it.  Forget
+it--pray God to let you forget it.  None else must know but your
+wife."
+
+"The sin--the sin.  You are blind to that, or pretend to be.
+Heaven forces no man into sin.  To say so is to deny free will.
+I have ever been on the side of freedom."
+
+"She was doomed to die."
+
+"Her death was the hangman's work--not mine.  Murder!
+A Malherb a common murderer."
+
+"Sins are forgiven before they are committed.  The Lord
+was born and died to forgive this deed."
+
+"Vain comfort.  What is forgiveness to me?  'Tis a bribe for
+women and children.  Can it make a reasonable man easy?
+God may forgive me; can I forgive myself?  There lies the
+poison of evil-doing.  This awful climax to my life of wrath has
+brought about such a thing as----  The Everlasting cannot give
+me yesterday, or bridle the sun and lead it back into the East.
+The thing done--the thing done--what will banish that?  It lies
+frozen in Time for all eternity.  God's own voice is vain to heal;
+His own hand powerless to take this sword from my heart--the
+sword I have planted there myself.  The thing done.  Yesterday!
+yesterday!  That's the prayer that such as I am pray, and know,
+even while we pray, that it is in vain.  She was a woman with
+hidden good in her, because she was human and made in the
+image of God; and when we put those ashes under the earth--I
+shall tell all that stand beside the pit that 'twas I slew her."
+
+"You never shall!" she cried, leaping from her bed and striking
+flint on steel.  "I have not thwarted your life until this night.  I
+have yielded to every wish, trusted your wisdom in all things,
+never rebelled even in unspoken thoughts--questioned nothing.
+But upon this I'll speak, and struggle, and weary the air, and
+weep till I madden you into sense.  I've done your will for near
+five-and-twenty years; and please God will do it for five-and-twenty
+more; but to-night, I'm a maiden again--a maid of the
+Carews; and you shall obey me, as you obeyed when you came
+a-courting."
+
+"Hide that light and come to bed.  You will be cold.  I have
+spoken.  At least let there be peace between us."
+
+"There shall be no peace.  You forget that you have a wife and
+a daughter."
+
+"'Tis the part of sin to make us egoists--as all suffering does.
+And 'tis the part of sin not to stop at the sinner.  God grants that
+interest on wickedness to the devil: that the ill deed done should
+strike more than he who does it."
+
+But his wife poured out a flood of alternate entreaties and
+commands; and he marvelled even in that hour that the helpmate
+of many years had hidden so much from him.
+
+"There is a greatness of purpose in you that I had not
+guessed," he said.  "Maybe no man knows all of his wife until
+he comes before her a master sinner as I do now.  She smiles on
+his fair hour, content to see him happy; but with storm----  It
+is my glory in this agony to know----  And yet no woman was
+ever born to lead me.  To bury the dead without confession
+would be to act a lie.  She shall have her rights and her revenge."
+
+"We are not bound to trumpet our sins.  And the rights of the
+dead are in the hand of the Lord.  If it is His will that you
+suffer more than you have suffered, it will happen so.  By making
+this unhappy thing known, you throw all into disorder, and strew
+many paths with difficult problems."
+
+"What then?  Difficulty is the road that every man walks."
+
+Until dawn of day they spoke together; and then Maurice
+Malherb fell asleep and his wife, fancying that she had conquered,
+crept out of bed and knelt and thanked God for victory.
+
+Yet her husband's waking words shattered Annabel's hope.
+
+"I'm fixed and bate no jot of my intention," he said.  "All
+shall know the thing I have done.  I clung to the shadow of
+doubt like a coward.  Now there is not even a shadow of doubt to
+cling to.  Come what may to me, I'll speak.  And for you--you
+who have shown what courage lies in you at a bad cause, now
+let it be your part to support a good one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BURNHAM AS LEADER
+
+For Cecil Stark a matter greater far than his own failure and
+the treachery that had ruined the tunnel plot centred in
+thoughts of John Lee and the price that he must pay.  Much the
+American suffered before news reached him in his solitary
+confinement, through a friendly turnkey who knew Tom Putt.  And
+then the prisoner heard that Grace Malherb was safe at home,
+and John Lee had either escaped or been drowned in attempting
+to do so.
+
+As for the prisoners, like the sea after a storm, their passions
+slowly stilled.  Once only did they break into active rage, when,
+upon the release of their leaders, David Leverett did not return,
+and a soldier confessed that he had betrayed them for two
+hundred pounds.  Then the plot and its failure were dismissed
+before rumours of peace.  At first these woke and died again,
+yet gradually a greater degree of truth characterised them, and
+all men felt the music of freedom and of home playing at their
+hearts.
+
+But in Prince Town was witnessed the spectacle of a worthy
+gentleman struggling with a task somewhat beyond his strength.
+As Commandant of a War Prison, wherein were nearly six thousand
+souls, now grown turbulent and reckless at rumours of approaching
+liberation, Captain Short found himself involved in countless
+difficulties.
+
+After the discovery and defeat of their plot, the mass of prisoners
+was removed and confined in Nos. 1 and 3; while, by way of
+comprehensive punishment for their attempt, every man was
+docked of one-third of his allowance for the space of ten days.
+Grave friction resulted from this measure, and Short's officers
+went in secret fear of a rising.  To check the possibility of such
+a disaster, he adopted stringent methods, and continual strife
+between the turnkeys and prisoners was the result.  Both sides
+displayed passion, and many a sentry, for some disrespectful
+word concerning Congress or the President of the United States,
+had his head broken.
+
+With the severe mid-winter weather, increased sickness fell
+upon the War Prison, and the most popular man at Prince Town
+in these days was Doctor Magrath, a surgeon whose humanity,
+energy and skill made him the personal friend of every sufferer.
+He struck up an acquaintance with Cecil Stark, and, at the
+doctor's advice, the young American henceforth eschewed prison
+politics and threw all his weight upon the side of law, order and
+patience.
+
+A partial exchange of prisoners had wakened general hopes,
+but when it was found that nothing more in that sort would be
+done, the Americans vented their annoyance by playing a
+thousand pranks upon authority.  On one occasion a man was
+seen ostentatiously escaping out of a window by moonlight.  When
+challenged he refused to answer and continued to descend a rope.
+The guard at Short's own order fired, rushed in as the figure fell
+heavily to the earth, and found a dummy.  Unfortunately, such
+jests bred an evil temper, and once when certain soldiers
+discovered a candle burning by night and ordered its extinction,
+they fired a volley through the windows almost before it had
+been possible to comply with their demand.  By a miracle no
+harm was done, but every prisoner knew next day how the watch
+had fired upon sleeping men, and the soldiery justly suffered
+under the lash of a thousand tongues.
+
+William Burnham it was who suspected that the outbursts of
+severity probably marked British reverses at sea; and the thing
+became a jest, so that whenever a hard word was spoken, or a
+harsh punishment ordered, the Americans shouted together and
+cheered their country's successes.
+
+Burnham, indeed, had come into distinction of late days.
+Despite the advice of Stark and others, who now preached
+patience and obedience while all waited for peace, Burnham,
+ever jealous of his old messmate, and glad to find himself a
+leader of men, stayed not to consider the manner of men he led,
+but stood for a factious and unruly multitude, and promised to
+support their fancied rights.  Ira Anson joined this party also
+and to him as much as Burnham belonged the discredit of various
+ill-timed and vicious commotions.  Their conduct maddened
+Short, and finally they led him into tribulation and themselves
+paid the penalty.
+
+With the end of the year came a persistent rumour that the
+crew of the _Marblehead_ was about to be exchanged, but this
+hoped-for circumstance did not happen, and William Burnham,
+with his faction, grew more desperate and more unwise.
+Unfortunately, they numbered secret friends among the soldiers and
+non-commissioned officers at the Prison, for not a few of the
+baser sort were disaffected against their own superiors, and at
+least pretended sympathy with the Americans.  On the other
+side laboured many more sensible men, and while each heart
+throbbed for the news so long withheld, law and order were
+re-established, and the schools, arranged for the young and
+ignorant, were opened again.  For two years these institutions
+had done valuable work; it was only after the failure of the
+great plot to burrow out of the Prison that they became
+neglected.
+
+There fell a memorable day at the year's end when news
+reached Prince Town that the Commissioners at Ghent had
+signed the Treaty of peace and that the sloop-of-war, _Favourite_,
+would sail immediately with the document to the United States.
+This occasion was seized for widespread rejoicings within the
+Prison, and Captain Short felt as thankful at heart as any of his
+charges.  But while the day of thanksgiving drew to its close,
+the tumult in the prisons drew deafening; great masses of men
+stampeded from yard to yard; a mad spirit animated reckless
+thousands; the air grew heavily charged with human passion;
+and danger threatened in many shapes.
+
+Burnham's party had obtained a quantity of gunpowder unknown
+to their guards, and with this they manufactured bombs
+which exploded with reports like cannon.  Alarming rumours
+followed these discharges; some said efforts were being made
+to blow down the walls; many junior officers approached
+Commandant Short with fear upon their faces.
+
+At midday a pennant was seen to flutter out above each
+division of the Prison, and on No. 3, styled "The Commodore,"
+a huge white flag broke and revealed a legend printed upon it.
+"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights."  A salute of seventeen bombs
+accompanied this display and the riot became deafening.  Far
+distant upon the Moor many a traveller heard the sound, as of
+remote thunders grumbling under the horizon, and hastened upon
+his journey in dread of approaching tempest.
+
+At the Prison, as the flags flew out, and the multitudes roared,
+Cecil Stark approached Burnham and prayed him to consider his
+position.
+
+"You are doing a mad thing," he said.  "You know as well as
+I that while a spark of reason lurked in efforts to escape authority,
+I was eager as any man.  Ay, and beyond reason too, for, looking
+back, I see that the tunnel plot was folly.  But now, to what
+purpose is this frantic nonsense?  We shall be free men in three
+months.  Then why make vexatious friction and lend the weight
+of your support to so much brainless folly?"
+
+Burnham had been drinking and he answered fiercely.
+
+"Cease your preaching!  I calculate things are just about
+cooked now; and they'll have to be eaten.  We know you, at
+any rate--ever ready to make trouble when you had no temptation
+to do otherwise.  But now--you're an Englishman in disguise!"
+
+"If you were not drunk, I'd thrash you before your bullies, for
+that insult."
+
+"Threats--threats and big words.  We know you, I say; we see
+through you.  A place-seeker, who tried to lead that he might
+gratify his own cursed vanity.  Now you are a pious prig and
+teach in the school and say your prayers, I dare say!  Much
+good your leadership did--you with big patriotic words on your
+lips and an English girl in your mean heart!"
+
+"Leave that, or I'll----"
+
+"Do it--do it!  D'you think I fear you?  I'm leader now--leader
+of braver men than ever listened to you.  Touch me, and a
+hundred men will break every bone in your body!  A Yankee--you!
+I'll swear, if the truth was known, we should find you were
+leagued with Judas Leverett himself.  Take that pill and swallow
+it, you canting humbug!"
+
+Stark fell back and stared at his old companion.
+
+"You!" he cried.  "Bill Burnham to say that to me!"
+
+He was silent and the other repeated his charge.
+
+"I'll speak with you when you're sober then."
+
+"And what will you say?" began the younger; but Stark turned
+from him; and at the same moment a peculiar whistle, used by
+his gang as a signal, told Burnham that he was wanted.  Captain
+Short, with a bodyguard of armed troops, had appeared, and he
+desired to speak with a representative of the prisoners.
+
+Burnham, with Ira Anson, stepped forward, and the rest of the
+mischief-makers stood in a group and watched them.
+
+"Do you speak for these troublesome men?" asked the
+Commandant.
+
+"I do," answered the young American.  "I lead them all;
+and I'll not answer for them if any attempt is made to oppress
+them to-day."
+
+"At least their spokesman should not be drunk himself, whatever
+his rag-tag and bob-tail are.  You stand condemned, for you
+know that liquor is forbidden."
+
+"The lad's not drunk," said Anson; "or, if he is, it is only at
+the same tap as all of us: the news from Ghent."
+
+"I'll not argue it, sir.  I'm only sorry you cannot receive the
+news in a spirit more worthy.  At least you'll oblige me by
+striking that flag on Prison No. 3.  It is an invitation to foolish
+and ignorant sailors to mutiny, and I will not permit it to float
+here while I'm in command."
+
+"The word 'Rights' is a red rag to your Government," said
+Anson insolently.
+
+"Your rights at least have always been respected," answered
+Short patiently.  "I wish I could help you benighted fellows to
+see reason and take juster views.  Your conduct proceeds from
+hatred of us and fear of us, instead of hatred of evil and fear of
+God.  But 'tis your nation that must answer for you.  Believe
+me, I shall be very well pleased to wash my hands of you."
+
+Stark approached at this moment, and Captain Short turned to
+him.
+
+"You at least are intelligent; and you fought fair," said the
+soldier.  "Now I desire that yonder flag should be hauled down.
+I ask politely; I sink authority and approach these foolish fellows
+here as man to man.  One is intoxicated; the other is, unfortunately,
+not a gentleman.  I desire that that offensive flag shall be
+pulled down, and since we are in the atmosphere of peace, I will
+hoist an American emblem at the Prison gate and let it wave
+beside the Union Jack."
+
+"You are generous," declared Cecil Stark.  "Nothing could
+be fairer."
+
+"I say 'no,'" interposed Burnham doggedly.  "My men will
+have their flag; and if the motto stings--let it sting."
+
+"In that case I order all flags down," answered Short, his neck
+flushing crimson.  "Since you are such an intractable ass, you
+must be driven.  Let every shred of bunting be down ere the sun
+sets, or it shall be brought down.  If you court hard knocks, you
+may expect them."
+
+He turned away in a rage, and Burnham whistled "Yankee
+Doodle," while a few silly sailors who had overheard the conversation
+cheered their representatives and hissed at Cecil Stark.  But
+later in the day Anson prevailed with his detachments, and at
+sunset, rather than provoke an actual struggle, the flags came
+down.  To the end, however, they defied their guards.  Captain
+Short himself led three hundred men with fixed bayonets, and
+Sergeant Bradridge, who was of the number, expected at last to
+hear the sound of battle.  But as the red winter sun sank behind
+the Moor, every flag fluttered simultaneously to earth, and for
+that time acute danger vanished with the daylight.
+
+Many sailors were now arriving from the British battleships.
+These men, on hearing of peace, claimed the rights of American
+citizenship, and refused longer to fight against their fellow-countrymen.
+Those guilty of such tergiversation met but a frosty welcome
+at Prince Town, and new strifes followed upon their arrival.
+Among these shifty mariners were six from H.M.S. _Pelican_, who
+had fought in the action between that vessel and the United
+States brig _Argus_.  The crew of the captured brig had been
+imprisoned at Prince Town; and after the _Pelican's_ men arrived,
+such was the bitter animosity displayed against them that they
+found their lives in danger.  To Captain Short these people
+appealed for protection, and another grave collision occurred
+between Burnham's party and the Commandant, when a detachment
+of soldiers entered the War Prison and rescued the six by
+force of arms.  Then came two more defaulters from an English
+ship, and as both had actually volunteered for British service from
+Prince Town a year before, they were received back again with
+universal execration.  A court convened by Ira Anson sat upon
+these poor wretches, and while some cried for their instant death,
+others proposed a flogging.
+
+It was Mr. Knapps who hit upon an agreeable punishment to
+meet their crime.
+
+"Take the doodles and brand 'em," he said.  "They've got
+the name of a British ship tattooed over their dirty hearts, for I
+seed it there; now put U.S.T. on their faces, so as they'll be
+known evermore for United States Traitors."
+
+The proposal was cheered and acted upon.  To the hospital
+the sufferers went after their punishment, and Doctor Macgrath
+did what was possible to eradicate the damning letters; but they
+had been bitten in too well.  Captain Short took this matter
+gravely, and the men responsible for the actual assault were thrust
+into the cachots to stand their trial.
+
+Another incident to illustrate the growing rancour and bitterness
+may be given.  A prisoner--one of four unfortunates who
+had suffered six months in a cachot--watched his opportunity
+when at exercise, and escaped from his yard to the next.  He
+was immediately surrounded by his countrymen, and when Short
+demanded him back, the Americans refused to give him up.
+Thereupon the Commandant appeared with fixed bayonets and
+directed all prisoners to retire into their respective quarters, that
+a strict search might be made for the escaped man.  Burnham,
+however, defied this order in the name of his comrades.
+
+"This poor devil has suffered enough," he said.  "His crime,
+which was an alleged attempt to blow up a British schooner, was
+never proved against him, and we will not restore him to renewed
+tortures.  I am master here, and we lack not for arms or skill to
+use them.  That you will learn to your cost, if you try force
+against us.  You forget that the war is ended now."
+
+Captain Short perceived that with his small company he would
+have little chance against the threatening hordes arrayed against
+him; therefore, without answering Burnham, he gave the order
+to retire, and left the prison amid wild and derisive shouts and
+cat-calls.
+
+But albeit defeated, the Commandant took a weak man's
+revenge and shut up the Prison markets.  Instantly Burnham
+and his friends issued an order that no carpenter, mason nor
+other mechanic should do any further work for the British
+Government until the markets were re-opened.  This 'strike'
+caused such unexpected expense and inconvenience, that Captain
+Short was constrained to yield again.  The markets were set
+going once more and the artificers promptly returned to their
+labours.  Thus the prisoners achieved their ends, and Burnham,
+flushed with success, continued to take the side of lawlessness;
+while Short, much embittered by his reverse and uneasily
+conscious that his own officers were laughing at him, sank into
+a brooding ferocity that darkened his face and boded ill for the
+future.
+
+An interval of calm succeeded; and then fell out those tragic
+events that closed the history of the Prince Town War Prison.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OUT OF NIGHT
+
+Mr. Peter Norcot dwelt in one of the comfortable
+border farmhouses that lie among the foothills of Dartmoor
+near Chagford.  It was an old Elizabethan domicile, and
+with it the wool-stapler owned a hundred acres of forest and
+three farms.  His property adjoined the estates of the Manor of
+Godleigh; but he was not upon genial terms with the lord of the
+manor, one Sir Simon Yeoland.  The knight had old-fashioned
+ideas on the subject of trade and looked down upon Peter;
+while Mr. Norcot for his part, held his neighbour a mere machine
+for slaughter of game and oppression of the common people--a
+bundle of hereditary and predatory instincts handed down from
+the dark ages.
+
+There came a night in early spring when Peter sat beside his
+parlour fire, sipped his grog and read his Shakespeare.  Gertrude
+Norcot, a faded but still handsome woman of five-and-thirty,
+kept him company until the clock chimed ten; then she stopped
+her work, kissed her brother on the temple and retired.
+
+Mr. Norcot sat on until midnight; after which he put up a guard
+before the dying fire and was just about to go to bed when the
+flame burst out anew and he delayed and spread his hands to
+warm them.  His thoughts were busy of late, for he matured
+the next attempt to win Grace Malherb.  Still there was but one
+woman in the world for him, and his purpose towards her
+remained unshaken.  But the task grew difficult indeed, for now
+Maurice Malherb was to be counted upon the side of his
+daughter.
+
+Alone, without need of any mask, Peter's countenance lacked
+that geniality usually associated with it.  To-night, in the
+flickering fire-gleam, he looked as though his face was carved out of
+yellow ivory.  It revealed stern lines such as shall be seen in the
+facial severity of the Red Man.
+
+Now, upon his grim and midnight cogitations, there fell
+suddenly a sound.  The noise of tapping reached him from the
+window; but supposing it to be but an ivy spray escaped from
+the mullion and blown against the casement by nightly winds, he
+paid no heed.  Then the sound increased and became sharper;
+so Norcot knew that some wanderer stood outside and
+summoned him.  Without hesitation he threw open the shutter,
+pulled up the blind and looked out, to see a man with his face
+close against the glass.  An aged but virile countenance with
+brilliant eyes peered in.  The man beckoned, and Peter nodded
+and prepared to unfasten the window.  The face was not
+unfamiliar to him, and he puzzled to recollect the person of his
+visitor, but failed to do so.
+
+"'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way
+comes,'" said Mr. Norcot to himself as the stranger entered.
