john lee entertained a very vivid recollection of the spot where his grandmother had turned on a moonlit night under fox tor, and beat him for daring to follow her. that her hiding-place was still the same he doubted not; and now he determined to track the old woman down again, but with more stealth and skill than had marked his boyish operations.
seven times he waited on the moor beneath the hills, only to find each vigil unbroken save by the familiar shapes and voices of the night. then two moons passed and the hunting season opened in earnest. it now became lee's duty to ride his master's second horse, for mr. malherb was both a heavy weight and a hard rider. as for grace, she approached the sport with all her father's ardour and quickly proved herself a brave and a brilliant horsewoman. oftentimes she made john's heart sink, for she knew no fear; then maurice malherb cautioned her for incurring of unnecessary risk, and in private john implored her to be more cautious.
"you are magnificent," he said. "'tis a grand thing to see mr. malherb's face when he watches you; but you are made of flesh and blood, not moonbeams; and your horse, fine though he is, can only do what a horse may."
"'tis so funny to hear dear father tell all men about his wonderful system of teaching; while the sober truth is that you have taught me what i know," she answered. "father rides well enough and with the courage of a lion; but you—i love to hear them talk of it. sir thomas and the rest declare that you have the most perfect style on dartmoor. father has to thank you for much. you nurse his second horse marvellously."
"he is always most generous with his praise—and his half-guineas. i hate to take them," replied john.
grace malherb got her first brush in november. then came a day when circumstances so fell out that she went to a meet with sir thomas tyrwhitt and the house party from tor royal. upon this occasion mr. malherb had business in exeter and he rode thither at dawn with john lee. it was understood that grace might spend the night with friends at holne, some miles from fox tor farm.
an incident trivial in itself needs this much of elaboration, since mighty matters sprang from it. maurice malherb, his business of purchasing a new hunter happily completed, set off homeward in good spirits; while john lee followed, riding his own horse and leading the new one.
upon his return the master found that grace had not come home; while john lee, perceiving the night to be clear and lit by the moon, determined once again to keep a vigil for lovey. he tumbled into bed soon after eight o'clock, slept soundly for three hours, then, as he had often done of late, arose, dressed in his thickest attire, left the loft wherein he lived and crept out of the house. slipping from a side door, john was startled to hear footsteps, and, peeping cautiously over a gate that led to the stable-yard, he saw his master, booted and spurred. a moment later maurice malherb led a saddled horse from the stable, mounted it and cantered away.
john kept invisible until the other was gone; then, full of wonder at a circumstance quite beyond his experience, he left the farm and entered the moor. the moon shone clearly, and there was frost in the air. dew glimmered grey upon the dying herbage; and below in the valley waters murmured softly from a dense cloud of silver mist that hid them.
now the object of malherb's secret pilgrimage was one which he would sooner have perished than declare. the man's soft heart prompted him upon this mission; a simple matter of sentiment, hidden jealously from every eye, took him forth into the night. the morning kiss that he gave to grace was always formal and cold; and if sometimes he stroked her hair or patted her soft cheek, he instantly assumed an attitude of indifference or said some harsh word, as though contemptuous of his own weakness. annabel malherb, affectionate and warm-hearted though she was, possessed far more common-sense and infinitely more self-possession in matters of human affection than did her husband. she showed all that she felt and very properly passed for a gentle and a tender-hearted woman; he secreted his emotions and banked up volcanic fires out of sight. thus he suffered as only those at once self-conscious and deeply feeling can suffer.
upon returning from exeter, mr. malherb supped with his wife and heard how sir thomas tyrwhitt had called upon his homeward way after hunting and taken a dish of tea and a cordial.
"'twas a very good run—one hour and twenty minutes. they killed upon east dart, near dury, and my lady bastard had the brush."
"what of grace?"
"sir thomas saw her once, well up. doubtless she returned with the fentons to holne. her things were sent in good time, for dinah beer went in to market there and took 'em with her."
"yes, yes, of course," said the farmer, and spoke of other matters. yet sleep refused to close his eyes; and while annabel slumbered placidly enough, well knowing that her daughter was safe and happy, the father, equally sure of the fact in his reason, found a paternal instinct above reason keeping him awake and restless. he tossed to the right and left; he swore half-sleeping; then he started into wakefulness and saw his window full of moonlight. the illumination decided him. with a shamed face he stole from the side of his wife, and ten minutes later was ready to take the road. creeping out of doors, he went to the stable, saddled a hack and rode off towards holne village with a sulky and guilty satisfaction. the thought of any human eye upon him had driven him into a furious passion at once. he was ashamed of himself, yet well content to be upon this business.
