herb "organies," or wild marjoram, was still drunk as tea in Mrs. Stanbury's days, and decoctions of it were widely used after local recipes for local ills.
"This here Chinese tea be a lot nicer to my taste, all the same," said Bart. "We have it Sundays, and I wouldn't miss it for money."
"We drink it every day," said David.
"Ah! you rich folk can run to it, no doubt."
"But we don't brew so strong as what you do," added young Bowden.
"This is far too strong," declared Mrs. Stanbury, instantly. "It have stood over long, and the bitter be drawed out."
"That's my fault for being late," answered Margaret. "No fault of yours, mother."
"I like the bitter," said Bart. "'Tis pretty drinking and proper to work on. Cider isn't in it with cold tea."
Dusk gathered, and the firelight flickered in the little whitewashed kitchen. Then David mentioned a project near his hopes.
"You thought you'd found a fox's earth 'pon Coombeshead Tor," he said to Madge.
"I do think so; and if you've made an end of eating, us'll go an' see afore 'tis dark."
"I've finished, and very much obliged, I'm sure."
David rose, picked up his felt hat and bade the parent Stanburys "good-evening." Then he and Margaret went out together. Bart prepared to accompany them, when suddenly, as if shot, he sank down into his chair again beside his father and put his hand to his chin.
"Why for did 'e kick me, faither?" he asked when the lovers had disappeared.
"You silly zany! They don't want you!"
Bart grinned.
"He be after Madge--eh?"
"Wait till you'm daft for something in a petticoat yourself, then you'll understand--eh, mother?"
"I suppose so, master. We shall lose 'em both, without a doubt; 'tis Nature," she said.
Meantime Margaret and David climbed into the gloaming on Coombeshead Tor, and she talked to him, and for the first time let him know how much the wonderful granite masses of this hill meant to her.
"I was born on the farm, you know, and this place was my playground ever since I could run alone. A very lonely little girl, because Bart was six year older than me, and mother never had none but us. I never had no toys or nothing of that sort; but these gerstones was my dollies, and I used to give 'em names, an' play along with 'em, an' sleep among 'em when I was tired. That fond of chattering I was, that I must be talking if 'twas only to the stones! Never was a cheel cut out for minding babies like me; and yet I've not had a baby to mind in my life!"
He listened and enjoyed her voice, but felt not much emotion at what she told him.
"So these boulders were my babies; an' now this one took a cold and wanted nursing; an' now this one was tired and I had to sing it to sleep. And I'd bring 'em flowers an' teach 'em their lessons, an' put 'em to bed an' all the rest of it. They all had their names too, I warrant you!"
"'Twas a very clever game to think upon," he said.
"Thicky stone, wi' grass on his head, was called 'Pilgarlic.' His hair is green in summer and it turns yellow, like 'tis now, when winter comes. And yonder rock--its real name is the 'Cuckoo stone,' because cuckoo always sits there to cry when he comes to Dennycoombe; that flat rock was 'Lame Annie'--a poor friend of mine as couldn't walk."
David laughed.
"Fancy thinking such things all out of your own head!" he exclaimed. "Ah! here's the earth! Yes, that's a fox."
Presently he prepared to go homeward and she offered to walk a little of the way by a sheep-track under Eylesbarrow.
He agreed and thanked her; but when the turning point was reached, David declared that it was now too dark for Margaret to see her way home at all. And so it became necessary for him to turn again and walk beside her until Coombeshead windows blinked through the night.
Then he left her, and ventured to squeeze her hand rather tightly as he did so. He went home somewhat slowly and suffered as many sensations of affection, admiration and uneasiness as his nature would admit. He was deep in love and felt that possession of Margaret Stanbury represented the highest good his life could offer.
CHAPTER V
THE VIRGIN AND THE DOGS
Rhoda Bowden loved the dogs, and her part in the little commonwealth of Ditsworthy lay with them. Ten were kept, and money was made from Elias Bowden's famous breed of spaniels. To see Rhoda, solemn and stately, with puppies squealing and tumbling before her, or hanging on to her skirts, was a familiar sight at the warren.
"It takes all sorts to make a world," said Mrs. Bowden, "and I must allow my Rhoda never neighboured kindly with the babbies--worse than useless with 'em; but let it be a litter, and she's all alive and clever as need be."
Indeed, the girl had extraordinary skill in canine affairs. She loved and understood the dogs; and they loved her. By a sort of instinct she learned their needs and aversions, and the brutes paid her with a blind worship that woke as soon as their eyes opened on the world. Yelping and screaming, the puppies paddled about after her; the old dogs walked by her side or galloped before. Sometimes she went to the warren with them and watched them working. After David they were nearer to her heart than most of her own species. She seemed to fathom their particular natures and read their individual characters with a closeness more intense and a judgment more accurate than she possessed for mankind.
Perhaps not only dogs woke this singular understanding in her. As a child she had chosen to be much alone, and in silent reveries, before the ceaseless puzzles of Ditsworthy, she had sat sequestered amid natural things and watched the humble-bees in the thyme, the field mice, the wheat-ears, and the hawks and lizards. She had regarded all these lives as running parallel with her own. They were fellow mortals and no doubt possessed their own interests, homes, anxieties and affairs. She had felt very friendly to them all and had liked to suppose that they were happy and prosperous. That they lived on each other did not puzzle her or pain her. It was so. She herself--and David--lived by the rabbits. Many thousands of the busy brown people passed away through the winter to make the prosperity of Ditsworthy. That was a part of the order of things, and she accepted it with indifference. Death, indeed, she mourned instinctively, but she did not hate it.
She loved the night and often, from childhood, crept forth alone into darkness or moonlight.
There was no humour in Rhoda. She smiled if David laughed, but even his weak sense of the laughter in life exceeded hers by much, and she often failed after serious search to see reason for his amusement. Such laughter-lovers as Bartley Crocker frankly puzzled her. Indeed, she felt a contempt for them.
Life had its own pet problems, and most of these she shared with David; but of late every enigma had sunk before a new and gigantic one. David was in love with a girl and certainly hoped to marry her. Until now the great and favourite mystery in Rhoda's life was the meaning of the old sundial at Sheepstor church. Above the porch may still be seen a venerable stone cut to represent a human skull from whose eye-sockets and bony jaws there spring fresh ears of wheat. Crossbones support the head of Death, and beneath them stands a winged hour-glass with the words 'Mors Janua Vitæ.'
This fragment had since her childhood been a fearful joy to Rhoda. It was still an object of attraction; but now she had ceased to want an explanation and would have refused to hear one: the mystery sufficed her. David, too, had shared her emotions in the relic and had often advanced theories to explain the eternal wonder of the wheat springing from human bones.
And now all lesser things were fading before the great pending change, and Rhoda went uneasy and not wholly happy, like an animal that feels the approach of storm. Margaret Stanbury interested her profoundly and there lurked no suspicion of jealousy in Rhoda's attitude; but critical she was, and terribly jealous for David. Young Bowden's mother had been much easier to satisfy than his sister. With careful and not unsympathetic