+
+"Give 'e good even.  I'll speak with you if you'm alone," he
+began, and immediately approached the light.
+
+"I know your face; yet I know it not.  Who are you?" asked
+Peter.
+
+The wanderer uttered a sound that might have indicated
+amusement.
+
+"I've had a long journey and feared every moment to find my
+feet in a man-trap."
+
+"That you need not have done upon my land.  The gorge of
+humanity rises at such damnable contrivances.  The ruffian
+Yeoland, lord of the manor, has both traps and spring-guns in
+his coverts--he showed them to me himself, cold-blooded devil.
+Yes, he exhibited them with such pride as a mother might
+display her first-born!  Engines of hell!  But they answer their
+purpose; he does not lose a bird now."
+
+"Since when was you so merciful?  Your words is soft--your
+eyes give 'em the lie."
+
+Then Norcot, recognising his visitor, leapt from his seat and
+stared with real amazement.  For once he was startled into an
+oath.
+
+"Good God, it's Lovey Lee!"
+
+The miser grinned.
+
+"You was a long time finding out.  Ess fay--poor old Lovey,
+still in the land of the living."
+
+"But your bones were found and buried!  There was a most
+dramatic scene, I hear.  Malherb--he cried out before them all
+in the churchyard at Widecombe that he had slain you, that your
+blood was upon his head.  It's eating his heart out, they say."
+
+"Let it eat with poisoned teeth.  No fault of his that I didn't
+die.  An' I've cussed heaven for two months because the law
+haven't taken the man an' hanged him, as I meant it to.  But
+yet hanging's an easier death than what he's dying."
+
+"Alive!" said Norcot.  "Alive--very much alive.  And turned
+into a man.  'Doubtless a staunch and solid piece of framework,
+as any January could freeze together!'  And where learnt you
+the trick of rising from the dead?  What devil taught you that,
+you 'ceaseless labourer in the work of shame'?"
+
+"If you've only got hard words----"
+
+"Nay, nay; I love you; you are the Queen of the Moor!"
+
+"He left me for dead, and Lord knows how long I was dead.
+He struck me down at dawn, and when I comed to my senses,
+the moon was setting.  I got back to my secret place somehow,
+and found 'twas empty.  So I seed that the Devil had helped him
+to find his darter.  Well for her he did!"
+
+Norcot nodded.
+
+"Not a doubt of it," he said.
+
+"Be you still of a mind about the wench?"
+
+He did not answer, but prepared to pour some spirits into a
+glass for the old woman.  Lovey, however, refused them.
+
+"Be you still of a mind?  That's my question."
+
+"Maurice Malherb has changed his views.  Your death has
+done wonders and quite broke him.  An ignoble type of man
+
+  "'We call a nettle but a nettle
+  And the faults of fools but folly.'
+
+So Shakespeare dismisses Malherb.  Now tell me about yourself;
+then I'll answer your question."
+
+"Soon told.  After I seed my den was found out, bad as I was,
+with my skull near split and scarce able to crawl, I dragged my
+goods away an' carried 'em--every stick--two mile off.  For
+I knowed they'd come next day an' tear the place down an' pull
+all abroad, like a boy pulls out a bird's nest.  I reckoned the
+bloodhounds was arter me, too, and might finish me any minute;
+but nought happened and I got clear off.  Then 'twas that two
+nights after, seeking for another hiding-place where I could be
+safe, I comed across a corpse.  Never was a stranger sight seen.
+A man wi' only one hand an' his throat cut from ear to ear.  His
+eyes glared through the dim fog of death upon 'em, an' the foxes
+had found him.  I be wearing his clothes now.  They'm very
+comfortable, an' 'tis a wonder I never took to man's garments
+afore, for they'm always to be had where there's scarecrows.
+I needn't tell 'e the rest, for you've guessed it by your grinning.
+I seed how 'twould fall out, an' so it did.  My white rags
+of hair I cut off an' left beside his bald poll, an' my clothes
+I put about his clay.  His knife I took, an' what's more, I got
+two hundred and eight pound by him, for there was gold pieces
+covered with his blood all round him.  More there might have
+been, but the cursed greedy bogs had swallowed 'em, though
+I raked elbow deep for 'em.  Then I smashed in the man's head
+an' left winter an' the crows an' wild beasts to do the rest.  My
+locks be growing again now."
+
+She took off her close cap of rabbit's skin and revealed a tangle
+of snow-white hair with evident satisfaction.
+
+"What next?" asked Peter.
+
+"That be all.  I'm hid very snug just now, right up where the
+river springs nigh the Grey Wethers on Sittaford Tor.  Not a bee
+gathers honey there; not a beast grazes that way.  An' Jack Lee
+be along wi' me; for us met by chance nigh Holne Wood in the
+night, both hunting for food.  'Twas three days after he slipped
+the sojers."
+
+"A scurvy trick he served me.  I'd got her promise to marry
+me if I saved him."
+
+"Well, I'll sell him to 'e if you wants to pay him out."
+
+"A grand-dam to be proud of!  And now, my old treasure,
+what do you come to me for?"
+
+"First I want you to change my money into paper an' buy my
+snuff-boxes an' watches an' bits of plate.  I be going to France."
+
+"Going to leave us!  You mustn't.  We couldn't get on without
+you.  Damme, I'm in love with you myself.  There's something
+about those clothes----"
+
+"Be you in love with that girl still?  That's the question.  If
+so, us may do each other a service."
+
+"Yes, she marries me sooner or later.  I never change.  The
+good wife of Bath's motto is my own:
+
+  "'I followeth aye mine inclination
+  By vertue of my constellation."
+
+My star is steadfastness--the fixed pole is not more stable.  I'm
+going to marry Grace Malherb."
+
+"You'll ne'er get her by fair means."
+
+"In love all is fair.  'Tis strange, but your gaunt presence
+actually shattered thoughts of her.  Things have now come to
+a crisis and I must use the remarkable brains that Heaven has
+given me.  'Nor do men light a candle and put it under a
+bushel.'  I've tried to marry her and failed utterly to do so upon
+simple and conventional lines.  Now I must be serious with
+myself.  'The Destinies find the way,' if we only let them have
+their heads."
+
+He toyed with his watch-guard.  The seals were fastened to a
+piece of black silk.
+
+"She wore that once about her waist," he said.
+
+  "Give me but what this ribband bound;
+  Take all the rest the sun goes round.'"
+
+
+"I can help you."
+
+"It's so difficult to realise that you are alive.  The countryside
+has quite settled it.  All men believe you to be in another world.
+Malherb's announcement was taken with wonderful self-control.  I
+don't want to hurt your delicate feelings, Lovey, but not a soul
+went into mourning.  In fact, only one man in all Devon felt
+your taking off, and that was Maurice Malherb."
+
+"You laugh at me.  Well, here's a thing to make you laugh
+again.  I'll tell you how to get her without any more trouble."
+
+"I had thought perhaps to approach the parent birds once
+more.  But what's the use?  Her mother counts for nought.
+Her father has got his head full of his own miseries.  'Doubtful
+ills plague us worst,' as Seneca so justly observes.  While he
+hesitated as to whether you were really extinct, he must have
+gone through hot fires.  Now he knows the worst and waits to
+suffer for it; but, what's interesting, not a soul moves against
+him."
+
+"That's where my plan comes in then.  You lay a charge of
+murder on him, an' the maid will marry you to shut your mouth."
+
+"Worthy of you, but foreign to my genius.  Besides, though I
+blush to say it, everybody sympathises with him.  It is always
+very painful to hear the estimate of our fellow-creatures upon us;
+but people who die and come to life again must expect to learn
+some particularly painful facts.  There's an Eastern proverb
+apposite to that, 'Nobody knows how good we are except
+ourselves'!  No; for my part, since have this girl I must and will,
+I'm inclined now to take her by main force--to do something
+feudal and old-fashioned.  Until she comes under my roof and
+finds all that she is losing, she will never get sense.  And
+then--stolen fruit!  Consider the charm of it to an epicure like myself."
+
+"I'll do anything woman can do for money," answered Mrs. Lee.
+"My grandson an' me bide in a ruined shepherd's cot
+beyond Sittaford.  Us have made it watertight; but 'tis plaguey
+cold, an' I'm sick of it.  Change my money an' add a bit to it,
+an' I'll help 'e with that girl afore I go to France.  I always
+knowed 'twould be my lot to help you."
+
+"We ought to use your nephew.  She would trust him."
+
+"Ess, she do.  If you want her here, Jack Lee's the properest
+tool to use.  I can fox him with a word an' make him help us
+without knowing what he's doing."
+
+"Of course--of course.  I'll not insult you by planning
+details.  The thing is obvious."
+
+"Only one man knows where we be hidden, an' that's Leaman
+Cloberry.  He'll help 'e.  He hates Malherb, 'cause he dusted
+rat-catcher's mangy jacket for him long ago.  'Tis Cloberry keeps us
+in food; an' a cruel lot of money he makes us pay for it."
+
+They conversed for the space of another hour; then Norcot
+directed the old woman to return to him in three weeks from that
+night, and let her out of the window.
+
+"An' you'll give me a clear hundred over what you change for
+me, an' buy my trinkets?" she said.
+
+"All that."
+
+"An' help me to take ship at Dartmouth an' get out o' the
+country?"
+
+"It is agreed."
+
+Lovey vanished and Peter watched her.  The Malherb amphora
+was for that moment uppermost in his mind, but he had
+not mentioned it for fear of alarming her.  His plot was
+adumbrated and the details began to grow.  He meant to marry Grace
+after abducting her from her home; and he designed subsequently
+to propitiate Malherb with the amphora.
+
+"'Twill be a little surprise for our old lady to lose it after all,"
+he thought.
+
+
+Peter appeared at seven o'clock to take breakfast, as usual, and,
+as Gertrude poured out coffee, he surprised his sister with an item
+of intelligence.
+
+"I go to London to-morrow," he said.  "It is a bore to travel
+just now, but the East India Company must be obeyed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LEOPARD CHANGES HER SPOTS
+
+John Lee had reached a supreme height of indifference to
+fortune even before his capture, condemnation and sentence.
+He awaited his end without concern, and only averted it at
+the instance of Thomas Putt.  Afterwards, for mingled reasons,
+he carefully abstained from any intercourse with Fox Tor Farm.
+And thus it happened that he knew nothing of the supposed
+death and burial of his grandmother.  The miser herself had
+gloated over the success of her enterprise as related by
+Mr. Cloberry, but Leaman was expressly directed by Lovey Lee to
+keep the truth a secret; and this he did, being well paid for his
+pains.  Meantime the old woman's indignation grew that Maurice
+Malherb was not arrested and hanged.
+
+"'Tis a blackguard beast of a world," she told Leaman
+Cloberry.  "One law for rich an' one for poor; but if there's any
+justice left stirring in the land, us may live to see him dancing in
+the air outside of Exeter Gaol yet."
+
+Now, after a period of most miserable seclusion in a shepherd's
+ruined cot near the secret sources of Dart, John Lee was to find
+himself again thrust into the affairs of Grace Malherb, and to
+thank God that he had been spared to do her further service.
+
+It was not until Peter Norcot had returned from London, after
+a visit of three weeks' duration, that Lovey Lee opened the new
+project to her grandson, and then, indeed, she approached it in a
+fashion so remarkable that one might have been stirred to
+admiration.
+
+She returned late one night to their haunt, and plunged into a
+startling narrative which quickly roused John Lee from sleep.
+
+"The wickedness of this world!  Oh, Jack, if ever you go out
+among men again, an' get safe off to America, as you hope, try an'
+keep straight."
+
+He turned over in his bed of dry heath and stared while his
+grandmother ate her supper.  Only a streak of moonlight through
+the roof lighted their forlorn hiding-place.
+
+"That's strange advice from your lips," he said.
+
+"I know I've been a bad old devil--nobody knows it better.
+But whose fault?  The world's, not mine.  An' I'm white to
+black compared to some of us."
+
+"That's very comforting for you, I'll wager.  But he must be
+a night-black colour that makes you look fair.  Yet since you can
+mourn, 'tis well.  Give back the Malherb amphora and I'll say
+you're the best woman in England."
+
+"All in good time.  Have you thought what that bit of glass
+has cost me?  I can't change my god in a minute.  For my god
+it be.  But I'm minded to alter my way of living--I swear
+it--after what I've heard this night."
+
+"Have you met the Devil himself then?"
+
+"No--his right hand, Peter Norcot.  I was just sitting by the
+wayside, full of wonder how I could get out of this evil an' clear
+the country, an' turn my fag end of life to good, when past he rode
+'pon his great horse.  ''Tis Lovey Lee!' he cries out, for his lynx
+eyes remembered my face, even in moonlight.  And the black
+spleen of him!  His first thought was you!  He's hopeful to see
+you hanged yet.  'Give him up an' I'll give 'e five hunderd
+pound,' he said.  But I ban't sunk so low as that, though by your
+starting you seem to think so.  I said I knowed nought about 'e.
+'Leave that then,' says he.  'You can help me in another job,
+and richly I'll reward you.'
+
+"Then he fell to telling 'bout Malherb an' his darter.  He'm
+set there still--the black patience of him!  An' now his plan be
+to kindiddle her away altogether.  He's plotting to get her under
+his own roof; and once there--oh Lord! even I--stone-hearted
+as I've been till now--felt my inwards curdle to hear him an' see
+the moonlight in his steel eyes!  But I was so cunning as a viper
+an' promised to help him if he'd help me."
+
+"What do you want of him?"
+
+"He'm going to change all my gold money into paper, an' he'm
+going to buy my watches an' snuff-boxes an' teaspoons, as I can't
+take with me.  Then, that done, I've promised to help with the
+maiden.  She'm to meet him 'pon Saturday week, an' if she do,
+home she'll never go no more till her name be Grace Norcot."
+
+"And you promised to help in that?"
+
+"I didn't dare refuse; but I'm going to play him false.  I've
+done with wickedness.  These latter days have drove the fear of
+God into me.  I wouldn't help that tiger, not for another amphora;
+an' I be going to prove it by taking the side of right."
+
+"She must be warned."
+
+"I know it; an' that's your work.  Us can't go to Fox Tor
+Farm; but you've got to see her by hook or by crook, else 'tis all
+over with her."
+
+"I might write."
+
+"You must write.  'Tis the only way.  An' since she taught 'e
+to write, she'll know your penmanship an' trust it.  My only fear
+was you'd had about enough of the girl an' wouldn't care to do no
+more for her.  But so it lies: if she's to be saved, you must do it.
+I'm too old and weak to do anything.  Besides, I'm feared of
+Norcot."
+
+"I must see her."
+
+"You can't--not at Fox Tor Farm.  He've got his spies set as
+though he'd made war upon the house.  His plot be deeper than
+the sea.  Go near an' you'm a dead man, for there's money on
+your head.  Us can only trust Leaman Cloberry to take a letter
+for a reward; an' since he'll be sure to read what you say, 'twill
+be well in the letter to do no more than ax the maid to come an'
+see you."
+
+"See me!"
+
+"Why not?  She's free; you ban't.  You can slip down to
+Cloberry's cot at Dartmeet by night, an' she can come next day
+an' see you there an' get her warning."
+
+Lee nodded.
+
+"A written word will bring her, an' Cloberry would get it to her
+for money.  That I'll pay.  He's as fond of gold as I was afore I
+began to get sense.  I'll give Leaman ten pounds if he does what
+you want."
+
+John Lee's simple heart was too concerned with Grace to reflect
+upon his grandmother's attitude toward this business.  Full of the
+perils that lay in wait for her, and aware she was ignorant of them,
+he thanked heaven that he was still alive and possessed power to
+do her vital service.  He did not weigh Lovey's words, but her
+startling news; he did not question the probable veracity of her
+present sentiments; but considered little more than her proposals
+to assist him in a righteous cause.  That he must now see Grace
+was clear; and if, as had been declared, the plot against her only
+wanted a week for its fulfilment, the event cried for instant action.
+Since to approach Fox Tor Farm and pierce the cordon said to be
+set around was doubtless impossible, John determined to follow
+his grandmother's advice and write and bid Grace meet him at
+Leaman Cloberry's cottage.  To walk or ride thither was easy
+for her and could rouse no suspicion.  Then what he had to say
+might be quickly said, though it could not safely be written.
+
+"I'll go after nightfall to-morrow," he declared.
+
+"And bid her come to see you on Friday, be it wet or fine,"
+answered Lovey; "for after that date she'll be free no more.  Her
+father's hardened his heart like Pharaoh.  He'll see that she don't
+trick him again."
+
+"Her father!"
+
+"So Norcot told me--grinning like a rain-shoot.  They'm
+both against her.  'Tis two to one; and 'twould be three to one
+if I'd done what they wanted.  But I couldn't.  I'm weary of
+wickedness."
+
+"After nightfall to-morrow, then," said the man.
+
+Lovey spoke no more, and they retired into their respective
+corners of the hut; but when, two hours later, John Lee's steady
+breathing told his grandmother that he was unconscious, she rose,
+left him asleep, and crept away into the Moor.  Southward she
+went, and then, near the tor called Hartland, heard a voice out
+of the night--a cracked and ancient voice, that sang of the
+owner's business and repeated its refrain with the monotony of a
+bird.
+
+  "A ha'penny for a rook;
+    A penny for a jay;
+  A noble for a fox;
+    An' twelvepence for a gray!"
+
+
+Soon Lovey found Leaman Cloberry, where he waited by
+appointment in a cleft of the rocks, snugly clad as usual in the
+raiment of dead beasts.
+
+"'Tis all so easy as cursing," she said.  "He'll come to you
+to-morrow--poor sheep--an' write the letter.  You'll get it to
+her through Tom Putt, who won't know what he's doing; an'
+she'll go to him Friday.  Then he'll pour his nonsense into her
+ears; and as she passes home, along by Whispering Wood, you
+an' me will be waiting for her.  She'll jump for joy and fear no
+evil when she sees me alive; for it means that her father's guiltless
+of blood."
+
+"An' this here Mr. Norcot?" asked Cloberry.  "A good
+friend to me an' very generous in the past; but the money ought
+to be big."
+
+"So it will be.  We take the maiden by night up to where the
+springs of Dart break out; an' then he comes along by chance
+and rescues her from us.  'Tis all planned.  He'll seem in a
+grand rage, an' may even fetch you a blow or two; but they'm
+light at fifty pounds.  Then off he goes with her to Chagford,
+and not a living soul that cares for her will know where she be
+hidden till it pleases him to tell."
+
+"An' John Lee?" inquired the vermin-catcher.
+
+"Well--what of him?  Who troubles about the cheese when
+the mouse is catched?  He'll know nought till he hears she has
+been caught.  And she'll always think that 'twas his treachery
+laid the trap for her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BURNING OF BLAZEY
+
+On the fourteenth day of March, 1815, came peace, borne
+upon the white wings of the _Favourite_: for the President
+of the United States had ratified the treaty.
+
+But, unhappily, the history of the War Prison on Dartmoor was
+not yet written, and the last bloody chapter still remained to tell.
+Ignorant of the complicated task set for authority, the bulk of
+the Americans instantly clamoured to be free; nor could the
+better instructed among them induce patience at this juncture.
+Letters from Mr. Blazey cooled enthusiasm; but these were
+written in a callous spirit, and impatience quickly rose to anger.
+Nothing had as yet been prepared for exodus, and the Agent not
+only gave no promise of immediate liberation, but explained that
+certain precautions, highly offensive to many of the Americans,
+must first be taken before a man left Dartmoor.
+
+"I am informed," he wrote, "that great numbers of you refuse
+to be inoculated with the smallpox, which I hear has been very
+mortal among you.  I therefore acquaint you that it will be
+impossible for me to send home any prisoners unless they have
+gone through the same."
+
+Later he wrote again concerning American prisoners taken
+under the French flag; and then, as no further communication
+was received for many days, the sailors, like schoolboys on the
+verge of holiday, began mischievous pranks, flouted their guards
+and planned all the trouble that ingenuity could devise.  Many
+escaped, for discipline was relaxed.  Then Captain Short, from
+carelessness, proceeded to the other extreme, until even those
+who desired to assist him in the maintenance of order despaired.
