S. Baring-Gould

“ Throw open your door, extend your hand, and the timid child will falter in, frightened, yet elate with hope.”
“I don’t know,” said Zerah meditatively. “You’ll excuse my saying it, but when a child is heartless”--
“Heartless?--who is heartless?”
“Kate, to be sure.”
“Heartless?” repeated the rector. “You are in grievous error. No child is heartless. None of God’s creatures are void of love. God is love Himself, and we are all made in the image of the Creator. In all of us is the divine attribute of love. We were made to love and to be loved. It is a necessity of our nature. ”

“ The death of Wilmot was of no advantage to Kate. She was no longer, indeed, given over to the petty tyranny of her cousin, but she was left exposed to a hardened and embittered aunt, who resented on her the loss of her own child. Into the void heart of Zerah, Kate had no chance of finding access; that void was filled with discontent, verjuice, and acrimony. An unreasonable anger against the child who was not wanted and yet remained, in place of the child who was the apple of her eye, and was taken from her, made itself felt in a thousand ways. ”

“ Coombe Cellars was a centre of many activities; it was a sort of inn--at all events a place to which water parties came to picnic; it was a farm and a place of merchandise. Pasco had chosen as his wife Zerah Quarm, a publican’s daughter, with, indeed, a small sum of money of her own, but with what was to him of far more advantage, a clear, organising head. She was a scrupulously tidy woman, a woman who did everything by system, who had her own interest or that of the house ever in view, and would never waste a farthing. ”

“ Then they will be in a bad state of mind, father and sister Sue. Hulloa! what is that light? It comes from our place.”
John Pooke rested on his oar, and turned.
From behind an orchard a glow, as of fire, was shining. It had broken forth suddenly. The light streamed between the trees, sending fiery arrows shooting over the water, it rose in a halo above the tops of the trees.
“Kate! whatever can it be? That is our orchard. There is our rick-yard behind. It never can be that our ricks are afire, or our house! The house is just beyond. The blaze is at our place--pull hard!” ”

“ Kate held back. John came after her and said, “If we cannot find your father at once, where would you like to go?”
Half laughing and half crying, the girl answered, “I should like to be at the bottom of a well; Mr. Bramber says that there one could see the stars, even in broad daylight.”
“By all means, put her there and leave her there; we are well content,” said Rose, who had followed and overheard what was said.
“There is no well in Ashburton,” said Jan, taking Kate’s arm. “There are better things to be seen than stars by daylight. Come, we will seek your father. ”

“ 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 eyes fell, and a quiver of the lips and contraction of the mouth indicated distress and pain.
“How is it possible to turn mud into gold?” asked Pepperill. ”

“ Every oak stick is a rung in my ladder. There has been, for hundreds of years, a real forest of oaks, magnificent trees, timber incomparable for hardness--iron is not harder. Who knows about it save myself? The Exeter Bank knows nothing of the property on which it has advanced money. The agent runs over it and takes a hasty glance. He thinks that the trees he sees all up the slopes are thorn bushes or twisted stumps worth nothing, and when he passes is too eager to get away from the moor to stay and observe. ”

“ Hang it! we are comrades in ill-luck; so there is a brotherhood of misery between us. Let me call you Kitty, and let me be Jan to you--Tottle if you will.”
“Only when you begin to boast about your new suit”--
54“There, Kitty, don’t be hard on me. I must think of something to keep me warm, and what else so warming as the thoughts of the ducks, and nankeen, and bottle-green, and the box-hat. I don’t believe anything else could make me keep up my spirits. Go to sleep, and when I feel the boat lift, I will sing out.”
Kate was touched by the kindness of the soft-headed lad. ”

“ It was very different with my Wilmot; she would fly to her father--not that he deserved her love; she would dance about him and kiss him. But she had a heart, and was what a girl should be; as for your Kate, brother Jason, I don’t know what to make of her.”
“What is the matter with Kitty?”
“She is not like other girls. Did you not take notice? She was cold and regardless when you arrived, as if you were a stranger--never even put aside her knitting, never gave you a word.” ”

“ Pooke worked more easily. He had not realised at first how uncertain was the passage. The tide went swirling down to the sea with the wind behind it, driving it as a besom.
“I say, Kate Quarm--no, Miss Catherine Quarm. Hang it! how stiff and grand we be! Do you know why I have been to Exeter?”
“I do not, Jan.”
“There, you called me Jan. You’ll be ’titling me Tottle, next. That gives me a right to call you Kitty.”
“Once, but no more; and Kitty only.”
“I’ve been to Exeter to be rigged out for sister Sue’s weddin’. My word! it has cost four guineas to make a gentleman of me.” ”

