Chapter XV Sun Dance
On the morning of Easter Sunday, some three months after the departure of Doctor Clack from Little Silver, certain labouring men in their best broadcloth ascended Scor Hill at dawn. Jonah Cramphorn, Churdles Ash, Henry Collins, and the lad Tommy Bates comprised this company, and their purpose was to behold a spectacle familiar and famous in ancient days but unheeded and little remembered at the period of these events. Ash had attracted the younger men to see the sun dance on Easter morn, and of those who accompanied him, Mr. Cramphorn was always willing to honour a superstition, no matter of what colour; Collins came to gain private ends; while the boy followed because he was promised a new experience.
“T’others may go to the Lard’s Table for their bite an’ sup, an’ a holy act to theer betterment no doubt,” declared Churdles; “but, for my paart, ’tis a finer deed to see the gert sun a-dancin’ for sheer joy ’pon Resurrection Marnin’, come it happen to be fine. A butivul day, sure enough, an’ the elements all red an’ blue, like the Saviour’s clothes in the window-glasses to church.”
Mr. Ash’s dim eyes scanned the sweetness of an April sky, and the party moved onward to the crown of the hill. Through pearly dews they went, and passed forward where the soft, green mantle of on-coming spring hung like a veil on hedgerows and over wild waste places. A world stretched before them lighted by the cold purity of spotless dawn, and the day-spring, begemmed with primrose stars, was heralded by thrushes in many a dingle, by the lark on high. As yet earth lay in the light that is neither sunshine nor shadow, but out of the waxing blue above, from whence, like a shower, fell his tinkling rhapsody, one singing bird could see the sun, and himself shone like a little star.
To the upland heath and granite plodded these repositories of obsolescent folk-lore; and they talked as they went, the better to instil Collins and the boy with a proper understanding in the matter of those superstitions a scoffing generation agreed to disregard. Henry, on his part, felt more than uneasy, for he much doubted the sanctity of this present step. But love was responsible; Collins pined for Sally in secret, and his great desire to conciliate Mr. Cramphorn was such that, when Jonah invited him to the present observation, he undertook at once to be of the party. Now he recollected that he had also promised the vicar to go to the Sacrament that morning.
“You must knaw,” said Churdles Ash to Tommy, “that this holy season be a gert time for signs an’ wonders up-along an’ down-along. I tell ’e these things, ’cause you’m a young youth, an’ may profit an’ hand ’em on to your childern in fulness of time. Theer be Gude Friday—a day of much vartue, I assure ’e. Not awnly the event o’ the Lard’s undoing by they bowldacious Jews, but the properest for plantin’ vegetables in the whole of the year.”
“An’ the best for weanin’ of childern,” said Mr. Cramphorn. “Sally was weaned ’pon that day, an’ went straight to cow’s milk so natural an’ easy as a born calf; an’ look at her now!”
Mr. Collins sighed deeply.
“Butivulest gal in Debbensheer, I reckon,” he said.
Jonah grunted assent, and Henry, feeling the moment for a certain vital question had arrived, mopped his wet brow and tremulously approached the matter.
“Fall back a pace or two, will ’e, maister? Your darter—I daresay you might have seed as I was a bit hit in that quarter?”
“I’ve seed it, I grant you. I’m all eyes wheer my gals be consarned.”
“These things caan’t be helped. I mean no disrespect, I’m sure. ’Tis the voice of nature in a man.”
“I’m sorry for ’e, Henery.”
“For that matter I couldn’t wish myself out o’ the evil, though ’tis perplexin’ an’ very onrestful to my head. I be mazed when I consider how a man of my modest way could think twice ’bout a rare piece like Sally. Never seed such a wonnerful strong arm ’pon any woman in all my born days.”
Jonah frowned and shook his head.
“Never mind her paarts. Don’t become you or any man to name a limb of her separate from the rest. Baan’t respectful!”
“Then I’m sorry I said it. An’ as for respectfulness, I’d go on my bended knees to her to-morrow.”
“Have you?” inquired the parent. “That’s the question. Have ’e axed her an’ got a answer?”
“Not for the world,” stammered Henry. “Not for the world afore gettin’ your leave. I knaw my plaace better.”