+The prisoners were out of hand, and their Commandant knew it.
+He blamed them, not himself, for his heart would not accuse him,
+though a soldier's conscience sometimes whispered censure.
+
+One night a strange glare filled the courtyard of No. 4, and
+lurid lights with inky shadows leapt and fell against the granite
+walls.  In the midst a great bonfire blazed, and round about it
+thousands of wild figures ran, shouted and yelled.  At the grilles
+stood the officers of the prison, some fearful, some indifferent,
+some enraged.
+
+Sergeant Bradridge, off duty, was watching this scene, and
+beside him stood his nephew, Mr. Putt.
+
+"There'll be trouble yet," declared the sergeant gloomily, "for
+they be bent on it.  They're mad at the delay, and the party for
+sense--Mr. Cecil Stark and a grey-head or two, and most of the
+other gentlemen among 'em--count for nothing."
+
+As he spoke a procession of prisoners appeared, carrying a
+hurdle on which was seated the semblance of a man.  The figure
+wore a plum-coloured coat, had a scratch wig, a three-cornered
+hat and knee breeches.  Its face was red, its nose was scarlet, its
+great eyes coal-black.
+
+"'Tis meant for Agent Blazey," explained Putt's uncle.
+"They've been playing the fool with that great doll all day.  First
+they tried it for bringing 'em to nakedness and starvation here;
+then they found it guilty; then they made it confess all its sins,
+which took a mighty long time; then they hanged it by the neck;
+and now they'm going to burn it to ashes.  So they'd treat the
+real man if they could get at him.  An' they'll break loose afore
+long, so sure as my name's Bradridge, for the Devil's in 'em."
+
+With songs and a wild war dance the effigy of Reuben Blazey
+was flung upon the flames; then, while it burned, the prisoners
+roared "Yankee Doodle" together until the walls vibrated.
+
+Apart among them stood Burnham, and with him was Cecil
+Stark.  A sort of friendship still subsisted between them, for the
+younger man had apologised after their last quarrel as soon as he
+found himself sober again.  Relations, however, were strained to
+breaking, and to-night they broke for ever.
+
+Stark, indeed, had lost interest in everything but his own
+affairs now.  He might have left the prison at any moment by the
+expedient of a bribe to the guard; but, as before, the interests of
+the great plot had kept him, so now the welfare of the mass of
+prisoners held him still among them.  There was little he could
+do, for he represented patience, which was an unpopular virtue
+after peace had been declared; but he saw the futility of this
+behaviour, and tried as far as possible to make his fellows
+reasonable.  A few begged him to remain to the end, and, knowing
+from letters pretty regularly received through Putt, that all was
+well with Grace, he waited on.
+
+His future line of action was difficult, but he had determined
+upon it.  Grace gave him to understand that Norcot troubled
+her no more, and that her father, stricken by a terrible grief, was
+changed and took a gentler view of life's many-sided problems.
+Therefore, he proposed to return to Fox Tor Farm and attempt
+a reconciliation between himself and the Malherbs.  Great
+personal circumstances armed him with strong arguments from a
+worldly point of view, for his uncle in Vermont was dead, and he
+now stood heir to a notable fortune.
+
+"I wish to God 'twas the living man that roasted there!" cried
+Burnham, pointing to the bonfire.  "Of all devilish things in this
+war, our treatment after peace is declared has been the most
+devilish.  'Tis two weeks since we should have been set free, yet
+here we still are."
+
+"But they are active.  Three ships have set sail from London
+for Plymouth."
+
+"D'you believe that yarn?  Ask the soldiers and they'll tell
+you the ships are held in the Downs by contrary winds; then
+they turn aside and wink at each other."
+
+"You take the conduct of these hirelings too seriously.  It is
+folly to let the vulgarity of turnkeys and guards anger you, or to
+answer the indifference of the authorities with this buffoonery."
+
+He pointed to the bonfire.
+
+"You're a prig," said the other.  "You can't help it, but an
+infernal prig are you, Cecil Stark; and now every word you speak
+shows that you've changed sides and are only an American in
+name."
+
+"Bad company has demoralised a good fellow," answered the
+other.  "You want the discipline of a ship-of-war and a whiff of
+salt air to make you your own man again, Burnham.  You pretend
+it is a fine thing to lead these ignorant, silly fellows; but in your
+heart you are ashamed, and that makes you break with an old
+friend.  'Tis the same with Captain Short.  He's been weak in
+the past, and the weakest thing about him is that now he's looking
+for gratitude for his former good nature.  Gratitude's the rare
+virtue of individuals--never of a mob."
+
+"You prose and prose and blink at facts, like an owl blinks at
+daylight.  Why don't you escape and get out of it?"
+
+"Because I reckon I'm more use here."
+
+"I know better; you're frightened to do it.  If you had the
+pluck of a powder-monkey, and if your love for that girl over there
+was worth a damn, you'd have vanished long ago; but you know
+this cursed Government is letting us escape now, so that we may
+fall into the hands of the press-gangs that are hunting all round
+Dartmoor like packs of wolves--you know that, and you're
+frightened they'll catch you too.  Nothing makes a man such a
+coward as coming into a fortune."
+
+"See him--see him!" shouted Mr. Cuffee, who ran by at this
+moment.  "See him fizzle, gemmen!  Marse Blazey blaze--him
+blaze--him blaze like dat in hell!"
+
+He rushed screaming past with the other black men, whose
+rags, gleaming teeth and ferocious faces, suggested the demon
+throng proper to Mr. Blazey's future environment.
+
+"You will pick a quarrel, drunk or sober," said Stark, "though
+of late you've sunk to be not worth kicking.  As you like--but
+even at the risk of more nonsense from you, I'd wish to explain
+that I'm no Englishman, though it happens I'm not mad.
+Consider how this nation stands.  Hardly has it concluded peace
+with us than comes the news that Bonaparte has left Elba, and is
+now in Europe at the head of three hundred thousand men."
+
+"Don't I know it?  Doesn't every cur among them turn pale
+and look over his shoulder like a frightened woman when you cry
+'Boney is coming'?"
+
+"They are busy and rather preoccupied.  I had speech with
+Short yesterday."
+
+"What do I care with whom you had speech?  I'm here for
+nearly six thousand free men, who are shut up and still treated as
+prisoners.  Let them see to that.  We want our liberty, and we'll
+take it before many days are done.  What do you suppose we are
+made of?"
+
+"The Lord knows," said Stark.  "You are men no more, but
+a horde of savage and silly monkeys.  How can they get ships
+to convey six thousand of us to America in a week?  You, at
+least, who pretend to some knowledge of warfare and seamanship,
+should have patience and do your small part to help the British
+Government, not hinder it."
+
+"I'm not an Englishman."
+
+"I wish you were.  Unfortunately the fact remains that you're
+an American; but your country's not likely to be proud of you if
+ever this chapter in your career is written."
+
+At this moment, as the ashes of Blazey sank into one glowing
+mass, and the bonfire slowly died, the Americans burst into a
+mournful dirge that had been written by Ira Anson the day
+before, and committed to memory by a hundred men.
+
+Stark left his old shipmate, not guessing that he would never
+speak to him again; but he had caught sight of Putt with some
+soldiers near the grille, and now he approached.  They strolled
+on different sides of the barrier into a dark corner under shadow
+of a cachot wall.  Then Putt spoke.
+
+"A letter, your honour, an' I think 'tis important, for Miss
+sent it by one of our women with urgent orders to get it to you
+before to-morrow."
+
+"Wait here," answered the other, and, taking the note, he
+returned within the light of the waning fire and read it.
+
+"Dear heart," wrote Grace.  "Yesterday through a villager I
+had a line from John Lee.  He is near us, and I fear that he has
+heard of evil.  He sends but two lines: 'Meet me after noon
+to-morrow at Leaman Cloberry's cot, where I shall lie hid till
+you come.  I must see you.  Danger.  John Lee.' I am going.
+It is his writing, therefore I fear nothing.  When are you coming
+to me?  The time of waiting is endless to your Grace."
+
+Stark reflected rapidly.  That Lee should not approach him
+was easily understood; yet that some new danger threatened and
+John had wind of it, filled him with alarm.  He returned to
+Putt, but made no mention of the letter, for Thomas was in
+ignorance of all matters between Grace and the prisoner.  He
+glorified in his secret duties as messenger, and in the substantial
+payment they received; but of John Lee he knew nothing, and
+Stark, guessing at Lee's personal dangers, did not increase them
+by whispering of his presence, even to his most faithful friend.
+He wrote a few words on a leaf from his pocket-book.  "My
+life, trust him, of course; and write to me to-morrow what he
+tells you.  Within a week, if all be well, I may reach Fox Tor
+Farm; but, if necessary, I can be there to-morrow.  C."
+
+"I be going to take supper with the soldiers an' my uncle,"
+said Mr. Putt; "but I'll see Miss Grace gets this first thing
+in the morning.  Mrs. Beer will hand it to her at daylight."
+
+The fire was nearly out now, and the great courts deserted.
+Soon lights streamed from the windows of the prison; then they
+too disappeared.  Silence fell at last.  Under night, in their long
+rows of hammocks, men slept, or tossed and swore; while beneath
+the stars, the sentries stood like ghosts upon the walls, or tramped
+backwards and forwards within them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DEATH AT THE GATE
+
+Fate, ordering that the War Prison should be for ever
+remembered in the annals of Prince Town, now crowned
+all horrors of the past with a supreme catastrophe before those
+gloomy haunts of sorrow were deserted and echo reigned alone
+in their courts and corridors.  An accident fostered the turbulent
+spirit that still animated these great companies, and daily infected
+the minds of new subjects, even as smallpox gained power over
+their bodies.  Mr. Blazey thought it best to take no notice of the
+insult to which he had been subjected, and soon after the event
+wrote to his fellow-citizens in an amicable spirit.  He explained
+that to grant passports must not be expected save by those
+who had friends and connections in England.  For the rest, he
+assured the prisoners that all possible despatch marked the
+preparation of the cartel ships.  "You are much wanted in the
+United States," he wrote, "and the encouragement for seamen
+there is very great."
+
+The message soothed not a few impatient hearts, and many
+of the wiser sailors used it to good purpose in allaying the
+prevalent bitterness and disorder.  But close upon it fell out an
+unfortunate occurrence for which the prison contractors were
+responsible.  During a whole day the prisoners remained short
+of bread, and they were called upon to subsist as best they
+might on four and a half ounces of beef to each man.  Captain
+Short was away at the critical moment upon business in Plymouth,
+and his subordinates refused to oblige the hungry hordes.  A
+pound and a half of soft bread by right belonged to every
+prisoner, but the contractor's clerk lost his presence of mind and
+refused to serve rations of any sort until the return of the
+Commandant.
+
+This accident was enough for William Burnham's hot-headed
+faction.  A bread riot became imminent, and the prisoners
+threatened to force the prisons and break open the store-house.
+Panic and terror swept through Prince Town; chaos fell upon
+the gaol, and from all the surrounding neighbourhood the women
+and children fled into the villages, for it was reported that the
+prisoners were about to break loose and pour, like an angry sea,
+over the countryside.  Many, indeed, escaped before Captain
+Short returned with a reinforcement of two hundred soldiers
+from Plymouth; but in the meanwhile fresh supplies of bread
+had reached the prison, and the bulk of the Americans, having
+no desire to brave the unknown while liberty promised to be but
+a thing of days, remained quiet and orderly.  Their numbers
+acted as a weight to render the more daring inert; the disturbance
+passed and the Commandant expressed a frank and courteous
+regret for the occasion of the trouble.
+
+Yet alarm did not subside so quickly without the prison walls.
+Rumours daily gained ground that the Americans contemplated a
+desperate deed, and Captain Short began to credit these reports.
+His suspicions and the folly of those in his charge precipitated a
+conflict, and the innocent suffered for the guilty.
+
+Upon the 6th day of April, towards a peaceful Spring twilight,
+a large body of men, under Burnham's leadership, collected by
+twos and threes in one place.  The numbers increased, and began
+ominously to swarm round about a great gate that led from the
+exercise yards to the marketplace.  Ordered by the turnkeys to
+disperse, they refused; implored by some of their friends to
+avoid risk of suspicion, Burnham himself bade these
+peace-seekers go their way or join the party for freedom.
+
+A subaltern, hearing the words, hastened to Captain Short.
+
+"There's trouble brewing, sir.  They're swarming like bees at
+No. 1 gate from the yard, and it's only secured against 'em with a
+chain.  There's a breach, too, in the prison wall of No. 6.  The
+guards are frightened, and the turnkeys won't face the prisoners.
+I fear that they only wait for darkness."
+
+He came in an evil hour, because the Commandant had already
+heard warnings of like character from one or two of the Americans
+themselves.  For their information they had received their
+liberty.
+
+Short started up.
+
+"The dogs!  Will nothing satisfy 'em?  Must it come to
+bayonets?  Then, by God, it shall!  I've done all living man
+can do to tame these chattering hyaenas.  I've endured enough
+to make me stand self-condemned for a poltroon.  More I'll
+not endure.  They are not to be tamed by kindness.  The whip,
+then!"
+
+He raged and ordered that the alarm bells should be rung
+immediately.
+
+A brazen clangour echoed and re-echoed through Prince Town;
+the walls of the prison flung it to the mountain-tops, and the great
+tors resounded it, until, sunk to a mellow murmur, the bells were
+heard afar off.  Upon their clash followed the rattle and hubbub
+of drums, for a tattoo broke out and beat the guard to quarters.
+No more unfortunate act could have marked the moment.  Thousands
+of prisoners, just then turning in to their evening meal,
+rushed back to the yards, and the group at the gate became a
+centre of theatrical attraction.  Upon one side of them advanced
+the Commandant, his officers and the bulk of the garrison; on
+the other their inquisitive and excited compatriots began to
+crowd.  The mass was augmented from the rear until it became
+a moving force, impelled forward and powerless to take action
+against itself.  Thus, when bayonets were lowered, the unfortunate
+van of this great movement found itself pushed remorselessly
+upon them.
+
+Captain Short, taking sole command at the fatal moment, when
+his own self-command had vanished, drew up his force in position
+to charge.  Simultaneously a crash above the hubbub told that
+the great chain at the gate was broken, and a hundred voices
+were lifted to cheer Mr. Knapps, whose powerful arm, wielding a
+sledge, had done the deed.  Until now it is certain that any
+design of escaping had but actuated a handful of the prisoners.
+No concerted enterprise existed among them; but as the barrier
+fell and the gate yawned open, others, seeing the opportunity,
+crowded among Burnham's faction, and prepared to break out
+under the eyes of their guardians.  Captain Short understood
+nothing more than what he saw, and the immediate danger
+cooled his passion.  But his hatred of this many-headed monster
+was not cooled.  Cries resounded, and behind the breaking gates
+the civil guards were flying.  Yet to the Commandant's credit it
+may be recorded that he addressed the prisoners and called upon
+them to yield and fall back.  Only yells and laughter greeted
+him; while at the portals themselves an energetic handful were
+already forcing the great gates off their hinges.
+
+Thereon the Commandant ordered fifteen file of the guard to
+this barrier, and with lowered bayonets the men advanced.
+Many fell back; many were driven on with curses and sharp
+wounds; but the inert mass behind yielded slowly, while the
+phalanx in front refused to yield.  They kept their ground and
+held the gate.  They insulted the soldiers, and even dared Short
+to fire upon them.
+
+The first use of that awful word was in Burnham's mouth.
+"We are free men!" he shouted; "and you have no jurisdiction
+upon us, and no right to lift these bars between us and
+liberty.  You might as soon dare to fire upon us as order us to
+bide here.  This night we take our liberty, since you abuse your
+trust and deny it to us in a country that is at peace with ours."
+
+The mass who heard yelled and pressed forward; those who
+heard not answered the yell, and guessing nothing of the bayonets
+in front, fought to get there.
+
+Short answered Burnham.
+
+"Before God, they shall fire if----"
+
+But his troops, now maddened with anger, and sore buffeted
+by the foremost of the prisoners, heard the word "fire," and
+waited for no context.
+
+A crash and a vibrating roar followed, and Short's sentence was
+never spoken.  Into the waning light flashed the muskets, and
+with the billowy smoke there rolled aloft a shriek of fear and of
+agony where souls parted from life.
+
+William Burnham fell shot through the head, and several
+perished with him.  About fifty men were wounded, and the great
+yard ran blood.  Many of the soldiers had fired reluctantly and
+discharged their weapons over the heads of the prisoners; but
+the cry of "Blank cartridge!" lifted in the rear had no power to
+stay the awful panic that followed.  A bellow went up from
+thousands of throats, and the masses of men fell back and
+poured like rivers into the gaols.  It was then that certain knaves
+among the soldiery, themselves secure on the wall of the prison,
+opened a cross fire and slew not a few innocent men as they fled
+to safety.  None was brought to justice for this damnable deed,
+because not one criminal could be discovered when the
+catastrophe was investigated.
+
+Chaos indescribable ruled that hour.  Short toiled like a
+madman to stay the mischief.  He stood before his own men and
+yelled himself hoarse with execration and command.  But the
+soldiers were out of hand.  They had suffered much, and in
+their base minds the hour of vengeance was come.
+
+At length non-commissioned officers succeeded where their
+superiors had failed.  Sergeant Bradridge and others drew off
+the garrison, and Doctor Macgrath, with his orderlies and many
+recruits, hastened to the dead and dying.  Not a few had already
+perished; others were mortally wounded.
+
+Recognising Cecil Stark, the doctor approached where he knelt
+beside his old messmate; but a glance sufficed.
+
+"That man is dead," he said, and hastened on to tend the
+living.
+
+Those few of this vast host with whom we have been concerned
+had all gathered here.  Knapps was down with a ball in his leg
+and a bayonet wound in the arm.  Mr. Cuffee, uninjured, howled
+with sorrow beside one Haywood, a black from Virginia, who
+had perished.  The air stank with the smells of blood and smoke.
+Voices and cries rang in it; deep groans, like the bass of an
+organ, persisted beneath the high-pitched cries.  As the doctors
+turned or moved a sufferer, some, restored to consciousness,
+shrieked till the walls rang out their exquisite grief; others sighed
+and died under the gentle hands now stretching out to succour
+them.  Captain Short had withdrawn his men, and nearly all the
+Americans were finally driven back to their respective prisons
+and locked in; but the Commandant and his officers laboured
+among the wounded and toiled on under torchlight until the last
+fallen sufferer had been moved to the hospital or dead-house.
+Seven ultimately deceased, and of those who recovered many lost
+a limb.  The Americans first responsible for the catastrophe
+nearly all suffered.  They were standing beside Burnham and
+received a point-blank fire.
+
+After the prisoners had been removed, Cecil Stark, who worked
+with the English to aid them, prepared to return to his quarters
+when he found himself accosted by a man with a swarthy face
+and a black beard.  Many Hebrew merchants from the surrounding
+towns swarmed about the prison with garments to sell to the
+prisoners at this season, and Stark, supposing the man to be a
+Jew who had entered with hundreds of others after the catastrophe,
+was turning from him, when the stranger spoke.
+
+"A moment," he said.  "'Tis a terrible hour in which I'm
+come; but this ill wind will blow you good luck and perchance
+one who's more to you than yourself."
+
+"John Lee!"
+
+"Ay!--I've come, for there was none else that I dared to
+send.  Evil has fallen out to Grace Malherb.  This time there
+must be nothing to keep you from her, or else the worst will
+happen.  Even as it is you may be too late."
+
+"She sent your letter and I told her to fall in with any plan or
+warning that you might have for her."
+
+"Take this," said Lee, producing a handful of something dark.
+"'Tis a beard made of sheep's wool.  Wondering as I came how
+I should hide my face, I saw a black sheep.  For once 'twas not
+a sign of ill-luck, but good.  I cornered her, threw her, and cut
+from her back enough wool for the purpose.  I browned my face
+by rubbing peat upon it.  Now I am a Jew.  Don this quickly
+and follow the crowd that is now being thrust outside the walls.
+The rest you shall know as we go on our way."
