Mary explained it very simply.

"You'm just so clever as me," she said, "but you'm not so generous. You ain't got my powers of looking forward, and you hate to part with money in your pocket for the sake of money that's to be there. In a word, you're narrow-minded, and don't spend enough on manure, Rupert; and till you put it on thicker and ban't feared of paying for lime, you'll never get a root fit to put before a decent sheep."

There was truth in it I do believe, for I was always a bit prone, like my father before me, to starve the land, against my reason. You'd think that was absurd, and yet you'll hardly find a man, even among the upper educated people, who haven't got his little weak spots like that, and don't do some things that he knows be silly, even while he's doing 'em. They cast him down at the moment; and he'll even make resolves to be more open-handed, or more close-fisted, as the case may be, but the weakness lies in your nature, and you could no more cure me from being small-minded with my manure than you could have cured Mary from shivering to her spine every time she saw a single magpie, or spilled the salt.

A very impulsive woman, and yet, as you may say, a very keen and clever one in many respects. I don't think she ever wanted to marry and certainly I can call home no adventures in the way of courting that fell to her lot. And yet a pleasant woman, though not comely. In fact, without unkindness, she might have been called a terribly ugly woman. Yellow as a guinea, with gingery hair, yellow eyes, and no figure to save her. You would have thought her property might have drawn an adventurer or two, for Little Sherberton was a tenement farm and Mary's very own; but nobody came along, or if they did, they only looked and passed by; and though Mary had no objection to men in general, she didn't encourage them. But in her case, without a doubt, they'd have needed all the encouragement she could give 'em, besides the property, to have a dash at her.

So she bided a spinster woman, and took very kindly to my childer, who would run up over to her when they could, for they loved her. And by the same token, my second daughter, by the name of Daisy, was drowned in Dart, poor little maid, trying to go up to her aunt. My wife had whipped her for naughtiness, and the child—only ten she was—went off to get comfort from Mary and fell in the river with none to save her. So I've paid my toll to Dart, you see, like many another man in these parts.

Well, my sister, same as a good many other terrible ugly women, got better to look at as she grew older; and after she was sixty, her hair turned white and she filled out a bit. Her voice was always a pleasant thing about her. It reflected her nature, which was kindly, though excitable. But her people never left her. She'd got a hind and his wife—Noah and Jane Sweet by name; and he was head man; and his son, Shem Sweet, came next—thirty year old he was; and besides them was Nelly Pearn, dairymaid, and two other men and a boy.

Then came along the Old Soldier to Little Sherberton; and he never left it again till five year ago, when he went out feet first.

To this day I couldn't tell you much about him. His character defied me. I don't know whether he was good, or bad, or just neither, like most of us. But on the whole I should be inclined to say he was good. He was cast in a lofty mould, and had a wide experience of the seamy side of life. I proved him a liar here and there, and he proved me a fool, but neither of us shamed the other in that matter, for I said (and still say) that I'd sooner be a fool then a rascal; while he, though he denied being a rascal, said that he'd sooner be the biggest knave on earth than a fool. He argued that any self-respecting creature ought to feel the same, and he had an opinion to which he always held very stoutly, that the fools made far more trouble in the world than the knaves. He went further than that, and said if there were no fools, there wouldn't be no knaves. But there I didn't hold with him; for a man be born a fool by the will of God, and I never can see 'tis anything to be shamed about; whereas no man need be a knave, if he goes to the Lord and Father of us all in a proper spirit, and prays for grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the Dowl.

Bob Battle he called himself, and he knocked at the door of Little Sherberton on a winter night, and asked to see Mary, and would not be put off by any less person. So she saw him, and heard how he had been tramping through Holne and stopped for a drink and sang a song to the people in the bar. It happened that Mr. Churchward, the innkeeper, wanted a message took to my sister about some geese, and none would go for fear of snow, so the tramp, for Bob was no better, said that he would go, if they'd put him in the way and give him a shilling. And Churchward trusted him, because he said that he reminded him of his dead brother. Though that wasn't nothing in his favour, seeing what Henry Churchward had been in life.

However, Bob earned his money and came along, and Mary saw him and took him in, and let him shake the snow off himself and eat and drink. Then began the famous blizzard, and I've often thought old Bob must have known it was coming. At any rate there was no choice but to let him stop, for it would have been death to turn him out again. So he stopped, and when the bad weather was over, he wouldn't go. There's no doubt my sister always liked the man in a way; but women like a man in such a lot of different ways that none could have told exactly how, or why, she set store on him. For that matter she couldn't herself. Indeed I axed her straight out and she tried to explain and failed. It wasn't his outer man, for he had a face like a rat, with a great, ragged, grey moustache, thicker on one side than t'other, and eyebrows like anybody else's whiskers. And one eyelid was down, though he could see all right with the eye under it. Round in the back he was and growing bald on the top; but what hair he had was long, and he never would cut it, because he said it kept his neck warm.

He had his history pat, of course, though how much truth there was to it we shall never know in this world. He was an old soldier, and had been shot in the right foot in India along with Lord Roberts in the Chitral campaign. Then he'd left the service and messed up his pension—so he said. I don't know how. Anyway he didn't get none. He showed a medal, however, which had been won by him, or somebody else; but it hadn't got no name on it. He was a great talker and his manners were far ahead of anything Mary had met with. He'd think nothing of putting a chair for her, or anything like that; and while he was storm-bound, he earned his keep and more, for he was very handy over a lot of little things, and clever with hosses and so on, and not only would he keep 'em amused of a night with his songs and adventures; but he'd do the accounts, or anything with figures, and he showed my sister how, in a good few ways she was spending money to poor purpose. He turned out to be a very clean man and very well behaved. He didn't make trouble, but was all the other way, and when the snow thawed, he was as busy as a bee helping the men round about the farm. He made his head save his heels, too, and was full of devices and inventions.

So when I got over after the worst was past, to see how they'd come through it, there was Bob Battle working with the others; and when I looked him up and down and said; "Who be you then?" he explained, and told me how Mary had took him in out of the storm and let him lie in the linhay; and how Noah had given him a suit of old clothes, and how much he was beholden to them all. And they all had a good word for the man, and Mary fairly simpered, so I thought, when she talked about him. There was no immediate mention of his going, and when I asked my sister about it, she said:

"Plenty of time. No doubt he'll get about his business in a day or two."

But, of course, he hadn't no business to get about, and though he talked in a vague sort of way concerning his home in Exeter and a brother up to Salisbury, it was all rubbish as he afterwards admitted. He was a tramp, and nothing more, and the life at Little Sherberton and the good food and the warm lying at nights, evidently took his fancy. So he stuck to it, and such was his natural cleverness and his power of being in the right place at the right moment that from the first nobody wished him away. He was always talking of going, and it was always next Monday morning that he meant to start: but the time went by and Bob Battle didn't. A very cunning man and must have been in farming some time of his life, for he knew a lot, and all worth knowing, and I'm not going to deny that he was useful to me as well as to my sister.

She was as good as a play with Bob, and me and my wife, and another married party here and there, often died of laughing to hear her talk about him. Because the way that an unmarried female regards the male is fearful and wonderful to the knowing mind.

Mary spoke of him as if she'd invented him, and knew his works, like a clockmaker knows a clock. He interested her something tremendous, and got to be her only subject presently.

"Mr. Battle was the very man for a farmer like me," she said once, "and I'm sure I thank God's goodness for sending him along. He's a proper bailiff about the place, and that clever with the men that nobody quarrels with him. Of course he does nothing without consulting me; but he's never mistaken, and apart from the worldly side of Mr. Battle, there's the religious side."

I hadn't heard about that and didn't expect to, for Mary, though a good straight woman, as wouldn't have robbed a lamb of its milk, or done a crooked act for untold money, wasn't religious in the church-going or Bible-reading sense, same as me and my wife were. In fact she never went to church, save for a wedding or a funeral; but it appeared that Mr. Battle set a good bit of store by it, and when she asked him, if he thought so much of it, why he didn't go, he said it was only his unfortunate state of poverty and his clothes and boots that kept him away.

"Not that the Lord minds," said Bob, "but the churchgoers do, and a pair of pants like mine ain't welcomed, except by the Salvationists; and I don't hold with that body."

So he got a suit of flame new clothes out of her and a new hat into the bargain; and then I said that he'd soon be a goner. But I was wrong, for he stopped and went down to Huccaby Chapel for holy service twice a Sunday; and what's more he kept it up. And then, if you please, my sister went with him one day; and coming to it with all the charm of novelty, she took to it very kindly and got to be a right down church-goer, much to my satisfaction I'm sure. And her up home five-and-sixty years old at the time!

To sum up, Bob stayed. She offered him wages and he took them. Twenty-five shillings a week and his keep he got out of her after the lambing season, for with the sheep he proved a fair wonder same as he done with everything else. And nothing was a trouble. For a fortnight the man never slept, save a nod now and again in the house on wheels, where he dwelt in the valley among the ewes. And old shepherds, with all the will to flout him, was tongue-tied afore the man, because of his excellent skill and far-reaching knowledge.

Mary called him "my bailiff," and was terrible proud of him; and he accepted the position, and always addressed her as "Ma'am" afore the hands, though "Miss Blake" in private. And in fulness of time, he called her "Miss Mary." The first time he went so far as that, she came running to me all in a twitter; but I could see she liked it at heart. She got to trust him a lot, and though I warned her more than once, it weren't easy to say anything against a man like Battle—as steady as you please, never market-merry, and always ready for church on Sundays.

When I got to know him pretty well, I put it to him plain. One August day it was, when we were going up to Princetown on our ponies to hear tell about the coming fair.

"What's your game, Bob?" I asked the man. "I'm not against you," I said, "and I'm not for you. But you was blowed out of a snow storm remember, and we've only got your word for it that you're a respectable man."