Mr. Cramphorn’s nose wrinkled as though it had caught an evil odour.
“Bah! You say that! You’m so chicken-hearted that you come to me ’fore you go to she! Then I sez ‘No.’ I forbids you to speak a word of the matter, for I reckon your way be more tame an’ soft than the likes of her or any other high-spirited female would suffer.”
“You’m tu violent—I swear you be,” protested Mr. Collins. “You’d have been the fust to blame me if I’d spoke wi’out axin’ you. Besides, caan’t a man talk apart from usin’ his tongue in this matter? I’ve a looked at her time an’ again wi’ all the power of the eye. Theer’s a language in that, an’ she knawed what I meant, or I’m a fule.”
“Theer be such a language for sartain,” admitted Jonah; “but not for you. No more power o’ speech in your gert eyes than a bullock’s—I don’t mean as it’s to be counted any fault in you, but just the will of Nature. An’ so enough’s said.”
“Quick! Run, the pair of ’e!” cried Tommy’s voice. “Her’s risin’ nigh the edge o’ Kes Tor Rock all copper-red!”
Cramphorn quickened his pace, and Collins, now merged in blank despair, strode alter him. Together they approached Mr. Ash, and joined the aged man upon a little granite elevation at the south-eastern extremity of Scor Hill. Below them, a watercourse, now touched to fire, wound about the shoulder of the elevation; and beneath, much misty, new-born verdure of silver birch and sallow, brightened the fringe of fir woods where Teign tumbled singing to the morning.
Over against the watchers, lifted above a grey glimmer of ruined Damnonian hut villages and primæval pounds, there towered the granite mass of Kes Tor, and from the distant horizon arose the sun. He bulked enormous, through the violet hazes of nightly mist that now dwindled and sank along the crowns of the hills; then the effulgent circle of him, ascending, flashed forth clean fire that flamed along unnumbered crests and pinnacles of far-flung granite, that reddened to the peaty heart each marsh and mire, each ridge and plane of the many-tinted garment that endued the Moor.
Silently the labourers watched sunrise; then was manifested that heliacal phenomenon they had come to see. A play of light, proper to the sun at ascension, ran and raced twinkling round his disc; and, like an empyreal wheel, the blazing star appeared to revolve and spin upon its upward way.
“He be dancin’! He be dancin’, now!” declared Mr. Ash.
“For sure, if I could awnly keep the watter out o’ my eyes,” added Jonah; while Collins, by his comment, reflected personal tribulations and exhibited an impatient spirit in presence of this solemn display.
“I’ve seed un shimmer same as that scores o’ times on working-days,” he said sourly.
“Granted—in a lesser fashion; but not like he be doin’ now. He knaws as the Lard o’ Hosts leapt forth from the tomb to the biddin’ of cherub angels ’pon this glad marnin’—nobody knaws it better than him. An’, for all his size, he’m as giddy an’ gay an’ frolicsome by reason of it, as the high hills what hop in the Psalms o’ David.”
Thus speaking, Gaffer Ash regarded the source of light with a benignant and indulgent smile.
“An’ us all did ought to feel the same, I’m sure,” moralised Jonah Cramphorn, wiping the tears from his eyes and blinking at a huge red spot now stamped upon his retina and reproduced in varying size against everything which he regarded. “For my part I hold that not a heathen in the land but ought to rise into a gude Christian man afore that gert act.”
They waited and watched until the growing glory defied their vision; then all started to return homewards, and both the elder men declared themselves much refreshed, invigorated, and gladdened by what they had seen. Each, inspired by the incident, occupied himself with time past and matters now grown musty. They related stories of witches and of ghosts; they handled omens, and callings, and messages from dead voices heard upon dark nights; they explained the cryptic mysteries hidden in hares and toads, in stars, in ‘thunder-planets,’ and the grasses of the field. They treated of turning stones against an enemy; of amulets to protect humanity from the evil eye; of ill-wishing and other magical misfortunes; of oil of man; and of the good or sinister forces hidden in wayside herbs.
