Eden Phillpotts

“ A few seconds more would have seen Jerry Withycombe past the spot, on his way to work in the valley; but chance so willed it that, as he rounded a bend on his way, he saw beneath him, but still far distant, a woman's sun-bonnet, and he recognised its faded blue. She with whom his melancholy thoughts were concerned was evidently approaching, and the fact that she should be out so early, and on the way she knew he must be travelling to his work, created sudden, deep emotion in the woodman. His quarrel with Jane bulked larger in his eyes than in hers. ”

“ For a man to live in the Vale and not be a sportsman is like for a man to live by the sea and not care to go fishing. With a place in his heart for a bit of sport, I do believe Ben Bamsey would have been a perfect human. But as that's contrary to nature, no doubt the sport had to be left out."
"He is perfect," said Dinah, "and I've often told him so."
"He'd never believe it if you did," said Susan; "he's much too good a man to think he's good."
"As to that, my dear," answered Joe, "it's only false modesty and silliness to pretend you'm not good, when you know perfectly well you are. ”

“ He had recollected a fact beyond any power of words to annul.
"There's a hard and fast reality, Dinah, and we've got to take it into account, for it can't be argued down, or thought away."
"Then let it go—same as everything else have got to go. There's only one thing matters, I tell you, and we feel the same about it. Love's far too strong for all other realities, Lawrence. There's only one reality: that you and me are going to live together all our lives. What fact can stand against that? If facts were as big as the Beacon, they're naught against that fact. ”

“ Did you plan this cruel insult and disgrace for one that never harmed you or anybody?"
"He harmed us all, Dinah, and I beg you'll keep your temper," answered Arthur. "You're talking far ways short of sense and you don't know what we saved you from."
"Be you shadows, or real people, you grinning men?" she asked, turning upon the others. "Do you know what you've done in your clumsy, brutal strength? Do you know you've wronged and tortured a man whose boots you ain't worthy to black?"
"Hear the truth and don't be an idiot!" answered John Bamsey. ”

“ How could I talk love to you, not knowing love? You never heard love from me, because I didn't know the meaning of the word till long after us had parted for good and all. Find a woman that loves you—you soon might—then you'll hear yourself echoed. I never echoed you, and that you know very well, because I couldn't."
"Who is he?"
She expected this and was prepared. None must know that she loved Lawrence Maynard—least of all John Bamsey. He would be the first to take his news red hot to Falcon Farm and Joe Stockman. ”

“ And I hope it will be a case of 'Go and sin no more,' in the words of the Saviour of us all, Maynard. All things go round and round, you must know. The worm gnaws the nettle that the butterfly may rise up into the sunshine; and the butterfly rises up into the sunshine that the worm may gnaw the nettle; but we, as have immortal souls, be called to deny and defy nature, and lead captivity captive, and trample on the adder and the basilisk. All which things you knew very well, yet set your face to add to the evil of the world to please your own base passions. ”

“ For Dinah Waycott the sole difficulty of her position began to clear itself; and since she was now convinced that she and Lawrence saw the future with the same vision, she felt that future approach quickly. It seemed, however, that for her, pure joy could only be reached through sorrow, and on an occasion of meeting Maynard upon the moor, she said so.
"Nothing ever do run quite smooth, and out of my misfortune my fortune comes. For it's only a terrible sad thing that be clearing the road for us and leaving nobody in my life to think of but you." ”

“ To Maynard's amazement Joe turned upon him with something almost of fury. His cowman knew not of Joe's earlier reverse and all that he had that day been called to endure.
"What—what are you telling me? You going too? You ungrateful devil! You thankless, selfish toad! What have I done—what on God's earth have I done—to be turned down and flouted and tormented at every step of my life in this way? A man whose every act and thought be kindness for other people; and now every man's hand be against me! ”

“ Don't stare into the sky, nor yet over the hill for that poor woman, as you meant to destroy body and soul. Just you turn your wits to me, Lawrence Maynard, and listen; and then tell me before God, if you've got any just quarrel with any man among us. And this is what you done—you knowing you was married and had a wife you'd thrown over. You come here and make a woman care for you; but since your watchful Maker has already opened your mouth, so that your master heard you was married, you know you couldn't pretend to wed her honest before men, but must hatch lies for her and make a plot. ”

