look at hard truth. The clods round me get enough by their sweat to keep wives and feed children. I’m only a penniless, backboneless, hand-to-mouth wretch, living on the work of laborious insects.”
“If it ban’t your awn fault, then whose be it, Clem?”
“The fault of Chance—to pack my build of brains into the skull of a pauper. This poor, unfinished abortion of a head-piece of mine only dreams dreams that it cannot even set on paper for others to see.”
“You’ve given up trying whether it can or not, seemin’ly. I never hear tell of no verses now.”
“What ’s the good? But only last night, so it happens, I had a sort of a wild feeling to get something out of myself, and I scribbled for hours and hours and found a little morsel of a rhyme.”
“Will ’e read it to me?”
He showed reluctance, but presently dragged a scrap of paper out of his, pocket. Not a small source of trouble was his sweetheart’s criticism of his verses.
“It was the common sight of a pair of lovers walking tongue-tied, you know. I call it ‘A Devon Courting.’ ”
He read the trifle slowly, with that grand, rolling sea-beat of an accent that Elizabeth once loved to hear on the lips of Raleigh and Drake.
“Birds gived awver singin’,
Flittermice was wingin’,
Mists lay on the meadows—
A purty sight to see.
Down-long in the dimpsy, the dimpsy, the dimpsy,
Down-long in the dimpsy
Theer went a maid wi’ me.
“Five gude mile o’ walkin’,
Not wan word o’ talkin’,
Then I axed a question
And put the same to she.
Up-long in the owl-light, the owl-light, the owl-light,
Up-long in the owl-light,
Theer corned my maid wi’ me.”
“But I wonder you write the common words, Clem—you who be so much tu clever to use ’em.”
“The words are well enough. They were not common once.”
“Well, you knaw best. Could ’e sell such a li’l auld funny thing as that for money?”
He shook his head.
“No; it was only the toil of making it seemed good. It is worthless.”
“An’ to think how long it took ’e! If you’d awnly put the time into big-fashioned verses full of the high words you’ve got. But you knaw best. Did ’e hear anything of them rhymes ’bout the auld days you sent to Lunnon?”
“They sent them back again. I told you ’t was wasting three stamps. It ’s not for me, I know it. The world is full of dumb singers. Maybe I haven’t got even a pinch of the fire that must break through and show its flame, no matter what mountains the earth tumbles on it. God knows I burn hot enough sometimes with great thoughts and wild longings for love and for sweeter life and for you; but my fires—whether they are soul-fires or body-fires—only burn my heart out.”
She sighed and squeezed his hand, understanding little enough of what he said.
“We must be patient. ’T is a solid thing, patience. I’m puttin’ by pence; but it ’s so plaguy little a gal can earn, best o’ times and with the best will.”
“If I could only write the things I think! But they vanish before pen and paper and the need of words, as the mists of the night vanish before the hard, searching sun. I am ignorant of how to use words; and those in the world who might help me will never know of me. As for those around about, they reckon me three parts fool, with just a little gift of re-writing names over their dirty shop-fronts.”
“Yet it ’s money. What did ’e get for that butivul fox wi’ the goose in his mouth you painted ’pon Mr. Lamacraft’s sign to Sticklepath?”
“Ten shillings.”
“That’s solid money.”
“It isn’t now. I bought a book with it—a book of lies.”
Chris was going to speak, but changed her mind and sighed instead.
“Well, as our affairs be speeding so poorly, we’d best to do some gude deed an’ look after this other coil. You must let Will knaw what ’s doin’ by letter this very night. ’T is awnly fair, you being set in trust for him.”
“Strange, these Grimbal brothers,” mused Clement, as the lovers proceeded in the direction of Chagford. “They come home with everything on God’s earth that men might desire to win happiness, and, by the look of it, each marks his home-coming by falling in love with one he can’t have.”
“Shaws the fairness of things, Clem; how the poor may chance to have what the rich caan’t buy; so all look to stand equal.”
“Fairness, you call it? The damned, cynical irony of this whole passion-driven puppet-show—that’s what it shows! The man who is loved cannot marry the woman he loves lest they both starve; the man who can give a woman half the world is loathed for his pains. Not that he ’s to be pitied like the pauper, for if you can’t buy love you can buy women, and the wise ones know how to manufacture a very lasting substitute for the real thing.”
“You talk that black and bitter as though you was deep-read in all the wickedness of the world,” said Chris; “yet I knaw no man can say sweeter things than you sometimes.”
“Talk! It ’s all talk with me—all snarling and railing and whining at hard facts, like a viper wasting its venom on steel. I’m sick of myself—weary of the old, stale round of my thoughts. Where can I wash and be clean? Chrissy, for God’s sake, tell me.”
“Put your hope in the Spring,” she said, “an’ be busy for Will.” In reality, with the approach of Christmas, affairs between Phoebe and the elder Grimbal had reached a point far in advance of that which Clement and Chris were concerned with. For more than three months, and under a steadily increasing weight of opposition, Miller Lyddon’s daughter fought without shadow of yielding. Then came a time when the calm but determined iteration of her father’s desires and the sledge-hammer love-making of John Grimbal began to leave an impression. Even then her love for Will was bright and strong, but her sense of helplessness fretted her nerves and temper, and her sweetheart’s laconic messages, through the medium of another man, were sorry comfort in this hour of tribulation. With some reason she felt slighted. Neither considering Will’s peculiarities, nor suspecting that his silence was only, the result of a whim or project, she began to resent it. Then John Grimbal caught her in a dangerous mood. Once she wavered, and he had the wisdom to leave her at the moment of victory. But on the next occasion of their meeting, he took good care to keep the advantage he had gained. Conscious of his own honest and generous intentions, Grimbal went on his way. The subtler manifestations of Phoebe’s real attitude towards him escaped his observation; her reluctance he set down as resulting from the dying shadow of affection for Will Blanchard. That she would be very happy and proud and prosperous in the position of his wife, the lover was absolutely assured. He pursued her with the greater determination, in that he believed he was saving her from herself. What were some few months of vague uncertainty and girlish tears compared with a lifetime of prosperity and solid happiness? John Grimbal made Phoebe handsome presents of pretty and costly things after the first great victory. He pushed his advantage with tremendous vigour. His great face seemed reflected in Phoebe’s eyes when she slept as when she woke; his voice was never out of her ears. Weary, hopeless, worn out, she prayed sometimes for strength of purpose. But it was a trait denied to her character and not to be bestowed at a breath. Her stability of defence, even as it stood, was remarkable and beyond expectation. Then the sure climax rolled in upon poor Phoebe.