"I never said I was respectable," he answered me, "but since you ask, I'll be plain with you, Rupert Blake. 'Tis true I was a soldier and done my duty and fought under Lord Roberts. But I didn't like it, and hated being wounded and was glad to quit. And after that I kept a shop of all sorts on Salisbury Plain, till I lost all my little money. Then I took up farm labourer's work for a good few years, and tried to get in along with the people at a farm. But they wouldn't promise me nothing certain for my old age, so I left them and padded the country a bit. And I liked tramping, owing to the variety. And I found I could sing well enough to get a bed and supper most times; and for three years I kept at it and saw my native country: towns in winter it was, and villages in summer. I was on my way to Plymouth when I dropped into Holne, and Mr. Churchward offered me a bob if I'd travel to Little Sherberton. And when I arrived there, and saw how it was, I made up my mind that it would serve my turn very nice. Then I set out to satisfy your sister and please her every way I could, because I'm too old now for the road, and would sooner ride than walk, and sooner sleep in a bed than under a haystack."

"You fell into a proper soft thing," I said; but he wouldn't allow that.

"No," he answered. "'Tis a good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about. Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I'm the hundredth man—a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of accomplishments gathered from the ends of the world. I'm not saying it ain't a good home and a happy one; but I'm free to tell you that the luck ain't all on one side; and for your sister to fall in with me in her declining years was a very fortunate thing for her; and I don't think that Miss Blake would deny it if you was to ask her."

"In fact you reckon yourself a proper angel in the house," I said in my comical tone of voice. But he didn't see nothing very funny in that.

"So I do," he said. "It was always my intention to settle down and be somebody's right hand man some day; and if it hadn't been your sister, it would have been some other body. I'm built like that," he added. "I never did much good for myself, owing to my inquiring mind and great interest in other people; but I've done good for others more than once, and shall again."

"And what about the church-going?" I asked him. "Is that all 'my eye and Betty Martin,' or do you go because you like going?"

"'Tis a good thing for the women to go to church," he answered, "and your sister is all the better for it, and has often thanked me for putting her in the way."

"'Twas more than I could do, though I've often been at her," I told the man, admiring his determined character.

And then came the beginning of the real fun, when Mary turned up at Brownberry after dark one night in a proper tantara, with her eyes rolling and her bosom heaving like the waves of the sea. She'd come over Dart, by the stepping stones—a tricky road for an old woman even by daylight, but a fair marvel at night.

"God's my judge!" began Mary, dropping in the chair by the fire. "God's my judge, Rupert and Susan, but he's offered marriage!"

"Bob!" I said; and yet I weren't so surprised as I pretended to be. And my wife didn't even pretend.

"I've seen it coming this longful time, Mary," she declared. "And why not?"

"Why not? I wonder at you, Susan!" my sister answered, all in a flame. "To think of an old woman like me—with white hair and a foot in the grave!"

"You ain't got a foot in the grave!" answered Susan. "In fact you be peart as a wagtail on both feet—else you'd never have come over they slipper-stones in the dark so clever. And your hair's only white by a trick of nature, and sixty-five ain't old on Dartmoor."

"Nor yet anywhere else," I said. "The females don't throw up the sponge in their early forties nowadays, like they used to do. In fact far from it. Didn't I see Squire Bellamy's lady riding astride to hounds but yesterday week, in male trousers and a tight coat—and her forty-six if a day? You're none too old for him, if that was all."

"But it ain't all," answered Mary. "Why, he offered me his brains to help out mine, and his strong right arm for me to lean upon! And he swears to goodness that he never offered marriage before—because he never found the woman worthy of it—and so on; and all to me! Me—a spinster from my youth up and never a thought of a man! And now, of course, I'll be a laughing-stock to Dartymoor, and a figure of fun for every thoughtless fool to snigger at."

"You couldn't help his doing it," I said. "'Tis a free country."

"And more could he help it, seemingly," she answered. "Any way he swore he was driven to speak. In fact he have had the thing in his prayers for a fortnight. 'Tis a most ondacent, plaguey prank for love to play; for surely at our time of life, we ought to be dead to such things?"

"A man's never dead to such things—especially a man that's been a soldier, or a sailor," I told my sister; and Susan said the same, and assured Mary that there was nothing whatever ondacent to it, silly though it might be.

Then Mary fired up in her turn and said there wasn't nothing whatever silly to it that she could see. In fact quite the contrary, and she dared Susan to use the word about her, or Mr. Battle either. And she rattled on in her violent and excited way and was on the verge of the hystericals now and again. And for my life I couldn't tell if she was pleased as Punch about it, or in a proper tearing rage. I don't think she knew herself how she felt.

We poured some sloe gin into her and calmed her down, and then my eldest son took her home; and when he came back, he said that Bob Battle had gone to bed.

"I looked in where he sleeps," said my son, "and Bob was in his shirt, quite calm and composed, saying his prayers."

"Trust him for being calm and composed," I said. "None ever saw him otherwise. He's a ruler of men for certain, but whether he's a ruler of women remains to be seen—for that's a higher branch of larning, as we all know."

Next day I went over and had a tell with Bob, and he said it weren't so much my business as I appeared to think.

"There's no doubt it flurried us both a lot," he told me. "To you, as an old married man, 'tis nothing; but for us, bachelor and spinster as we are, it was a great adventure. But these things will out and I'm sorry she took it so much to heart. 'Twas the surprise, I reckon—and me green at the game. However, she'll get over it—give her time."

He didn't offer no apology nor nothing like that.

"Well," I said—in two minds what to say—"she've made it clear what her feelings were, so I'll ask you not to let it occur again."

"She made it clear her feelings were very much upheaved," answered Bob; "but she didn't make it clear what her feelings were; because she didn't say 'yes' and she didn't say 'no.'"

"You don't understand nothing about women," I replied to him, "so you can take it from me that 'tis no good trying no more. She's far too old in her own opinion. In a word you shocked her. She was shaking like an aspen leaf when she ran over to me."

Bob Battle nodded.

"I may have been carried away and forced it on to her too violent, or I may have put it wrong," he said. "'Tis an interesting subject; but we'd better let it rest."

So nothing more was heard of that affair at the time; though Bob stopped on, and Mary never once alluded to the thing afterwards. In fact, it was sinking to a nine days' wonder with us, when blessed if she didn't fly over once more—this time in the middle of a January afternoon.

"He's done it again!" she shouted out to me, where I stood shifting muck in the yard. "He's offered himself again, Rupert! What's the world coming to?"

This time she had put on her bonnet and cloak and, Dart being in spate, she'd got on her pony and ridden round by the bridge.

She was excited, and her lip bivered like a baby's. To get sense out of her was beyond us, and after she'd talked very wildly for two hours and gone home again, my wife and me compared notes about her state; and my wife said that Mary wasn't displeased at heart, but rather proud about it than not; while I felt the contrary, and believed the man was getting on her nerves.

"'Tis very bad for her having this sort of thing going on, if 'tis to become chronic," I said. "And if Bob was a self-respecting man, as he claims to be, he wouldn't do it. I'm a good bit surprised at him."

"She'd send him going if she didn't like it," declared Susan, and I reminded her that my sister had actually talked of doing so. But it died down again, and Bob held on, and I had speech with Noah Sweet and his wife; and they said that Mary was just as usual and Bob as busy as a bee.

However, my sister spoke of it off and on, and when I asked her if the man persecuted her, and if she wanted my help to thrust him out once for all, she answered thus:

"You can't call it persecution," she told me, "but often he says of a night, speaking in general like, that an Englishman never knows when he's beat, and things like that; and when he went to Plymouth, he spent a month of his money and bought me a ring, with a proper precious blue stone in it for my sixty-sixth birthday. And nothing will do but I wear it on my rheumatic finger. In fact you can't be even with the man, and I feel like a bird afore a snake."

All the same she wouldn't let me speak a word to him. She wept a bit, and then she began to laugh and, in fact, went on about it like a giglet wench of twenty-five. But my firm impression continued to be that she was suffering and growing feared of Battle, and would soon be in the doctor's hands for her nerves, if something weren't done.

I troubled a good bit and tried to get a definite view out of her, but I failed. Then I had a go at Bob too; but for the first time since I had known him, he was a bit short and sharp like, and what I had to say didn't interest him in the least. In fact he told me in so many words to mind my own business and leave him to mind his.

Then another busy spring kept us apart a good bit, till one evening Noah Sweet came up, all on his own, with a bit of startling news.

"I wasn't listening," he said, "and I should feel a good bit put out if you thought I was; but passing the parlour door last Sunday, I heard the man at her again! I catched the words, 'We're neither of us growing any younger, Mary Blake,' and then I passed on my way. And coming back a bit later, with my ear open, out of respect for the missis, I heard the man kiss her—I'll swear he did—for you can't mistake the sound if once you've heard it. And she made a noise like a kettle bubbling over. And so of course, I felt that it would be doing less than my duty if I didn't come over and tell you, because your sister's eyes was red as fire at supper table, and 'twas very clear she'd been weeping a bucketful about it. And me and my wife feel 'tis an outrageous thing and something ought to be done against the man."

Well, I went over next morning, and Mary wouldn't see me! For the only time in all our lives, she wouldn't see me. And first I was properly angry with her, and next, of course, I thought how 'twas, and guessed the man had forbidden her to speak to me for fear of my power over her. Him I couldn't see neither, because he was gone to Plymouth. Of course he'd gone for craft, that I shouldn't tackle him. So I left it there, and walked home very much enraged against Bob Battle. Because I felt it was getting to be a proper struggle between him and me for Mary; and that it was about time I set to work against him in earnest.

The climax happened a week later, when the Lord's Day came round again, and we went to church as usual. Then a proper awful shock fell on me and my wife.

