door opened, and a man stood on the step and waved a salutation to Quarm. This man was powerfully built. He had broad shoulders and a short neck. What little neck he possessed was not made the most of, for he habitually drew his head back and rested his chin behind his stock. This same stock or muffler was thick and folded, filling the space left open by the waistcoat, out of which it protruded. It was of blue strewn with white spots, and it gave the appearance as though pearls dropped from the mouth of the wearer and were caught in his muffler before they fell and were lost. The man had thick sandy eyebrows, and very pale eyes. His structure was disproportioned. With such a powerful body, stout nether limbs might have been anticipated for its support. His thighs were, indeed, muscular and heavy, but the legs were slim, and the feet and ankles small. He had the habit of standing with his feet together, and thus presented the shape of a boy’s kite.
“Hallo, Pasco--brother-in-law!” shouted Quarm, as he threw the harness off the ass; “look here, and see what I have been a-doing.”
He turned the little cart about, and exhibited a plate nailed to the backboard, on which, in gold and red on black, figured, “The Star and Garter Life and Fire Insurance.”
“What!” exclaimed Pepperill; “insured Neddy and the cart, have you? That I call chucking good money away, unless you have reasons for thinking Ned will go off in spontaneous combustion.”
“Not so, Pasco,” laughed Jason; “it is the agency I have got. The Star and Garter knows that I am the sort of man they require, that wanders over the land and has the voice of a nightingale. I shall have a policy taken out for you shortly, Pasco.”
“Indeed you shall not.”
“Confiscate the donkey if I don’t. But I’ll not trouble you on this score now. How is the little toad?”
“What--Kate?”
“To be sure, Kitty Alone.”
“Come and see. What have you been about this time, Jason?”
“Bless you! I have hit on Golconda. Brimpts.”
“Brimpts? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know Brimpts?”
“Never heard of it. In India?”
“No; at Dart-meet, beyond Ashburton.”
“And what of Brimpts? Found a diamond mine there?”
“Not that, but oaks, Pasco, oaks! A forest two hundred years old, on Dartmoor. A bit of the primæval forest; two hundred--I bet you--five hundred years old. It is not in the Forest, but on one of the ancient tenements, and the tenant has fallen into difficulties with the bank, and the bank is selling him up. Timber, bless you! not a shaky stick among the lot; all heart, and hard as iron. A fortune--a fortune, Pasco, is to be picked up at Brimpts. See if I don’t pocket a thousand pounds.”
“You always see your way to making money, but never get far for’ard along the road that leads to good fortune.”
“Because I never have had the opportunity of doing more than see my way. I’m crippled in a leg, and though I can see the road before me, I cannot get along it without an ass. I’m crippled in purse, and though I can discern the way to wealth, I can’t take it--once more--without an ass. Brother-in-law, be my Jack, and help me along.”
Jason slapped Pasco on the broad shoulders.
“And you make a thousand pounds by the job?”
“So I reckon--a thousand at the least. Come, lend me the money to work the concern, and I’ll pay you at ten per cent.”
“What do you mean by ‘work the concern’?”
“Pasco, I must go before the bank at Exeter with money in my hand, and say, I want those wretched scrubs of oak and holm at Brimpts. Here’s a hundred pounds. It’s worthless, but I happen to know of a fellow as will put a five pound in my pocket if I get him some knotty oak for a bit of fancy-work he’s on. The bank will take it, Pasco. At the bank they will make great eyes, that will say as clear as words, Bless us! we didn’t know there was oak grew on Dartmoor. They’ll take the money, and conclude the bargain right on end. And then I must have some ready cash to pay for felling.”
“Do you think that the bank will sell?”
“Sell? it would sell anything--the soil, the flesh off the moors, the bones, the granite underneath, the water of heaven that there gathers, the air that wafts over it--anything. Of course, it will sell the Brimpts oaks. But, brother-in-law, let me tell you, this is but the first stage in a grand speculative march.”
“What next?”
“Let me make my thousand by the Brimpts oaks, and I see waves of gold before me in which I can roll. I’ll be generous. Help me to the oaks, and I’ll help you to the gold-waves.”
“How is all this to be brought about?”
“Out of mud, old boy, mud!”
“Mud will need a lot of turning to get gold out of it.”
“Ah! wait till I’ve tied up Neddy.”
Jason Quarm hobbled off with his ass, and turned it loose in a paddock. Then he returned to his brother-in-law, hooked his finger into the button-hole of Pepperill, and said, with a wink--
“Did you never hear of the philosopher’s stone, that converts whatever it touches into gold?”
“I’ve heard some such a tale, but it is all lies.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Never!” Pasco started, and turned round and stared at his brother-in-law in sheer amazement.
“I have it. Here it is,” and he touched his head. “Believe me, Pasco, this is the true philosopher’s stone. With this I find oaks where the owners believed there grew but furze; with this I bid these oaks bud forth and bear bank-notes. And with this same philosopher’s stone I shall transform your Teign estuary mud into golden sovereigns.”
“Come in.”
“I will; and I’ll tell you how I’ll do it, if you will help me to the Brimpts oaks. That is step number one.”
CHAPTER II
A LUSUS NATURÆ
The two men entered the house talking, Quarm lurching against his companion in his uneven progress; uneven, partly because of his lame leg, partly because of his excitement; and when he wished to urge a point in his argument, he enforced it, not only by raised tone of voice and cogency of reasoning, but also by impact of his shoulder against that of Pepperill.
In the room into which they penetrated sat a girl in the bay window knitting. The window was wide and low, for the ceiling was low. It had many panes in it of a greenish hue. It commanded the broad firth of the river Teign. The sun was now on the water, and the glittering water cast a sheen of golden green into the low room and into the face of the knitting girl. It illumined the ceiling, revealed all its cracks, its cobwebs and flies. The brass candlesticks and skillets and copper coffee-pots on the chimney-piece shone in the light reflected from the ceiling.
The girl was tall, with a singularly broad white brow, dark hair, and long lashes that swept her cheek. The face was pale, and when in repose it could not be readily decided whether she were good-looking or plain, but all hesitation vanished when she raised her great violet eyes, full of colour and sparkling with the light of intelligence.
The moment that Quarm entered she dropped the knitting on which she was engaged; a flash of pleasure, a gleam of colour, mounted to eyes and cheeks; she half rose with timidity and hesitation, but as Quarm continued in eager conversation with Pepperill, and did not notice her, she sank back into her sitting posture, the colour faded from her cheek, her