Chapter I.

SPRINGTIME

Nature, waking at the song of woodland birds to find herself naked, fashioned with flying fingers such a robe of young green and amber, hyacinth and pearl as only she can weave or wear. A scent of the season rose from multitudinous"buds, and bells, and stars without a name"; while the little world of Devon, vale and forest, upland and heathery waste, rejoiced in the new life, as it rang and rippled with music and colour even to the granite thrones of the Moor. Down by the margin of Teign, where she murmured through a vale of wakening leaves and reflected asphodels bending above her brink, the valley was born again in a very pageant of golden green that dappled all the grey woods, clothed branch and bough anew, ran flower-footed over the meadow, hid nests of happy birds in every dell and dingle, and spread luxuriant life above the ruin of the year that was gone. A song of hope filled each fair noon; no wasted energy, no unfulfilled intent as yet saddened the eye; no stunted, ruined nursling of Nature yet spoke unsuccess; no canker-bitten bud marked the cold finger of failure; for in that first rush of life all the earthborn host had set forth, if not equal, at least together. The primroses twinkled true on downy coral stems and the stars of anemone, celandine, and daisy opened perfect. Countless consummate, lustrous things were leaping, mingling, and uncurling, aloft and below, in the mazes of the wood, at the margins of the water. Verdant spears and blades expanded; fair fans opened and tendrils twined; simultaneous showers of heart-shaped, arrow-shaped, flame-shaped foliage, all pure emerald and translucent beryl, made opulent outpouring of that new life which now pulsed through the Mother's million veins. Diaphanous mist wreaths and tender showers wooed the Spring; under silver gauze of vernal rain rang wild rapture of thrushes, laughter of woodpeckers, chime and chatter of jackdaws from the rock, secret crooning of the cushat in the pines. From dawn till dusk the sweet air was winnowed by busy wings; from dawn till dusk the hum and murmur of life ceased not. Infinite possibility, infinite promise, marked the time; and man shared a great new hope with the beasts and birds, and wild violet of the wood. Blood and sap raced gloriously together, while a chorus of conscious and unconscious creation sang the anthem of the Spring in solemn strophe and antistrophe.

As life's litany rises once again, and before the thunder of that music rolling from the valleys to the hills, human reason yearly hesitates for a moment, while hope cries out anew above the frosty lessons of experience. For a brief hour the thinker, perhaps wisely, turns from memory, as from a cloud that blots the present with its shadow, and spends a little moment in this world of opal lights and azure shades. He forgets that Nature adorned the bough for other purpose than his joy; forgets that strange creatures, with many legs and hungry mouths, will presently tatter each musical dome of rustling green; forgets that he gazes upon a battlefield awaiting savage armies, which will fill high Summer with ceaseless war, to strew the fair earth with slain. He suffers dead Winter to bury her dead, seeks the wine of life that brims in the chalices of Spring flowers: plucks blade and blossom, and is a child again, if Time has so dealt with him that for a little he can thus far retrace his steps; and, lastly, he turns once more to the Mother he has forgotten, to find that she has not forgotten him. The whisper of her passing in a greenwood glade is the murmur of waters invisible and of life unseen; the scent of her garment comes sweet on the bloom of the blackthorn; high heaven and lowly forget-me-not alike mirror the blue of her wonderful eyes; and the gleam of the sunshine on rippling rivers and dreaming clouds reflects the gold of her hair. She moves a queen who, passing through one fair corner of her world-wide kingdom, joys in it. She, the sovereign of the universe, reigns here too, over the buds and the birds, and the happy, unconsidered life of weald and wold. Each busy atom and unfolding frond is dear to her; each warm nest and hidden burrow inspires like measure of her care and delight; and at this time, if ever, we may think of Nature as forgetting Death for one magic moment, as sharing the wide joy of her wakening world, as greeting the young mother of the year's hopes, as pressing to her bosom the babes of Spring with many a sunny smile and rainbowed tear.

Through the woods in Teign Valley passed Clement Hicks and his sweetheart about a fortnight after Lawyer Ford had been laid to rest in Chagford Churchyard. Chris talked about her brother and the great enterprise he had determined upon. She supported Will and spoke with sanguine words of his future; but Clement regarded the project differently.

"To lease Newtake Farm is a fool's trick,"he said."Everybody knows the last experiments there. The place has been empty for ten months, and those who touched it in recent years only broke their hearts and wasted their substance."