“ There you shall sit and smell the honeybreath of the furze, and as the heather covers the hillsides with raspberry-cream, the flush of life will come into your face. I’m not so sure but that money might be made out of the spicy air of Dartmoor. Why not condense the scent of the furze-bushes, and advertise it as a specific in consumption? I won’t say that folks wouldn’t buy. Why not extract the mountain heather as a cosmetic? It is worth considering. Why not the juice of whortleberry as a dye for the hair? and pounded bog-peat for a dentifrice? Pasco, my boy, I have ideas. ”

“ He felt with the oar, standing up in the boat. It sank in mud. “Here’s a pretty pass,” said he. “I thought it bad enough to be stuck in the tunnel when the Atmospheric broke down, but it is worse to be fast in the mud. From the tunnel we could extricate ourselves at once, but here--in this mud, we are fast till flow of tide. Kitty,--I mean Kate,--make up your mind to accept my company for some hours. I can’t help you out, and I can’t get out myself. What is more, no one on shore, even if we could call to them, would be able to assist us. ”

“ Zerah was perhaps glad of an excuse for not continuing an angry discussion with her husband before her brother. She was hot; she could now give forth her heat upon the head of the girl.
“I don’t think I gave her much chance,” said Jason; “you see, I was talking to Pasco about the oaks.”
“Give her the chance?” retorted Zerah. “As if my Wilmot would have waited till her father gave her the chance. It is not for the father to dance after his child, but the child should run to its father. I’ll tell you what I believe, Jason, and nothing will get me out of the belief. ”

“ That arises from confidence in one’s self, and confidence in one’s cause, and confidence in mankind. You have a noble cause--the priest and the schoolmaster have the greatest of missions: to educate what is highest in man, spirit and intellect. You have no reason to be shaken by any doubt, to feel any hesitation in adhesion to the cause of education. ‘Let there be light!’ was the first word God spake. There is the keynote of creation, the moral law laid down for the whole intelligent world. We walk in the twilight that we know is brightening into day. ”

“ No infant was ever known to cut its teeth with greater ease. No little girl was more amiable, more beautiful; the intelligence the child exhibited was preternatural. When, in course of time, Wilmot grew into a really pretty girl, with very taking if somewhat forward manners, the exultation of the father knew no bounds. Nor was her mother, Zerah, less devoted to the child; and for a long period Wilmot was the bond between husband and wife, the one topic on which they thought alike, the one object over which they were equally hopeful, ambitious, and proud. ”

“ CONVALESCENCE The voice of Pasco was heard shouting up the stairs to his wife. Mrs. Pepperill, glad to escape the lecture, went to the door and called down, “Don’t make such a noise, when the girl is ill.”
“Come, will you, Zerah; there’s some one wants to have a say with you.”
With a curt excuse to the parson, Mrs. Pepperill descended. She found her husband at the foot of the stairs, with his hand on the banister.
“Pasco,” said she, “what do’y think now? The parson has been accusing me of murdering Kate. If she dies, he says he’ll have me up to Exeter Assizes and hung for it. ”

“ All the farmers were supplied with workmen, and had some difficulty in the frosty weather in finding occupation for them. None were inclined to take on Roger Redmore. Moreover, the farmers hung together like bees. A man who had offended one, incurred the displeasure of all.
Redmore wandered from one farm to another, seeking for employment, only to meet with refusal everywhere. In a day or two he would be cast forth from his cottage with wife and family. Whither to go he knew not. He had exhausted what little money he had saved, and had nowhere found work. Kate felt pity for the man. ”

“ The beast seemed to be without energy and to be out of health. Its movements were ungainly, its humour surly.
Kate soon tired of observing the creature, and would have withdrawn from the ring had she been able; but the crowd was compact behind, and she was wedged into her place.
The passive disposition of Bruin was all at once changed by the appearance of a dog that had passed between the legs of the spectators, and which entered the ring and flew at the bear with barks and snaps.
“De dogue! Take de dogue away!” shouted the Italian. “De bear no like dogue.” ”