For at the appointed time, if the Reverend Batson didn't ax 'em out! "Robert Battle, bachelor, and Mary Blake, spinster, both of this parish," he said; and so I knew the old rascal had gone too far at last and guessed it was time I took him in hand like a man. I remember getting red-hot all over and feeling a rush of righteous anger fill my heart; and an angry man will do anything, so I got up in the eye of all the people—an act very contrary to my nature, I'm sure. The place swam before my eyes and I was only conscious of one thing: my wife tugging at my tail to drag me down. But nought could have shut me up at that tragical moment, and I spoke with a loud and steady voice.

"I deny it and defy it, Reverend Batson," I said, when he asked if anybody knew 'just cause'; and the people fluttered like a flock of geese, and parson made answer:

"Then you will meet me in the vestry after Divine Service, Farmer Blake," he answered, and so went on with his work.

After that I sat down, and my wife whispered; "Now you've done it, you silly gawk!"

But I was too put about to heed her. In fact I couldn't stand no more religion for the moment, and I rose up and went out, and smoked my pipe behind the family vault of the Lords of the Manor, till the people had all got away after service. And then I came forth and went into the vestry. But I wasn't the first, for who should be waiting for me but my sister, Mary, and Bob Battle himself. Bob was looking out of the window at the graves, thoughtful like, and parson was getting out of his robes; but Mary didn't wait for them. She let on to me like a cat-a-mountain, and I never had such a dressing down from mortal man or woman in all my life as I had from her that Sunday morning.

"You meddlesome, know-naught, gert fool!" she said. "How do you dare to lift your beastly voice in the House of God, and defy your Maker, and disgrace your family and come between me and the man I be going to marry? You're an insult to the parish and to the nation," she screamed out, "and 'tis enough to make father and mother turn in their graves."

"I didn't know you was to church," I answered her, "and of course if you're pleased—"

"Pleased!" she cried. "Very like I am pleased! 'Tis a pleasing sort of thing for a woman to wait for marriage till she's in sight of seventy and then hear her banns defied by her own brother! Of course I'm pleased—quite delighted, I'm sure! Who wouldn't be?"

Well, we was three men to one woman, and little by little we calmed her down with a glass of cold water and words of wisdom from his Reverence. Then I apologised to all of them—to Mary first for mistaking her meaning, and to Bob next for being too busy, and to his holiness most of all for brawling under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first—to break the news and spare her blushes.

Well, I went home with my tail a good bit between my legs, in a manner of speaking; and my sister so far forgave me as to come to tea that day fortnight, though not sooner. And she was cold and terribly standoffish when she did come. We made it up, however, long before the wedding—thanks to Bob himself; for he bore no malice and confessed to me in strict privacy after all was over that it had been a difficult and dangerous business, and that the Chitral Campaign was a fool to it.

"The thing is to strike the right note in these matters," he said. "And it weren't till the third time that I struck it with your sister. Afore that I talked of being her right hand and protector and so on, and I offered to be a prop to her declining years, and all that. And I knew I'd failed almost before the words were spoken. But the third time I just went for her all ends up, as if we was boy and girl, and told her that I loved her, and wanted her for herself, and wouldn't take 'No' for an answer. Why—God forgive me—I even said I'd throw myself in the river if she refused again! But there it was: she yielded, and I kissed her, and she very near fainted with excitement. And I want you to understand this, Rupert Blake: I'm not after her stuff, nor her farm, nor nothing that's worth a penny to any man. Her will must be made again, but everything goes back to you and yours. I only ask to stop along with her till I'm called: for I'm alone in the world and shouldn't like to be thrust out. And if Mary goes first, then I ordain that you let me bide to my dying day in comfort out of respect to her memory. And that's all I ask or want."

I didn't see how the man could say fairer than that, and more did my wife. And it all went very suent I'm sure. They was wedded, and spent eight fairly happy years together, and Bob knew his place till Mary's dying day. He didn't kill himself with work after he'd got her; and he wasn't at church as regular as of old; but he pleasured her very willing most times, and was always kind and considerate and attentive; and if ever they had a word, only them and their Maker knew about it.

She loved him, and she loved the ring he put on her finger, and she loved signing herself "Mary Battle"—never tired of that. And then she died, and he bided on till he was a very old, ancient man, with my son to help him. And then he died too, and was buried along with his wife. He was always self-contained and self-respecting. He took his luck for granted and never made no fuss about it; and such was his character that no man ever envied him his good fortune. In fact, I do believe that everybody quite agreed with his own opinion: that he hadn't got any more than he deserved—if as much.



No. V

WHEN FOX WAS FERRYMAN

We Dittisham folk live beside Dart river and at what you may call a crossing. For there's a lot of people go back and forth over the water between us and Greenway on t'other bank, and so the ferryman is an important member of the community, and we often date things that happen by such a man who reigned over the ferry at the time, just as we think of what fell out when such a king reigned over the country.

And this curious adventure came to be when Fox was ferryman, and nobody had better cause to remember it than old Jimmy Fox himself, for to him the tale belongs in a manner of speaking, though you may be sure he wasn't the man who used to tell it.

Jimmy Fox not only ran the ferry, but he was master of the 'Passage House' inn, a public that stood just up top of the steps on the Dittisham landing, and as this was the spot where passengers crossed, and there weren't no beer at Greenway, they naturally took their last drink at the 'Passage House' before setting forth, and their first drink there on landing. So it rose to be a prosperous inn enough. Mrs. Fox was the ruling spirit there, because her husband spent most of his daytime working the ferry boat; but Polly Fox—most people called her 'the Vixen' behind her back—had two to help her in the shape of Christie Morrison, a niece of her husband's, and Alice Chick, the barmaid—a good sort of girl enough.

Fox and his wife were a childless couple, and gave out they'd adopted orphan Christie, and claimed a good deal of praise for so doing; but it weren't a very one-sided bargain, after all, for she worked like a pony, and proved more than worth her keep. In fact, there was little in her days but work, and for a young pretty maiden not turned nineteen, there's no doubt the toil and trouble of 'Passage House' and the money-grubbing passion of her uncle and aunt were a depressing state of life.

But she enjoyed the eternal hope proper to youth and looked forward to a home of her own some day, and better times when the right man came along. She got a little fun into her work also, for the river was her delight, and as Jimmy Fox, among his other irons in the fire, rented a salmon net on Dart, Christie now and then had the pleasure of going out along with the fishers, and spending a few hours on the river. But on these occasions she was expected to work like a man and do her part with the nets. That was labour that gave her pleasure, however, and, thanks to the fishery, there came a day when she met a party who interested her more than any other man had done up to that time.

He was a sailor and a calm sort of chap—dark and well-favoured with a lot of fun in him and a lot of character and determination. First mate of a sailing vessel that traded between Dartmouth and Jersey, was Edmund Masters. He had friends at Dittisham, and it was when along with these on the river fishing, that he got acquainted with Christie. Then, as often as his ship, The Provider, came to Dartmouth port, he'd find occasion to be up at Dittisham and drop into "Passage House" for a drink and a glimpse of the girl.

As for Jimmy Fox, he thought nothing of it, because a sailor man was of no account in his eyes, and, indeed, he and his wife had very fixed ideas for Christie, which all too soon for her comfort she had now to hear.

After they'd got to bed one night, Mrs. Fox started the subject in her husband's ear.

"'Tis time," she said, "that William Bassett set on to Christie. She's wife-old now and a good-looking creature, and the men are after her already—that Jersey sailor for one. And it's only making needless trouble for her to go hankering after some worthless youth when you and me and Bassett are all agreed that he must have her."

They'd planned the maiden's future to please themselves, not her; and such was the view they took of life, that they seemed to think Christie no more than their slave, to be given in marriage where it suited them best.

"There'll be a rumpus," said the ferryman. "But the least said, the soonest mended. William named her to me not long ago, and he brought her a brave dish of plums into the bar only last week. I'll see him to-morrow and tell him to start on her serious and offer himself and say we will it."

But even sooner than he expected did Jimmy see Mr. Bassett, for almost the first passenger as he had for Greenway next day was William. This man owned best part of a square mile of the famous Dittisham plum orchards, and he had a bit of house property nigh St. George's Church also, and was one of our most prosperous people at that time. He was a widower, old enough to be Christie's father; but after five wifeless years he decided to wed again, and having a cheerful conceit of himself and his cash, and reckoning that he had only to drop the handkerchief to any female, decided on Christie Morrison, because her temper was golden and her figure fine, and her character above reproach. As for Bassett, he had a flat face, like a skate, with a slit for a mouth and little pin-point eyes overhung with red hair. He was forty-five and growing bald and his left leg gave at the knee. He was a good sort really, and did kind things for his poorer neighbours. There was a touch of the romantical in him also, and he liked the thought of marrying a pretty girl and making her mistress of his plum orchards and mother of his heir. Because his first had failed him in that matter.

And now, as Fox ferried William over the water on a crisp October morning, he bade him waste no more time, but begin to court Christie like a lover if so be he wanted her.

"We're your side as you know," said Jimmy Fox, "and my wife and I are very wishful to see it happen; but you've got to set on to her, for she's young and a fine sight in the eyes of her own generation. In fact she may fall in love any minute with something better to look at than you."

But William weren't frightened of that.

"She's got a lot of sense, and knows which side her bread is buttered," he said. "She won't trouble about another when she hears I want her. Because she knows my character, and can count on having a very good time along with me. I'll ax her to tea Sunday, and tell her I'll wed her when she pleases. No need to waste time love-making with a shrewd piece like her. She'll come to me and we'll be married afore Christmas. Then she'll know what it is to wed a romantical man."

"I hope you'll find it as easy as you think for," answered Jimmy, "but you can't take nothing for granted with a maiden girl. However, as you wish it and I wish it, so it's got to be. We've brought her up, and her future lies with us."

"And me," added Bassett, and then the boat touched and he was across.