"We ll, they weern't such men as Will. The er's a fitness about it, tu; for Will's awn gran'faither prospered at Newtake; an'if he could get a living, another may. Mother do like the thought of Will being there somehow."

"I know it. The sentiment of the thing has rather blinded her natural keen judgment. Curious that I should criticise sentiment in another person; but it's like my cranky, contrary way. Only I was thinking of Will's thousand pounds. Newtake will suck it out of his pocket quicker than Cranmere sucks up a Spring shower."

"We ll, I'm more hopeful. He knows the value of money; an'Phoebe will help him when she comes up. The months slip by so quickly. By the time I've got the cobwebs out of the farm an'made the auld rooms water-sweet, I dare say theer'll be talk of his wife joining him."

"You going up! This is the first I've heard of it."

"I meant to tell'e to-day. Mother is willing and I'm awnly tu glad. A man's a poor left-handed thing'bout a house. I'd do more'n that for Will."

"Pity he doesn't think and do something for you. Surely a little of this money—?"

"Doan't'e touch on that, Clem. Us had a braave talk'pon it, for he wanted to make over two hundred pound to me, but I wouldn't dream of it, and you wouldn't have liked me tu. You'm the last to envy another's fair fortune."

"I do envy any man fortune. Why should I starve, waiting for you, and—?"

"Hush!"she said, as though she had spoken to a little child."I won't hear no wild words to-day in all this gude gold sunshine."

"God damn everything!"he burst out."What a poor, impotent wretch He's made me—a thing to bruise its useless hands beating the door that will never open! It maddens me—especially when all the world's happy, like to-day—all happy but me. And you so loyal and true! What a fool you are to stick to me and let me curse you all your life!"

"Doan't'e, doan't'e, Clem,"said Chris wearily. She was growing well accustomed to these ebullitions."Doan't grudge Will his awn. Our turn will come, an'perhaps sooner than we think for. Look round'pon the sweet fresh airth an'budding flowers. Spring do put heart into a body. We'm young yet, and I'll wait for'e if't is till the crack o'doom."

"Life's such a cursed short thing at best—just a stormy day between two nights, one as long as past time, the other all eternity. Have you seen a mole come up from the ground, wallow helplessly a moment or two, half blind in the daylight, then sink back into the earth, leaving only a mound? That's our life, yours and mine; and Fate grudges that even these few poor hours, which make the sum of it, should be spent together. Think how long a man and woman can live side by side at best. Yet every Sunday of your life you go to church and babble about a watchful, loving Maker!"

"I doan't know, Clem. You an'me ban't everybody. You've told me yourself as God do play a big game, and it doan't become this man or that woman to reckon their-selves more important than they truly be."

"A great game, yes; but a cursed poor game—for a God. The counters don't matter, I know; they'll soon be broken up and flung away; and the sooner the better. It's living hell to be born into a world where there's no justice—none for king or tinker."

"Sit alongside of me and smell the primrosen an'watch thicky kingfisher catching the li'l trout. I doan't like'e in these bitter moods, Clem, when your talk's all dead ashes."

He sat by her and looked out over the river. It was flooded in sunlight, fringed with uncurling green.

"I'm sick and weary of life without you.'Conscious existence is a failure,'and the man who found that out and said it was wise. I wish I was a bird or beast—or nothing. All the world is mating but you and me. Nature hates me because I survive from year to year, not being fit to. The dumb things do her greater credit than ever I can. The—"

"Now, I'll go—on my solemn word, I'll go—if you grumble any more! Essterday you was so different, and said you'd fallen in love with Miss Spring, and pretended to speak to her and make me jealous. You didn't do that, but you made me laugh. An'you promised a purty verse for me. Did'e make it up after all? I lay not."

"Yes, I did. I wasted two or three hours over it last night."

"Might'e get ten shillings for it, like t'other?"

"It's not worth the paper it's on, unless you like it. Your praise is better than money to me. Nobody wants any thoughts of mine. Why should they?"

"Not when they'm all sour an'poor, same as now; but essterday you spoke like to a picture-book. The er's many might have took gude from what you said then."

He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and flung it into her lap.

"I call it'Spring Rain,'"he said."Yesterday the world was grey, and I was happy; to-day the world is all gold, and I'm finding life harder and heavier than usual. Read it out slowly to me. It was meant to be read to the song of the river, and never a prettier voice read a rhyme than yours."