“ They met by appointment, strolled in the woods, then climbed through plantations of sweet-smelling spruce, till they reached great rocks piled on a little spur of the hillside under Buckland Beacon. Here the granite heaved in immense boulders that broke the sweep of the hill and formed a resting-place for the eye between the summit of the Beacon and the surface of the river winding in the lap of the Vale beneath.
Hazel Tor, as these masses of porphyry were called, now rose like a ridge of little mountainous islets from a sea of dead heath and fern. ”

“ What do you make us? Loose him, I tell you—ban't one among you man enough to understand that I know all there is to know about this—that it's my work we're going, my work—me that loves him and worships him, and knows the big-hearted, patient, honourable chap he is. God! If you could see yourselves as I see you—meddling, nasty-minded bullies, you'd sink in the earth. Loose him and then listen to him. You're not worth the second thought of a man like him."
Lawrence spoke quietly to Robert Withycombe. ”

“ Maynard had meant nothing to her when she gave up her first lover, and it was no thought of him, or any man, that had determined her to do so.
Her love at least was pure as love well could be, for she did not know that he returned it; sometimes, at first, she almost hoped he would not. But that was only in the dim and glimmering dawn of it. Love cannot feed on dreams alone. She put it from her at first, only to find it fly back. So she nursed it secretly and waited and wondered, and, meantime, strove to find a way to leave Green Hayes. ”

“ The day came for Dinah's walk with Lawrence Maynard, and though the sky lowered at dawn, before noon the wind had travelled north of west and there was no longer any fear of rain.
They set out, climbed the Beacon and advanced by those rolling stretches of heath and stone that extend to the north of it.
John Bamsey had been to see the Stockmans, and it seemed that his mother, or sister, had now made it plain to him that Dinah would never change her mind.
"He's taking it ill," said Lawrence. "He's not standing up against what he's got to suffer in a very good spirit." ”

“ We must come to it with clean hands, Joe, as humble, willing tools of Providence. Us mustn't allow ourselves no evil hate, or anything like that, but just feel but for the grace of God us might have been tempted and fallen into the pit ourselves. There's a bright side, even for him, and I hope in time he'll live to see what we saved him from."
"We must have a masterpiece of cleverness, and I'll think too," added Mr. Stockman. "Don't squeak, Arthur; don't tell a living soul about it. We must just teel a trap for the beggar and catch him alive. And we must spare Dinah all we can." ”

“ There's always the future for a young man."
"The past can bitch up the future past praying for, however," argued Maynard, and the hunter considered the statement.
"The future be at the mercy of the past in a manner of speaking I grant," he said; "but a lot depends on whether we hurt ourselves in the past, or was only hurt by other people. Of course bad blood in our veins and vices can maim our future past praying for, as you say; but, with an even-minded man like you, I should judge you'd always been master of your past, and so ought to face the future more hopeful than what you seem to." ”

“ Chaffe was much concerned.
"Who can say he's ever fathomed man or woman?" he asked. "This throws a light into darkness, Joe, and shows me many things that have troubled me. Not about Dinah, for she's above board and a good Christian by nature and upbringing; but about Maynard. He's foxed her into this dark and dangerous deed, and I'll be bold to say the blame's on his shoulders only, though nothing ought to have made her agree to run away unbeknownst from her friends. That shows a lightness; but no doubt the man have made her love him, and love blinds the best. ”

“ They don't understand it isn't only adultery that breaks up marriage, but a thousand other things beside. It's human progress and education and understanding; and these pious people only leave one door to escape through. And they don't seem to see that to decent thinking and self-respecting men and women that's a door they won't enter. They say, 'If you want to right your mistake, you must sin.' But if Almighty God made marriage, He never made such filth to be thrust down the throats of them that fail in marriage. Thus, any way, it stands with Minnie Courtier at present—and with me. ”

