in his own estimation maurice malherb had long since mastered the mysteries of dartmoor, and was now familiar with its difficulties and dangers by night or day. but heavy snow presented new problems; progress toward prince town proved very difficult; many detours had to be made, and a chill gloaming, lighted by the purity of the earth, already sank upon the travellers before siward's cross was reached.
as they approached lovey's cottage, malherb called up his groom and bade him ride ahead. until the present john had kept behind, for his master objected to take advice or profit by the lad's local experience.
"get you forward to your grandmother and order a brew of hot drink, john lee. a draught of milk with something from my spirit-flask will not be amiss."
john cantered forward and stark, as many a man had done before him, admired the rider's perfect skill.
"how magnificently that fellow sits his horse," he said.
"well enough; but it was not i who taught him—a natural gift," confessed mr. malherb.
when they reached mrs. lee's hut, both dismounted and entered the squalid den, to find a pan of milk already steaming upon a great peat fire. malherb showed by no word or sign the nature of his last meeting with lovey lee, and the american was similarly cautious. as for the miser, she treated them both with equal indifference.
cecil stark gazed round him to see the salvation he had fought to find in the storm. with better knowledge of the moor, his amazement grew at his own recent escape; and yet a thing not less remarkable had fallen out on the same tremendous night.
when lovey lee handed a cup to the prisoner, malherb proposed to add spirits from his flask, but the old woman objected.
"put nothing in, young sir. there's a drop of cordial there already. think you i don't know what cold men need to warm their vitals?"
stark laughed but read the look in her eyes and took the cup quickly. then he saw that a hollow hazel-nut floated in the milk and, familiar with lovey's expedients, drank at once. the nut he kept within his cheek and presently transferred to his pocket.
anon they went their way refreshed, and, commenting upon the grim and starved object who had ministered to them, stark listened to new sentiments from maurice malherb, and saw a little deeper into the gulf that separated their convictions.
"the peasant's mind has ever been my close study, and i have endeavoured to supply his requirements all my life," declared the older man. "his path is narrow, but well marked. to attempt to draw him from it would be madness. poverty is no hardship in itself, and to teach a peasant to be other than poor is no part of a wise man's work."
"but education——"
"endangers the tranquillity of the community at large. it unsettles their minds, loosens the bonds that holds them to their native soil, provokes all manner of outrage. think of the tories, the peep-o'-day boys, the hearts of steel and other ruffianly hordes of banditti that disturbed ireland before the rebellion."
"but education is the watchword of civilisation," exclaimed stark.
"you think so; but like every half-truth, the idea is abominably dangerous. what do you do? under the name of liberty, you invite to your naked shores the german, the frenchman, or any other needy and worthless adventurer who goes a-wandering. you announce that the feudal services required by the great from the humble in europe are banished from your country. you tell the new-come immigrants that lie—you, who keep your heel upon the black and fill your pockets with the proceeds of his misery! a race of slave-dealers to trumpet liberty!"
stark flushed and felt the hit.
"i grant some truth there. please god, we'll live to see that plague-spot healed. but our constitution is sound; we shall throw our ailments off. to deny knowledge to your own people—that is a worse disease. consider the epidemic you will breed!"
"you are ignorant of history, mr. cecil stark. we have centuries of experience on which to base our judgment. what think you fostered the naval rebellion of fifteen years agone? as a sailor that will interest you. why, the pen-and-ink gentry aboard his majesty's ships of war! they made a mutiny with their devilish doctrines scratched on paper and spread in secret from vessel to vessel. how shall we suppress concerted action in the multitude, if every jack among 'em learns to read and write? consider the sedition that must spring from such an abandoned state. no, let the poor work, not think. these people are only too ready to believe that their penury is the result of our oppression, and grows incompatible with the rights of man. then what follows?"
"they'll do as we did and cast off their chains for ever," declared the sailor.
"you would support anarchy then?"
"and yet you yourself, sir, give your own workers more than the usual wage, and pay the women as women were never paid elsewhere—so kekewich informed me."
malherb shook his head impatiently.
"they will be talking, damn them, instead of doing their work. don't argue from a particular case. i've my own private opinion—especially as to women's labour on the land. that's neither here nor there. i'm possibly wrong. education takes the poor to the devil. enlarge their views and you distort their views. they institute uncomfortable and improper comparisons; they begin to confuse the rights of property; the sanctity of birth is forgotten; the interests of the country are threatened: the state totters and falls."
"surely the sooner it falls, the better for england. a state built on foundations of ignorance——"
"so you echo your specious people. ignorance is the solid and everlasting rock on which the prosperity of every state must exist. if you believe your bible, you will see from genesis that the creator made happiness depend on ignorance. the tree of knowledge is a very statesmanlike conceit. preserve a fundamental ignorance at any cost. your own life depends upon it. once let knowledge in—'tis like the foul air in a mine—death follows. the church battens on that golden rule; so does the state. the security of both lie therein. but our spiritual and temporal lords are far too wise openly to proclaim what i tell you."
"then god help your country," answered the younger man; "for a policy more cynical, more vile, was never uttered. i go to prison now, but 'tis you who are in prison. i am free. this state's a prison—a prison not made with hands, but with heads—a prison of cruel prejudices, narrow distinctions, distrusts, hatreds, and lies. but your prosperous errors shall not always prevail against unpopular truths. your time will come."
"i wish you had been better brought up," said malherb. "you feel deeply; there is character in you; but unfortunately it has been poisoned at the source."
"and i wish that i could open your prison doors, sir, before mine shut upon me. stone and iron are only dust; they will not endure; but the pride of lucifer, the blind prejudice of the dark ages, and such a damnable policy as you have this moment uttered, make a prison-house for the spirit of man that it will need a revolution to shatter."
"it is such windy nonsense that has led you there!" answered malherb.
he pointed where the grey walls of prince town, set in snow, rose ashy against the twilight, and stark's enthusiasm chilled a little at sight of them.
they fell into silence; then the american shook his host's hand and bade him a grateful farewell. a moment later he had dismounted from 'c?sar' and entered the war prison.
two surprises awaited the sailor. within lovey's hazel-nut was a scrap of paper that told how, by miraculous chance, james knapps had escaped the blizzard, and, while turning from the full force of it, in reality corrected his way and made a straight journey to the hut by siward's cross. thus wonderfully he saved his life; and his eyes, at a crack in the boards of lovey's ceiling, had watched cecil stark beneath. through lovey, knapps now made urgent appeal to his friends, and the paper in the nutshell called for money to pay the miser and for instructions as to the future conduct of mr. knapps himself.
heartened by this circumstance, cecil stark presently went before the authorities; and then another sensation greeted him. during his absence captain cottrell had been superseded, and a new commandant now reigned over the prisoners.