Christie got her invite to tea that evening and agreed to go. Her aunt had given her an inkling of what was coming; but she hadn't given her aunt an inkling of what had already come, though she might have, and when Polly Fox told her that William wanted her on a very delicate errand, and she must put on her best and look her best, Christie said nothing of the big matter in her own mind. For she very well knew that the Saturday before she went to tea at Mr. Bassett's big red house in the plum orchards, she was promised for a walk to Edmund Master's, and she had a certain belief that before that walk was done Master Teddy would ask her a vital question.

He came, and they went along beside the river, where the wild cherry's leaves fell blood red on the water, and where the hanging woods flamed in afternoon sunshine and made a brave glow. For Dart at autumn time is a fine sight, and the beauty of the scene and the blue of the distant, clear and still beyond all that crimson and gold, tuned Christie to a melting mood. She loved the sailor man very well indeed by now, and knew he loved her; and his calm manner and honest opinions, reposeful sort of nature and unconscious strength won her all the way. For his part he'd never met a girl like her in his travels, and being now twenty-six and wishful to wed, felt that he'd be a very fortunate man to have such a wife as she promised to make. He'd got his eye on a nice little house at St. Helier's, where his relations dwelt, and he'd learned from Christie that she'd be well pleased to dwell there, or anywhere, out of sight and sound of her uncle and aunt Fox. So, when he put the question, she answered it in a way to bring his arms round her and his lips on hers. And though autumn was in the air, spring was in their hearts, no doubt, and they talked the usual hopeful talk, and dreamed the usual cheerful dreams, and knew themselves to be the happiest man and woman walking earth at that particular moment.

Nothing would do, but that Master Ted went off that instant to tell Jimmy Fox the news, and though Christie warned him that her uncle had very different ideas for her, he said, truly enough, that in these cases it was the woman's view of a husband and not her uncle's that ought to count.

But Jimmy very soon showed he wasn't going to take Ted, and had no manner of use for him. In fact, he let go pretty hot, and told Edmund Masters that the likes of him—a sea-faring man with a wife in every port, no doubt—wasn't going to have Christie. He blustered and he bullied and he insulted the young man shocking: but the sailor kept his temper very well, and the quieter he was the fiercer old man Jimmy got. And Polly Fox wasn't no better. She spit out her temper on Christie, and wanted to know how a girl, brought up with the fear of God in her eyes, could think twice of a common seafarer.

So seeing they were beyond reason, Masters took up his cap, and left.

"Keep your nerve, my gal," he said to Christie, "and bide my time. Let 'em see we mean what we say; and next voyage I come along, I'll bring my credentials, and if Mr. Fox knows a man with better, then I'll throw up the sponge, but not before."

He took it in that calm and gentlemanlike fashion, but he didn't know his company, or their ideas of proper behaviour; and he didn't know the power her uncle had got over Christie, or the savage nature of the man, that would stick at nothing if crossed.

When he was gone, Fox ordered his niece to her chamber, and when she hesitated, he took her by the scruff of the neck, drove her upstairs to the dormer attic that was hers, pushed her in and locked the door on her. "And there you shall bide, and there you shall starve till you beg my pardon and your aunt's pardon, and take Mr. Bassett, as we will for you to do," he said.

Stunned and frightened out of her life, the girl very near fainted after such treatment; but the night came and passed, and not a sound of her people did she hear; and in the morning—Sunday—'twas Fox tramped up over the stairs and opened her door and asked if she'd changed her mind. She said "No," of course, and begged him for honour and the love of God to be reasonable; but he only cursed her and locked her in again and went his way.

Later her aunt came, but Christie won no comfort from her tongue, and presently stared out at the shocking truth, that in a Christian country among Christian folks, she was going to be starved to death, because she wouldn't wed William Bassett. On Sunday night Ted would sail again, and she doubted if he'd come to see her till he returned, for his papers were at Jersey along with his mother. Then she thought what lay in her power to do about it, and if it was possible to get at Alice Chick, the barmaid—a very clever creature and very fond of Christie. But there was no chance of that, and she felt sure that Alice had been told she was ill and must not be seen.

But it happened that the other girl knew all about the tragedy, because Mr. Bassett had come in the night before, and Mrs. Fox, who was in the bar, had spoken with him and told what was going forward, and William hadn't liked it none too well. So Alice, though she seemed busy and bustled about as usual, heard the ugly truth, or enough of it to guide her actions.

She thought first of going to William Bassett herself, but she couldn't be sure of him, and so went to her own lover instead. Andrew Beal he was—a fisherman that worked for Fox—and that night Andrew Beal tackled a task somewhat out of the common, for Alice saw him for ten minutes in the road after closing time, and bade him be off to Dartmouth so quick as his legs would carry him with a letter that she'd wrote to Masters. Andrew was to get aboard The Provider somehow, and see Ted, and bring his answer in the morning by cock-light. Which things Andrew Beal did do, and before Fox and his wife were stirring, Alice crept to Christie's door and slipped a letter under it.

And a very clever letter it was.

I hear they've locked you up and mean to starve you if you won't take another man (wrote the sailor). Well, keep quite calm and save yourself all fear. People who break the rule of law and order and do such devilish deeds as this must be treated to their own high-handed ways, my dear. I'll call for you to-morrow at dusk, Christie, so be ready, and have your things packed, for you'll say good-bye to 'Passage House' a few hours after you get this letter. And if Alice Chick is allowed to see you, tell her I'll not forget her goodness nor yet her man's. We'll have the weather of 'em before nightfall. Cheer O!

Your loving, Ted.

Well, that was better than breakfast, no doubt, for the hungry girl, and when her uncle stormed up again, to know if she'd come to her senses and would go over and see Bassett, she said she'd never left her senses, and told him, very bravely, that there was a time coming when his Maker would reckon with him and her aunt also.

He gnashed what teeth he'd got left at her, and told her that he'd break her and make her howl for mercy afore she was many hours older. And then he went down house and dared his wife, who was getting a bit skeared over it, to take the girl a crust.

"'Tis my will against hers," he said, "and I've got the whip hand. Another day without food will soon bring her to heel; and if it don't, I'll try what a touch of my leather belt will do for the young devil."

Then he went to work, and the few folk he ferried that Sabbath day all said that Jimmy was getting no better than a bear with a sore head, for he hadn't a word to throw at man, or woman, but mumbled in his beard to himself and scowled at the folk as if they were all his natural enemies.

And meantime the hours passed and Christie, though cruel distressed for want of food, did as Ted bade her, and packed her little box with her few treasures, and put on her Sunday clothes, and wondered with all her might however Edmund Masters would be so good as his word.

But she trusted him and doubted not that things would fall out as he said. She knew that The Provider sailed for home that night, and guessed her lover meant taking her along with him. Indeed, once out of 'Passage House,' she didn't intend to lose sight of him again. She kept calm and watchful as the sun turned west and the day began to sink. Not a sound had come up to her, but she'd heard her aunt shuffling about the passage once or twice; and once, the old woman, fearful of her silence, had looked in and found her rayed in her Sunday best.

She thought Christie had changed her mind, and was going to William Bassett. So she locked her in again and ran down to tell Jimmy, who was below just going to have his tea.

But a good many hours passed before her husband heard the news after all, for, when his wife got below, he'd just heard the ferry bell calling him from t'other side the river and gone down to his boat and put across.

For when folk came to the little landing-stage at Greenway they rang the ferry bell, lifted up on the high post there, and that brought Fox across to 'em till the hour of dusk. And if they called him after that, they had got to pay double.

Jimmy reckoned it was dusk enough by now to make the fare pay twice over, and he was well used to having arguments on that subject as the evenings began to draw in. But this time he had a surprise—the surprise of his life, in fact—for coming alongside the Greenway steps and telling whoever 'twas to hurry up, a voice from above bade him to moor the boat, and come and lend a hand with a box.

"'Twill be a shilling more if you've got a box," said Jimmy, and the man up top answered.

"You can charge what you please."

Then Fox made fast and went up the steps, to find the biggest chap he ever set eyes upon waiting for him.

"You ought to pay double fare yourself," he said, "and where's your box?"

Then the big man calmly gripped him by his neck-cloth as if he was a kitten and, while he did so, another chap appeared from behind the post that held the ferry bell.

'Twas Edmund Masters, and he explained the situation to Fox in a few words.

"Being an old blackguard above law and order, Jimmy Fox, you give honest men the trouble to teach you manners and explain that you can't starve young women, and treat 'em like dogs and think you're going to have your wicked way with 'em when and how you please. So now your niece will be took away from you for ever, and as she's got no particular wish for you to kiss her 'good-bye,' you can stop here and think over your cowardly sins and cool your heels a bit—till morning, I hope. And this is my best friend, Captain Le Cornu, of The Provider, and the strongest man in the Channel Isles. So now you'll know what it feels like to be in mightier hands than your own, you dirty scoundrel. And if you wasn't so old, I'd give you a dozen of the best before we go."

Then he turned to the other.

"Trice him up, skipper."

In half a shake Jimmy Fox found himself bound hand and foot to the ferry bell post. The bell-pull was knotted high out of his reach and a handkerchief tied pretty tight round his mouth.

Two minute sufficed for this job, because no men knew better than those how to handle rope.

"'Tis a very good bit of Manila hemp," said the captain of The Provider.

"And you can use it to hang yourself when you get free again," added Ted.

Half a minute later they were in the ferry boat and away.

Then it was the turn of Jimmy's lady.

The big man stopped in the boat, and Christie's lover, knowing there was no time to lose, bustled into the parlour of the 'Passage House,' and asked Mrs. Fox for the girl.

Whereupon Polly told him to be off, or she'd call her husband to him.

"Give her up, or take the consequences," said Ted, and counting Jimmy would be back every moment, the woman defied him. Luck was on the sailor's side, for the house-place happened to be empty and the bar closed for church hour. So he had it to himself and acted prompt.

