there is a desolation that no natural scene has power to invoke. the labour of nature’s thousand forces upon earth’s face may awaken awe before their enduring record, but can conjure no sense of sorrow; for high mountains, huge waste places and rivers calling shall make us feel small enough, not sad; but cast into the vast theatre some stone that marks a man’s grave, some ruined aboriginal hut or roofless cottage, some hypæthral meeting-place or arena of deserted human activity, and emotions rise to accentuate the scene. henceforth the desert is peopled with ghosts of men and women; and their hopes and ambitions, their triumphs, and griefs glimmer out of dream pictures and tune the beholder to a sentiment of mournfulness.
such a scene on a scale unusually spacious may be found in the central waste of dartmoor, nigh postbridge. here, where marshes stretch, all ribbed with black peat cuttings, between the arms of dart, where higher white tor rises northward p. 208and the jagged summits of lesser peaks slope southerly to crockern, there lies a strange congeries of modern buildings rotting into dust and rust at the song of a stream. even the lonely groves that shield these ruins are similarly passing to decay; but many trees still flourish there, and under the shadows of them, or upon the banks of the cherry-brook that winds in the midst and babbles its way to the mother-river, stand scattered remains of a considerable factory. now only a snipe drums or a plover mews plaintively, where some short years ago was great hum and stir of business and a colony of men engaged upon most dangerous toil. rows of whitewashed buildings still peep from the dark grove or stud those undulating hillocks that tend moorward beyond it. tall grey chimneys rise here and there, and between certain shattered buildings, linking the same together, great water-wheels appear. these from their deep abodes thrust forth shattered spokes and crooked limbs and claws. they slumber half in gloom, like fossil monsters partially revealed. from their dilapidated jaws there glitters the slime of unclean creatures; moss hides the masses of their putrefied bones; huge liverworts clothe their decay, and hart’s-tongue ferns loll from their cracks and clefts, and thrive in the eternal twilight beneath them. once twin pairs of grinders turned here, and the last aspect of these is even more p. 209uncouth than that of the water-wheels that drove them. their roofs are blown away and the rollers beneath are cased in rust and moss. willows and grasses and the flowers of the waste flourish above their ruins; broom, dock, rush, choke the old watercourses; crowfoot mantles the stagnant pools that remain; and all is chaos, wreck and collapse. for here spreads the scene of a human failure, the grave of an unsuccessful enterprise. its secret may still be read in dank strips of old proclamations hanging upon notice-boards within the ruins, and telling that men made gunpowder here; but those precautions necessary to establish the factory upon a site remote from any populous district indirectly achieved its ruin, for profits were swallowed by the cost of carriage from a situation so inaccessible.
at gloaming of an autumn day one living thing only moved amid the old powder-mills, and he felt no emotion in presence of that scene, for it was the playground of his life; his eyes had opened within a few score yards of it. young david daccombe knew every hole and corner of the various workshops, and had his own different goblin names for the quaint tools still lumbering many a rotting floor, and the massive machinery, left as not worth cost of removal. mystery lurked in countless dark recesses, and davey had made secret discoveries too and was lord of tremendous, treasured wonders p. 210hidden within the labyrinths of these crumbling mills.
but at this moment all things were forgotten before a supreme and new experience. the boy had just caught his first trout, and a little fingerling fish now flapped and gasped out its life under his admiring eyes. davey was a plain child, with a narrow brow and hard mouth. now he smelt the trout, patted it, chuckled over his capture, then casting down an osier rod, with its hook and a disgorged worm halfway up the gut, he prepared to rush home and display his triumph to his mother. as he climbed up from the stream and reached a little bridge that crossed it, his small face puckered into a fear, for he heard himself called harshly, knew the voice and felt little love for the speaker.
out of the deepening gloom under the fir trees a young man appeared with a gun under his arm.
“be that you, davey, an’ did i see a rod? if so, i’ll break it in pieces, i warn ’e. fishin’ season ended last saturday, an’ here’s the keeper’s awn brother poachin’. a nice thing!”
“oh, dick! i’ve catched one! first ever i really catched. won’t mother be brave an’ glad to eat un? ban’t very big, but a real trout. i be just takin’ it home-along.”
“you’ll do no such thing, you little rascal. give it to me this instant moment, or else i’ll make you.”
p. 211richard daccombe approached and towered over his brother. it was easy to see that they were near of kin.