“ For Jane had her own private ambitions, and though they staggered Jerry when he heard them, such was his devotion that he agreed to propositions for the future inevitably destined to upset his own life and plunge it into a wrong environment. Their absurdity and futility were not as yet apparent to him, though Jane's ideas from anybody else had been greeted with contempt. They embraced a radical change in his own existence that had been unbearable to contemplate save in one light. ”

“ I ban't here to argue, Melinda. We've known each other a good long time now and it have been the bright ray in a troublous life, your friendship for me. We looked at things from the same point of view, and took high opinions, and laughed when we ought to laugh, and was serious in due season. And good men are scarce and good women far scarcer. And there never was and never will be a better woman than you. ”

“ But Cousin Joe would abide by the letter against the spirit no doubt. He'd tell everybody you was married if we blazed out we were tokened; and now Mr. Withycombe's dead, there's not any in the Vale that would understand."
"Certainly there is not, Dinah—or beyond the Vale I reckon."
"All's one," she said. "In my eyes you're a free man, and just as right to find a mate as a bird in a tree. Yes, you are. I know what marriage means now, and I know what our marriage will mean. For that matter we are married in heart and soul." ”

“ Why d'you tell me you're married to her—any more than I'm married to John Bamsey—or anybody?"
"Marriage is a matter of law, and a man can only marry one wife."
"And what's a wife then?"
"The woman you are married to—she that's got your name."
"Would you say your wife was married?"
"Certainly she is."
"A widow then?"
"Not a widow if her husband is alive."
"Then why d'you say that Gilbert Courtier died when Lawrence Maynard came to life? If Gilbert Courtier's dead, then his wife is a widow." ”

“ Chaffe," answered Melinda.
"Many never know happiness till they get there. Human life have always been a hand to mouth business for most of us. It's meant to be, and I don't believe myself that Providence likes us to look much farther than the points of our noses."
"The great man is him that can, however," argued Mr. Withycombe. "Him as looks a few yards deeper into the mirk of the future than we can soon rises to be famous. He knows there can be no security against nature; but, outside that, he sees there did ought to be security between man and man, since we are reasoning creatures. ”

“ The world knows its noisiest men, not its greatest; and so it don't know its Saviour—not even yet."
"Life's life, Mr. Chaffe, and what you hold runs counter to life. It's no sense preaching earthly misery to humans, because they're built to hate misery and seek happiness."
"I don't preach misery. I only preach that happiness must be looked for in the next world, not this one. It don't belong here and never will."
Maynard shook his head.
"I've thought of these things and I see your Church standing between man and a lot of lawful happiness. ”

“ Beneath the Beacon, across the great slope that fell from its summit to the river valley, a road ran into the woods that hid Buckland village, and upon the right hand of this highway, perched among open fields, that quilted the southern slope of the heights, there stood a stone house. Here was Falcon Farm, and over it the hawks that had given it name would often poise and soar and utter their complaining cries. The cluster of buildings perched on the hillside consisted of a slate-roofed dwelling house, with cartsheds, a cowhouse, and stable and a fine barn assembled round the farm yard. ”

“ Chaffe. "And if my thoughts look too harsh in your eyes presently, I'll willingly tone 'em down where possible. But often the surgeon as ban't feared to cut deep be the best to trust. We've got to save the man's soul alive, and seeing the size of the wound upon it and the danger in which he stands, we should be weak to botch our work for the sake of sparing him, or ourselves pain. For that's what mercy to the wicked often comes to, Joe. We forgive and forget for our own comfort far too often, and let a sinner off his medicine, only because we don't like to see the ugly face he makes over it." ”

“ Stockman's part for a paragon at once unknown and eligible, caused Mrs. Honeysett just that measure of exasperation her first male friend desired to awaken.
"My!" said Melinda, after listening to the glowing story of the farmer's daughter, her virtues, her resource, her financial ability and her practical knowledge of affairs; "I didn't know there were any angels to Brixham. Do she fly about, or only walk, like us common women?"
"No, she walks," said Joe, delighted at his instant success; "but even in walking she never wastes a footstep, like most of us. ”