"Sorry to touch a woman, though she is a bad old witch that did ought to be drowned," he said, and with that he popped the creature into a big armchair and tied her there.

"Now we all know where we are, Mrs. Fox," he said, "and it won't help you to yowl, because you and your husband are breaking the law and doing a fearful outrage that might send you both to clink for the rest of your evil lives, so you'll do best to keep quiet and thank me for saving you from the wrath to come."

With that he left her, and Alice Chick, who knew all about it and was hiding outside the door, showed him up to Christie's chamber.

The girl was ready for him, and before I can tell it he had her box on his back and was down and away with her at his heels.

A minute later they were in the ferry boat and off to Dartmouth. The tide was just on the turn and helped 'em.

They heard Polly screaming the top of her head off one side the river; while a muffled noise, like a bull-frog croaking, came from the ferry steps at Green way.

"The owls are making a funny noise to-night sure enough!" said the skipper of The Provider.

But Ted was busy. He'd forgot nothing, and now pulled a lot of food out of his pocket for the starving woman.

"Eat and say nought," he ordered, and then he took an oar and helped his friend.

Before dawn the schooner was hull down on her way to the Islands, and folk at Dartmouth stared to see the Dittisham ferry boat adrift in the harbour; but presently there came Jimmy Fox calling on all the law and the prophets for vengeance; and then the nation heard about his troubles and the terrible adventure that had overtook the poor man and his wife. But both were tolerably well known up and down the river, and I didn't hear that anybody went out of the way to show sympathy.

In fact, when the story leaked out, which it did do next time The Provider was over, most people agreed with Edmund Masters that he'd done very clever.

Christie was married to Ted at St. Heliers when he came back to her after the next voyage, and Fox and his good lady got wind of it, of course; but 'tis generally allowed they didn't send her no wedding present.

Somebody did, however, for when William Bassett heard how things had fallen out, his romantical character came to his aid, and, such are the vagaries of human nature, that he sent Mrs. Masters a five-pound note.

"Just to show you the sort of man you might have took, my dear," he wrote to her.



No. VI

MOTHER'S MISFORTUNE

I shall always say I did ought to have married Gregory Sweet when my husband dropped, and nobody can accuse me of not doing my bestest to that end. In a womanly way, knowing the man had me in his eye from the funeral onwards, and before for that matter, I endeavoured to make it so easy for him as I could without loss of self-respect; and he can hear me out, and if he don't the neighbours will.

But there it was. Gregory suffered from defects of character, too prone to show themselves in a bachelor man after the half century he turned. He pushed caution to such extremes that you can only call ungentlemanly where a nice woman's concerned, and I never shall know to my dying day what kept him off me. A man of good qualities too, but a proper slave to the habit of caution, and though I'd be the last to undervalue the virtue which never was wanted more than now, yet, when the coast lies clear and the sun's shining and the goal in sight, and that goal me, 'twas a depressing thing for the man to hold back without any sane reason for so doing.

Being, as you may say, the centre of the story, for Milly Parable and my son, Rupert, though they bulk large in the tale, be less than me, it's difficult to set it out. And the affair itself growed into such a proper tangle at the finish that my pen may fail afore the end; but I'll stick so near as memory serves me to the facts, and, though others may not shine too bright afore I finish, the tale won't cast no discredit upon me in any fairminded ear.

I married at twenty and had four children and they was grown up, all but Albert, before I lost John Stocks, my first husband. Albert, top flower of the basket, he died as a bright child of ten year old. His brain was too big for his head and expanded and killed him. And that left Jane, my first, married to Ford, the baker, and John, called after his father, and known to me as 'Mother's Joy,' and Rupert, who got to be called 'Mother's Misfortune,' because he was a shifty and tolerable wicked boy with lawless manners and no thought for any living creature but self. John was good as gold, but a thought simple. He married and had five childer in four years and never knew where to turn for a penny. But the good will and big heart of the man was always there, and if he could have helped his parents and come by money honest, he'd have certainly done it. A glutton for work and in church twice every Sunday; but his work was hedge-tacking and odd jobs, and he never done either in a way to get any lasting fame. I wouldn't say I was proud of him, and yet I knew he went straight and done his duty to the best of his poor powers. His wife was such another—the salt of the earth in a manner of speaking, if rightly understood, but no knack of making her mark in the world—in fact a very godly, unnoticeable, unlucky fashion of woman. I knew they'd be rewarded hereafter, where brains be dust in the balance, but meantime I'd sometimes turn to mark Rupert flourishing like the green bay tree and making money and putting it away and biding single and keeping his secrets close as the grave.

I never saw none of his earnings and more didn't his father. He was under-keeper to Tudor Manor and very well thought on; but a miser of speech, as well as cash, and none knew what was in his heart. He lived at the north lodge of the big place and woke a lot of curiosity, as secrecy will; but at eight-and-twenty years of age he was granted to be a man very skilled in his business, and the head-keeper, Mr. Vallance, thought a lot of him, and the two men under him went in fear. So also did the poachers, for he was terrible skilled in their habits, and only his bringing up and a patient father and mother had turned the balance and made him the protector of game instead of a robber himself. So there it was: my eldest had a heart of gold and no intellects, as often happens, while Rupert hadn't no heart at all, but the Lord willed him wits above ordinary. He'd come to supper of a Sunday and eat enormous; though never did we get anything in return but emptiness and silence. He'd listen to his father telling, and my John, being a hopeful man, never failed to hint that a few shillings would help us over a difficult week and so on; but Rupert only listened. My John, you see, was one of they unfortunates stricken with the rheumatism that turns you into a living stone, so his usefulness was pretty undergone afore he reached sixty and but for my little bit, saved in service, and an occasional food-offering from my daughter's husband, it would have gone hard with us. This my eldest son well understood and often the tears would come into his eyes because he couldn't do nothing; but no tear ever came into Rupert's eyes. Once I saw him stuff his father's pipe out of his own tobacco pouch and only once; and we thought upon that amazing thing for a month after and wondered how it happened.

Well, that's how it stood when the Almighty released my husband and in a manner of speaking me also. He had been comforted by good friends during his long illness and not only our eldest son, John, would often make time to sit by him and have a tell, but there was the Vicar also and his wife—peaceful and cheerful people, that my poor sufferer was always glad to see. And besides them Mr. Sweet often came in and passed the news, though owing to his high gift of caution he'd seldom tell you anything that wasn't well known a month before. And Arthur Parable was not seldom at the bedside, for he was among our oldest friends and tolerable cheerful along with John, because the sight of a sick person had a way to cheer him and make him so bright as a bee. He'd be very interested to hear about my husband's pangs and said it was wonderful what the human frame could endure without going under. But a nice, thoughtful man who had seen pecks of trouble himself and could spare a sigh for others. He'd often bring my husband a pinch of tobacco, or an old illustrated newspaper; and he liked to turn over the past, when his wife was alive and he'd many times been within a touch of taking his own life.

Arthur was a handsome fellow, and might well have wed again, but no desire in that direction overtook him, and when Dowager Lady Martin at Tudor Manor took sick and had two nurses, his daughter Minnie, gived over her work, which was lady's maid to the old lady, and come home to look after her father. I'd say to Mr. Parable sometimes that, at his age and with his personable appearance, he might try again in hope; but "No," he said. "I've had my little lot and there's Minnie. My girl would never neighbour with a step-mother and I don't want no more sour looks and high words in my house."

"Girl" he called her, but in truth Minnie Parable was five-and-thirty and far ways from being girlish in mind or body. Old for her age and one of they flat, dreary-minded females with a voice like the wind in a winter hedge, eyes without no more light in 'em than a rabbit's, and a moping, down-daunted manner that made the women shrug their shoulders and the men fly. Not a word against her, and the fact she was lady's maid for ten full years to the Dowager can be told to prove her virtues; but then again, the Dowager was a melancholy-minded old woman, along of family misfortunes, and no doubt Minnie's gift for looking at the dark side suited that ancient piece, who always did likewise.

But there it was. With her melancholy nose, thin shoulders and sand-coloured hair, Minnie woke up no interest in the men, and there was only one person surprised to find it so, and that was herself.

She told me once, in her poor, corncrake voice, that she'd never had an affair in her life, though she'd saved money. "I'd always thought to have a home of my own some day," she told me, "for it ain't as though I was one of them women that shun the male and plan to go through life without a partner; but they hold off, Mrs. Stocks, and the younger girls get married."

"Plenty of time," I said—to pleasure her—though knowing only too well there would never be the time for Minnie. "You wait," I said. "All things come to them who wait."

Little did I guess I was speaking a true word, but I went on:

"Them as marry for the eye often find they're mistook, and with your homely looks, my dear, you've always got the certainty no man will snatch at you like he would at a pretty flower. When he comes, your husband will look beneath the surface and there he'll find what's better than pink cheeks and a glad eye. So you wait," I said, "for a chap who's past the silly stage and wants a comfortable home and a good cook and helpmate who'll look at both sides of sixpence before she spends it."

'Twas well meant, but like a lot of other well-intending remarks, fell a good bit short to the hearer. In fact the woman's reply threw a bit of light on character and showed me a side of Minnie's mind I had not bargained for. She flickered up as I spoke and stared out of her faded eyes, and for a passing moment there comed a glint in 'em, like the sun on a dead fish.

"I didn't know I was so plain as all that!" she snapped out. "There's uglier than me in the village, unless I can't see straight, and whether or no, when I marry, it'll be for love, let me tell you, Mary Stocks, and not to count my husband's sixpences!"