“’Tis the fashion ’mongst our young school-gwaine fules to laugh at auld saws an’ dark sayings because theer teachers laugh at ’em; but facts doan’t change, though manners may,” said Mr. Cramphorn. “Theer’s witches descended from Bible witches, same as theer be saints an’ ‘postles comed from laying on of hands. An’ Cherry Grepe’s of ’em; she doan’t want for power yet, or my brain be no better’n tallow. I seed Chowne’s oxen charmed into gude health again, an’ gerter wonders than that onder my awn eyes. Ten shillin’ she had of mine—” he added, lowering his voice for the ear of Mr. Ash alone—“ten shillin’ to bring harm ’pon Christopher Yeoland. An’ she drawd a circle against un before my faace an’ done a charm wi’ wax an’ fire. ‘’Twill all act presently,’ she said; and act it did, as you knaw, for he’m crossed in love, an’ a wanderer ’pon the faace of the airth, like Cain at this minute; an’ worse to come, worse to come.”
Mr. Ash looked very uneasy.
“I could wish as you hadn’t told me that,” he answered. “You’m allus lickin’ your lips on it, an’ I’d rather not knaw no more. Ban’t a pleasant side o’ your carater.”
Shouts from Tommy interrupted Churdles, and all looked where the boy pointed—to see some white object vanish under a gate before their eyes. As for himself, heedless of Cramphorn’s loud warning, Tommy Bates picked up a stone and ran after the object.
“‘Ful to me!” cried Cramphorn, “did ’e see it—a rabbit as I’m a sinful man!”
“The white coney o’ Scor Hill! An’ that’s death wi’in the year to some wan us knaws! Fegs! A bad business for sartain.”
“Death inside the week,” corrected Jonah solemnly. “It may have awvertook some poor neighbour a’ready.”
“Or it may be ordained for wan of ourselves,” murmured Mr. Ash gloomily.
“I wish to Christ I’d gone to church then!” burst out Collins. “For it’s been a cruel hard marnin’ for me from time I rose, sun dance or no sun dance; an’ now to cap it wi’ this gert, hidden calamity, an’ death in the wind.”
“Sure as night follows day,” declared Churdles Ash.
The love-sick Collins tramped on his way without further speech; Tommy did not return from pursuit of the apparition, and Ash argued with Cramphorn as to who might now be numbered with the majority. Upon this delicate point they could by no means agree; and they were still wrangling as to the identity of their ill-starred acquaintance when a man met them hard by the main entrance of Bear Down, and they saw that it was Myles Stapledon.
After Doctor Clack’s departure and within a few days of the scene in gathering snow upon Scor Hill, Myles had left Endicott’s and taken him rooms at Little Silver, in the dwelling of Noah Brimblecombe, sexton to the parish. This man owned a pleasant abode somewhat greater than a cottage—an establishment the bulk of which its possessor annually under-let to advantage in the summer months. Hither came the rejected, his plans for the future still unformed. And here he dwelt for three long months and laboured like a giant to crush the agony of his spirit, the black misery of every waking hour. Bear Down once thoroughly invigorated by his capital and improved by his knowledge, he determined to leave; but while work still remained to do he stopped at the gates of the farm and exercised a painful self-control. Honor he saw not seldom, but the former friendship, while still quite possible for her, was beyond the power of the man. She pitied him, without wholly understanding; and very sincerely pitied herself in that circumstances now deprived her not a little of his cherished society. The difficulty lay in her attitude towards him. To behave as one who loved him was impossible under the constraint that now hedged him in; so she attempted to imitate his manner, and failed. A great awkwardness and unreality characterised present relations, and Honor found in these circumstances ample matter for mental distraction, if only of a painful nature; while Stapledon waited for the season of spring to finish his labours, and counted that each post might bring some message from Christopher.
To-day he had news definite and tremendous enough The last of the Yeolands was coming back to his fathers—that he might sleep amongst them; for he was dead.
With a face darkened, Myles asked Cramphorn where he might find Mr. Endicott, and Jonah, seeing that something was amiss, himself made an inquiry.
“Maister Mark be in the garden most likely. An’ what ill’s walkin’ now, sir, if a man may ax? Theer’s a black story in your faace as you caan’t hide.”
“Black enough,” said Stapledon shortly. “You’ll know in good time.”
He passed by and left them staring.
