Chapter VIII In Pixies’ House
Various interests are served by the great bulk of Sheep’s Tor. Not only the colt and the coney prosper here and the vixen finds a place for her cubs, but man also avails himself of the hill in a manner little to be guessed. Battleships, swinging far off to adjust their compasses in Plymouth Sound, use the remote, ragged crown of the tor as a fixed point for determining the accuracy of their instruments; while once, if oral tradition may be respected, the stony bosom of the giant offered hiding in time of stress to a scion of the old Elford clan, lords of the demesne in Stuart days. This king’s man, flying for his life from the soldiers of Cromwell, hid himself in a familiar nook; and we may suppose the ‘foreigners’ tramped Sheep’s Tor in vain, and perhaps stamped iron-shod over the rocks under which he lay safe hidden. To-day this cleft, called the Pixies’ House, can still be entered. It is of a size sufficient to contain two adults in close juxtaposition; but an inner chamber has fallen, and certain drawings, with which it was alleged the concealed fugitive occupied his leisure, have, if ever they existed, vanished away.
In the very bosom of the great south-facing rocky slope of Sheep’s Tor where the lichen-coated slabs and boulders are flung together in magnificent confusion, there may be found one narrow cleft, above which a mass of granite has been split perpendicularly. Chaos of stone spilled here lies all about, and numberless small crannies and chambers abound; but the rift alone marks any possible place of concealment for creature larger than dog or fox; and beneath it, invisible and unguessed, lies the Pixies’ House, one of the local sanctities and a haunt of the little people.
Here, two days after Margaret had accepted David Bowden, Bartley Crocker was walking with a gun. His goal lay up the valley and he hoped to shoot some snipe; but circumstances quite altered his intentions.
The day was one of elemental unrest and the clouds rolled tumultuous. They unrolled great planes of shifting gloom and splendour, of accidents of vapour that concealed and of light that illumined. But at mid-day a mighty shadow ascended against the wind and thunder rumbled along the edges of the Moor. The storm-centre spun about a mile off, then it drove in chariots of darkness over Sheep’s Tor.
At this moment Bartley remembered the Pixies’ House, and, hastening sure-footed over the wild concourse of stones that extended around it, he approached the crevice where it lay.
A woman suddenly caught his eye, and as the breaking storm now promised to be terrific, he called to her and, turning back, joined her.
It proved to be Rhoda Bowden on her way home, and she accepted Bartley’s offer of shelter.
“Something pretty bad’s coming,” she said. “Be the Pixies’ House large enough for the both of us? I’ve got a bit of news you’ll be surprised to hear.”
“Full large enough—quick—quick—down through there—let me have your hand.”
But she accepted no help and soon crawled through the aperture into shelter. Then Bartley, taking two caps off the nipples of his gun, thrust it in after Rhoda and followed swiftly to avoid the onset of the storm.
They had acted with utmost speed and Rhoda was now aghast to find the exceeding propinquity of Mr. Crocker. He could hardly have been closer. She moved uneasily. It occurred to her that he ought to have surrendered the Pixies’ House to her and himself found shelter elsewhere. The idea, however, had not struck him.
“Can’t you make a little more room?” she asked, breathing rather hard.
“I wish I could, but it’s impossible. I forgot you were such a jolly big girl,” he answered.
She set her teeth and waited for the outer darkness to lighten. The thunder roared and exploded in a rattle overhead; they heard the hiss and hurtle of the ice and water; while at intervals the entrance of their shelter was splashed along its rough edges with glare of lightning.
“Better here than outside,” said Bartley; but Rhoda began to doubt it. It seemed to her that he came nearer and nearer. At last she asked him to get out and let her pass.
“Can’t stand this no more,” she said, “I’m being choked. I’d sooner suffer the storm than this.”
“You don’t want to go out, surely!”
“Yes, I do.”
The lightning showed him her face very close to his, and he saw her round cheek, lovely ear and bright, hard eyes with a wild look in them, like something caught in a trap. The storm shouted to the hills and cried savagely against the granite precipices; it leapt over the open heaths and roared into the coombes and valleys. The waste was all a dancing whiteness of hail, jewelled ever and anon by the lightning.