"May he have more than you can count, my dear, when he do come," I said, for the soft answer that turns away wrath has mostly been my motto. And then I left her, champing on the bit, so to say; and I wondered where the poor soul had seen a less fanciable maiden than herself in our village, or any other. But 'tis the mercy of Providence to hide reality from us where 'tis like to hurt most, and no doubt if our neighbours knew the naked truth of their queer appearances and uncomfortable natures, there would come a rush of them felo-de-sees and a lot of unhappiness that ignorance escapes.

Well, my poor John went, but before he'd done so it was plain to mark that our old and valued friend, Gregory Sweet, had me upon his mind. Never a word he said while there was a spark of life in John and never a word he said afterwards either for a full year, and I liked him the better for it; but though cautious, he was not a concealer, and never attempted to hide his regard and hope where I was concerned. A woman knows without words, being gifted by nature to understand signs and signals, whether of danger, or the reverse; and so I knew Gregory was very much addicted to me and only waiting the appointed time to offer. For a long while I thought he would put the proposal in a letter, and then, remembering his caution and his terror of the written word, I guessed he'd never so far commit himself as to set it down. But I was ready and willing, for Greg had a tidy little greengrocer's business and they counted him a snug man. A bachelor of sixty-two he was—clean as a new pin of a Sunday and very well thought upon. A bearded man, with a wrinkled brow and eyes that looked shifty to a stranger; but 'twas only his undying caution made them so. As straight as any other greengrocer, and straighter than some. And I was tolerable poor, but not lacking in gifts to shine, given the chance; and I knew Gregory inside out, you may say, and felt that in the shop and the home, he'd be a happier man for my company.

So, when the year was out and he still kept hanging on, though never a day passed but he looked in, or brought a bunch of pretty fresh green stuff, I felt the man's hand must be strengthened.

"I'll save him from himself in this matter," I thought. "He's got a way of thinking time and eternity be the same thing, and he's looked all round the bargain for more'n a year, so 'tis up to me to help him in the way he very clearly wants to go." And I set about him and made it easy for him to see he wouldn't get "No" for an answer when he brought himself to the brink. I made it so clear as a woman could that I cared for Sweet, and I aired my views and dropped a good few delicate-minded hints, such as that he didn't look to be getting any younger and more didn't I; and when the Rev. Champernowne preached a very fine performance on the words, "Now is the accepted time," I rubbed it in fearlessly when Mr. Sweet next came for a smoke and talk after his supper.

"Time don't stand still with the youngest," I said, "and for my part it seems to go quicker with the middle-aged than anybody; and many a man and woman too," I said, "have lived to look back and see what a lot they missed, through too much caution and doubt. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' is a very true word," I said, "and when a man have only got to open his mouth to win his heart's desire, he's a good bit of a fool, Greg, to keep it shut."

I couldn't say no more than that, and he nodded and answered me that he didn't know but what I might be right.

"There's not your equal for sense in the parish," he told me, and being worked up a bit that evening, I very near gave him an impatient answer; but that ain't my way: I just held in and told him that I was glad he thought so, and I believed he weren't the only one. Then he took a curious look at me and said "Good evening," and went on his way.

And, strange to tell, that last word of mine gave me an idea. Looking back I can see what tremendous things was hid in that chance speech, for it decided my life in a manner of speaking. Of course when I told Greg he weren't the only one, I used a figure of speech and no more, because there weren't none else and never had been; but now, as I unrayed for bed, I asked myself how it would be if there was another after me, and though very well knowing that no such thing could possibly happen, I let the thought run, pictured myself with another string to my old bow, and wondered what Mr. Sweet would do then.

I certainly paid the man the compliment of feeling sure, when he heard that, he'd throw caution to the winds and go for me; and since there wasn't in sober truth another as had looked upon me with any serious resolves, I had to set about the matter. The Lord helps those who help themselves, but not if they be up to anything underhand or devious, as a rule, and though I might have invented a tale to hoodwink Gregory Sweet, that must have got back on my conscience, besides being a dangerous thing. Deceived, the poor man had to be—for his own good, but my story must be made to hold water and ring true, else, with his doubting and probing nature, I well knew he'd ferret out the facts and very like leave me a loser.

But one man there was, who could well be trusted to play his part in this difficult matter, and he knew the circumstances and had already asked me time and again when Gregory was going to take the plunge. So I went to Arthur Parable and explained the situation and hoped, as an old friend and a well-wisher and a man far above suspicion, he'd lend a hand.

"It's like this, Arthur," I said. "I can trust you with my secrets, you being a man never known to talk and also a great friend of poor John's." And then I explained how it was with Mr. Sweet and how he only wanted just a clever push from outside to propose and be done with it.

Arthur heard me in silence, then he spoke. "You don't want me to tell the man to offer for you?" he asked, and I replied:

"No Arthur—far from it; but I want you to fall in with a little plot. There's nothing quickens a man like Gregory so fast as finding he isn't the only pebble on the beach; and if he was to hear my praises on your lips, or find us two taking a walk by the river, or drop in and see you drinking your dish of tea along with me once and again, I'm tolerable sure that he'd find the words. It won't throw no shadow on you," I said, "if you was to pretend a little interest in me; but when Gregory found out you was doing so, and heard the name of Mary Stocks in your mouth, and guessed you find your mind occupied with me off and on, then 'twould be the match to the powder in my opinion; and I should never forget your great goodness and bless your name."

He took a good long time before he answered, and I was feared of my life he would refuse to have any hand in the affair. He cast his eyes over me that searching that I felt I might have gone too far; but then he grinned, which was an expression of pleasure very rare indeed with Arthur, and his brow lifted, and he went so far as to wink one of his pale grey eyes, the one with a drooping lid.

"For John's sake," I said.

"As to John," he answered, "I never heard him say he was particular anxious for you to take another, and many husbands feel rather strong on that subject, as you can see when you hear their wills after they be gone; but as poor John hadn't nothing to leave, he couldn't make no conditions to hamper your freedom of action, and for my part I see no reason why you shouldn't marry Gregory Sweet if you want to."

"I do," I said. "He's a man you could trust, and you put safety first at my time of life."

Well, Arthur dallied a bit and didn't throw himself into it exactly; but none the less, before I left him he promised to do his part and make Mr. Sweet jealous if he could without casting any reflections upon himself.

For I found that Arthur had his share of caution also, and before we parted he made me sign a paper acknowledging the cabal in secret against Greg.

"You shall have it back the day he offers for you," promised Arthur Parable, "and I only require it so that if any hard things was said of me, or I was accused of toying with your finer feelings, or anything like that, I can show by chapter and verse under your signature that the man's a liar. And meantime I'll sound your praises if I see Sweet and say you'd teach him the meaning of true happiness, and so on. And I'll come to tea Sunday."

Well, I thanked the man from my heart and since one good turn called for another I asked after him and his girl and hoped Minnie was being a kindly daughter to him and so on. But he didn't speak very fatherly of her.

"She's a melancholy cat in a house," he said, "and women will be melancholy in her stage of life. She's terrible wishful to leave me and find a husband—so set on it as yourself—but of course with no chance whatsoever; for no self-respecting man would ever look at a creature like her. As a rule, with her pattern, they have got sense enough to give up hope and take what Nature sends 'em in a patient spirit. But not Minnie. Hope won't die and, in a word, she's a plaguey piece and she's got a sharp tongue too, and when I'm too old to hold my own she'll give me hell."

"Why don't she go into one of them institutions?" I asked, "There's plenty of places where good work is being done by ugly, large-hearted women, looking after natural childer, or nursing rich folk, and so on. Then she'd be helping the world along and forget herself and lay up treasure where moth and rust don't corrupt."

"You ax her," answered Arthur. "You give her a hint. I'd pay good money to man or woman who could tempt her away from looking after me. And if she thought I was minded to take another wife, I'd get the ugly edge of her tongue up home to my vitals, so us must watch out."

"Don't you let her in the secret, however," I prayed the man, "because if she knew she'd spoil all."

"Fear nothing," he answered; "I can take her measure."

But unfortunately for all concerned, Arthur over-praised himself in that matter, and before a fortnight was told, while we developed our little affair very clever, and I smiled on Arthur in the street afore neighbours, and now and again he invited himself to tea—if Minnie didn't dash in and put the lid on! What I felt I can't write down in any case now, things happening as they did after; but at the time, I'd have wrung the woman's neck for a ha'porth of peas. But she thought she knew the circumstances, and being filled with hateful rage that her father was thinking on another, she struck in the only quarter that mattered and, before I knowed it, I was a lone woman and hope dead.

A good bit happened first, however, and Arthur played up very clever indeed. He'd come along and pass the time of day and I'd look in his cottage to give an opinion on some trifle; and when he came to a tea on which I'd spent a tidy lot of thought, he enjoyed it so much and welcomed the strength of it and the quality of the cake so hearty that once or twice us caught ourselves up.

"Dammy!" said Arthur, "we'm going it, Mary. Us had better draw in a thought, or our little games will end in earnest."

"Not on my side," I said, and that vexed him I believe, for a man's a man. However, I reminded him of his first, and that always daunted his spirit, so he soon went off with his tail between his legs.

But all the same, I couldn't help contrasting Arthur with Gregory, and though Greg might be called the more important and prosperous man, yet there was always a barrier he wouldn't pass, while Arthur, though brooding by nature, could get about himself now and again, and in them rare moments, you felt there was a nice, affectionate side to him that only wanted encouraging.

It was three days after that tea and his praises of my hand with a plum cake, that I found myself left.

It came like a bolt from the blue sky, as they say, and I was messing about in my little garden full of an offer I'd got to let my cottage, or sell it, and wondering if I should tell Gregory, when the man himself came in the gate and slammed it home after him. And I see when I looked in his determined eyes that the time had come. His jaws were working, too, under his beard, and I reckoned he'd got wind of Arthur and was there to say the word at last. And I was right enough about Arthur, but cruel wrong about the word.

"I'll ax you to step in the house," he said. "I've heard something."

