Eden Phillpotts

“ You had no right to think for yourselves."
"The old British fallacy," answered Stark. "Freedom of thought can be denied to none. Deny all other freedom, if you will. But freedom of thought is an immortal fact."
"And duty to your betters is also an immortal fact. Your nation—so to call it—has disgraced itself at the opening of its history. It has begun its separate existence in its father's blood. For what prosperity and blessing shall the country seek that blots the first page of its history with such a crime?"
"A revolt against ignorance, oppression, greed and dishonesty is no crime. ”

“ A SPECIAL LICENSE
"We must deal," said Norcot, "with the relations of four people each to the others. And first let us examine my relations with Grace Malherb. I loved her; I loved her with a whole-hearted, true and deep love that can only find the faintest echo in poetry. Herrick's 'To Anthea, who may command him anything,' comes closest to the real sentiment. But love grows sick like an ill-grown tree, if it grows one-sided. A dark hour struck when with acute sorrow and grief I discovered that I could never win Grace's heart. ”

“ Life is short, and even my astounding patience has run out."
"Listen," said Malherb, reining up his horse and lifting his hand. "Trouble has fallen upon me—terrible trouble. You shall know—everybody shall know; but not yet. It is in Job—set there in the awful words of Scripture: 'He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.' I have done evil, Norcot; I have fallen as I pray you may never fall. Invisible powers have rent me and torn me. I tell you that I have been through dark waters."
"Bless my soul! all the deities in a rumpus over one man! ”

“ But, on the other hand, nobody alive can blame your father for availing himself of its propensities."
"He'll curse himself for a fool yet, however," said the old woman.
"I shall not be friendly with you any more, Lovey Lee," answered Grace frankly. "You're greedier than the Duchy, and you don't tell the truth. You wouldn't be so unpleasant if your conscience didn't hurt you. Henceforth I shall think with my father that you took the amphora."
"You may think what you please. It won't prove nothing but that you've got a Malherb habit of mind and be your faither's daughter."
"Come, Peter!" ”

“ Yes, your son—to grow as you would have him grow, in the traditions of the Malherbs."
"Upon my soul, you might have been my son yourself!" said Malherb with stern exultation; "for you're the most level-headed man that ever I met."
"I have learned from you," said Peter modestly, "life is really not half so difficult as people make it. Wise sacrifice is the secret of success—nay, more, of happiness. Man cannot have his way all round. He doesn't grow in a flower-pot alone, but in a jungle of other living men and women—some stronger and some weaker than himself. ”

“ Follow your own fool's way and see whether it will lead you back to the War Prison, or into the arms of Grace Malherb, or into your grave. And I, too, will go my way. Her happiness is my life; not you, or any man living, shall deny me to strive and fight for her to the end. I marvel and mourn for you. Your wits are dulled by the cruel prison yonder. Your senses are held captive by this man."
He spoke sorrowfully, then turned away, and before Stark had time to beg for patience and consideration, John Lee hastened into the woods and disappeared. ”

“ Norcot and Grace climb the steep side of Fox Tor and proceed to the heights above it.
Soon afterwards, as they turned their horses' heads toward Prince Town, Peter observed a strange, tall figure proceeding on foot in the same direction. It was as though one of the moorland crosses from the Abbot's Way had come to life and stole over the wilderness upon some superhuman errand.
"Look!" cried Norcot, "a walking scarecrow!"
Grace recognised the being, and laughed.
"A 'scarecrow,' you say. That's the richest woman on Dartmoor!"
"A woman—and a wealthy one? Impossible!" ”

“ The old servant had entered to mend the fire, for a peat or two always glowed upon the drawing-room hearth by night.
"No matter what I think, missy. 'Tis one of the few blessings of a common man that nobody do set a groat's value upon his views," returned Kekewich.
"So much the less need you mind uttering them," said Peter.
"We differ like flint and steel, yet strike some sparks between us—Kek and I," declared Malherb. "He is at once the best, honestest, truest, and most wrong-headed man I ever met in his class of life." ”