+
+Stark adjusted the crisp wool about his chin, drew his hat over
+his eyes, fetched the cloak about him, and passed unchallenged
+out beside John Lee.  It seemed the most natural and simple
+matter thus to depart.  The long months of suffering, the
+privations, plots, excitements and disappointments did not return to
+his mind for many a day.  Henceforth, one solitary thought
+informed him, and he hastened straightway forward into a trap
+more cunning than any made with granite.
+
+Lee explained what had happened as far as he knew it.
+
+"To me she came two days ago in answer to my urgent
+message.  I had heard that Norcot meant to get her into his
+personal power at any cost, for he told my grandmother that he
+would do so.  Weary of evil, or pretending so, the old woman
+confessed to me, and I explained to Grace Malherb the threatened
+danger.  She promised that she would not stir abroad again, and
+assured me that her father knew nothing.  She could hardly stop
+for joy when she heard that Lovey Lee was alive; for it seems
+that Mr. Malherb, who struck her down upon Cater's Beam,
+believed that he had slain her."
+
+"But of Miss Malherb?"
+
+"She left me and has not since been seen.  This I have heard
+to-day, for as my grandmother did not return, I grew fearful and
+last night got to Fox Tor Farm.  It was easy to lie in wait until I
+could speak with Putt, for once more the place is disturbed and
+they seek high and low for Miss Grace."
+
+"You saved her from Norcot then, and some other ill has
+overtaken her?"
+
+"I do not know.  It may be that in ignorance I only worked
+for Norcot.  I cannot question my grandmother, since she is still
+absent from our hiding-place.  Therefore, there was no course but
+to come to you."
+
+"Norcot may have used you after all through your grandmother?"
+
+"I can only fear it."
+
+"Then to him!  I will not sleep until I have met that man."
+
+"We are going there now.  To-night you shall lie hid close to
+Chagford, and to-morrow night--not sooner--you can tackle him.
+I've been to Chagford, but I dared not go to him myself until I
+had been to you, for his answer would be to arrest me.  You've
+got to show your quality now.  If my grandmother is guilty of
+this, you'll find the cleverest man and the wickedest woman on
+Dartmoor against you."
+
+Stark did not answer.  His thoughts wandered backwards as it
+seemed.
+
+"Seven there were, and now--Miller, Burnham, Carberry--all
+dead.  And Leverett in the hand of God, if still he lives.  And
+Jim Knapps badly wounded.  That leaves but poor Cuffee and
+me."
+
+"To-night you'd better lie in my den.  If my grandmother has
+returned to it, you can tackle her; but indeed I fear you'll see her
+no more.  Norcot was to turn her gold and trinkets into paper
+money.  Then she meant to go to France."
+
+"Why wait till to-morrow?  Why not to-night?"
+
+"I cannot get there, Mr. Stark.  I've walked forty miles and
+more to-day.  Five yet lie before us, and that will settle me.
+Food's been scarce, too, of late.  I'm not in good fighting trim, I
+fear."
+
+Stark seized his hand.
+
+"By God! you've done your share!  But your troubles are
+near over.  You come with me to Vermont, or I'll not go.  I've
+sworn to myself that you come.  I don't leave this country
+without you."
+
+"You are very generous and good."
+
+They tramped over the night-hidden land in silence.  Twice
+Lee had to stop and rest awhile.  Then he walked forward.
+Before midnight they reached the ruined cot under Sittaford Tor.
+Plenty of food was hidden there, and both ate heartily, drank
+from a rivulet at hand, and then slept side by side.
+
+The place was empty, for Lovey Lee had not returned to it;
+but before dawn the old woman, like an aged tigress, came slinking
+back.  Upon entering the cot and striking a light, she saw not
+only her grandson, but the pale upturned face of Cecil Stark.
+
+Neither moved in their profound slumber; but the woman
+instantly extinguished her taper, and crept out of doors again.
+
+"It's a hell of a tramp to take twice in one night," she thought.
+"Yet 'tis good for another clear hundred, and Norcot shan't hear
+it for less."
+
+Then she set her old bones creaking again upon the way to
+Chagford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BEARDING THE LION
+
+To Maurice Malherb it seemed that he was living his life over
+again.  Upon the second disappearance of his daughter, the
+old turmoil recurred; but less fury marked his manners and more
+method.  Grace had gone for a long tramp over the Moor, and
+had never returned home.  She set out after her mid-day meal
+and was no more seen.  Neither had any man nor woman heard
+of her.  Tom Putt, indeed, remembered the letter that he had
+conveyed to her through Mr. Cloberry; but he also knew this
+missive came from John Lee.  Therefore he felt no alarm, but
+doubted not that John was working with Cecil Stark, and that
+Grace was safe.
+
+When the catastrophe at Prince Town became known and it
+transpired that not a few besides Stark were reported missing, the
+Americans declared their compatriots were fallen in the struggle
+and had been hastily buried by night, that the numbers of the
+slain might not challenge too much attention; but the history of
+the time may be relied upon in this matter, and it is safe to
+assume that those unaccounted for upon that unhappy night
+escaped in the subsequent confusion, even as Cecil Stark had
+done.
+
+So, at least, concluded Maurice Malherb; and, awake to the
+significance of the incident in connection with his daughter's
+disappearance, he was first minded to yield and let her have her
+way; but then he came back to himself, and fury awoke him, and
+he sought Peter Norcot, that the wool-stapler might assist him to
+recover his daughter.
+
+Malherb rode over the Moor to Chagford upon the morning
+after the tragedy at Prince Town; and on his way he reflected
+concerning his own peculiar position.
+
+It was now generally known that in a fit of rage he had slain
+an ancient woman upon Cater's Beam.  But since the attributes
+of Lovey Lee and her history came also to be apprehended; so
+soon as it was understood that Lovey had plotted with the
+American prisoners and herself was hiding from a rope when
+Malherb destroyed her, no further concern in the matter touched
+men's minds.  The times were troublous; there was much to
+think of; none made it his business to take action, and Malherb's
+only punishment lay within his own heart and brain.
+
+His personal grief did not lessen; his wife alone knew of the
+tortures that he still suffered.  His physical health began to
+break under the strain, for the man's old zest in food departed;
+his zest in sport was dead; and his zest in life and the work of
+life had wholly vanished.  Remorse ate him alive.
+
+To Chagford he came, and Gertrude Norcot, who had not seen
+him for many days, started to find the master of Fox Tor Farm
+much changed.  His demeanour had altered; his carriage had
+grown humble; his head had sunk forward under the blows of
+time.  Native pugnacity had given place to melancholy; even
+the incisive and stern methods of his speech were merged into
+a hollow and phlegmatic indifference, as of one careless of
+affairs.
+
+Yet to-day he was sufficiently himself to be eager, and even
+passionate, as he recounted events.
+
+"Peter has heard all," said Miss Norcot.  "He has not been
+idle.  Indeed, for three days he has lived in the saddle.
+Certainly we have seen very little indeed of him here."
+
+"Your daughter must have a strange disposition," said a weak
+voice; and, turning round, Malherb saw a little clergyman, who
+held out his hand.  He was flat-faced, meek and humble.
+
+"Our kinsman, Mr. Relton Norcot," said the lady.  "Peter
+had occasion to go to London recently, and on his way back
+through Exeter he picked up Relton.  My cousin stands in need
+of rest, for he works too hard."
+
+"It is the duty of man to toil," said the minister.  "What is
+life without work?  A formless void."
+
+"And where is Peter now?" inquired Malherb.
+
+"Heaven knows," answered Gertrude.  "He may return to
+dinner, or he may not do so.  Will you stay with us for the
+night?"
+
+"No, no; I must home to my wife.  I am sorry to miss him.
+Let him know that Cecil Stark has escaped from the War Prison.
+This will quicken his wits as it has quickened mine.  I have
+watchers set round about Holne.  And also at Dartmouth.  And
+yet there is that in me which begets a great indifference now.  It
+is vain to fight the young, for Time is on their side."
+
+"You must be brave, dear Mr. Malherb."
+
+Miss Norcot put a light hand upon his arm.
+
+"You can touch me," he said, "knowing what you know?"
+
+"Indeed, yes.  You have atoned."
+
+He shook his head, and the clergyman spoke.
+
+"Who shall fling the first stone, my dear sir?  Who shall hale
+you before your outraged country?"
+
+Malherb stared at him, as a man who sees an unpleasant
+insect suddenly where before there was none.  Then his
+expression changed.
+
+"You say well.  Who shall?  There is but one man.  His
+duty it is, and he hangs back."
+
+Miss Norcot was much interested.
+
+"You mean her grandson?  But he cannot, dear Mr. Malherb,
+for he, too, stands in danger of the law.  He ought to have
+been hung long ago."
+
+"I mean Maurice Malherb," he said, speaking to himself
+rather than to her.  "Farewell.  Tell Peter that I have been
+here.  If he learns anything of comfort, let him hasten to us at
+Fox Tor Farm."
+
+"Be of good cheer," said the clergyman; but Malherb did not
+answer.  He departed and left them whispering together.
+
+Hardly had his horse gone out of the courtyard when Peter
+appeared.  He had been above, in his bedchamber.
+
+"You have made your sister say the thing which was not, my
+dear Peter," said the clergyman mournfully.
+
+"Pardon me," she answered.  "I did nothing of the sort.
+He asked where my brother was, and I said that Heaven knew.
+That was not to say I did not know."
+
+They fell to talking, and Maurice Malherb went slowly towards
+Chagford.  For a moment he stopped at Norcot's place of business
+beside Teign river, and asked if Peter was there; but a
+doorkeeper shook his head, and the master went on his way to
+the "Three Crowns," that he might bait his horse before
+returning home.
+
+And as he passed the great manufactory, Maurice Malherb
+had been within twenty yards of his daughter; for there she was
+hidden; there, where hundreds of busy men and women circled
+round about her and the roar of water-wheels and the hum of
+looms made grand music of industry from dawn till eve, Grace
+Malherb was securely shut up in Norcot's private rooms.  Two
+apartments had been prepared for her, and Peter's sister visited
+the girl every night after dark.  The full extent of her brother's
+purpose Gertrude only suspected when he returned from London
+and brought the Rev. Relton Norcot along with him; but how
+Peter proposed to compass the marriage his sister had not yet
+comprehended.  Her sympathies were with him, however, and
+she was true and trustworthy.  She guessed which way things
+were tending.  She understood now that Peter's sole reason for
+going to London was that he might procure a Special License of
+marriage; and she knew that he had got it.  Gertrude doubted
+not that days--perhaps hours--would bring the sequel; and
+nightly she exhausted her powers of persuasion upon Grace from
+eleven o'clock until one, in the silent factory; but as yet the
+captive showed no signs of being tamed.  Norcot had also striven with
+her, and now she was a chained fury, so that Peter told his sister
+frankly that he went in fear of his eyes.  Even his equanimity had
+given out, and he was casting round to know by what channel the
+ceremony might be celebrated as quickly as possible.  But no
+course of action appeared until the night before Malherb's visit.
+Then Lovey Lee had brought her news out of the cottage on
+Sittaford's side, and, from that moment, Peter began to see light.
+Long ago he had asked himself whether Cecil Stark could be
+made of any service in the great matter of Grace; and now,
+when he learned that the American was almost at his door,
+Peter's spidery instincts served him well.  While yet he waited,
+confident of the speedy advent of Stark, the future began to
+unfold, and a project as extraordinary as it was difficult matured in
+the merchant's brains.
+
+"An enterprise involving violent melodrama, no doubt," he
+told himself, "but then these are melodramatic times, and in the
+rush and hurry of wars, and rumours of wars--in the scare of
+Bonaparte and the tragedy over the hills at Prince Town, a little
+lawlessness must pass unnoticed.  Tut, tut!  Does not the world
+still think that fool at Fox Tor Farm a murderer?  Yet no hand
+is lifted against him.  And there is a source of strength there;
+for when we tell him that he is innocent of blood, he'll be so
+overjoyed that he'll forgive anything and anybody.  And she--once
+married all must right itself.  Let it work then.  Come, Mr. Cecil
+Stark of Vermont!  I'm nearly ready for you; indeed, 'tis
+perfectly plain that I can't get on much further without you.
+But pray God Malherb don't run upon him riding home!  Yet
+'tis improbable, for he'll hardly stir till nightfall.  Then the man
+Lee will bring him hither.  And now to see my lady.  Here's
+news indeed for her."
+
+All that afternoon Norcot was closeted with Grace, and when
+he left her, she let him kiss her!
+
+"May the night bring him," she said, "for each moment is
+a century when I think of my dear ones at home and all their
+sufferings now."
+
+And that night Cecil Stark arrived.  As a fugitive himself, liable
+to be recaptured and returned to Prince Town by any man eager
+to earn three pounds, the young sailor exercised caution; and for
+the sake of his guide it was also necessary that he should incur
+no risk; but ere midnight he came, and Norcot himself ushered
+him into the house.
+
+"A hearty welcome!" he said, with the most genial handgrip.
+"I expected you.  Had you not escaped yesterday, I was coming
+to Prince Town to see Short and go bail for you; but love has a
+thousand wings and a thousand voices.  Come in, Mr. Stark.
+Henceforth you are my guest."
+
+He offered his hand, but the other did not take it.
+
+"One word, sir.  Is Miss Malherb here?"
+
+"Come in, come in.  You gladden my heart; for Heaven can
+bear witness that I took to you from the first moment ever I saw
+you--when you came so near to braining that beautiful lady.
+I'm 'a beast of company but not of the herd,' as Plutarch says.
+Give me a friend or two, not a regiment of 'em.  There was that
+in your face--
+
+  Born to command, to conquer and to spare;
+  As mercy mild, yet terrible as war.'
+
+Come in."
+
+  "'Wolves do change their hair, but not their hearts'!
+
+There's a quotation for yours," said Stark suddenly and bluntly.
+
+Mr. Norcot started.
+
+"Tut, tut!  I thought we were old friends."
+
+"Answer me.  Is Miss Malherb here?"
+
+"Here, yet not here," replied Peter, pressing his breast.
+
+  "'Smiling then Love took his dart
+  And drew her picture on my heart.'
+
+But I can relieve your mind.  The maiden is well and exceedingly
+happy."
+
+"Then was John Lee right; you abducted her."
+
+"Ah! that agile lad!  Mercury's a fool to him."
+
+Stark took off his hat and entered the house.
+
+"I am here to escort Miss Malherb to her parents, Mr. Norcot."
+
+"And a pleasant enough task too--for both of you.  Now
+enter and rest your weary limbs--nay; don't look suspicious.
+There's no mystery here--merely the library of a very busy
+man."
+
+Stark sat down and rubbed a wounded foot, while Mr. Norcot
+regarded him with a very whimsical expression.
+
+"So you are a new Quixote, come to rescue distressed maidens?
+Yet, if you could see the joy on Grace Malherb's countenance at
+this moment, you might suspect that your disinterested labour
+was in vain, Mr. Stark."
+
+"Only her own assurances will satisfy me.  As for you, in
+the past I owe you much, Mr. Norcot.  With a single-hearted
+generosity that I cannot sufficiently admire and I cannot quite
+understand, you exerted yourself on behalf of strangers and
+captives.  But now----'
+
+"Now, perhaps, I am doing the same thing again, Mr. Stark.
+Would it surprise you to hear that within this month I have been
+to London on your behalf?"
+
+"Why should you do so?"
+
+"Ah!--my modesty refuses to reply.  But believe the fact:
+for you and Grace Malherb I have been as industrious as a man
+can be.  She knows and blesses me.  You have yet to know."
+
+"Is this true, sir?"
+
+"Why not?  And yet against one of your credulous character
+a lie would be a good weapon."
+
+"Yes, for a slave to use," said Stark.
+
+"It's a nice point.  I'm a casuist, you know.  I could mention
+a few classical lies that have helped to make the world what it is
+to-day--
+
+  "'Why should not conscience have vacation
+  As well as other courts o' the nation?'"
+
+
+"You jest to ask such a question, or you mistake me, Mr. Norcot."
+
+"'Tis easy to understand how willingly men would give their
+monitor a life-long holiday if they could.  Yet, 'He that sins
+against his conscience sins with a witness.'  Fuller.  That
+inimitable man!  I wish my young clerical cousin had something of
+his sublime sense and understanding.  But Relton's a good lad,
+and no bishop can marry you tighter."
+
+"Be frank, Mr. Norcot," said Stark.  "Here am I, and I trust
+you.  I accept your word that Miss Malherb is also here, and
+that she is well.  But I am determined to take her back to her
+father and mother, because I learn that they are ignorant of her
+safety, and are suffering much, as it is natural they should suffer."
+
+Peter beamed upon his visitor.
+
+"'How fresh and green you are in this old world!'  Now I
+understand why your plots miscarried and you failed of your
+heroic enterprises, Cecil Stark.  Think you that if I'd been rogue
+enough to bear off this maid for selfish ends, I should welcome
+you so warmly and prepare so frankly to tell you the truth?
+Suppose--as doubtless you do suppose--that I had Miss Grace
+here, and my parson cousin here, and my Special License to
+marry her here, should I make you a welcome and honoured
+guest?  What was your plan of action then?  Do reveal it.  As
+a student of character I should like to know."
+
+"I trusted to right and honour, and still do so."
+
+"Yet you'd have cut but a poor figure if I had proved that
+wolf-hearted wool-dealer you so rudely described."
+
+"I judged from what John Lee told me.  Your passion for
+Grace Malherb and your determination to marry her are widely
+known."
+
+"Well, granted; but first John Lee.  Have a care there.  He's
+malignant and dangerous.  Powerless himself, he would leave no
+stone unturned to do me a hurt--or you a hurt.  Yet all that
+ever I did was to try and save his neck.  Remember his
+granddam."
+
+"I believe him to be honest."
+
+"I know him to be a very silly rascal.  He has much
+endangered Miss Malherb's happiness.  'A whip for the horse, a
+bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back'; but better still,
+a bullet for the fool's head.  The fools--the fools--they make
+nearly all the trouble in the world."
+
+"Lee is a good man and no fool, if I am any judge.  At least,
+he seems shrewd enough to me.  He has served both his mistress
+and me nobly before to-day.  He correctly guessed all along
+where Miss Malherb was now, and he brought me to you."
+
+"Because 'twas his own folly helped to bring her here.  We
+may use a fool in the affairs of life; and often there's no better
+tool.  But be careful that no inkling of your ends is trusted to
+the fool."
+
+Cecil Stark seemed to see a sinister personal significance in
+this speech.  He regarded Norcot's smiling countenance with
+the closest attention.
+
+"I might take that hint to myself," he said.
+
+"You might; but you would be wrong and ungenerous if you
+did," answered the other.  "I'm your friend, and I'm going to
+prove it under the hand and seal of a greater than either of us."
+
+"Her own?"
+
+"Alas! no.  I'm coming to that.  If she could have written,
+she would have done so.  But for the moment it is unhappily
+impossible.  She desired a thousand messages, but these I would
+not bring, because I could only give my word that they were
+true.  But the written word is none the less convincing."
+
+"Begin at the beginning if you are being honest with me,"
+said Stark.
+
+"I would say with the man in the play--
+
+  "'A sudden thought strikes me,
+  Let us swear an eternal friendship';
+
+but, under the circumstances, I'll leave that quotation for you.
+When you hear what I've got to say, you'll make it, if you're as
+just and honourable as I believe."
+
+"Speak then."
+
+Peter looked at the clock over the mantelpiece.
+
+"Like a sermon, what I have to say must be set forth under
+three heads.  The application I shall leave with you," he answered.
+"First, however, here's a glass of wine.  Allow me to drink before
+you do so.  You would not be justified in trusting me until you
+have heard more."
+
+Mr. Norcot poured out two glasses of port, sipped his own
+and began his explanations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SPECIAL LICENSE
+
+"We must deal," said Norcot, "with the relations of four
+people each to the others.  And first let us examine
+my relations with Grace Malherb.  I loved her; I loved her
+with a whole-hearted, true and deep love that can only find the
+faintest echo in poetry.  Herrick's 'To Anthea, who may
+command him anything,' comes closest to the real sentiment.  But
+love grows sick like an ill-grown tree, if it grows one-sided.  A
+dark hour struck when with acute sorrow and grief I discovered
+that I could never win Grace's heart.  The bitter truth was
+stamped into my soul.  She would never love me; she risked her
+life to escape from me; frankly, I was odious to her.  Yet I had
+observed that this emotion of loathing was not always excited
+in the female heart by my presence.  I was blessed, even in the
+moment of desolation, by discovering that I was loved by another
+woman.