malherb trotted the four miles to holne, fastened up his horse at the edge of a wood, and proceeded cautiously to the dwelling of the fentons. avoiding the front of the house, he presently reached the back premises. all was still, and he passed noiselessly to the window of the stables. the occasional thud of hoofs and snort of nostrils reached him from here. moonlight illuminated the interior, and malherb without difficulty saw what he wished to see. his daughter's hunter stood comfortable and asleep in its stall. for that sight alone the man had come, because it revealed to him how all was well with grace. some great dog bayed, and leaped to the length of its chain with a rush and rattle, but before a sleepy voice from above bade it be silent, malherb was far away. he hurried back through the trees to his horse, then returned homewards, happy. other such human secrets as this were locked in the casket of his heart, and now, thinking upon the past, he remembered deeds to his account as a young husband and father. he growled impatiently and shook his head, for it vexed him that god's self should know those things.
into the thread of the night's incidents malherb anon returned, but for the moment it is necessary that we follow john lee. proceeding along the accustomed way, he hid closely where, beneath the inky blackness of a rock's shadow, it was possible for him to survey the shining vast, himself unseen. the sky twinkled with frosty stars to the horizon; the moon sailed high overhead. then, almost before he had settled to his vigil, there came a sound out of the night, a rhythm of feet, that bore a lean grey figure who seemed woven of light and mist. it crept towards him; it promised to pass along the sheep-track within five yards of him; and lee, with a tremor of boyish fear suddenly chilling his bones, shrank into the darkness and scarcely dared to breathe. then lovey lee went past, and the light was in her eyes where they glimmered out of her white face, like jewels set in marble. her breath came a little short, for she was moving fast. as one in sleep she swept along, staring before her, until her tall shape was swallowed up again within the pearly dimness of the moor. the sound of her footsteps died upon his ear; the vision of her faded.
john lee gave his grandmother a few minutes' start before he followed with extreme caution. for two miles he stalked the shadow of her, then, perceiving that she must presently enter a deep gorge known as hangman's hollow, where certain ruins of old mining works and blowing-houses still stood, he made a wide detour, mended his pace, and got to the neck of the coombe before her. here he concealed himself again beside one of the rotting buildings, formerly used for smelting of tin. he hid behind a broken wall, and through a chink in it kept watch upon the ravine down which he had just hastened. upon his left yawned a disused gravel-pit, where a labourer had hanged himself to a rowan tree and so given this sinister name to the spot. around about, dying brake-fern spread wanly under the night; and here and there flashed the white of a rabbit's scut as it bobbed from its hole to the open and back again. on the watcher's right hand, deep sunk into the heather-clad earth, the bulk of an old blowing-house still appeared; but one side had bulged and broken out, so that the whole stood like a shattered corpse of some habitation, and shone pallid there in its pall of grey lichens and rusty moss.
while still he panted after his run, and was vexed to see his breath steam into the moonlight, there came lovey lee slowly descending. she passed him, and turned the corner of the ruin where two broken walls rose with a shattered alley-way between them. above towered the dome of the blowing-house; beneath was a wilderness of broken stone.
john heard no sound, so he took off his boots, and, keeping in the shadow, peeped round the corner that lovey had turned. but he saw nothing. the place was a narrow cul-de-sac and no visible exit offered from it; yet lovey had quite vanished. her grandson rubbed his eyes, then crept forward, and, growing bolder, searched every nook and cranny of the spot. but not one evidence of life rewarded him. beneath, green sward sloped away at the embouchure of the combe, and a few sleeping sheep appeared dotted upon it, all misty and silver-grey. no shadow of his mysterious grandmother was visible. again he searched without avail, then turned homeward—in haste to be gone. there was upon him now a cold and crawling sensation of dread. witches and devils, hobgoblins and werwolves were dancing in his mind; each silent stock and stone that stared moon-tranced upon him seemed to hide some nocturnal thing of horror, some ghoul, or cacodemon. impish atoms of life twisted and wriggled under his feet; the owl's cry uttered words of dark meaning to him; the night opened sudden unexpected eyes, and spirits that he had never known now jostled and elbowed poor john lee. even in his superstitious dread he felt a wave of shame when he thought of what grace must say; yet he could not regain his courage immediately, for every time that the problem of his grandmother's disappearance turned uppermost in his mind there came an unnatural solution to it.
but had john lee waited patiently with his eyes upon the ruin, instead of flying so fast away, his fears had been stilled, and the mystery solved without any superhuman aid. long before he reached home again lovey had already reappeared, and was tramping back by the way that she had come.
then the sound of a horse's feet fell suddenly upon her ear, and knowing that it was no wandering pony, but a mounted beast, she turned and saw the figure of maurice malherb approaching. the old woman's first instinct was to secrete herself, but time did not allow of it. the horseman had observed her and now reached her side. indeed, annoyance quickly gave place to curiosity at this extraordinary apparition of him by night; and he felt no less surprise on meeting the ancient woman thus alone at such an hour.