“That dratted white rabbit!” murmured Mr. Ash; while the messenger of sorrow approached Mark, where he walked up and down under the walls of the farm, beside uprising spikes of the orange-lilies and early growth of other things that stood along his way.
“You, Stapledon? Good morning. There’s the feel of fine weather on my cheek.”
Above them a window, set in cherry-buds, stood open, and within Honor, who had just returned with her uncle from a celebration of the Lord’s Supper, was taking off her hat at her looking-glass.
“Good morning, uncle. I’ve brought some awfully sad and awfully sudden news. Here’s a letter from Clack. I rode early to Chagford about another letter I expected, and found this waiting, so saved the postman. Christopher Yeoland—he has gone—he is dead.”
“Dead! So young—so full of life! What killed him?”
“Died of a snake-bite near Paramatta. It’s an orange-growing district near Sydney, so the doctor says. He was there with his cousin—an old settler—a survivor from a cadet branch of the family, I fancy. And it seems that it was Yeoland’s wish to lie at home—his last wish.”
“Then no doubt Clack will look to it. Gone! Hard to credit, very hard to credit.”
“I’m thinking of Honor. It will be your task to tell her, I fear. My God! I can’t believe this. I had hoped for something so different. She loved him—she loved him still.”
“Is there any reason why she should not read the letter?” asked Mr. Endicott.
“None—not a line she need not see. It is very short—cynically short for Clack. He was probably dazed when he wrote; as I am now.”
“Give it to me, then. I will go up to her at once. Yes, I must tell her—the sooner the better.”
But Honor Endicott knew already. She had heard through her casement, and stood like a stone woman staring up into the blue sky when Mark knocked at her door.
“Come in, uncle,” she said; and then continued, as he entered groping, “I have heard what you want to say. So you are spared that. Give me the letter and I will read it to you.”
“You know!”
“My window was open. I could not choose but hear, for the first word chained me. Christo is dead.”
He held out the letter and left her with it; while she, as yet too shocked to see or feel beyond the actual stroke, read tearlessly.
And, gazing with the eye of the mind through those great spaces that separated her from this tragedy, she saw her old lover again, remembered his joy of life, heard his laughter, and told herself that she had killed him.
Below, in the kitchen, all Bear Down assembled about breakfast. Then Mark Endicott told the company this news, and unutterable glances passed between Ash, Cramphorn, and Collins.
“You’d best to keep dumb ’bout your share, Jonah,” muttered Churdles under his breath, with round eyes that indicated aversion. “I wouldn’t say the law mightn’t overget ’e, if it knawed.”
“As to that, I fear nothin’, an’ the tears I shed won’t drown a midge,” answered the other in a defiant whisper. “I’ve forgived his wrong; forget it I never shall.”
Collins was busy telling Sally and Margery of the spectral rabbit.
“An’ ’tis plain the ill-convenient beast didn’t run for nought. Who shall laugh at such deeds now? Not the vainest man amongst us,” he concluded.
“Him of all to go!” sighed Mrs. Loveys; “an’ when us thinks of what might have been an’ how one short word will make or mar a life——”
Then a question from Margery as to where Tom Bates might be was answered by the sudden appearance of that youth, and Mrs. Loveys, with a mind somewhat overwrought, found outlet for emotion in an attack upon him.
“Doan’t ‘e knaw the hour for eatin’, you ugly li’l twoad?” she demanded sharply. “An’ to come to the table in such a jakes of a mess tu! You ought to be shamed.”
But the boy paid no heed. He returned breathless with a comforting discovery, and now cried it aloud to his companions of the morning.
“’Tis all right,” he said; “no call for no upstore nor trouble at all. That theer white bastey I mean. I followed un half a mile to the furze meadows down-long to make sartain, then I lost un, an’ presently if I didn’t see un again—wi’ a young rabbit he’d catched! Nought but that baggerin’ auld ram cat as they’ve got to Creber Farm!”
“Quiet! you young fule!” said Mr. Cramphorn roughly; “shut your mouth, will ’e? or I’ll scat ’e awver the ear-hole! You to pit your green brains against our ripe wans! A man be dead, an’ so ’tis sartain us seed what us seed.”
“Sartain as doom us seed what us seed,” echoed Gaffer Ash, “for a man be dead.”