“please, dick—just this wance—’tis awnly a li’l tiny feesh—first ever i took, too. an’ i swear i’ll not feesh no more—honour bright. please—for mother never won’t believe i ackshually catched one if her doan’t see it.”
“give it to me, or i’ll take it, i tell you, you dirty little thief.”
davey’s lip went down. “’tis a damn, cruel shame. you’m always against me. i wish you was dead, i do. i never knawed no chap in all my days what have got such a beast of a brother as i have.”
“give up that feesh, else i’ll throw you in the river, you lazy li’l good-for-nought.”
“you’m a gert bully,” began the boy; then he fell upon a happy thought, and braced himself to sacrifice his most treasured secret. to let it go into his brother’s keeping was bad, but anything seemed better than that his first trout should be lost to him.
“look ’e here, richard,” he said, “will ’e let me keep this feesh if i tell ’e something terrible coorious ’bout these auld mills?”
the keeper laughed sourly. “a lot more you’m likely to knaw ’bout ’em than i do!”
p. 212“ess fay, i do. ’tis a wonnerful secret as i found out all to myself, an’ never yet told to a single soul. it comes in my games—my robinson crusoe game; but i never play that wi’ any other chap—not even they boys from postbridge. i be the only living soul as knaws; an’ i’ll tell you if you’ll let me keep my feesh.”
“what’s this ’mazin’ secret, then?”
“you’ll swear?”
“ess, if the thing be any good.”
“good! i should just reckon ’twas good. come an’ see for yourself—i was awful ’feared at first. now i doan’t care nothin’, an’ many a time i’ve took a gert handful an’ lighted it, an’ seen it go off ‘pouf’!”
he led the way to a low building with a dull red roof. it was windowless, but had a door that swung at the will of the wind. this erection was lined inside with matchboarding, and it contained a board of regulations that prohibited all metal within the shed. even a nail in a boot was unlawful.
“’tis case house no. 4.—used once for storing powder,” said richard daccombe; “that’s a pile of sulphur in the corner.”
“ess, but theer’s mor’n you can see, dick. look here. another floor lies under this, though nobody minded that, i reckon, else they’d have took what’s theer.”
p. 213davey moved two boards, and beneath them—dry and sound as when there deposited—he revealed some tons of black blasting powder. his brother started, swore in sudden concern, hastened from the building, and, taking his pipe out of his mouth, carefully extinguished it. then he returned and accosted davey.
“why didn’t you tell me about this before, you little fool?”
“why for should i? ’twas my gert secret. but you’ll not let it out, will you, dick? if chaps comed to hear, they’d steal every atom.”
this richard knew very well.
“i’ll be dumb, and mind that you are,” he said. “and no more playing games with gunpowder. you might have blowed the whole countryside to glory. keep away in future. if i catch you within a hunderd yards of this place, i’ll lather you.”
“finding be keeping,” answered davey, indignantly.
“perhaps ’tis; an’ might be right. you’ve heard me. that powder’s mine henceforth.”
davey knew his brother pretty well, but such injustice made him gasp. his small brains worked quickly, and remembering that richard’s business on the rabbit warren took him far from the powder-mills, the boy held his peace.
this silence, however, angered the bully more p. 214than words. they moved homeward together, and the elder spoke again.
“now you can just fork out that trout, and be quick about it.”
“you promised on your honour!” cried davey.
“promises doan’t hold wi’ poachers.”
they were walking from the valley to their home; and the younger, seeing the farm-house door not two hundred yards distant, made a sudden bolt in hope to reach his mother and safety before dick could overtake him. but he was soon caught and violently flung to the ground.
“would you, you whelp?”
a blow upon the side of the head dazed the child, and before he could recover or resist, his brother had thrust a rough hand into davey’s pocket, dragged therefrom the little trout, and stamped it to pulp under his heel.
“there—now you go home-along in front of me, you young dog. i’ll teach you!”
the boy stood up, muddy, dishevelled, shaking with rage. his eyes shone redly in the setting sunlight; he clenched his little fists, and his frame shook.
“wait!” he said slowly, with passion strong enough for the moment to arrest his tears. “wait till i be grawed up. then ’twill be my turn, an’ i’ll do ’e all the ill ever i can. you’m a cowardly, p. 215cruel devil to me always, an’ i swear i’ll pay you back first instant i be strong enough to do it!”
“get in the house an’ shut your rabbit-mouth, or i’ll give ’e something to swear for,” answered the keeper.
then his great loss settled heavily upon davey’s soul, and he wept and went home to his mother.