"I hope it's interesting news," I answered. "Come in by all means, Gregory. Always welcome. Will you drink a glass of fresh milk?"

For milk was his favourite beverage.

"No," he answered. "I don't take no milk under this roof no more."

So then I began to see there was something biting the man, though for my life I couldn't guess what.

However, he soon told me.

He sat down, took off his hat, wiped his brow, blew his nose and then spoke.

"I've just been having a tell with Minnie Parable—old Parable's daughter," he said.

"Have you?" I said. "Would you call him old?"

"Be damned to his age," he answered. "That's neither here nor there. But this I'd wish you to understand. I've respected you for a good few years now."

"Why not?" I asked, rather short, for I didn't like his manner.

"No reason at all till half an hour agone," he replied. "But now I hear that, while you well knew my feelings and my hopes and might have trusted a man like me to speak when he saw his way, instead of following my lead and remembering yourself and calling to mind the sort of woman such as I had the right to expect, and waiting with patience and dignity for the accepted hour, you be throwing all thought of me to the winds and rolling your eyes on the men and axing them to tea, and conducting yourself in a manner very unbecoming indeed for the woman I'd long hoped to marry."

I felt myself go red to the bosom; but I done a very clever thing, for though a thousand words leapt to my tongue, I didn't speak one of 'em; but kept my mouth close shut and looked at him. Nought will vex an angry man more than to be faced with blank silence after he's let off steam and worked up to a fine pitch; and now Greg expected me to answer back; and it put him out of his stride a lot when I didn't.

I dare say we was both dumb for three minutes; then he got up off his chair and prepared to go.

"And—and," he began again "—and I want you to understand here and now—here and now—that it's off. You've played with my affections and made me a laughing stock—so Minnie Parable tells me—and I hope you'll live to repent it—yes, I do. And I'll say good evening."

"Good evening, Mr. Sweet," I said, "and may God forgive you, because I never won't. You've put the foul-mouthed lies of that forgotten creature before a faithful, wholesome woman and listened to libellious falsehoods spoke against me behind my back, and talked stuff I might have you up for. And 'tis you are disgraced, not me; and when you find a straighter, cleaner-minded and more honourable creature than what I am, and one as would make you a finer partner, or had more admiration and respect for your character and opinions than what I had until ten minutes ago, then I shall be pleased to wish her luck."

"It's all off, all the same," he said, and began to shamble down the path; but he'd lost his fire.

"Yes," I said, following him to the gate. "It's off all right, and angels from heaven wouldn't bring it on again. I never had it in my mind for an instant moment to take any man but you, and if I haven't been patient and long-suffering, waiting till your insulting caution was at an end, then God never made a patient woman. But it's off, as you truly remark, and I'm very well content to remain the relic of John Stocks, who valued me and who died blessing my name."

He went out with his head down and his nose very near touching his stomach; and after he'd gone I got in the house so limp as a dead rat. I'd bluffed it all right to Gregory; but when my flame cooled, I found the tears on my face and let 'em run for an hour. Then I calmed down and licked my bruises, so to speak, and felt a terrible wish for to hear a friendly fellow creature and get a bit of sympathy out of someone. For I'm a very sociable kind of woman; so I put on my bonnet and was just going round to see Mrs. Vincent and ask after the new baby and then tell my tale, her being a dear friend to me and her family also, when another man came to my door and there stood my son Rupert—him known as 'Mother's Misfortune,' to distinguish him from my dear eldest one.

I wasn't in no mood for Rupert, and I told him so, but I marked he was mildly excited, and that being a most unusual state for him, I stopped five minutes and axed him what he'd come for.

"You'll laugh," he said sitting down and lighting his pipe.

"I ain't in a very laughing temper," I answered, "and if I laugh at anything you say, it will be the first time in your life I ever have done."

"Dry up," he said, "and listen. I've just come for a bit of a tell with Minnie Parable."

Then I forgot myself.

"To hell with Minnie Parable!" I cried out. "I don't want to hear nothing about that misbegot vixen."

For once Rupert was astonished, but he weren't so astonished as me a minute later.

"I'm sorry you take that view," he replied; "because she'll be your daughter-in-law in six weeks. I be going to marry her."

I never can stand more'n one shock a day, and now I felt myself getting out of hand terrible fast. But I drawed in a deep breath of air and fell on my chair.

"There's a good deal more in that woman than meets the eye," went on Rupert. "Her face would frighten a hedge-pig, no doubt, and her shape be mournful; but I ain't one to marry for decorations. She's a woman, and she can cook and she knows the value of money, and also knows my opinions on that subject. I didn't find her a bad sort by no means. She's got sense and she ain't a gadder, and would rather work than play, same as me."

"But her temper, Rupert, her famous temper," I murmured to the man, "and her woeful, craakin voice."

"Nobody won't hear no more about her famous temper," he said, "not after she's married me. If I don't cast her temper out of her in a week, then I ain't the man I count myself; and as for her voice, that won't trouble me neither. I'm a peace-lover, and her voice will damned soon be stilled when I'm home to hear it."

It didn't sound promising to my ear, and if it had been any other she but Minnie Parable, I might have felt sorry for the woman.

"D'you mean she's took you?" I asked, still fluttering to the roots.

"She will," he answered. "I was waitin' till I happened to fall in with her, and having done so, I said I wanted a wife, because it was time I had one, and I told her that I saw the makings of a useful woman in her and invited her to turn it over. She was a good bit surprised and couldn't believe her luck for a bit. In fact, if I'd pressed her, or kissed her, or anything like that, she'd have said 'Yes' instanter. But I bade her to keep shut till to-morrow morning, and then be at the north lodge at five-thirty with her answer. And she'll be there."

Rupert had never talked so much in his life afore, and I could see he was tired. In fact he rose up after that last speech and went off without another word. And I knew that Minnie would be up to time also, for she weren't going to say "No" to the first and last as was ever like to offer for her.

And I turned over the mystery and very soon felt in my bones there must be something hidden. Rupert might have had a dozen girls, for there's lots of meek women like his overbearing, brutal sort and would have been very well content to take him, well knowing he spelled safety if no more; but for him, a saver and dealer in the main chance to marry at all, let alone an object like Minnie, meant far more than I could fathom out. He'd said himself there was more to her than met the eyes, and no doubt there was; but her promise was hidden from me, and I puzzled half that night and three parts of the next day, though all in vain.

There was my own sad case also, and, of course, a very painful duty lay in front of me. But I ain't one to let misery fester and so, twenty-four hours after my shocking adventure with Gregory, I went right over to Arthur Parable and told him all.

He was a good bit amused, in fact I never heard him laugh so hearty, and I got a thought hot about it; but he hadn't nothing much to say except I was well rid of Mr. Sweet. "A man like that," said Arthur, "was never meant to wed. Caution such as his in the home would mighty soon have drove you daft. And there's the makings of a tyrant in Gregory, by your own showing, for the man who resents freedom to his woman before marriage, may very like lock her up afterwards."

"I weren't his woman," I said, "and I didn't take it lying down, neither. He got the truth, and he didn't like it."

"I'd have give a finger off my hand to have heard you," declared Arthur, and then he laughed again; and then he grew serious and offered hope.

"Mark me," he said. "He ain't done with you. This is no more than a fit of silly temper and I dare say, though you think you're defeated, you'll find you've conquered before a week's sped."

"I don't want to conquer," I answered. "I wouldn't take the man now if he was twice what he is. Along with you I've found that there's better than Greg. I've got over the shock and I won't take him now, even if he wants me. There's a tyrant hid behind the man, as you say."

Arthur considered.

"I wouldn't swear but what you might be right," he declared.

And then I let drop a hint or two, though well within manners.

"If there was more like you," I told Arthur, "I might be tempted, but since I've heard you, I very well know Mr. Sweet at his best never held a candle to you."

"Once bit twice shy," said Parable, and strange to say, from that moment I took a violent fancy to the man. However, he'd grasped my meaning, as his answer showed, and next time I met him, he was happier than I'd ever known him to be. Joy blazed in his face and he walked like a young man.

"'My, Arthur!" I said, "who's left you a fortune?"

"Better than that," he answered. "Your Rupert have offered for Minnie and wants to be married in six weeks. It sounds like a fairy story; but there's no doubt seemingly; and don't you put him off her, or I'll never speak to you again, Mary."

"It would take more than me to put Rupert off anything he wanted," I replied. "And, to tell truth, this is no surprise to me. He's very well pleased with his bargain, and I do hope you see your way to give Minnie a pinch of cash, for that will lighten Arthur's heart amazing and keep him faithful till they be wed."

"So I thought," replied Arthur. "In fact I've gone so far as to name one hundred pounds if they're man and wife afore Michaelmas."

"Then fear no more," I said. "It will happen."

The same night affairs rushed on to their amazing conclusion and Rupert staggered me once more. For the first time in his life he willed to pleasure me, and it showed the secret power of the man, that again he talked as if a deed was already done afore the difficulties had been faced.

Minnie had told him all about my adventures, indeed they was common knowledge now, and many had heard how Mr. Sweet had fallen off. Some came to say they was sorry, and some thought it a pretty good escape, and some of his friends would never know me no more. But Rupert didn't waste no time on Gregory; he was in a wonderful amiable mood and I could see Arthur's hundred pounds had touched him in his tenderest spot. And then, in his blunt way, he went to the centre of the situation and asked me if I'd like to marry Arthur.

"Because," he said, "if you would, you shall!"

"You'll puzzle me to my dying day," I answered. "And how be it in your power to give me Arthur Parable, supposing I was to want him? It's a delicate subject," I said, "and he will never take another, having all he wanted with his first."

"Don't jaw," my son answered me. "For once I can do you a turn; but if you're going to bleat about it, I shall not. Do you want Arthur Parable, or don't you?"