+
+        "'Who'er she be,
+  That not impossible She
+  That shall command my heart and me'
+
+does not matter.  Suffice it that she exists; and she is beautiful
+and virtuous.
+
+"As a matter of fact, I had given up all thought of marrying
+when once I discovered that Grace Malherb could never love me.
+I had faced the existence of a bachelor with an indifference bred
+from disappointment.  I had said with Shakespeare--
+
+  "'The sweet embraces of a loving wife
+  Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand Cupids,
+  Shall never clasp our necks.'
+
+But now I think otherwise.  To put it conventionally, I am consoled.
+You will, I know, express your gratification at this, even
+as Grace did.  She kissed me and enjoyed doing it!  Think of
+that!  What a piece of work is the feminine throne of the
+emotions!--eh?  She kissed me and wished me abundant
+blessings--only yesterday.
+
+  "''Tis done; I yield; adieu, thou cruel fair!
+    Adieu, th' averted face, th' ungracious cheek!
+  From thee I fly to end my grief and care,
+    To hang--To hang?--yes, round another's neck!'
+
+So I made light of the matter, and now leave it for ever.
+
+"You ask what next?  Next comes Grace's relation to you.  I
+knew that she loved you with all her heart and soul.  For you she
+suffered the cruel indignities of the past; for you she starved;
+for you she fled and risked her life rather than marry me.  Her
+father was the sole obstacle between you when I dropped out and
+came over to your side.  He is both hard and senseless--a difficult
+type of man.  One must not say 'by your leave' to such as he,
+because to ask is to be refused.  So I propose to take without
+asking, and allow him to digest facts only after the occurrence.
+He is dangerous now, and those who fear all strike at all.  Yet
+we've more than one surprise in store for Malherb.  Is it nothing
+to think yourself a murderer and find yourself innocent?  That's
+the trump card!  There'll be little room for anger in his bosom
+on the day when he learns that.
+
+"Well, I'm working without him--for love of his daughter.
+'Tis settled betwixt you that you must marry though the heavens
+fall.  You shall.  I'm as set on it as either of you.  The day
+after to-morrow you are man and wife.  So much good news will
+bewilder you; but there's bad to go as a tonic with it.  You
+naturally ask why these great matters do not come to you under
+Grace's own hand and seal.  Alas! she is blind!"
+
+"Good God!  My Grace!"
+
+"Be patient.  The fault was entirely mine.  Those appointed
+to bring her hither at any cost, discovered that she was
+young and strong and valiant.  An old man and an old woman,
+albeit tough enough, found it as much as they could do, and
+before they had prevailed and hidden her in the depths of an
+ancient wood, all three were scratched and wounded with the
+briars and brambles, in which they had struggled.  She fought
+with true Malherb spirit, but the conquerors came best off; Miss
+Malherb was torn, and badly torn, across the face.  I have had
+the first advice both from Plymouth and from Exeter.  For the
+present she lives in a dead darkness, and must continue so to do
+for a week or more."
+
+"But she will recover her sight?  Oh, do not tell me that those
+wonderful eyes will see no more."
+
+"I could hardly have borne to jest over the past, my dear
+Stark, had the future held anything so terrible.  Your lady's
+lovely eyes are but dimmed for a time.  I spoke with Sir George
+Jenning only yesterday.  He has little fear of the ultimate result;
+but blackest possible night must hem her in for the present.  A
+gleam might work terrible havoc; the optic nerve is affected, and
+such sympathy prevails between the eyes that injury to one may
+quickly involve both."
+
+"I hope you look to this yourself.  'Tis hard to avoid daylight
+in April."
+
+"My sister Gertrude is nurse."
+
+"If I could but see Grace!"
+
+"See her you certainly cannot.  Nobody can.  Never sibyl was
+wrapped in gleam more Cimmerian; but marry her you may and
+shall, if that will suffice you."
+
+The rapidity of these revelations; the intense seriousness and
+most kindly expression upon Norcot's face; the bewildering rush
+and hurry of his own life during the past few days, all combined
+to move Cecil Stark.  His wits swooned; his emotions yearned
+to believe this marvellous story.  He pressed his hand to his
+forehead, then noticed the wine at his elbow, picked up the glass
+and drained it.
+
+"Man," he said solemnly, "surely it is not in humanity to
+juggle upon such a theme?  You cannot be deceiving me?"
+
+"Emphatically no," answered Norcot.  "I am no juggler, but
+a simple wool-merchant of some character and renown in these
+parts.  In fact, a big toad in a small puddle, as the saying is.
+My heart went out to you when first we met, and I resolved,
+if opportunity offered, to do you a service.  I failed; but it was
+your own action that defeated my good offices.  This time I
+shall succeed, because nobody on this earth can break a marriage
+contract if the conditions are within the law of the land."
+
+"She is willing?"
+
+"For a thousand reasons; and, first, before any thought of
+you, that her parents may suffer no more.  They have
+undoubtedly endured a good deal."
+
+"'Tis an insult to the family to wed so."
+
+"She is not of that opinion.  The ceremony once complete,
+you can go back to prison with a cheerful heart; or, better still,
+obtain a passport.  I shall ride off instantly to Grace's parents
+and explain all.  Upon her recovery, and before you depart
+to your own land the richer by this lovely rose, a marriage
+ceremony as splendid as Malherb's purse can bear may take
+place.  Would that he would forget to play Lucifer for once
+and let me bear the cost."
+
+"Such things as this don't happen," said Stark slowly.
+
+"They don't," answered the other.  "Such things can only be
+found within the pages of poetry.  And yet you see how one
+romantic ass, out of the dead love of his past, has planned this
+little fairy tale.  I am that ass, Mr. Stark.  Such things don't
+happen; yet this thing is going to happen if you are of the same
+mind as Grace Malherb.  She has forgiven me everything--even
+robbing her of daylight.  'What is the sun compared with him?'
+cried she.  My God, how she loves you!"
+
+Yet something in Cecil Stark's heart still doubted and cried
+for proof positive.  Norcot's perfect voice, flowing on like an
+oily river, hurt his nerves.  He felt that he was being muffled up
+and choked in honey.  He dashed his hand on the table.
+
+"Proofs--facts--realities--give me these!" he cried.  "Show
+me how this can be, and I will bless your name for ever."
+
+"I was waiting for you to come to your senses.  This astounding
+news has acted like strong drink on a hungry man.  Proofs
+are here--facts--realities too.  Read this.  You never heard of
+Charles Manners Sutton?  Yet, 'tis a very well-known name
+among respectable people.  This word he wrote.  'Tis the
+sign-manual of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury,
+Mr. Stark."
+
+"Go on--explain."
+
+"There's your worthy name also, and that of Grace Sibella
+Malherb.  You knew not that she was called Sibella too?  An
+old family name on the mother's side.  She was a Carew and my
+mother was also a Carew.  But this family history won't interest
+you?"
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Well, having determined to see you married to my Grace,
+I sought the means.  There are but three ways in this kingdom
+to be married, and all demand the co-operation of the Church.
+We lack a purely civil rite, but there is a talk of establishing
+such.  First comes marriage by Banns, which necessitates three
+weeks' notice in a place of worship.  This I tried myself, with
+results not unfamiliar to you.  'Twas for the best.  Marriage by
+ordinary license requires but a fifteen days' residence in the parish
+where the ceremony is to take place.  Doctors' Commons can
+supply this document at a moment's notice, or the Bishop of the
+Diocese will do so through his Chancellor and Surrogates.  Another
+glass of wine?  You look as if you wanted it.  Now this method
+is equally out of place, because we cannot entertain you here for
+the next fifteen days, much as we should like to do so.  The
+secret of Grace's whereabouts must be hidden no more.  There
+remains marriage by Special License--a ceremony permission to
+perform which can only be given by the Archbishop of Canterbury
+himself.  It allows the contracting parties to be married
+anywhere they please: in a church, or on a high road, or within
+a private dwelling, or at the top of Dartmoor.  A priest of the
+Church of England and two witnesses complete the entire
+necessary conditions.  How witnesses can witness a wedding in
+the dark is doubtful; but they must do their best, and trust to
+their ears if not their eyes.
+
+"That document, beaming upon you there, is the Special
+License which will permit you to marry Miss Malherb.  I have
+friends at Court.  His Grace was easily convinced of the
+propriety of my application.  And fate favoured me, for he loves
+your country with a Christian charity very proper in a primate.
+It was enough for him that you desired instantly to return home
+after your long incarceration, and that your future wife was both
+eager and willing to accompany you.  Feel it, read it, touch it!
+Has it not the very odour of sanctity?  All this have I done for
+you and for her.  You see, I'm not quite the rascal you thought
+me.
+
+  "'I never bark when out of season,
+  I never bite without a reason.'
+
+Indeed, barking and biting are quite foreign to my nature."
+
+Stark stared at the Special License without speaking.
+
+"Still you find it difficult to believe in such a torrent of hard
+facts.  There remains to point out the necessity for a speedy
+marriage.  I supposed that you would be free a fortnight ago at
+latest.  Consequently I named a date which will expire in two days.
+You must marry the day after to-morrow, if you can bring yourself
+to the ordeal so soon.  You will stop here, I trust, or if not
+here, then at my lodge, which will be safer.  As a leading man
+among the Americans, they'll seek you sharply.  They might find
+you in my house; but in my lodge you will be safe.  Now what
+say you?  You must believe or not--all or none.  Accept my
+simple good faith or reject it."
+
+"Your honour upon it?"
+
+"May I perish miserably, and vanish from among men, and
+from the Book of Life, if I am lying to you."
+
+"It is enough!  No false man would take such an oath as
+that."
+
+Stark leapt to his feet, pressed the other's hand and shook it
+warmly.
+
+"God reward you for your deed, Peter Norcot.  Generations
+to come shall bless you as I do.  I believe you with all my heart.
+I trust you with all that makes life best living to me."
+
+"So be it.  Now get you gone.  For safety I'll hold this
+document until after your marriage.  I have planned the ceremony
+for the morning of the day after to-morrow.  If possible you shall
+speak to Grace to-morrow, but Malherb has his spies here, and
+you'll be followed too.  Therefore we must run no risk.  See
+John Lee and send him about his business once and for all;
+next repair to my lodge, where you are expected.  There a meal
+awaits you.  Keep close within doors meantime, and I shall come
+again to you after dark."
+
+A few moments later Norcot himself took the American to his
+door, showed him the lodge at his avenue gates not a quarter of
+a mile distant and left him there.
+
+Then he returned to his study, lighted a taper and carefully
+destroyed the Special License by fire.
+
+"A neat enough copy," he said, as it curled and flamed and
+vanished; "so like the real thing that a man may be forgiven for
+calming his mind through the perception of his senses."
+
+Next Norcot went to his desk and drew therefrom another
+document in most respects resembling the first.  But it was set
+out upon thicker paper and the seal was of black wax, not red, as
+in the case of the destroyed forgery.
+
+
+Meanwhile Stark met Lee, and the hollow unreality of his story
+fell sinister and threatening upon John's ear.
+
+"You don't believe this nonsense," he asked simply when the
+tale was told.
+
+"Every word of it!  He has taken a solemn--a terrific oath.
+He is a man of the highest honour, or I never yet met with
+one!"
+
+"You can credit these unheard-of deeds and believe that he
+performed them simply that you may get what you wanted?"
+
+"Not so.  'Tis all done for her sake.  He loved her.  Even
+in losing her, he shows the noble character of his love for ever.
+His one thought is her happiness."
+
+"I will never believe it.  This is a gigantic lie.  There's some
+foul deed hiding behind it, and you will live to see that I'm
+right."
+
+"We shall not agree there, John.  Don't think that I undervalue
+your great services to me.  Don't think that I can ever forget
+your grand loyalty to your mistress.  But in this matter, as a man
+of the world not lacking for sense and experience, I know that I
+am right.  I am not clever, yet I feel that I can trust him.
+Norcot is a rare figure; but it heartens one, it enlarges one's
+ideas to know that such men exist.  He himself is loved
+elsewhere; and now he desires to make us happy.  I have told you
+all; I need only add that I believe him as I believe in Heaven,
+and I trust him absolutely.  He has always been a true friend to
+me.  For the present I remain here at this lodge, and on the
+night after our marriage, if the doctor allows it, I convey my
+wife back to her home.  Now what shall I do for you, John
+Lee?  The best can only be a shadow of what you have done
+for me."
+
+"You're wrong; you're madly wrong!  Where is Miss Grace
+herself?  Did he tell you that?"
+
+"No; but I gathered that she is in his house."
+
+"Go your way then, and ask me no questions, for I shall go
+mine.  You are mad in this and will live to repent such trust
+bitterly.  His life--his whole life and behaviour towards her cry
+on my side."
+
+"You forget his past behaviour to me.  Is that to count for
+nothing?  He has always wished me well.  For you, John, I have
+to thank you for much," he said; "for much, much more than I
+can ever pay you back; yet now I ask for another favour.  I am
+older than you, and perhaps more experienced in the ways of men.
+I am not deceived in Peter Norcot.  At any rate, the future now
+lies with me.  Let me ask you to renounce the affair entirely
+from this moment, and leave the rest to me.  If I am content,
+you should be also."
+
+"Never!  What do I care for you, or Norcot either?  'Tis only
+her that I care for; only her I'm here for.  Go your way, but
+don't dictate to me.  I'll do what I can for her against you both;
+and though fifty thousand Norcots took their oath that they meant
+you fair, I'd not believe one of 'em.  There's no truth in that
+man.  He's trapped her for himself--not for you.  Oh, how clear
+it is to me!  I was the bait to bring her here; now Providence
+has made me bring you; and in some dark, magic way this devil
+will make you serve his turn too."
+
+"Go!" said Stark, solemnly and sternly.  "I mourn that you
+can so misread an honourable man.  I am not concerned with his
+methods now, but his motives.  He planned to lead my love into
+happiness by a rough road.  I came in the nick of time.  He has
+expected me.  Do you understand?  _He expected me_!  He has
+foreseen every step in these events.  I bid you leave my affairs in
+my own hands henceforth, John Lee; and I say here from my
+heart that, do what you will, you are my friend for ever."
+
+"So be it then.  Follow your own fool's way and see whether
+it will lead you back to the War Prison, or into the arms of Grace
+Malherb, or into your grave.  And I, too, will go my way.  Her
+happiness is my life; not you, or any man living, shall deny me
+to strive and fight for her to the end.  I marvel and mourn for you.
+Your wits are dulled by the cruel prison yonder.  Your senses are
+held captive by this man."
+
+He spoke sorrowfully, then turned away, and before Stark had
+time to beg for patience and consideration, John Lee hastened
+into the woods and disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EYES IN THE DARK
+
+Mr. Norcot and his kinsman, the clergyman, were walking
+together upon a broad terrace before the wool-stapler's
+dwelling-house.  They had dined, and now they smoked their
+pipes out of doors, for the spring night was mild and clear.
+
+Not twenty yards distant, behind the lattice of a little
+summer-house, a man lay concealed; and it chanced that both speakers
+came within earshot of him, for the minister, feeling his dinner,
+proposed to enter the summer-house and sit down there awhile.
+
+"'Tis your port wine," he said.  "What has a poor priest to do
+with such liquor?"
+
+"He shall have much to do with it, and be a poor priest no
+more after to-morrow."
+
+They sat down within two yards of John Lee.  Convinced
+that Grace must be hidden here in Norcot's house, John was
+endeavouring to learn her apartment, that when nightfall came he
+might communicate with her.  Through four-and-twenty hours,
+since his last interview with Cecil Stark, he had toiled without
+success to find her; to-night he was determined to succeed, for
+early on the morrow the wedding would take place, if Stark spoke
+the truth.
+
+And now kindly chance threw to him information more valuable
+than the hiding-place of Grace Malherb.  A wedding, indeed,
+was to be celebrated; but Peter Norcot, not the American, would
+be bridegroom.
+
+The first words that fell upon Lee's ear were spoken by the
+clergyman.
+
+"'Tis a very subtle piece of work; a wonderful stroke; yet I
+wish you had broke it to any man but me, Peter."
+
+"My dear Relton, you're not in an after-dinner humour.
+'Twas not that you drank too much port, but too little.  I've a
+hundred dozen of that vintage--put down by a loving father
+thirty years ago.  Well, how like you the thought of
+five-and-twenty dozen?  'Tis emphatically a clergyman's wine.  What
+potential tone--what tolerance--what breadth of view--what a
+fine literary flavour to your discourses all lie there!"
+
+"To do evil that good may come--a parlous doctrine."
+
+"Most true.  I'll go further and say a damnable doctrine.  I'm
+asking you to attempt no such thing.  You are invited to marry
+me to a woman in the dark--a literal, not a spiritual darkness.
+She refuses to marry me in the daylight; therefore it is proposed
+to put this trick upon her for her own welfare.  The young fellow
+from Prince Town comes to help us with his presence.  He is
+sent, as the ram was sent to save Isaac's life.  But I do not
+sacrifice him: I merely send him back whence he came.  This
+girl of ours thinks that she loves him; and she believes that she
+will marry him to-morrow.  Well, you know better."
+
+"My part is a dastard's part."
+
+"What?  To say 'Cecil Stark' in the marriage service when
+you mean 'Peter Norcot'!  What nonsense!  As soon as the daylight
+bursts in upon our little ceremony, you have only to forget
+your error."
+
+"I fear the issue."
+
+"Then you fear a handsome income--a sum which to a man of
+your abilities and ambitions should mean power.  By assisting at
+this pious fraud, you assure the welfare of a good but headstrong
+girl, and you oblige me.  From being a penniless parson you rise
+to wealth and dignity.  You----"
+
+"What of Cecil Stark?"
+
+"Mr. Stark broke prison very improperly, and to-morrow morning,
+as he quits the matrimonial chamber, a file of soldiers will be
+waiting to take him back again.  His subsequent story of a cock
+and bull no one will heed.  Leave that.  Have you the service by
+heart?  'Tis a great feat."
+
+"I know it well enough."
+
+"There can be no prompting, recollect.  The darkness of
+Egypt was light compared to the darkness in my study to-morrow.
+The grave is not darker.  Both he and she are prepared for that.
+She thinks that his eyes suffered in an explosion of gunpowder at
+Prince Town; he believes that she was seriously injured while
+coming here.  By a closely shrouded way they enter the room.
+Gertrude will bring Grace; I follow with Stark.  You are already
+there to meet us.  In the pitchy dark I hold Grace's hand and
+stand beside her; Stark holds Gertrude's hand and thinks that
+she is Grace.  You'll do your part as fast as may be.  Then
+Stark, believing himself married, comes out into the daylight
+with me, and is packed off to Prince Town in a jiffy, while, soon
+afterwards, Grace and I bowl off to Exeter in a barouche and
+four.  She will think I am taking her home; and then for the
+first time she will learn that she is my wife."
+
+"May it so fall out!"
+
+"It cannot fail.  I've forgot nothing.  There are, of course, a
+thousand minor problems and subordinate possibilities; but all
+have been provided for."
+
+"You and your wife vanish; Stark returns to prison; and I
+am left.  How if an infuriated father comes to challenge me?"
+
+"Tut, tut!  You are too poor a thing for this business.  Well,
+what then?  You have but to say that at my desire you
+conducted a legal and proper service; you have but to show the
+marriage license that I leave behind me.  You speak of a
+straight-forward wedding in honest daylight, and the bride willing.
+Concerning Cecil Stark you know nothing.  Gertrude and my man,
+Mason, the other witness, substantiate you; and soon there will
+come a dutiful letter from Grace----"
+
+"You believe that?"
+
+"Once married all is well.  The honeymoon will throw a
+genial light upon duty.  She forgives me in a week and even
+begins to understand me.  There's only one cloud: I couldn't
+get what I wanted out of old Lovey--a certain amphora.  She's
+much too clever for me.  Your pipe is out."
