the first inclination of elias bassett was to meet his rival, man to man, and settle this outrage by force of arms; but after four-and-twenty-hours with himself he decided against that course. to do the best for minnie without afterthought for his own gain was now the keeper’s duty. he put himself resolutely out of the question, and even debated whether he should impart his discovery to another, and so stand aloof from the necessary deed; but his nature would not go so far along with him. he was a man faced with a rascal and an enemy, and that rascal must be unmasked by him, not another. the work before him was in itself so congenial that to delay proved difficult. therefore elias quickly planned his course of action, and the hour for it. yet he was disappointed, for on the morning of a day that he had fixed to confront merle and break the evil news to minnie, nicholas himself departed unexpectedly. he was to be absent until the time of the wedding.
upon this circumstance bassett pondered through another day, then suddenly strange matters hurried his decision and anger opened his lips.
p. 153returning by night to the hamlet of two bridges over the high moor, elias met minnie merle alone walking quickly toward the lonely gorges of west dart, where the river roars and echoes under wistman’s primeval wood of oaks. darkness was already come, but a moon hidden under low clouds made all clear. only the river, full after a freshet, filled the silence with ebb and flow of watery music, that waxed and waned upon the wind. the lonely wood, shunned even by day and held a haunted region by night, huddled there like a concourse of misshapen goblins. huge planes of shattered granite sank from the hills to the river valley, and the red fox and shining adder alone found a home in this fantastic forest of humped, twisted and shrivelled trees. but to minnie the desolate spot was good. she associated it with her lover; there, when the sunlight shone and little blue butterflies danced above the briars, nicholas had asked her to marry him; and now, under gathering night, it was upon a secret errand connected with her cousin that she stole along when the keeper met her, to their common surprise.
“a strange hour for a walk, sure enough!” he said. “what wonnerful secret be taking you on the moor at this time of night?”
“it be a secret,” she answered, “so ax me no more about it, an’ go on your way.”
p. 154“i’ll tell you another secret for yours, minnie merle. wheer be you gwaine so quick?”
“to wistman’s wood—that much i’ll let you know—no more. now go your way, elias, like a gude man.”
“ban’t you feared?”
“not of wistman’s wood. ’tis nought but a cluster of honest old trees.”
“well, i’ll come along with you.”
“an’ i won’t let you. three’s no company.” elias stared and shifted his walking-stick from one hand to the other.
“gwaine to meet somebody?”
“why not?”
“what would your young man say?”
minnie laughed.
“since you ax, i think i may answer that he’d say i was in the right. now you know enough—tu much. leave me—i won’t have you go another yard with me.”
“i do know tu much for my peace,” he said; “but ’tis you who don’t know enough. i’ve waited a longful time to speak, but now i’ll do it, though i break your heart. better that than ruination. this man—nicholas merle—he’m married, an’ that packet he got—’twas from his ill-served wife.”
“you coward; you liar; you wicked, venomous snake!” cried out minnie. “to stand theer afore p. 155your maker an’ hatch that lie for the ear of a loving woman! oh! i wish i was a man; i’d tear—but he shall—he shall—he shall know it this night!”
her passion revealed her secret. she saw what she had done, grew a little calmer and explained.
“this is the last time i’ll ever foul my breath with your name, elias bassett; but since you’ve surprised this out of me, i must say more. if you’ve a shadow of honour, you’ll keep a secret i swore not to reveal to a soul, yet have now revealed in anger to you. the fault was yours. when my true love went away, he told me that i might find to-day a letter in a secret spot known to both of us far away upon the moreton road. i went there—rode my pony out this morning—and a letter waited me. i tell you these things that you shall breed no more lies against him or me. in that note he told me that he should be at wistman’s wood to-night at a familiar spot i wot very well. and he is to let me into gert news. wonnerful things have happened to him. but he is supposed to be far away, and that he is tarrying here is my secret. and now you have surprised it out of me. at least i can trust you not to breathe of this to any living soul if ever you loved me.”
“i shall keep silent, be sure, since you find it in your heart to give me the lie and call me ‘snake.’”
“i saw the letter that you pretend to have seen. p. 156he showed it to me. not that i asked to see it. i would trust nicholas before the sun. you are dreaming, or else very wicked. the packet was from a scrivener. it concerned money. ‘a wife’! this is jealous madness. he never looked at any woman before he met me.”
“if i be wrong, i’ll beg his pardon on my knees.”
“you be most wickedly wrong. he is the soul of honour.”
“then let me come now with you.”
“not for the world. he would never forgive me if anybody heard of this meeting. it is vital to his interests that it should be supposed he is far away.”
“cannot you see there is danger for you in this?”
“danger with him? how little you know what love means for all your talk, elias!”
“it is because i know what love means that i care so much. let me be somewhere near—out of sight and earshot of speech, but not too far off for a cry to reach me if you wanted help.”
“each word you say makes me hate you worse, elias bassett.”
“at least let me stop here an’ see you home again afterward.”
“never! i’ve done with you. you ban’t a good man. besides, you would have to wait for p. 157hours. i be very early for our meeting. nicholas will not be there afore eleven o’clock.”
“and if you never come home again, minnie merle?”
“then you may tell all men what you have heard to-night, an’ go an’ seek for me. if nicholas knowed you were his enemy, he would shoot you like a dog. so be warned.”
“and yet you cannot see that if he is married already, you are his worst enemy! he can’t marry you and get the money that way, so—”
she turned and ran from him without another word, and he watched her sink into grey moonlight until the moor swallowed her up. a dim spot a mile away on the night marked wistman’s wood; and from it, through the fitful noise of the river, an owl’s cry came faintly, like the sound of a wailing child.