"lord defend us!" she cried. "what ghost be you stealing here afore cock-crow thus?"
"you know me well enough," he answered. "and you, you old miser? going to visit your hoard, i'll wager—or else keeping an appointment with the devil."
"ess; only i've missed my gentleman. he's too busy to meet me this evening," she said; "but you'll do very well. an' so you ban't weary o' dartymoor; but love it so dearly that you must wander here by night as well as day? most of your sort be sick of the place before the moss begins to grow on the silly walls they build."
"there's no shepherd for sheep like the owner of them," said malherb. "a good wether was slaughtered not long since. i'd pay handsomely to know whose belly bettered by him. there's a man called jack ketch for that work, lovey lee."
"you be fond of promising me a halter. see your own cursed temper don't thrust your head into one afore long. you be all alike—your brother, an' him as be dead, an' my old skinflint master—robber that he was. but 'tis idle to cuss the dust."
"you've no call to curse malherbs—you with twenty thousand pounds of my money stolen."
"you still think as i've got you're beggaring old pot?"
"i'll swear you had it; and i'd stake half its value that you have it yet."
"an' if i had? what better way of filling your eyes with twenty thousand pound all to once?"
"but not your own."
"bah! if i had it, 'twould be my own, as much as my body an' bones be my own—mine to make or mar—to cherish or put under my feet."
"i'll swear your hag's eyes have mirrored it this night!" cried malherb. "i see you licking your lips as though you had just come from a feast."
"if 'twas so, 'tis a feast as i won't ax you to share."
"nevertheless, i shall share it some day unasked."
"you'm welcome; but the day you see the malherb amphora again will be the last day you see anything."
"you've got it then?"
"why, as to that—since there be no witness here but your horse—i can speak. ess, i've got it safe enough. 'tis my family to me, my fire, my food, my heaven. i catch heat from it in the cold; it feeds me when i be hungry; it fires my blood same as liquor would. i hug it like a lover an' it makes me young again. but you—you that have lifted walls between my cattle an' their best grazing ground—you that have cursed me and promised to hang me—you that be what is worst in every generation of your race rolled into one—you may ax an' pray to all the devils of hell for your amphora; an' they'll sooner give it back to you than ever i shall!"
malherb preserved a very remarkable restraint under these insults.
"as usual, my judgment is confirmed," he said. "you hold my treasure and deny me possession. so be it. but you must die some day, lovey lee. now let us discuss the future."
"never—never," she screamed. "die—who be you talking to? i ban't built to die. i'm all steel springs and tough as osiers. not a sense failing, an' power to do a man's work when i will. i'll last out you an' your brood, never fear; i'll live to see your blasted walls in the dust yet an' your body resting on the coffin stone up dartmeet hill. don't fox yourself to think i'm going to die afore you. an' when that time does come an' i know that i've got to go, i'll scat your toy to little bits—pound it to dust an' eat it—eat twenty thousand pounds! i've thought of that—i, that live on snails an' efts, will make me such a meal as no human has ever made. you! i'd rather fling the glass under the hammers at the tin mine afore you should touch it or see it more."
"a ducking-stool would do you good, you foul-mouthed old witch," he said. "be very sure your secret's out now and the end of you is not far off."
"you're a fool to think so. you'll tell the world i've got your amphora? and i'll say i have not. you'll say that i confessed to it, and i'll ax when? you'll say upon the middle of dartymoor at a moonshiney midnight! an' the neighbours will reckon another fool be taking to drink to drown his troubles. get home to your wife! be you faithless to her, too, along of your other faults? go; throw over more crosses till the curse of god's ripe for you! an' do me a hurt at your eternal peril. your son be took, but lift one finger against me, an' by the god as made us both evil, i'll ruin your daughter's life. 'tis in my power to do it, so i can hit you harder than you can hit me."
she stood still a moment, then turned her back upon him, and hastened down a stony place into the darkness. he watched her climb out upon the other side and fade into night. for a moment his rage prompted him to gallop after her, but he changed his mind and turned homeward.
a grand problem filled the foreground of his life from that moment. daily his circumstances grew more straitened, and that morning he had felt shamed in secret to spend fifty guineas on a new hunter. yet now twenty thousand pounds seemed almost within reach again. he doubted not that his amphora was hidden upon dartmoor, and felt positive that the historical jewel of the malherbs must soon return to his possession. already he planned the spending of the money.
in olden times this man would have thought it no sin to torture the truth out of lovey lee by rack or red-hot iron. now he concerned himself with other ways of solving the problem. stealthily he returned home, stalled his horse and rubbed it down, then crept back to bed. his mind was occupied with fair means to recover his amphora. as for the miser's threats, they were forgotten. he had as yet met no woman capable of opposing herself successfully to his determination.