“ I do believe you’ll fall down and worship me, and I shall smile down at you and say, Holloa! is that my good friend Kitty Alone? And you’ll say, Your very humble servant, sir!”
“That I shall never do, Mr. Pennyfare,” laughed Kate, and then, becoming grave, immediately said, “Do pull instead of talking nonsense. We are drifting; look over your shoulder.”
“So we are. There is Coombe Cellars light, right away up stream.”
“The wind and stream are against us. Pull hard.”
Jan Pooke now recognised that he must use his best exertions. ”

“ Occasionally she heard under her window a whistle piping, “There was a frog lived in a well,” and she once asked her aunt if that were father, and why he did not come upstairs to see her.
“Your father is on Dartmoor,” answered Zerah. Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she added, “I reckon it is Jan Pooke. He has taken on terribly about you. He comes every day to inquire.”
Whenever Mrs. Pepperill had a little spare time, she clambered up the steep staircase to see that her niece lacked nothing, to give her food, to make her take medicine, to shake up her bed. ”

“ Did you know my Joan? Her was the purtiest little maid in all Coombe. Her’s dead now.”
“Dead, Roger!”
“Ay, I reckon; died to-night in her mother’s lap; died o’ want, and cold, and nakedness. Us had no bread till Pass’n gave me that loaf--and no coals, and no blankets, and naught but rags. The little maid has been sick these three weeks. Us can’t have no doctor. I’ve been out o’ work three months, and now the parish must bury her. Joan, she wor my very darling, nigh my heart.”
He was silent. The boat he was in chattered more vigorously against that of Kate. ”

“ We will not talk of blame--there is none.”
“Are you going to Ashburton Fair on Tuesday?”
“I do not know.”
“Yes, you do,” threw in Aunt Zerah; then to John Pooke, “She is going to the moor to her father for a change. It is her father’s wish, so that she may be soon strong again. He will meet her at Ashburton at the fair, if we can get her so far.”
“I am going to the fair,” said Pooke eagerly. “That is to say, sister Sue and I be going together there. The young man to whom she is about to be married lives at Ashburton, and will have it that she goes. There is room for a third in our trap. ”

“ What is there inland but a desert waste of sand-hill and arid flat that is barren as my hand, bearing nothing but a little scrubby thorn and thistle and bramble--sand, that’s not worth half a crown an acre? There is no necessity for us to cut a canal. The canal exists, cut in order that the Hey-tor granite may be conveyed along it to the sea. It has not occurred to the fools that the barges that convey the stone down might come up laden with Teign mud, instead of returning empty. ”

“ THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER One day, when her uncle was at home busy about his accounts, which engaged him frequently without greatly enlightening him, but serving rather to involve his mind in confusion, Kate was assisting her aunt in preparing for the early dinner, when a tap at the door announced a caller.
Pasco shouted to the person outside to come in, and a young man entered--tall, with fair hair, and clear, steady grey eyes.
“I am the new schoolmaster,” said he frankly. “I have thought it my duty to come and see you, as you are church-warden and one of the managers of the National School.” ”

“ The cheeks flushed, the eyes burned with unnatural light, and the pulse ebbed and flowed.
“Where do the stars go by day?” asked Kate in delirium; “and why does the Plough turn in heaven? Is God’s hand on it?”
“My child,” said the parson, “God’s plough in the earth is the frost, that cuts deep and turns and crumbles the clods ready for the seed; and God’s plough on human hearts is great sorrow and sharp disappointment--to make the necessary furrow into which to drop the seeds of faith, and love, and patience.”
“She is not speaking to you, sir,” said Mrs. Pepperill. “She’s talking rambling like. ”

“ Kate attempted to fly, for she knew what was coming, but was arrested by her aunt, who grasped her by the shoulders.
“You little fool!” she said. “Don’t you see what may come of this if you manage well, or let me manage for you? Jan Tottle came here every day to inquire when you were ill, and now you let him slip between your fingers and into the hands of that designing Rose. He is a ball that has come to you, and you toss it to her. Don’t think she is fool enough to toss him back to you. When she has him she will close her fingers on him. ”

“ Kate assumed one oar, John the other, and began to row; she at first with difficulty, then with ease, as warmth returned and her blood resumed its flow. The swelling tide carried the boat up with it, and the oars were leisurely dipped, breaking the diamonds in the water into a thousand brilliants.
As they approached the reach where lay Coombe-in-Teignhead, 61John Pooke said: “There is a light burning in your house. They are all up, anxious, watching for you, and in trouble. On my word, will not my father be in a condition of fright and distress concerning me if he hears that I am out? ”