+
+John Lee had heard every syllable of this conversation; and
+he had forgotten himself so completely that now, dead to danger,
+he was as close to the speakers as he could get, with his face
+pressed to the lattice of the summer-house.  Suddenly Relton
+Norcot struck a light, and before Lee could duck his head the
+flame had touched his eyes and revealed him.  Peter was quick,
+but the other man had the advantage.  There was a crash in the
+shrubbery, then a figure broke cover, sped into the grass-lands
+below, and vanished.
+
+"We are undone!" cried the clergyman.  "I knew this could
+not come to good.  Oh, Peter, my reputation!"
+
+"Peace, you silly sheep, this is no time for babble!  All's yet
+well.  I marked the man and know him.  'Tis the gipsy, John
+Lee, and I can deal with him.  The problem's simple.  He runs
+to get at Stark; but that can be prevented."
+
+"For God's sake, let us go in.  I'm struck with an ague."
+
+"That such a worm should have power to wield the sacraments
+of God!  Come you in, and hasten to my sister.  Bid Gertrude
+summon Mason and go down to the factory at once.  Grace
+Malherb must be under this roof as quickly as possible.  Let
+them fetch her now.  I cannot trust her there longer, with that
+rogue on the prowl.  I'll deal with Lee once for all.  Hasten,
+hasten, my bold jellyfish; your fortune depends on't!"
+
+Relton Norcot, trembling in every limb, entered the house,
+while Peter, familiar with the land, and well knowing that he
+could reach the lodge where Cecil Stark lay, much more quickly
+and directly than was possible for John Lee, now proceeded
+thither, knocked at the window of the little room in which the
+American resided, mounted the sill and soon stood beside his
+guest.  Stark was already impatient.
+
+"But eight hours, friend.  Then your pearl is yours--the
+wealth of Ind!  And you'll lunch at Fox Tor Farm with your
+stepfather!  I wonder a little what wine Malherb will bring out
+of his cellar!"
+
+"Eight hours--eight hours."
+
+"When the stable clock beats six and the pheasants call in the
+pine-woods yonder, we shall expect you at the house.  Farewell
+until morning.  And one word of caution.  Lie very low to-night.
+They're hunting for you.  They have set a price upon you.  A
+file of soldiers is in Chagford.  It seems that they much resent
+your departure at the Prison, for many of the Americans cry that
+you were slain when the soldiers fired, and the authorities cannot
+easily disprove it since your disappearance."
+
+"I'll disprove it instantly after that I am married."
+
+"Until then bury yourself.  John Lee's responsible for this, I
+fear.  He means us both mischief now.  Poor devil--he dared
+to love her too."
+
+Norcot departed, whistled for a woodman, and was presently
+placing his servants all round his lodge, with injunctions to
+prevent any meeting between Cecil Stark and a stranger.  He had
+offered a handsome reward for the capture of Lee, and was about
+to return to his house, when from the stables came unexpected
+news.
+
+A groom with a broken head appeared roaring for his master;
+and, confronted with Peter, he explained that sudden noises had
+brought him into the stable-yard, to find a strange man hastening
+out of it on Norcot's own black horse, 'Victor.'
+
+"I knowed un in the dark by his white stocking, an' I said,
+'Be that you, maister?'  But the man made no answer, so I got
+in the way an' axed him who the dowl he was, an' wheer he might
+be off to.  With that he fetched me such a whisterpoop 'pon the
+side of the head that I went down like a man shot, an' afore I
+could get up again he was off."
+
+"So much the better," said Mr. Norcot.  "Keep quiet about
+it for the present.  I know the rascal, and I know where he has
+gone.  He'll come back in the morning."
+
+Then, confident that Lee was safe for the present, Peter hastened
+off to the wool factory, that he might assist to bring Grace to his
+house.
+
+Lee, indeed, was far away.  He had guessed that Norcot would
+forestall his approach to Stark, and though John tried hard to get
+to the lodge, he knew nothing of the nearest way, and after
+running a roundabout course of a mile, finally found himself in
+the stable-yard.  This accident inspired him to another action,
+and he determined to take a horse and ride over to Fox Tor
+Farm for Maurice Malherb.  It yet wanted two hours of midnight,
+and it might be possible to get Malherb to Chagford by dawn.
+Lee himself hoped to perform his journey and be back again
+while it was yet dark.  He carried his plan out instantly, to the
+detriment of the stableman who attempted to stop him, and soon,
+with a bridle, but bare-backed, he sped over the nightly Moor,
+while a glory of rapid motion brought joy to his heart under the
+darkness.  It was long since he had felt a good horse between
+his legs.
+
+Grace Malherb meantime, suspecting nothing, entered the web
+of the spider and longed for her marriage hour to come.  She
+beamed upon the house party assembled, was the soul of graciousness
+to Peter Norcot, counted the hours that still kept her from
+her father and mother, and mourned only one circumstance; that
+her sweetheart's wounded eyes would never see the sun shine
+upon his wedding day.  It was understood by poor Grace that
+Cecil Stark must remain at Chagford until well again; while as
+soon as the marriage ceremony was ended, Peter had promised to
+escort her home.  She was marvellously reconciled to the
+wool-stapler.  From her first indignation and passion he had weaned
+her day by day, and as with the subtlest ingenuity he had
+developed his fairy story and lent to it the colours of reality, Grace
+at last believed and blessed his name.  The natural desire of the
+lovers that they should meet, Norcot overruled by many pleas.
+Each continued to believe the other blind; each had seen the
+forgery; for the rest, oral messages passed between them and
+were carefully garbled to fit the pretended circumstances.  With
+hyperbolical gleam and glitter did Peter do his work, and throw
+an enchanted mantle of verity over his enterprise.  Actual genius
+marked his operations; he made the fantastic solid, the imaginary
+real.  His masterpiece rang true; it was enduring and full
+of vitality.  He had, of course, to do with a man and a woman
+plunged deep in love; and his deception was absolute.
+
+Now there remained to settle with John Lee, and Norcot prepared
+to undertake that task himself.  Very accurately he gauged
+John's intentions, guessed his destination, and calculated the hour
+of his return.  Once back again, he would risk all things to
+communicate with Stark; but he might be met upon the way, and
+stopped once for ever before he did further mischief.  Peter
+planned his operations to an hour; saw Grace settled with his
+sister; prepared his study so that no ray of light could penetrate
+it; directed Relton Norcot exactly where to take his place; said
+a final word to his man, Mason; and then returned into the
+darkness.
+
+"He will come much faster than Malherb," reflected the
+wool-stapler, "and, yes--it may be necessary."
+
+He went back into the house, visited his dressing-room, and
+brought from it a double-barrelled pistol.
+
+There was but one way by which John Lee would return: down
+a narrow lane which separated Norcot's estate from the domains
+of the Manor; and here the wool-stapler stationed himself.  It
+was still dark, and after a patient hour, the night wind quickened
+Peter's wits.  Upon the first glimmer of dawn, he asked himself
+a question.
+
+Why wait a moment longer?  Why not escape this simple
+difficulty by a little haste?
+
+In an instant he determined to call up Cecil Stark and precipitate
+the marriage.  But his intention came too late.  A horse's
+hoofs already clattered down the lane, and the shadowy figure
+of a mounted man approached.  Whereupon Peter Norcot leapt
+into the path from a high hedge, where he had taken his position.
+He lifted up his voice and called to the horse; and 'Victor,'
+knowing his master's tones, stood still.
+
+John Lee had fulfilled his task, and was now returning from
+Fox Tor Farm; while, many miles behind him, followed Maurice
+Malherb with Thomas Putt and Mark Bickford, at the best pace
+they could command.  All three were mounted, and all three
+were well armed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FAREWELL, LOVEY LEE
+
+Dawn, like a red slant gash on a dead man's throat, surprised
+Putt and Bickford where they waited for their master on
+the way.  They had started before him, for Malherb's saddle-horse
+was at grass and had to be captured after Lee brought his
+news.
+
+"I shall, however, quickly overtake you," Mr. Malherb said to
+his men.  "Travel by Sherberton; hold over Believer Tor; then
+pass under Dagger Farm and cross East Dart at the pack-horse
+bridge."
+
+These things the labourers had done and now hesitated to
+proceed to Chagford without Maurice Malherb.  They dismounted,
+therefore, by the old 'cyclopean' span that still crosses Dart
+at Postbridge, sheltered themselves and their steeds against the
+sting of the air and listened where Dart sang to the savage
+dawn.  Young green things of the year shivered in the morning
+chill; nature still slept; the men got under a flaming brake
+of spring furze that made light in the grey; then, waiting there,
+they heard the clink of iron-shod feet on granite and knew
+that somebody was crossing the bridge.  A heron floated upon
+broad wings down stream; and in the marshes at hand a
+cock curlew woke and uttered strange, bubbling cries of warning
+to his mate.
+
+One tall, thin figure appeared upon the bridge, and Putt
+observed it.
+
+"What a maypole!" he cried, "yet how a minces in his going
+for such a long-legged un!"
+
+"I'll wager the man's up to no good at this hour.  Us have
+both got hoss pistols: let's stop him!  'Twill warm us," exclaimed
+Bickford.
+
+Thomas agreed, and together they leapt from their hiding-place
+and blocked the passage of the bridge.  Then Putt, at close
+quarters, stared into the great white face frowning down upon him
+and nearly fell into the water.
+
+"God's Word!  'Tis a ghost from the grave," he shouted.
+"'Tis the old varmint us buried after Christmas, come to life an'
+got into breeches!"
+
+But Mark Bickford had no imagination.
+
+"If she'm alive, us never buried her," he declared.  "Cock
+your pistol an' hold it to her head."
+
+"You stand still, Lovey Lee, an' give an account of yourself,"
+commanded Putt.  "Since you'm alive, I don't care a farden for
+you."
+
+"That ban't my name," answered the ancient woman gruffly.
+"Stand by an' let me pass, or I'll knock 'e in the river, the pair
+of 'e!"
+
+"Her can talk an' tell lies, so her's no more a ghost than us,"
+said Bickford.  "Now what be you doing here, an' where be you
+going, you bad old devil?"
+
+Lovey drew herself up and regarded the two clowns with indignation.
+She felt it hard that at this critical moment of her life
+such rubbish should beard her thus.  All had fallen out as she
+desired.  Her wealth was secure.  In her flat bosom she carried
+two thousand pounds of paper money provided by Peter Norcot;
+upon her back was a little box strapped tightly there.  For the
+rest she bore a heavy stick and was now upon her way to
+Ashburton.  Plans were completed for her escape.  She would
+proceed to Dartmouth and thence to France.
+
+Perceiving that she had been recognised, the miser attempted
+no further evasion.  These peasants must be bought and that
+instantly.  Putt was angry with Lovey for the tricks that she had
+played on honest men; but Bickford appeared merely curious to
+learn her recent history.
+
+"They wanted to hang you, and still want to," declared Tom.
+"But now the world thinks as master killed you."
+
+"Let it go on thinking so," said Lovey.  "What matter what
+the world thinks, my bold heroes, so long as you've got money in
+your purses?  I be busy just now, so let me go my way, please,
+without more speech."
+
+"A man's purse be his stronghold as you say," answered
+Bickford; "an' mine's nought better'n a shelled peascod this
+many days; but since there's twenty pound on your head, me an'
+Putt here will make ten apiece by you."
+
+"Ten pound was offered, not twenty," answered Lovey.
+
+"I say 'twas twenty."
+
+"You'm a cruel devil to rob an old woman."
+
+"'Tis the State will pay, not you," answered Bickford.
+
+"An' you'm the cruel devil," retorted Putt--"you as have
+brought Malherb's head so low--to the grave a'most."
+
+"Money's money," repeated Bickford, "an' if you've got any,
+Mother Lee, now be the time to spend some.  Us know you'm
+made of it, for all your rags.  What'll you pay us not to take you
+along to Prince Town?"
+
+Lovey wrung her hands.
+
+"You silly zanies--me--look at me--clad in a dead man's
+clothes!  Money--a few poor pounds scraped together--God He
+knows how few.  An' a long life of starvation to come by 'em."
+
+"What's in thicky box?" asked Bickford abruptly.
+
+"Nought--a mere glass toy kept for old sake's sake.  A thing
+not worth a rush but for memory.  An' since you ax for money,
+I'll give 'e half I've got, though 'tis like giving 'e my life's
+blood--a five-pound note to share."
+
+Her greed, even in this tremendous crisis, overreached her wit.
+A round sum had dazzled the labourers, and they had doubtless
+accepted it and let her depart, only to regret their conduct too
+late.  But this miserly offer ruined Lovey Lee.  Bickford was of
+a grasping nature also.  Now greed met greed, and both man and
+woman were presently punished.
+
+"'Tis much too little.  Us want to see what be in that box
+slung so snug on your shoulder."
+
+"An' see I will," added Tom Putt.
+
+"My solemn word of honour, 'tis no more than a little trashy
+joney of glass--a keepsake of one long dead.  Not worth a
+shilling to anybody but me.  Leave that.  Since five won't satisfy
+you I'll make it ten.  Then I'm a ruined woman."
+
+"Give me that box--else I'll take it," said Putt firmly.
+
+"Not that, not that; if you'm a man, don't touch it.  'Tis
+everything to me, nought to nobody else.  I was lying--I was
+lying to 'e.  I be in such a hurry.  I've got more than I said--just
+a few pounds.  Fifty-fifty sovereigns in paper--twenty-five
+apiece to let me go my way."
+
+"That's better," said Putt.  "I'll close at that if you will,
+Mark."
+
+"Not me--not now.  Her's lying still.  Us have got her, now
+us'll squeeze her.  Us must see what's in that box--money or no
+money.  I lay 'tis stuffed with diamonds."
+
+"Oh, Christ!" cried the woman.  "What 'tis to deal with two
+pig-headed fools!  Here--here be a hundred pounds--take it
+and let me pass."
+
+She turned from them, dived in her breast and flourished the
+notes before their faces.
+
+"Pretty money seemingly, but not enough," said Bickford.
+"I lay there's thousands hid where your damned old heart beats.
+An' not a penny of it but what was stolen."
+
+"An' I be more set than ever on seeing the inside of that there
+li'l box," added Putt stolidly.  "An' I be going to, or God's my
+judge, I'll take you to Prince Town, Lovey Lee."
+
+The woman stared helplessly upon them.
+
+"There ban't no law on your side," continued Putt calmly;
+"for you'm dead an' buried in Widecombe churchyard; and a
+human, once dead an' buried, have no more rights than a bird in
+a tree.  So you'd best to open that box afore I take it away from
+'e for good an' all."
+
+Fire flashed in Lovey's eyes and her teeth closed like a trap.
+More than her life was now at stake; yet she stood powerless
+before this determined man.
+
+"Will you swear to give it back to me, afore the God of
+Doom?" she asked, drawing the box round from her shoulder.
+
+"I'll swear to nought.  If 'tis only a glass image, it be useless
+to any sensible chap, an' you can keep it.  But if 'tis watches or
+gold trinkrums, then you've stole 'em, an' we'll take 'em for
+ourselves," declared Bickford.
+
+"See for yourself, then, you cursed clods!  An' come off this
+bridge.  If it fell!"
+
+The woman's anger died as she opened her box; her hands
+trembled; her man's hat had fallen off, and tattered wisps of
+white hair hung round her head.  She sat down, cowered over
+the treasure, and revealed her sex in this attitude.
+
+Lovey opened her box with utmost care, and from a close
+packing of sphagnum moss, brought forth the Malherb amphora.
+Putt took it clumsily, and she screamed to him to be cautious.
+Bickford then examined the box, and reported that nothing more
+remained in it.
+
+"Then give my poor vase back for the love of your mothers,"
+she cried.  "You see 'twas solemn truth I spoke to 'e."
+
+"First, there's the matter of money," answered Bickford.
+"What money be you going to part with?  You'm made of banknotes
+by the look of it.  Maybe you'll never get the chance of
+setting up two young men in life again."
+
+"If I could get my hands on your dog's throat!"
+
+"You can't; an' best be civil, or you'll repent it," answered
+Bickford.
+
+Then he took the amphora from Putt's hand, walked twenty
+yards away, and set it up carefully on a rock.
+
+"You said fifty each," said Mark as he returned.  "I lay you
+meant more."  Then the labourer broke off and addressed his
+companion.  "Ban't no sin to drag money out of this old
+mully-grubs; for you know so well as me that she never come by an
+honest penny in her life.  Now I've slicked up her trash 'pon
+yonder rock, an' I be going to chuck stones at it till she comes to
+my figure; and sarve her damn well right, for she's bad to the
+bone--as all Dartymoor knows."
+
+Lovey shrieked and Thomas Putt answered judicially--
+
+"To terrify some money out of her be a fair thing.  'Tis
+payment for what master suffered."
+
+The woman screamed and groaned.  She fell at their feet,
+clasped their knees, grovelled, uttered blessings and cursings,
+raved until a steam hung over her lips in the chill air, called upon
+God and the devil to help her.
+
+"What's the figure then?" asked Putt.
+
+"Five hunderd--five hunderd pound this instant between you.
+For your sweethearts for----"
+
+In answer, and before Putt, who was well satisfied, could stop
+him, Mark Bickford had flung a stone at the amphora.  The
+pebble started to the right, came round true with the throw, and
+missed the precious vessel by inches.  The woman followed the
+flight, and a lifetime of agony passed over her in the space of
+seconds.  Then she turned upon Mark and poured forth a flood
+of appalling curses.
+
+"Ban't five hunderd enough?" asked Thomas calmly.
+
+"No, Tom, it ban't," answered the avaricious Bickford.  "This
+here's the chance of a lifetime.  Us'll be made men or mice, for
+evermore."
+
+Putt picked up a stone.
+
+"I do think she'm rich enough to part with a bit more," he
+said.  "Now I be going to have a chuck, an' I'm a better shot
+than him, ban't I, Mark?"
+
+"Yes, you be."
+
+"Three hunderd--three hunderd--four hunderd--four hunderd
+for each of 'e.  I'd tear my heart out for 'e if I could, you greedy,
+cruel dogs.  Spare it, spare all that an old woman have got in
+the wide world.  If you knew--if----"
+
+Putt flung a stone and took care to do no harm.  His missile fell
+into the river a yard wide.  Then Bickford prepared to fling again.
+
+"Third time be lucky," he said.  "I'll bet you all the old
+bitch's money as I scat un to shivers now."
+
+"Four fifty for each of 'e--four hunderd an' fifty each; an' it
+do leave me picked clean to the bone."
+
+She plunged her hand into her breast and dragged out a pile
+of notes.
+
+"Take it an' leave me to starve, you sarpints; you as rob
+widows' houses.  Take it; an' may it turn to hell fire an' burn
+your entrails for everlasting!"
+
+"Four fifty's good enough for me," said Putt.
+
+"Bah! you'm a fool," answered Bickford.  "You don't know
+how to pick a nut when you've got one.  Leave her to me.  I
+say five hunderd apiece--that, or this stone goes."
+
+"Before the eyes of Heaven, I haven't got it!  Strip these
+dead man's rags off me; you'll find no more.  'Tis every farthing
+I have in the world--a long life's bitter earnings!"
+
+The labourer, with an eye upon her, drew his hand slowly
+back to throw again.  For a second Lovey's fingers fluttered
+involuntarily towards her breast; and Mark Bickford saw and
+laughed in triumph.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!  I knowed I was right.  Yet I'll send it along;
+just to bring the old hell-cat to reason."
+
+He flung again, without meaning to injure the amphora, but
+hit the rock on which it stood and missed the treasure by a hair's
+breadth.  At the same moment Maurice Malherb's horse appeared
+round the rock, and the glancing stone very nearly struck
+Mr. Bickford's master.
+
+"You vagabonds!  What means----?" cried out Malherb.
+
+Then he broke off and stared at an object near his elbow.  There,
+under red dawnlight, glittered the Malherb amphora, and the
+frank yet lurid illumination awoke new beauties in that dazzling
+gem.  Each Cupid blushed with life as he peeped from the
+acanthus leaves.  For a moment the master glared at his treasure
+while Bickford and Putt shivered.  Then Lovey Lee, perceiving,
+indeed, that hope was dead, uttered a mournful howl.  The
+sound wakened Malherb from his trance.  He dismounted, picked
+up the amphora, and came forward.