Already the heart of conflict had passed and it grew lighter to rearward.
“You must wait a bit yet. Your people would never forgive me if I let you go into this.”
She pushed forward, then strained back horrified, for she had accidentally pressed his face with her cheek. But Bartley was not built to stand that soft, firm appulse of woman’s flesh without immediate ignition.
“I must have one if I swing for it!” he said. Then he put his arms round her and kissed her.
He expected an explosion and found himself not disappointed. The thunder-storm outside was mild to the woman-storm within when Crocker thrust his caress upon this girl. She started back as though he had stamped a red-hot iron upon her face.
“You loathsome, godless wretch!” she shrieked out, and her voice broke the rocky bounds of earth and leapt into the storm. Thence frantically she followed it and trampled heavily on the amorous sportsman as she did so.
“I could tear the skin off my face!” she cried; and her words came deep and fierce and shuddering. “You coward! I’d sooner be struck by the lightning than have suffered it!”
She departed, running like a frightened child, and he crawled out after her and rubbed his bruised shins. Her nailed shoe had stamped on his hand, torn it and made it bleed; but his wound was light to hers. He was back in the shelter presently, laughing and smoking his pipe while the weather cleared; but she sobbed and panted homeward under the sob and pant of the storm. She felt unclean; every instinct of her nature rebelled against this touch of male lips. She magnified the caress into a mountain of offence; she held up her cheek that the rain which followed the hail might wash it and purge it from this man’s hateful blandishment. Passion got hold of her violated soul, and she would gladly have called down fire from the cloud upon Crocker.
He, meantime, waited a while, and wondered what thing it was she had meant to tell him. As yet none at Sheepstor knew of Margaret’s engagement, the great subject in Rhoda’s mind; but though he did not learn it from her, chance and his own act put the information into Bartley’s hand within that hour. This reverse with David’s sister altered his intentions and turned him towards another woman. He suddenly longed for a sight of Margaret, and, abandoning the thought of snipe, decided to go to Coombeshead and see her instantly. A still larger resolve lurked behind. Now bright weather-gleams of blue and silver opened their eyes to windward; the storm had gathered up its skirts of rack and flame into the central moor; a thousand gurgling rivulets leapt over the grass; the hail melted; the ponies turned head to wind again and went on grazing, while their wet sides steamed in a weak tremor of sunlight.
Bartley stepped forth, shouldered his gun and whistled to his dog, which had taken refuge near at hand and gone to sleep in a hole. Then he started over the Moor to his destination and his great deed.
Margaret was at home and came out to see him. His greeting amazed her, for it differed by much from what she expected. The girl doubted not that her friend had heard the news and had come to offer his congratulations; but he had not heard it, and he came to offer himself.
Mr. Crocker had toyed with this achievement for six weeks; and now the storm, and Rhoda, and certain uneasiness begot of Rhoda, and a general vague desire for something feminine as different as possible from Rhoda, together with other emotions and sensations too numerous to define, all affirmed his resolve.
He wasted no time, for he was full of desire for Madge and honestly believed that she cared for him. And in answer to his abrupt but impassioned plea, she assured him that she did care for him and that his welfare was no small thing to her.
“We’ve known each other ever since we was dinky boy and girl to infant school together; and I, with my managing ways, would oft blow your li’l nubby nose when it wanted it,” she said, looking at him with shining eyes and in a mood emotional. “But with my David—yes, my David he is—well, ’twas love, dear Bartley, and we’m tokened. And I’m glad ’twas left for me to tell you, though ’tis terrible strange it should fall out at such a minute as this.”
He stared and stammered and wished her joy. He was disappointed, but not by any means crushed to the earth. It only occurred to him that no other woman’s lips would that day destroy the flavour of Rhoda Bowden’s.
“Then what becomes of me?” he said; but not as though there were no answer to the question.
“You’ll get a better far,” she replied.
“But you—you to go into that silent family—all so stern and proper. Think twice afore ’tis too late, Madge.”
“I love them all,” she answered. “But silent they surely are. I took my dinner along with them yesterday and, if it hadn’t been for Dorcas and me, they’d have gone without a word spoken from grace afore meat to thanksgiving after.”