“ Down his closing avenues, outlined immediately ahead, stood one at the horizon of her life, appeared a man as the goal and crown of her maiden race. There beamed the neat, trim, and amiable apparition of Mr. Peter Norcot. It was no precocity that forced poor Grace into thinking so much of love, while yet she knew it not; but in her esteem, love and marriage embraced the same idea, and now she marvelled mutely to find not love, but a very active aversion reigning in her mind against the wool-stapler. ”

“ But only Grace was within reach of his voice.
"At last, my darling dear! At last I shall kiss your sweet lips again! Such news—such brave news, my Gracie! I've found the hiding-place of the amphora!"
He passed on, and the girl, returning to her chamber, locked the door of it and wept as she had not wept since childhood.
"Three—three men," she sobbed to herself. "Three grown men can all love this wretched thing. And I hate one; and I—I—love one; and good John Lee, handsome, humble, kind, faithful John Lee; I would rather die a thousand deaths than break my troth to you!" ”

“ By night, when alone, his courage sometimes increased; but daylight and duty quenched it. Under darkness he dreamed dreams, yet when he rose to hear rough men laugh at his amended speech, and see Malherb order him hither and thither, as he ordered the rest, John Lee's folly stared him in the face. He fought with himself to relinquish his task and depart from Fox Tor Farm; he fancied that he had conquered himself, and determined to go; then would come a long, lonely ride with Grace, and a return to vain unquiet hopes. ”

“ Norcot, who had turned to Grace for a while, was wearied to hear Malherb reopen the subject.
"If they would but learn the dignity of manhood; if they would use their brains and read in the books that wise Englishmen have written on the highest duty of man, we might hope for the return of the prodigal son even yet," he said; and Peter answered—
"How true; how generous of you to put it so; how grand! 'The whole duty of man'—so vast, yet so simple—like Dartmoor. A dozen words gives one, a dozen lines from an artist's pencil will convey the vision of the other." ”

“ Then Commodore Miller addressed Stark, and his dreamy, placid utterance sounded strange in the fury of the hour. Shouts and a frenzy of fear or of energy had better, chimed with the free and fearful forces of the air; but the American spoke like a spirit and looked upon these material phenomena of night and tempest as one already above their influences and beyond their power.
"'Tis a great thought that you and I are bigger than this weather. A man's soul can steer through the worst storm ever loosed against earth—steer a straight course and fear no evil of earth or sea. ”

“ Within the space of ten short days Cecil Stark was turned from supreme indifference concerning life or death to the contrary emotion. Existence for him had become endowed with a lively charm, and if Grace Malherb's heart fluttered in secret, the sailor's also now beat less steadily, and played him pranks at her approach. He found in the maiden all that love asks, and more by much than ever he had seen in any other woman. Here did beauty, spirit, force of soul, music of voice and graciousness of mien all merge in one lovely girl ”

“ These things the labourers had done and now hesitated to proceed to Chagford without Maurice Malherb. They dismounted, therefore, by the old 'cyclopean' span that still crosses Dart at Postbridge, sheltered themselves and their steeds against the sting of the air and listened where Dart sang to the savage dawn. Young green things of the year shivered in the morning chill; nature still slept; the men got under a flaming brake of spring furze that made light in the grey; then, waiting there, they heard the clink of iron-shod feet on granite and knew that somebody was crossing the bridge. ”

“ Have I toiled through a century of suffering to be denied by a starveling subaltern? And the knave actually under my eyes! Speak with him I will, so stay me at your peril!"
He woke the echoes from many walls; he fumed with indignation that a youth should affront him thus; while the officer, ignorant of all that boiled in this man's mind, and conscious of the gravity of his own charge, made short work with Mr. Malherb. He called a sergeant.
"Take half a dozen men, Bradridge, and turn this lunatic out. If he won't go, rogue's-march him! We've enough on our hands without madmen to-day." ”

“ He nodded to where Grace rode past the barn. She was clad in a snug, short habit of purple Totnes serge; and upon her hands were a pair of gloves made from the skin of a wild cat that had been captured after prodigious exertions by Thomas Putt. Behind Grace rode John Lee, and their enterprise was secret, for it had to do with the young man's recent great discovery. Now Grace, despite the languor of these days and the anti-climax that followed upon Cecil Stark's departure, found herself awake and much alive. Darkness shadowed her life and her home. ”