richard daccombe visited the little bridge over cherry-brook yet again after his supper; and in a different mood, beside a different companion, he sat upon the granite parapet. darkness, fretted with white moonlight, was under the fir trees; the moor stretched dimly to the hills in one wan featureless waste; an owl cried from the wood, and one shattered chimney towered ghostly grey over the desolation. quaint black ruins, like hump-backed giants, dotted the immediate distance, and the river twinkled and murmured under the moon, while dick’s pipe glowed, and a girl’s voice sounded at his elbow.
“sweetheart,” she said, “why be you so hard with davey?”
“leave that, jane,” he answered. “’tis mother has been at you—as if i didn’t know. little twoad’s all the better for licking.”
“he’s so small, and you’m so big. he do hate you cruel, an’ your mother’s sore driven between you.”
“mother’s soft. the child would grow up a dolt if ’twasn’t for me.”
p. 217“yet you had no brother to wallop you, dick.”
“faither was there, wasn’t he? i call to mind his heavy hand, and always shall. but if you mean i be a dolt, say it.”
“us all knaw you’m cleverest man this side of plymouth.”
“drop it, then, an’ tell of something different.”
jane stanberry did as she was bid: her arms went round dick’s neck, and her lips were pressed against his face. to the girl he represented her greatest experience. orphaned as a tender child, she had come to cross ways farm, in the lonely valley of the powder-mills, and there dwelt henceforth with her mother’s kinswoman, mary daccombe.
the establishment was small, and a larger company had not found means to subsist upon the hungry new-takes and scanty pasture-lands of cross ways. jonathan daccombe and his wife, with two hinds, here pursued the hard business of living. richard was in private service as keeper of white tor rabbit warren, distant a few miles from his home; and he divided his time between the farm and a little hut of a single chamber, perched in the lonely scene of his labour. of other children the daccombes had none living save davey, though two daughters and another son had entered into life at cross ways, pined through brief years there, and so departed. the churchyard, as jonathan p. 218daccombe frankly declared, had been a good friend to him.
jane was a deep-breasted, rough-haired girl of eighteen. she possessed pale blue eyes, a general large-featured comeliness, and a nature that took life without complaining; and she held herself much blessed in the affection of her cousin richard. talk of marriage for them was in the air, but it depended upon an increase of wages for dick, and his master seemed little disposed to generosity.
the bridge by night was a favourite meeting and parting place for the lovers, because young daccombe’s work in late autumn took him much upon the moor after dark. the time of trapping was come, and his copper wires glimmered by the hundred along those faintly marked rabbit runs, familiar to experienced eyes alone. these he tended from dusk till dawn, and slept between the intervals of his labour within the little hut already mentioned.
a topic more entertaining than the child davey now arose; and jane, whose spirit was romantic, with a sort of romance not bred of her wild home, speculated upon an approaching event that promised some escape from the daily monotony of life at cross ways.
“to-morrow he’ll actually come,” she said. “i’ve put the finishing touches to his room to-day. what will he be like, dick?”
p. 219“i mind the chap a few years back-along playing foot-ball to tavistock. a well-set-up youth, ’bout my size, or maybe bigger in the bone. an’ he could play foot-ball, no doubt. in fact, a great hand at sporting of all sorts; but work—not likely! why for should he? he’ll have oceans of money when his faither dies.”
“your mother reckons ’tis all moonshine ’bout his coming to cross ways to learn farming. she says that he’m sent here to keep him out of mischief—for same reason as powder-mills was sent here. he’ll ride about, an’ hunt, an’ shoot, for sartain. but he won’t never take sensible to work—so your mother reckons.”
“maybe he won’t; but faither be going to get two pound a week by him; so what he does ban’t no great odds, so long as he bides.”
“would you call him a gen’leman?”
“gentle is as gentle does. us shall see.”
“wi’ book-larnin’, no doubt?”
“little enough, i fancy. nought but a fool goes farmin’ in these days.”
“yet ’tis our hope, i’m sure,” objected jane. “please god, dick, us will be able to take a little farm down in the country some day—won’t us?”
“in the country—yes; but not ’pon this wilderness.”
there was silence between them again, while the p. 220owl hooted and the river scattered silver in the rushes and babbled against the granite bridge.
“wonder what colour the chap’s eyes be, dick?”
“they’ll be black if i hear much more about him,” he answered shortly. “for i’ll darken both first day he comes here—just to show how we stand.”
“you’re jealous afore you’ve seed him!”
“an’ you’re a blamed sight too hungry to see him. best drop him. he won’t be nought to you, i s’pose?”
“how can you be so sharp, dick? ban’t it natural a gal what leads such a wisht life as me should think twice of a new face—an’ a gen’leman, too?”
“anthony maybridge have got one enemy afore he shows his nose here; and you’re to thank for it.”
jane laughed. “then i know what to expect when we’m married, i s’pose. but no call for you to be afeared! if he was so butivul as angel gabriel he’d be nought to me. kiss me same as i kissed you just now.”
but dick was troubled. his clay pipe also drew ill, and he dashed it into the water. “damn kissing!” he said; “i’m sick of it. get home, an’ let me go to work.”
“the young man will like you better than me, when all’s said, dear heart; for you’ll give him best sport of anybody in these parts.”
he grunted, and left her without more words; p. 221while she, familiar with his sulky moods, showed no particular regret. to the hills he strode away, and the misty marshes swallowed up sight of him, while he threaded his road through the bogs, climbed great stony slopes under the hilltop, and reached his warren. but bad fortune stuck close to richard that night, for of two fine rabbits snared since sundown, nothing remained but the heads.
foxes, however, are sacred upon dartmoor, even in the warrens; though, if evil language could have hurt them, it must have gone ill with a vixen and five brave cubs, whose home was hard by in the granite bosom of white tor.