An indecent man was Rupert, and always above any of them nice shades in conversation that manners point to and proper feeling expects. However, that sort don't think the worse of you for sinking to their level, and I well understood that he meant what he said and would be off if I didn't answer straight.

"Between mother and son, I may speak," I answered Rupert, "and if you want to know, though what business it is of yours I can't say, I should be willing to take Mr. Parable if the idea got in his mind."

"Right then," answered Rupert. "It damn soon will get in his mind."

And he was gone.

I heard the end of the tale next day, when Arthur himself looked in.

He was a bit comical tempered at first, but he thawed out after a drop and asked me to marry him, and I asked whether it was from the heart, or there lay anything behind. And then he told me that Rupert had been to see him and told him that I wanted him cruel and that he must take me; and that if he didn't, he wouldn't wed Minnie! "Your son's a man," said Arthur, "as I won't neighbour with, Mary, and you mustn't expect I shall; but there's a hateful, cold-blooded power about your Rupert. And there's mysteries hid in him. And he's one too many for me, or any other decent and orderly spirit. Of course, if I've got to choose between having my darter on my hands for ever and another wife, only a lunatic would hesitate, and since it had to be, I'd a lot rather it was you than any other I can call to mind. And truth's truth, and I hope you'll allow for the queerness, and take a man who's very addicted to you and can be trusted to serve you as you deserve."

With that I told him he must court me without any regard to Rupert, and explained the whole plot was Rupert's, and not mine.

"There's something devious about it," I said, "or it wouldn't be Rupert. You exercise your manhood, Arthur," I said, "and make up your own mind, and don't let my son make it up for you. 'Tis past bearing," I said, "and I won't stand for it. Who be he to drive us?"

"You swear afore your God it wasn't your own idea," ordered Arthur, and he cheered up when I put my hand on the Book in my parlour and swore most solemn I'd never thought of no such thing.

"In that case," he said, "I feel a good bit hopefuller, and when you ax if Rupert looked ahead with his eye to the main chance, of course he did. If you come to me, mine's yours when I go to ground, or else Minnie's, so Rupert knows the future's safe either way."

"There's my son John," I said, "but this I tell you, Arthur, I'll come to you on one condition only, that you leave all to Minnie after I'm gone. For it shall never be said that I stood between her and her own. Her, or her childer, must be the gainers."

He laughed at the thought of childer, with Minnie and my Rupert for their parents; and from that time he warmed up and showed his true nature, and we was tokened three days later, so as I was able to tell Mr. Sweet about it, when he'd thought over his mistake and crept on to the warpath again.

And the marriages took place in due course, and me and Arthur was properly happy; and when old Dowager Lady Martin went home, we found the mystery solved.

You see, Rupert had been told off one shooting day to look after a young lawyer and give him some sport, because his Lordship wanted to please the young man's father, who was his own man of business. This chap took to Rupert, by reason of his queer nature, and when they was eating their sandwiches, he must needs talk and chaff my son. He told Rupert about a will as he'd drawed back along for the Dowager, and how an old butler at Tudor Manor was down for five hundred, and the cook for two hundred, and a lady's maid, as served her before she took to her bed and had two nurses, was down for five hundred. But the lawyer named no names and didn't know that Rupert knew who that lady's maid was. And in any case the rash youth never ought to have opened his mouth, of course, on such a secret subject.

But twenty-four hours later, my 'Mother's Misfortune' was tokened to Minnie Parable, and when the Dowager died, of course the money came Rupert's way.

Strange to relate, it was a tolerable happy marriage as such things go. They bore with one another pretty fair, and though you couldn't say it was a homely pattern of home, and struck shivers into most folk as saw it, it suited them. She never put no poison in Rupert's tea, and he never cut her throat nor nothing like that. One child they had and no more; and he'll get his grandfather's little lot when I don't want it, and John'll get mine.

Rupert's child weren't one for a Christmas card exactly; but they set a lot of store by him. Minnie saw through it, of course, when the Dowager died; but she'd got Rupert which was what mattered to her, and she knew the money was bound to goody all right in her husband's hands; which it did do.



No. VII

STEADFAST SAMUEL

Samuel Borlase was one of them rare childer who see his calling fixed in his little mind from cradlehood. We all know that small boys have big ideas and that they fasten on the business of grown-up people and decide, each according to his fancy, how he be going to help the world's work come he grows up. This child hopes to be a chimney-sweep, and this longs to be a railway-porter; scores trust to follow the sea and dozens wish for to be a soldier, or a 'bus-conductor, a gardener, or a road-cleaner, as the ambition takes 'em. My own grandson much desired to clean the roads, because, as he pointed out, the men ordained for that job do little but play about and smoke and spit and watch the traffic and pass the time of day with one another. He also learned that they got three pounds a week of public money for their fun, and half-holidays of a Saturday, so to his youthful mind it seemed a likely calling.

But most often the ambitions of the human boys be like to change if their parents get much luck in the world, so when you see a steadfast creature, like Samuel Borlase, answer the call in his heart almost so soon as he can walk and talk, you feel the rare event worth setting down.

When he was four year old (at any rate, so his mother will take her oath upon) Sam said he'd be a policeman, and at twenty-four year old a policeman he became. What's more, chance ordained that he should follow his high calling in the village where he was born, and though the general opinion is that a lad, who goes into the civil forces, be like to perform better away from his surroundings, where he was just a common object of the countryside with none of the dignities of the law attaching to him, yet in this case it fell out otherwise and Borlase left home to become a policeman and in due course returned, the finished article.

Naturally with such a history behind him and the ambition of a lifetime to fall back upon, the authorities found no difficulty with Samuel, because he had a policeman's mind and a policeman's bearing and outlook upon life from his youth up. He thought like a policeman about the mysteries of existence; he regarded his neighbours with a policeman's inquiring eyes, because a policeman has a particular glance, as you'll find if you have much to do with 'em; and he moved like a policeman with the might and majesty of law and order ever before his eyes.

He confessed in later time that he pushed his great theories of perfection rather hard in his earlier years; and he came back to his native village of Thorpe-Michael full of high intentions to lift the place higher than where it already stood. He had an unyielding habit of tidiness and hated to see children playing in a road; and he hated worse to see a motor-car come faster round a corner than it did ought; or any sign of unsteady steps in a man or woman, who'd stopped too long at the 'Queen Anne' public-house, or anything like that. He weren't what you might call an amusing man and he hadn't yet reached the stage to make allowances and keep his weather eye shut when the occasion demanded it; but these high branches of understanding was likely to develop in time, and Inspector Chowne, who ruled over him when these things fell out, always held of Samuel Borlase that the material was there and the man hadn't took up his calling without promising gifts to justify it.

"I'd sooner see him fussy than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen my hands and keep the rest of the people in order."

He didn't judge as Samuel would ever rise to the top of the tree, any more than what he'd done himself; for Chowne was one who had long lost illusions as to a leading place. He'd made a woeful mess of the only murder case that ever happened to him, and he well knew that anything like great gifts were denied him. But he saw in Samuel such another as himself and judged that Borlase was born to do his duty in the place to which he had been called, and would run his course and take his pension without any of the fierce light of fame.

Of course, Samuel had his likes and dislikes, and he knew which of the community might be counted to uphold him and which might prove a thorn in his side. In fact he was acquaint with most everybody, and as happens in every village, where there's game preserves and such-like, the doubtful characters were there; and Thorpe-Michael chancing to lie up a creek near the port of Dartmouth, there was river-rats also—said to do a little in a mild way at smuggling from the Channel Islands—a business long sunk from its old fame. Yet the grandsons of vanished 'free-trade' grandfathers were thought to carry on a bit when chance offered.

It was a subject about which there were two opinions, and Billy Forde and others vowed most certain that the law was far too strong to allow of any free-trading nowadays; but, just because Billy and his friends were so sure, the policeman mind of Sam Borlase suspected 'em. He judged it suited Billy's convenience to declare that no such things happened, the more so because Mr. Forde's own father was well known to have broke a preventive officer's arm in his youth and done time for the same.

But a man by the name of Chawner Green it was that caused Samuel the greatest mistrust. He had nought to do with the creek, but lived in his own cottage, a mile out of Thorpe-Michael; and the keepers at the big place by name of Trusham, hard by, declared that Mr. Green was a fearsome poacher and hated the sight of the little man, though never had they catched him red-handed, nor been able to fetch up legal proofs against him.

There was a bit of a complication with Chawner Green, because Inspector Chowne happened to be related to him by marriage. In fact, Chawner had married the Inspector's sister five-and-twenty years before, and though Mrs. Green was long since dead, the Inspector never quarrelled with his brother-in-law and regarded him as a man who had got a worse name in the parish than he deserved. So there it was: the keepers at Trusham always felt that Chowne stood against 'em in their valiant endeavours to catch out Chawner; while the officer took his stand on the letter of the law and said that he held the balance of justice as became him, but weren't going to believe no tales nor set the law in motion against Mr. Green until the proofs stood before him.

It chanced that the under-keeper at Trusham was but three year older than Samuel Borlase himself and a lifelong friend, so Samuel got influenced and came to view Chawner Green very unfavourable. He found himself in rather a delicate position then, but his simple rule was to do what he thought his duty. To look at, Samuel was a big, hard man, rather on the lean side, with a blue chin and a blue eye, which don't often go together. His brow was a bit low and his brain didn't move far out of his appointed task; but a country policeman has a lot of time on his hands, and upon his long country beats, while his eyes surveyed the scene, Sam's intellects would turn over affairs and, no doubt, arrive at conclusions about 'em. And his conclusion about Chawner Green was that he must be a devious bird, else he wouldn't be so idle. For Samuel held that a chap of five-and-fifty, and hard as a nut, which Chawner Green was known to be, did ought to do honest work—an occupation never connected in the public mind with Mr. Green.