“Dorcas is cheerful enough.”
“I like her—best after David,” said Madge, a little nervously, as though she talked treason.
Then Mr. Crocker told of the storm and his companion in the Pixies’ House.
“Like a damned fool, just because her cheek happened to touch mine, I kissed her.”
“Bartley!”
“Well you may stare. Lord knows what come over me to do it; but I got hell for my fun, and so like as not your David will have a bit more to say later on. Him and Rhoda are the wide world to each other. I suppose you know that?”
Margaret’s face clouded, but she was loyal.
“Rhoda’s a splendid woman, Bartley.”
“She is. Now that you won’t take me, I believe I shall have a dash at her. But ’twill be a long year afore she forgives this day’s work.”
He left Margaret soon afterwards and his depression of spirit steadily gained upon him as he returned home. At ‘The Corner House’ he stopped and drank a while; then he got back to his mother and took a gloomy pleasure in shocking her pride with his news.
Nanny Crocker was sewing at the kitchen table when he returned, and his Aunt Susan brought a belated meal to him hot from the oven.
He looked at the food and then spoke.
“Can’t eat,” he said. “I’ve had a full meal to-day a’ready.”
“Was you in the storm?” asked Susan. “In the midst of all that awful lightning, with thunder-planets falling and a noise in the elements like the trump of Doom.—If the cat haven’t chatted in the pigs’ house! Her always brings six, so no doubt that’s the number.”
“I’ve just come from asking Margaret Stanbury to marry me,” said Bartley, showing no interest in the kittens. “That’s what I meant when I said I’ve had a full meal.”
“At last!” cried Nanny Crocker. “Well, well, well—and what a day to choose, my dear! God bless you both, I’m sure. She’s a lucky girl and we must set to work now to teach her more than she’s been able to learn at home. Rise up and kiss me, my son.”
Bartley obeyed with a sort of sardonic smile under his skin. His mother kissed him fervently and sighed.
“You didn’t ask twice, I lay,” said Susan.
“No,” he answered, “I didn’t.”
“’Tis a terrible pity her mother’s such a chuckle-headed, timid creature,” declared Nanny. “Not a word against her after to-day, of course. But I’m sorry she haven’t got larger intellects and don’t believe a little less.”
“When is it to be, Bartley?” asked his aunt. “You’re not the sort to wait long, I reckon.”
“It isn’t to be,” he answered. “You two silly old souls run on so, and can’t imagine any woman turning up her nose at me. But unfortunately other people haven’t such a good opinion.”
“Won’t have you!” gasped his parent. “A Stanbury won’t take a Crocker!”
“Madge Stanbury won’t take this Crocker—which is all that matters.”
“The chit!” said Nanny.
“The ninnyhammer!” cried Aunt Susan.
“The sensible girl,” answered Bartley. “She’s found somebody better—a man as stands to work and will make a finer fashion of husband than ever I should.”
“How you can sit there and talk in that mean spirit passes me!” answered his mother. “Have a greater respect for yourself, and let that girl see to her dying day what a fool she’s been.”
“Who is it? I suppose you got that much out of her?” asked Bartley’s aunt.
“It’s David Bowden from Ditsworthy, and they’ve been tokened two days, so, you see, I was a bit behind the fair.”
“Nobody would blame her for changing her mind yet now you’ve offered yourself,” declared Susan.
“She’s no wish to change. She likes me very well as a friend—always have since she used to blow my nose for me in infant school—but she likes him a long sight better—well enough to wed.”
“She’ll change yet—mark me,” foretold his aunt.
“My son have got his self-respect, I believe, Susan, and, change or not change, he’ll never give her another chance, I should hope. ’Tis done, and to her dying day she’ll rue it—as she well deserves. To put that rough rabbit-catcher afore—however, I thank God she did—I thank God she did; and I shall thank Him in person on my knees this night. Never, never was such an empty giglet wench heard of. A merciful escape without a doubt; for a fool only breeds fools.”
“I may be her brother-in-law if I can’t be her husband,” said Bartley; and then he departed and left the indignant and wounded old women to wonder what he might mean.