Chris smoothed the paper and recited her lover's lyrics. They had some shadow of music in them and echoed Clem's love of beautiful things; but they lacked inspiration or much skill.

"'Neath unnumbered crystal arrows—

Crystal arrows from the quiver

Of a cloud—the waters shiver

In the woodland's dim domain;

And the whispering of the rain

Tinkles sweet on silver Teign—

Tinkles on the river.

"Through unnumbered sweet recesses—

Sweet recesses soft in lining

Of green moss with ivy twining—

Daffodils, a sparkling train,

Twinkle through the whispering rain,

Twinkle bright by silver Teign,

With a starry shining.

"'Mid unnumbered little leaf-buds—

Little leaf-buds surely bringing

Spring once more—song birds are winging;

And their mellow notes again

Throb across the whispering rain,

Till the banks of silver Teign

Echo with their singing."

Chris, having read, made customary cheerful comment according to her limitations.

"'T is just like essterday—butivul grawing weather, but'pears to me it's plain facts more'n poetry. Anybody could come to the streamside and see it all for themselves."

"Many are far away, pent in bricks and mortar, yearning deep to see the dance of the Spring, and chained out of sight of it. This might bring one glimpse to them."

"An'so it might, if you sold it for a bit of money. Then it could be printed out for'em like t'other was."

"You don't understand—you won't understand—even you."

"I caan't please'e to-day. I likes the li'l verses ever so. You do make such things seem butivul to my ear—an'so true as a photograph."

Clem shivered and stretched his hand for the paper. Then, in a moment, he had torn it into twenty pieces and sent the fragments afloat.

"The re! Let her take them to the sea with her. She understands. Maybe she'll find a cool corner for me too before many days are passed."

Chris began to feel her patience failing.

"What, in God's name, have I done to'e you should treat me like this?"she asked, with fire in her eyes.

"Been fool enough to love me,"he answered."But it's never too late for a woman to change her mind. Leave a sinking ship, or rather a ship that never got properly launched, but, sticking out of its element, was left to rot. Why don't you leave me, Chris?"

She stroked his hand, then picked it up and laid her soft cheek against it.

"Not till the end of the world comes for wan of us, Clem. I'll love'e always, and the better and deeper'cause you'm so wisht an'unlucky somehow. But you'm tu wise to be miserable all your time."

"You ought to make me a man if anything could. I burn away with hopes and hopes, and more hopes for the future, and miss the paltry thing at hand that might save me."

"Then miss it no more, love; seek closer, an'seek sharper. Maybe gude work an'gude money's awnly waitin'for'e to find it. Doan't look at the moon an'stars so much; think of me, an'look lower."

Slowly the beauty of the hour and the sweet-hearted girl at his elbow threw some sunshine into Clement's moody heart. For a little while the melancholy and shiftless dreamer grew happier. He promised renewed activity in the future, and undertook, as a first step towards Martin Grimbal, to inform the antiquary of that great fact which his foolish whim had thus far concealed.

"Chance might have got it to his ears through more channels than one, you would have thought; but he's a taciturn man, asks no questions, and invites no confidences. I like him the better for it. Next week, come what may, I'll speak to him and tell him the truth, like a plain, blunt man."

"Do'e that very thing,"urged Chris."Say we'm lovers these two year an'more; an'that you'd be glad to wed me if your way o'life was bettered. Ban't beggin', as he knaws, for nobody doubts you'm the most book-learned man in Chagford after parson."

Together they followed the winding of the river and proceeded through the valley, by wood, and stile, and meadow, until they reached Rushford Bridge. Here they delayed a moment at the parapet and, while they did so, John Grimbal passed on foot alone.

"His house is growing,"said Clement, as they proceeded to Mrs. Blanchard's cottage.

"Aye, and his hearth will be as cold as his heart—the wretch! We ll he may turn his hard face away from me and remember what fell out on this identical spot! But for God's gude grace he'd have been hanged to Exeter'fore now."

"You can't put yourself in his shoes, Chris; no woman can. Think what the world looked like to him after his loss. The girl he wanted was so near. His hands were stretched out for her; his heart was full of her. Then to see her slip away."

"An'quite right, tu; as you was the first to say at the time. Who's gwaine to pity a thief who loses the purse he's stole, or a poacher that fires'pon another man's bird an'misses it?"

"All the same, I doubt he would have made a better husband for Phoebe Lyddon than ever your brother will."