+
+"What man is that?" he asked; "and what are you knaves
+doing, loitering here?"
+
+Then he approached Lovey, and knew her, and his servants
+saw him turn pale.  He dropped back a pace and the amphora
+fell out of his hand--into soft heather where it took no hurt.
+A moment later his face turned cherry-red and his eyes rolled
+up.  Putt rushed forward, but the danger passed and Malherb's
+brain resisted the shock.
+
+"I must not rejoice too soon, or I may perish.  And
+yet--speak.  This is a woman--the woman of all women!"
+
+"'Tis true, your honour's goodness.  Lovey Lee, begging your
+pardon; her as you thought you'd properly knocked 'pon the
+head."
+
+"An' she'm wrapped up in fifty-pound notes, your honour,"
+said Bickford, "an' I hope your honour won't let her keep 'em
+from two honest men, for 'tis stolen money, an' her was going
+to----"
+
+"Peace!" thundered Malherb.  "Take yourselves and your
+buzzing behind me."
+
+He had not removed his eyes from Lovey Lee's face.  His
+mind and soul were there.
+
+Now he approached her and spoke gently.
+
+"Tell me," he said.  "Let me hear your voice.  Do not fear.
+Are you Lovey Lee--she whom I struck down and left for dead
+a thousand years ago on Cater's Beam?"
+
+Lovey calculated the chances.  She was broken now, for at
+last the Malherb amphora lay in the power of its rightful owner.
+Unconquerable hate gleamed in her eyes, but her voice sounded
+meek and mild.
+
+"A cruel blow, Malherb, an' me so old.  Yet I agged 'e to it.
+Forgive my evil tongue.  I'm a woman still, for all my wickedness.
+I'll kneel to 'e; I'll pray to 'e; I'll lick thy boots.  I've
+paid for my sins, God knows that; don't send me to the gallows,
+after all these days."
+
+"You are Lovey Lee?"
+
+"Ess--that forlorn wretch.  Look!"
+
+She pulled back her hair and he saw his handiwork.
+
+"Forgive a coward's blow, woman."
+
+"'Twas the hand of God, not yours," she answered.  "When
+you cracked my head, you let a thousand devils out.  I bless
+your name--even I----"
+
+"This day is sacred for evermore," he said very slowly.  "To
+many you have brought darkness and sorrow; to me you stand
+here now a messenger of light from Heaven--an angel of good
+tidings.  Henceforth may your name be blessed.  Alive and not
+dead!"
+
+The labourers stared, and Lovey cast them a bitter glance that
+penetrated to their rude consciousness.  Their hopes, at least,
+were shattered.
+
+She pointed to the amphora, where it lay at Malherb's feet.
+
+"They've stabbed me to the soul and taken half my remaining
+years from me.  A moment more and it would have been splinters
+in the river--my life and my heart's blood."
+
+Maurice Malherb stared at the glass bubble.  To him it was
+an atom of inconceivable insignificance in the face of this
+stupendous discovery that Lovey lived.
+
+"Her snake's life be wrapped up in that toy, your honour,"
+said Bickford, "an' I'll swear to God she said it weren't of no
+account to anybody but her."
+
+"'Twas true.  If you'd cracked it, my life would have cracked
+with it.  But now--'tis mine no more.  My light's out; my
+thread's spun.  I only ax that I may hold it in this old hand
+once again; then I'll give it to 'e, an' vanish out of man's sight
+for ever."
+
+This she said meaning to destroy the vase, to dash it into a
+thousand fragments at Malherb's feet and take the consequences.
+He did not guess at her malignant purpose.  Her harsh, high
+voice was now the music of Heaven to his ear; the lizard life in
+her wrinkled carcase oozed like balm upon his sight and made
+him young.  He feasted his senses upon her, even while he
+doubted his senses; and in spirit uttered a petition to his Maker
+that this might be no dream.
+
+"Touch me, Lovey Lee," he commanded.  "Hold my hand
+in yours, press upon it.  I must feel your flesh warm; I must
+put my finger upon your pulse that I may know your heart is
+beating.  You have risen from the dead and lifted me from
+worse than death.  Give me your hand."
+
+She held out to him her gnarled, huge paw.  It was wrinkled
+and bony; each great artery ran like a blue cord under the brown
+skin; each black nail was sharp as an eagle's claw.
+
+"Heed your going," she said, "else that treasure there will fall
+under your heel--the amphora."
+
+He saw her eyes burning upon it, and a sudden, mad, Malherb
+impulse took him.
+
+"You have given me my life once more, shall I rob you of
+yours again?  No!  Take up that trash and begone.  Bear
+witness she lives, you men.  Now depart, and let that
+glass--priceless as the world goes--be my payment to you.  'Tis little
+enough for what I gain this day--light, air, life, Heaven, the
+right to walk the earth and to look the world in the face.  An
+innocent man!  Oh, God of Mercy, I thank Thee!"
+
+With a strange cry, as of some mother-beast that recovers her
+lost young, the ancient creature fell upon her treasure, hid it
+away quickly and disappeared, like a shadow, behind the mist.
+Not a word she spoke of thanks nor of blessing; but she gathered
+up the amphora and melted away into the morning air, like some
+fantastic exhalation of dawn that vanishes at sunrise.
+
+Neither did Malherb speak again.  He mounted his horse,
+watched Lovey depart, and then, forgetting, as it seemed, the
+men behind him, galloped fast upon his way.  Exultation marked
+his movements.  His attitude was of a boy that rode to hounds,
+liven the gravity of the present enterprise was for a time
+powerless to make him grave.
+
+The men behind him felt that their master was struggling
+with a full heart.  They knew that had he been alone, Malherb
+had shouted to the sun and wakened the echoes of the ancient
+hills with thanksgivings.  The nature of his joy they failed
+signally to apprehend.  As for Bickford and Putt, their own
+state was the reverse of gracious.
+
+"I can't go so fast," said Mark to Tom.  "Us have made damned
+fools of ourselves to-day--got within reach of hundreds and
+missed 'em.  I could tear my hair off.  Blast the old witch!"
+
+"'Tis fair payment for being so beastly greedy," answered Putt.
+"All your fault.  If you'd took what she offered last, you'd have
+had it in your pocket now, instead of nought.  Sarve you right."
+
+"I ban't much in a mind to sit down under it, however,"
+growled Bickford.
+
+"No more be I, for that matter--only just let me think a
+minute."
+
+After riding forward another hundred yards Mr. Putt stopped
+suddenly.
+
+"My hoss have fallen lame," he said.
+
+"Not she," answered Bickford.  "Her goeth well as ever."
+
+"I say she's lame," retorted the other.  "Get you after master,
+best pace you can.  I'll come presently.  There's a stone in the
+mare's hoof."
+
+Bickford's slow brains now perceived his friend's drift.
+
+"You'll get the sack for it," he said, looking back into the
+valley where Lovey Lee had disappeared.
+
+"No great matter if I did; but I shan't.  When the man
+comes to his senses--why, that's the blessed jug all the fuss was
+about!  'Tis worth thousands of pounds."
+
+"Halves wi' me," said Bickford.
+
+"Shares, perhaps," answered Putt.  "I ban't going to say
+'halves'; I've growed rather sick of you since the morning."
+
+In a moment Thomas turned on his tracks and Mark
+Bickford hastened after his master.  Malherb never looked back,
+and the riders were already upon the high ground above Chagford
+and just about to enter that lane, where, two hours earlier, John
+Lee had met with Peter Norcot, when Bickford heard a galloping
+horse and saw that Putt was returning.  At sight of Tom's
+countenance even his phlegmatic companion was staggered, for
+Putt presented a dismal and hideous spectacle.  His breast
+was soaked with blood and four deep parallel gashes between
+white weals scored his face from brow to chin.  His pink-rimmed
+eyes were bulging and one of his ears had swollen to ridiculous
+dimensions.  But upon his back was a box that contained the
+Malherb amphora.
+
+"Aw jimmery! you've got it!" cried Mark.  "But, 'slife!
+she've torn your eyes out of your head!"
+
+"Her tried to.  I've fought a cargo of mountain cats.  God
+knows how I've come out alive.  But I didn't fire--not a shot;
+though sore tempted.  I didn't kill her; she've done for herself.
+I catched her down nigh Drury Farm, and went for her without
+words.  She seed my meaning in a flash.  Curse!  Never I heard
+such a hail of gashly curses; an' she come at me all ends up like
+a bulldog.  Her nails was in my eyes afore I could draw breath;
+but I kept my seat while she tore an' scratched, an' grabbed the
+box; an' by good chance the strap gived way.  Then she ran
+fifty yards after my hoss; an' then she knowed 'twas all up wi'
+her, an' stopped.  'Twas awful what comed after.  Her heart
+cracked.  I heard a sound like a woodpecker tapping, an' looked,
+an' seed her beating her head in with a gert stone.  But she
+couldn't die that way, so she went to a rock an' flinged herself
+against it skull first, like a ram butting.  An' then she rolled
+over, over an' over into the river.  God's my judge I'd have saved
+her if it had been any other mortal she!"
+
+"All that pile of paper money?"
+
+"'Twas nought to her, after the vase was gone."
+
+"All that good money!"
+
+"Pulp by now.  She'm dead this time, anyway, if she'm flesh
+and blood."
+
+"I wish you'd took the money, all the same."
+
+"You can go to hell an' ax her for the money," said Putt
+indignantly.  "I've got this here thing for master--not you.  You'm a
+miserly hunks, an' I hope you won't be a penny the better by this
+job, for you don't desarve to be."
+
+As he spoke the men drew up to their leader, and all three
+riders trotted slowly down the steep lane which led into Chagford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MANOR WOODS
+
+When John Lee saw Peter Norcot at his horse's head,
+he was well satisfied.  That Norcot was determined he
+should not have any communication with Cecil Stark, John
+perceived, but he also knew that while Peter stood beside him here,
+no harm could befall Grace.  To keep the man from returning to
+his house and his enterprise would answer Lee's purpose quite as
+well as speech with Stark.
+
+"Excellently met," said Norcot.  "I've waited long for you.  I
+need not ask if 'Victor' carried you well.  But you're growing too
+busy, John Lee.  Now come aside and explain why you are so
+active in this business.  Have a care, young man!  You run into
+considerable danger."
+
+"I don't fear you.  And you know well enough the reasons
+that I am busy.  You've hatched a piece of damnable knavery,
+and by God's goodness I overheard it.  Stark trusts you; you've
+deceived his honest heart.  But I never trusted you.  Not one
+word of your wickedness surprised me."
+
+"Well, plain speaking is good for the soul, my poor John.
+And any soul-prescription may be worth your attention just now,
+for, unless you mend your manners, I shall have to be short and
+sharp with you.
+
+  "'The dreadful reckoning; and men smile no more.'
+
+You overheard me and my cousin.  Was it all clear to you?
+Were there any gaps?  You may as well know exactly what is
+going to happen since the affair interests you so deeply.  Ask
+what questions you please, but be brief.  Poor 'Victor'!  You've
+made him gallop to-night."
+
+Norcot tethered his horse at a gate; then he entered it and
+Lee followed him.
+
+"Come into the Manor Woods.  I can give you half an hour,
+no more.  After that time our little play begins, and I am to be
+wedded to Grace Malherb, for better, for worse.  You know all
+that."
+
+"And Cecil Stark?"
+
+"Stark, good soul, will play his part and press a wedding-ring
+upon my sister's finger.  Then the light of day serves to show
+him Sergeant Bradridge and a file of soldiers patiently waiting for
+his sapient person to convey him back to Prince Town."
+
+"Think better of it.  Don't blast your own life and that of this
+man and woman.  She will always hate you, as she always has."
+
+"Advice!  Well, take some from me.  I cannot stop long,
+but----"
+
+"Stop you shall, Peter Norcot!  Not until you've killed me do
+you return to this knavery."
+
+"I was afraid you'd take that view.  I don't want blood on my
+hands to-day.  Even I have my superstitions and sentiments.
+Consider; if you detain me how things must fall awry.  It would
+be the play of _Hamlet_ without the Dane.  Why, my fool cousin
+might even lose his head and marry 'em, if that was possible!  A
+pretty conceit.  She'll feel my hand in the dead darkness and
+think 'tis his.  I am dumb and he speaks the answers.  He'll feel
+my sister's hand and think 'tis hers.  Gertrude is dumb, and
+Grace speaks the answers.  But these things cannot be managed
+without me.  I must get back at any cost.  My wedding tour is
+planned.  Better live to think of me and my happy bride upon
+the Continent than perish in this cold dawn.  Death is so final."
+
+"'Tis you shall die, for I will kill you rather than let you
+return now."
+
+"The possibility of this attitude on your part had occurred to
+me, John Lee.  Unfortunately for yourself, you have never
+understood me.  I am no enemy to any living man.  I wish the world
+well.  But I, too, have my life to live, and those who intervene
+between me and my plans and purposes pay for their blunder.  I
+will tell you something, since we have no witness.  It may help
+you to comprehend me and draw you out of the jaws of death,
+wherein frankly you stand at this moment.  I killed my late uncle,
+Norman Norcot.  I took his gun while he sat in thought, and
+thrust it under his chin and shot him like a rabbit.  Do you wish
+to follow him?"
+
+Without answering, John Lee dashed forward at Norcot's throat;
+but Peter's hand, though in his pocket, was on a pistol trigger.
+He leapt swiftly aside, and before Lee could turn, the
+wool-stapler had fired into his body.  For a second John stood
+shaking; then he sank forward and fell on his face.  Frightened
+blackbirds fled shrieking, with shrill chink-chink-chink-chinketty-chink;
+the smoke arose and hung in a thin flat layer under the
+boughs of the trees.
+
+"Lucky wretch!" said the murderer, looking down.  "'Death
+is a morsel best bolted whole,' as divine Montaigne remarks.
+Naught is nastier to chew upon.  May I go as easy when my turn
+comes!
+
+  "'Light lay the earth, John Lee, upon thy clay--
+  That so the dogs may easier find their prey.'
+
+Yes--Squire Yeoland's dogs, and his gamekeepers.  It remains
+to plan your next appearance before I hasten on to my own."
+
+He stood and reflected, then nodded his head quickly.
+
+"They stand along the covert side at regular intervals, and
+happily I know how to find 'em.  Rest there, 'thou wretched,
+rash, intruding fool,' until I've found what I seek."
+
+He put up his pistol, then looked at his watch.
+
+"How time flies!"
+
+Turning round, Peter now plunged into the forest, and at a
+covert side, where a drive was cut through dense larch woods
+with undergrowth of furze and briar, he began to make search,
+and advanced, foot by foot, with the utmost caution.  Each yard
+of the ground he scrutinised as though his own life depended
+upon it; and, indeed, the man's present quest did not lack for
+personal danger.  Here, a yard within the pheasant coverts, were
+set spring-guns two feet above the ground.  The countryside
+raged against these infernal engines, but at that date they were
+legal, and a man might place them in his own preserves if it
+pleased him to do so.
+
+Norcot's purpose was now to discover one of these weapons
+and to drag John Lee before it.  He then designed to discharge
+the gun into his victim's wounded side, and so leave the corpse
+for others to find.  With utmost care he pursued his search; and
+presently he started back with an oath, for his foot actually scraped
+a wire, and, looking up, he saw the short, squat muzzle of a gun
+fastened to a young larch and pointing straight at his belly.
+Peter sweated at this escape.  For a moment it unsteadied him.
+Then tearing down an ash sapling, peeling it, and sticking it
+beside the wire, he returned hastily where the dead man
+lay--thirty yards distant.
+
+Now Norcot deliberately took off his coat and waistcoat, that
+they might escape all mark of this deed.  Next, he bent down,
+grasped Lee under the armpits, gripped his own hands round the
+other's back, and began steadily to drag him where stood the
+peeled ash wand at the edge of the copse.
+
+He had approached to within ten yards of the wire, and was
+turning his head to see his exact position, when a startling quiver
+ran through the inert mass he dragged along.  Lee, though
+wounded to death, was not yet dead.  His feet stuck to the
+ground, and Peter felt a pair of arms, limp until now, suddenly
+lifted and tightening round his waist.  This unexpected spark of
+life galvanising a corpse shook him.  His own breast was wet
+with the other's blood, for John bled from the lung; but he was
+still alive, and Norcot guessed at his vitality by the sudden
+tightening of the wounded man's arms round his neck.  For answer he
+squeezed his wretched burden with a hug like a bear, whereon
+poor Lee relaxed his hold and his head fell forward again.
+But just as Peter had reached the wire and was about to drop
+the dying man in a line with the muzzle of the spring-gun,
+John's consciousness returned.  He appeared to divine the
+enemy's intent, and for a moment his strength waxed and he
+struggled desperately.  Drenched with blood and blinded by
+Lee's arm over his face, Peter started back, to be free of his
+foe, took him by the throat and hurled him to the ground with
+all his strength.
+
+"Die!" cried the murderer.  "Cease this struggling like a
+stuck pig and die decently.  I----"
+
+John had hold of the other's leg, but Norcot kicked him and
+tore himself free as he spoke.  The force of this action, however,
+made Peter lose equilibrium.  He stepped backwards, hit a
+hidden root, slipped his foot and fell heavily upon the wire of the
+spring-gun.
+
+Lee, kicked in the face, had fainted; but he was out of the
+line of fire; and now he recovered consciousness in time to gaze
+about him and witness the end of Peter Norcot.
+
+The unlucky wool-stapler, falling as he struck the wire, had
+received the charge, at close quarters, in his back.  The shot,
+though intended to maim or wound, but not to kill, was, under
+these circumstances, and at this range, fatal.  Moments separated
+Norcot from death.  The stinging, red-hot agony of the blow
+did not deprive him of consciousness.  Then, using his last
+breath, he cried aloud--
+
+"Death and hell--done for!  To leave life now!  No luck!
+Tut--urg--gurg----"
+
+And Lee, with fading eyes, saw Peter Norcot's life-blood choke
+him.
+
+Thrice he writhed; thrice he beat the earth with his hands and
+fought for air; then he perished.
+
+Cock pheasants began to crow in the coverts; and far away, a
+keeper, hearing gun-fire, put a whistle to his mouth and blew it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE PASSING OF JOHN
+
+Gertrude Norcot stood under the morning light, in
+misery and suspense, for the appointed time had passed;
+all was in readiness; only her brother tarried.  Cecil Stark had
+been closeted in the darkened library with Relton Norcot for half
+an hour; the man Mason waited at the door; Grace Malherb,
+wild with impatience, and already frightened at the delay, asked a
+thousand questions, and was with difficulty prevented from leaving
+the drawing-room, where she waited with Gertrude.
+
+Peter Norcot's sister stood irresolute and fearful.  That Peter
+should be late on such a critical occasion was only to be explained
+by unlooked-for ill fortune.  What to do she could not guess;
+possibility of action there was none; nor dared she speak to
+Relton, for he had his hands full with the American.  Then, as
+she stood in the first clear sunshine of that day, came the sound
+of a galloping horse.  It approached swiftly, and, not even waiting
+until the rider appeared, Miss Norcot, positive that her brother
+was close at hand, hastened into the house and bade Grace
+Malherb follow her as quickly as possible.
+
+"At last Peter has returned," she said.  "He will come after
+us in a moment.  Without him we could not begin, for he is one
+of the witnesses of the marriage; but we may precede him now.
+Already I hear him in the hall.  Hasten!  And do not fear the
+dead darkness.  It is vital to Mr. Cecil that no ray of light shall
+yet touch his eyes."
+
+"Thank God that Peter is here, dear Gertrude.  I began to
+fear a thousand things.  Go in front and I will follow you close."
+
+Gertrude hastened behind the heavy curtains that led to the
+study.  Through successive folds of increasing gloom they appeared
+to penetrate; and then a door stayed their progress.
+
+"Hold my hand now," said Miss Norcot.  "Enter with me and
+let me shut the door quickly behind us.  Do not speak yet, or let
+him know that you are here."
+
+"Hark!" cried Grace.  "Voices behind us--but not Peter's
+voice!  Gertrude, it is father!  No other man speaks so deep or
+roars so loud."
+
+A great volume of sound echoed in the rear, and for a
+moment Gertrude Norcot lost her presence of mind.
+
+"Something has happened to my brother," she said.  "I feel
+it--I know it.  He would be here if he had power to be here.
+Come quickly!"
+
+She pushed Grace into the darkened room, followed her and
+locked the door.
+
+"Peace," she said; "let no voice be lifted.  We are in danger!"
+
+Meanwhile Maurice Malherb, followed by Thomas Putt and
+Mark Bickford, had appeared before the dwelling of Peter Norcot,
+and become witnesses to strange sights.  Upon one side of the
+building, standing at ease and evidently waiting for information
+from within, were Sergeant Bradridge and a dozen soldiers;
+while close at hand a barouche, with four horses and a postilion,
+drove slowly up and down.
+
+Sergeant Bradridge saluted Malherb, but received no answering
+compliment.
+
+"There's devilry afoot here!" cried the master.  "We'll not
+wait to ring bells, I only pray we're in time.  'Twould match
+my usual fortune if the blessing that Heaven sent at dawn was
+to be followed by a crushing catastrophe in this affair.  Follow
+close, my men, and use your weapons if occasion demands it."
+
+He dismounted, while his blown horse, with outstretched legs,
+bent its head and panted hard.  Then, banishing ceremony,
+Malherb entered the house, and his followers came close at his
+heels.  Gertrude Norcot heard him bawl for Peter as she locked
+the door of the study.  But none answered, and for a moment
+Norcot's sister regretted her action.  She should have faced the
+furious father and, with an excuse, have led him from the house.
+She lacked her brother's intelligence and ready wit, however, and
+now the four waited in silence, while noises without approached
+and grew louder.
+
+Malherb was raving aloud and tramping through the silent house.
+
+"I'll leave no room unsearched!  The scoundrel lied to me
+when last I came here--or his sister and that white-faced worm
+her cousin, did so.  Come; be rough and ready.  Fiends and
+furies!  What trap of curtain on curtain is this?  The house is
+a spider's web!  Prime your pistols and fire 'em if any man stops
+you."
+
+Malherb began tearing down the black hangings that separated
+him from the study; Bickford lent a hand.  Behind them came
+Putt and his uncle, in hasty converse.
+
+Sergeant Bradridge explained that he was here to capture Cecil
+Stark and take him back to the War Prison; while Thomas in
+few words told the news, and related how that Peter Norcot had
+stolen Grace Malherb from her home and was even now supposed
+to be wedding her against her will by special license.
+
+"'Tis him an' the Lord Archbishop against Mr. Malherb an'
+me an' Bickford here; an' I'll back us," said Putt; "an' if you
+want to make him a friend for evermore, you'd better lend a
+hand to catch this here Peter Norcot; for if I know him, the
+man will take a darned lot of catching.  He may have scented
+John Lee's work and be off a'ready."
+
+"Close up!" ordered Malherb.  "Here's a locked door; but I
+heard voices behind it.  Stand by while I break it down, and
+help me to take him if he shows fight."
+
+He fired his pistol into the lock of the door, blew it out, and
+then dashed into the pitchy darkness beyond.
+
+He felt a woman against him, and Gertrude Norcot's voice was
+lifted.
+
+"Stand back, Maurice Malherb; you are doing a wicked and
+a dangerous thing.  My brother----"
+
+"Where is he?--let him answer for himself.  Who are here
+in this Egyptian darkness?  Grace--Grace--speak!  It is your
+father."
+
+"Dear father--oh, listen, I pray you, and try to understand.
+All is well--all will be well.  Peter has been most good and
+generous.  He----"
+
+"Light!" shouted Malherb.  "Who can breathe in this inky
+air?  Hold the door, Putt.  Let no man escape while I make
+for the window and let in day."
+
+"Her eyes, sir!" cried Cecil Stark.  "For Heaven's sake have
+caution!  It may mean eternal blindness for her!"
+
+"Not my eyes, dear Cecil--yours, yours!  Oh, father, his
+eyes!"
+
+"Damn everybody's eyes!" roared the master.  "There are
+foul things wriggling here--as we find under the upturned stone.
+But see 'em we must, to crush 'em!"
+
+Stark interposed fiercely, and the men closed in the dark.
+
+"You shall not, sir; you know not that Grace's eyes depend
+upon it for their recovery."
+
+"Who the deuce are you?  Not Peter----?"
+
+"Cecil Stark.  I am here to marry your daughter at Norcot's
+wish and hope."
+
+"That Yankee again!  Light, I say, or I shall go mad!"
+
+The men reeled and crashed against the window.
+
+Stark lost his adversary for a moment, and Malherb, feeling
+the curtains, tore them down, got to the shutter behind them,
+and by main force dragged it off its hinges and broke the bolt.
+
+A great flood of light burst upon the room, and every eye was
+dazzled by the morning sunshine.  Cowering in one corner, clad in
+his black robe and bands, sat Relton Norcot; Stark stood against
+Malherb and turned with a cry of horror to Grace as the daylight
+streamed upon her; while she in her turn hastened to him.  The
+brown eyes fell upon the grey, and each saw that the other's were
+unharmed.
+
+Gertrude Norcot spoke to Malherb.
+
+"My brother alone can solve this apparent mystery," she said.
+"I pray you to withhold your judgment and your passion,
+Maurice Malherb, until Peter is here to speak and explain all for
+himself."
+
+"I'm waiting for him.  I've nothing to do with anybody else.
+Where is he?  How comes it that he is not here to marry my
+daughter as he intended, the knave?"
+
+"'Twas for me that he had plotted this romance," said Stark.
+"I cannot hear his name abused.  The fault is all mine.  I----"
+
+"I'll hark to you later.  For the present your business is with
+Bradridge here.  This was what your admirable friend, Peter
+Norcot, had planned for you: a quick return to Prince Town.
+Nothing could be better, I trow.  And now, my clerk----"
+
+He turned to where Relton Norcot had been sitting, but the
+clergyman was gone.  Unobserved he had slipped behind the
+curtains, got out of a window and disappeared.
+
+"He's wise," said Malherb.  "He feels that fresh air and daylight
+will best serve his purpose now.  We shall find him anon."
+
+Then he approached Grace and took her into his arms.
+
+"Come what may, I'm in time.  This is the greatest day of all
+my life.  You shall hear about that.  I could forgive the
+world--I could pardon all my enemies!  But let those who know
+where Norcot bides hasten to him and bring him hither.  He
+must answer for much.  And answer to me he shall before I
+break bread.  That he should prove a knave!"
+
+"If evil has been done," said Gertrude Norcot, "remember
+that my brother is still absent.  Do not wrong the absent,
+Maurice Malherb.  Wait until he can speak for himself.  Yet
+ill has without doubt overtaken him.  Nothing but sudden
+tribulation can have kept him from us."
+
+Her prophecy was scarcely uttered when the man Mason ran
+past Putt and entered the room without ceremony.
+
+"Come," he said; "'tis all over with 'em--both.  One be
+dead an' t'other dying.  They'm bringing 'em 'pon hurdles.
+Keeper Rowe heard gun-fire, and at last, after searching in the
+spinneys above an hour, he found what had failed out there.  Oh,
+my God!--all up with poor master!  Dead as a nail, an' drowned
+in his own blood by the looks of it."
+
+They hastened out upon the terrace, there to find the soldiers
+and a dozen working-men crowding round two hurdles.  With a
+bitter cry Gertrude flung herself upon one, and pressed her arms
+about her brother.  In the bosom of death he reposed; his
+features were ash-coloured; peace marked his countenance.
+Upon each of his eyes the labouring men had set a penny
+to hide them, but the coins fell off as his sister flung herself upon
+Norcot's corpse, and underneath, filmed with death, yet reflecting
+something of the vanished man himself, his blue eyeballs
+stared upwards through a glaze.  They altered his expression and
+brought back to it a shadow of Norcot's eternal smile.
+
+"Shot, your honour," said the keeper to Mr. Malherb.
+"The rights of it be hid, unless yonder man have got enough
+wind in him to tell it.  Us found Mr. Norcot wi' a hole blowed
+through his poor back by one of them damned spring-guns; an'
+t'other be shot too--through the side.  Doctor's coming, for I
+sent a lad after un; but how it all fell out us'll never know, onless
+this poor blid can say."
+
+While he spoke, Grace knelt by John Lee, and he saw her and
+smiled.  Her arms enfolded him.  He had lived to rest his head
+upon her breast and feel her tears flow.
+
+"John, John--dear John; you must not die!  All is well--you
+must live.  There was something hidden.  We shall never
+know.  He said that I was blind, and he told me that my love
+was blind.  And you knew what the mystery was.  Oh, if you
+could speak!  But you mustn't try till you are strong again.
+Rest--shut your eyes--God will never let you die, dear John."
+
+The man spoke faintly.
+
+"Is Mr. Stark there?"
+
+"Here; here's my hand holding yours, Lee.  I know now that
+you were right.  He is dead--but you were in the right.  Forgive
+me for doubting.  Your love guided you, mine only blinded
+me."
+
+"I didn't kill him," whispered John.  "I meant to do it; but
+he killed me.  He was dragging me away because he thought me
+dead.  But I had strength left--and he fell back.  Then a gun
+fired and he died.  I can't tell who shot him.  Be you there, Miss
+Grace?"
+
+"My arms are round you, dear John."
+
+"He meant to wed you in the darkness.  He told me so after
+I'd fetched the master.  He told me all.  Now Norcot's dead,
+for I saw him die.  You're safe--quite safe."
+
+Malherb and a physician were hanging over Lee, but his eyes
+had already grown dim and he did not perceive them.  The
+medical man shook his head.
+
+"Only a matter of minutes," he said.  "'Tis wonderful that he's
+lived so long."
+
+"John Lee," said Malherb.  "You're dying, lad; you're going
+the road we all must go.  But know that you were in time.  My
+daughter is safe, as you say.  All's out.  You've done your duty,
+and, though the hand of God killed this man, 'twas you who were
+the instrument."
+
+"You've died for us, John!" sobbed Grace.  Her cheek sank
+down to his and she kissed him.
+
+"A good way to die--some use--some use.  'Tis better'n I
+deserve--above my highest hopes.  Yet often I dreamed I'd die
+for 'e.  Mr. Stark?"
+
+"I'm holding your hand, John."
+
+"Love her--love her while your heart beats."
+
+"God knows that I will."
+
+There was a silence, then a sigh; then Malherb lowered John
+Lee's head.
+
+"He's gone--a truer Malherb than many who bear the name.
+Let every honest man mourn him, for his life was a pure life and
+his end noble.  He has saved our honour; he----"
+
+The speaker broke off and stared where Grace was weeping in
+Cecil Stark's arms.
+
+"What right have you----?" he asked.
+
+"The right that man died for, sir.  His love makes mine but
+pale, yet, for Grace's sake and for mine, he laid down his life.  I
+would perish for him if I could bring him back to the living; but
+that cannot be.  Therefore I will live to bless his name.  I will
+strive to be worthy of his sacrifice."
+
+"And you, daughter Grace?"
+
+"I was stolen from you, my darling father; and I should have
+been stolen for evermore but for what has happened.  I love
+Cecil and have loved him since I first saw him, so pale and weary
+from his struggle with the storm.  You saved his life for me,
+father.  And dear John died for us; his last gentle words----"
+
+"I heard them as well as you," said Maurice Malherb slowly.
+"I understood them.  Who could not understand them?  There
+is a solemn obligation that attaches to the last wish of any good
+man.  I am in his debt for ever.  God forgive me, for I used him
+ill.  Come hither, Stark.  To-day the lightning of heaven would
+strike me if I spoke one harsh word, or brought one pang to any
+human spirit.  The Almighty has blessed me; yet his ways are
+past our understanding.  That you who are an American--yet--yet
+of English blood.  And there are closer bonds even than
+those of country.  How simple were the last words he spoke!
+Here you stand--you two.  So be it.  Take my girl's hand, Cecil
+Stark.  And before Heaven, remember what that dead man, with
+his last breath, said to you--'Love her--love her while your
+heart beats.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+NEWS FROM VERMONT
+
+Eighteen months after Peter Norcot and John Lee were
+laid to their rest in the dewy and tree-shadowed churchyard
+of Chagford, there arrived a post at Fox Tor Farm with two
+packets from a far country.  For Annabel Malherb from her
+son-in-law, Cecil Stark, of Vermont, came one communication; and
+the second reached Mr. Richard Beer.  His old companion and
+fellow-worker, Putt, had sent it.
+
+After the catastrophe that terminated Peter Norcot's life, it is
+to be noted that Thomas Putt assumed a position of some
+prominence.  Despite his family and his own straitened affairs,
+Malherb regretted the ancient Lovey's tragic end; but since she
+was now without further question dead and buried: at a cross
+road in a suicide's grave, the amphora returned to its owner; and
+Tom Putt, as the man responsible for this notable circumstance,
+received a very generous reward.  With comparative wealth and
+the possibilities of a new country before him, Thomas accepted
+service under Cecil Stark, and when the young sailor returned to
+his own country, he took with him not only his bride, but also a
+white and a black attendant.  Before the lover sailed for home,
+James Knapps had already returned in a cartel ship to his native
+land; but Sam Cuffee rejoined Stark as soon as the American
+procured his liberation; and Sam never lost sight of his master
+again.
+
+At last the mournful mansions of Prince Town were empty
+and deserted; grasses and weeds blossomed where sorrowful
+feet had pressed their courts; the bats squeaked and clustered
+in their mighty corridors; decay and desolation claimed them all.
+Moor folk told how no sweet water would cleanse those floors of
+blood, how pestilence still lurked in the vaults and foul recesses,
+how shadows of mournful spirits here stalked together through
+the livelong night, wailed to the moon and only vanished when
+grey dawn disturbed them.  Dark stories gathered above the
+empty War Prison, like crows around a corpse.  Rumour hinted
+of secret graves and murders unrecorded and unguessed; the
+crypts gave up human bones to the searchers; unholy inscriptions
+and curses against a forgetful God stared out upon dark
+walls at the light of torches; signs of infamy, of evil, and of
+all the passion, agony and heartbreak of vanished thousands
+appeared; hoarded horrors came to light; a spirit of misery
+untold still haunted the mouldering limbo.  Yet as time passed, the
+forces of Nature worked within these barred gates and toiled by
+day and night to sweeten and purify, to obliterate and cleanse.
+The west wind and the rain, the frost and the mist, the sunlight
+and the storm all laboured here.  Torrents washed and hurricanes
+howled into every hole and alley; up-springing seeds and
+swelling mosses softened the old sentry-ways upon the ramparts;
+green things broke the cruel contours of the walls; rusting and
+shattered iron at a thousand windows grew red and dripped
+streaks of warm colour upon the weathered granite.
+
+Now the War Prison has vanished, and its story is told.  In
+the vast archives of human torment the narrative fills but a brief
+paragraph; and therein all that pitiful history, to the last secret
+tear and the last act of malice, to the last noble self-denial
+and unanswered prayer, is recorded, to endure for time.
+
+Mr. Beer read his letter aloud after supper in the servants' hall.
+
+"A very understanding man was Thomas Putt, though cunning
+an' tricky as a fox, as I always told him," declared Kekewich,
+from his seat beside the fire.
+
+"An' larned to write since he went to America, seemingly,"
+said Dinah Beer.  "There was nought that chap couldn't reach
+when he gave his intellects to it."
+
+"He starts off with some general good wishes for all the
+company at Fox Tor Farm an' his Uncle Bradridge, if we should
+chance to meet with him," began Beer.  "Then he goes on
+upon affairs in general in these words."
+
+Richard read from Putt's letter:--
+
+
+"An' I be glad I didn't marry Mason's sister to Chaggyford,
+for to be plain, there's better here, an' a man of sense can have
+his pick of very fine maidens.  But I ban't going to rush at 'em.
+I've got my own bit of ground rented from Mr. Stark, an' pretty
+soil it is too.  The first crop of wheat I takes off it will more than
+pay the expenses of clearing!  That'll make your mouths to water,
+I reckon.  Such crops as come up I never did see or hear tell
+about, an' if anybody had told me there was such fat virgin land
+in the world, just natural with never a load of muck on it since
+the Flood, I should have said the man was a liar.  An' there
+ban't no Duchy in Vermont!  An' never a bigger-minded, more
+generous gentleman living than Mr. Stark.  Thousands upon
+thousands of acres he've got.  Blamed if I don't believe as you
+could put Dartymoor down in the middle an' lose it!  He'm a
+great farmer; an' I've heard un say 'tis the best of the human
+crafts after sailoring.  T'other sorts of business teach a man to
+be rich, an' powerful like, an' witty; but the land--where should
+us be without that?  It keeps the world alive an' finds food an'
+clothes for all the humans on the earth."
+
+
+"'Tis true," said Woodman.  "An', what's more, I hold as the
+land be next to the Bible for keeping a man out of mischief--so
+long as he sticks to it.  'Tis the sticking does it.  If Adam's self
+had but kept to his job----"
+
+"Putt says a bit more; us can have a tell after," interrupted
+Beer.  Then, amid real and lively interest, he narrated a matter
+with which, elsewhere, the master and his wife were also most
+deeply concerned.
+
+Maurice Malherb sat and calculated the value of his next year's
+crop of wool.  As usual, he set it as high as his hopes.  He had
+sold the Malherb amphora for eighteen thousand pounds, and
+henceforth found himself and his farm in prosperous circumstances.
+
+Now Annabel read slowly the budget from Cecil Stark.  It was
+in the nature of a diary, and anon Malherb, pushing his papers
+and figures violently from him, spoke.
+
+"For love of Heaven, leave that solid prosing, and look forward
+to the end.  Grace--how is it with her?  There should be great
+news.  But he's so balanced, so self-contained, so methodical.
+He'll set things in their proper order though the heavens fall.
+Look on--look on to the end!"
+
+"He writes from day to day, dear Maurice."
+
+"Let him.  We need not read so.  Turn the pages quickly."
+
+Mrs. Malherb obeyed, glanced forward, then uttered a joyful
+cry and dropped the budget.
+
+"A boy--a precious little boy; and our sweet one well--quite
+well--before the letter sailed.  'Gloriously happy,' he says."
+
+"I knew it!  Pick up the letter.  A boy!  They have called
+him Maurice Malherb?  That is certain."
+
+She read again; then shook her head.
+
+"Not so?" he asked with a heightened voice.  "Then 'tis
+'Malherb'--just the name.  Yet I could have wished----"
+
+"No, dear heart.  They have not called him Malherb."
+
+He started and flushed.
+
+"Stark's name alone, I suppose?  That is not well.  I marvel
+they could do so improper a thing!  Is it not enough that she
+has broken our hearthstone?  Will she also forget us?
+
+"The little one is called John, dear Maurice--only that."
+
+He was quite silent for a moment, staring before him.  His
+warmth died away and then he spoke.
+
+"Good--very good!  Well thought on!  I'm glad they've done
+that.  And the dead would be glad.  Perchance he is so.  All is
+right with our girl, you say--you hide nothing?"
+
+"All is as right as our love could wish."
+
+"God be praised for His manifold mercies then."
+
+She rose and came to his side.
+
+"Do you remember, Maurice, how once you wished for Grace's
+firstborn, and planned and hoped that he should be a Malherb?"
+
+"Forget it," he said.  "'Tis but a fool's part to remember
+dreams."
+
+He bent his head and his great square jaw hardened.
+
+"No, no.  This place follows me to the dust, and with me
+vanishes from man's memory for ever.  None shall remember
+me after I have passed by, and none bear my name any more.
+Let it depart, like the mist 'of the morning, and be forgotten."
+
+"May our grandchild be even such as you, brave heart!  A
+man among men--generous, honest, just."
+
+Malherb shook his head.
+
+"Never--never.  Rather pray that he follow his father.  But
+not like me--not like me."
+
+She put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+  PLYMOUTH
+  WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
+  PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The American Prisoner, by Eden Phillpotts
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58232 ***