Throughout the week Samson Belworthy, the father of Sarah, swung a sledge and followed a blacksmith’s calling at Postbridge; upon the day of rest his labours were of a more delicate sort, for he played the bass viol and pulled as good a bow as any musician around about the Moor. This man accepted John as a suitor to his daughter with certain reservations. He had no mind to dismiss Sally into poverty, and bargained for delay until Aggett had saved money, obtained regular occupation, instead of his present casual trade, and arrived at a worldly position in which he could command a cottage and thus offer his wife a home worthy of her.
From desultory application to the business of his dead father—a sort of work in which he had never much distinguished himself—John now turned his face upon the problems of life in earnest, and sought employment under a responsible master. His ambition was to win a place as gamekeeper or assistant keeper on the estates of the manor lord; but he lacked the necessary qualifications in the opinion of those who knew him; being p. 18indeed strong enough, courageous enough, and familiar enough with the duties of such a calling, but having an uncertain temper, by nature fiery as his own freckled skin in summer-time. Finally, his physical strength obtained for him daily work and weekly wage at Farmer Chave’s. Into the establishment of Believer Barton he entered, and, as cowman, began a new chapter of his life.
All proceeded prosperously during the autumnal progress of his romance. John gave every satisfaction, was said to have forgotten his way to the sign of the “Green Man” at Postbridge, and certainly developed unsuspected capabilities in the direction of patience and self-control. He toiled amain, attracted his master’s regard and won the red-hot friendship of his master’s son.
This youth, by name Timothy, returning from his apprenticeship to a brewer at Plymouth after futile endeavours to master that profitable business, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, much to the elder’s disappointment. Timothy Chave elected to be a farmer, however, and coming home a fortnight before Christmas, he devoted his days and nights to the pleasure of sport as a preliminary to the tremendous application he promised when the new year should come. He was two years younger than John Aggett and a youth of higher intelligence and finer clay; but he p. 19found in John an ideal follower by flood and field. There came a day, one week before the Christmas festival, when for particular reasons Tim desired a heavy bag. John was therefore begged off his farm duties, and the young men, rising by starlight, trod the high land and pressed forward before dawn toward Aggett’s familiar haunts.
Young Chave, a lad of good repute and handsome exterior, had learned his lessons at Blundell’s School, was accounted a very clever youth, and held in much esteem as a traveller and a scholar amidst the natives of Postbridge. His mother spoiled him and fooled him to the top of his bent; his father had been proud of him until the lad’s recent determination to soar no higher than the life of a countryman.
This present excursion bore reference to a special event, as has been said. There were coming from North Devon to Believer Barton, for the holiday season, sundry poor cousins of the Chaves. On Christmas Eve they would arrive, and, as a certain pretty damsel of seventeen was to accompany her elders, Timothy’s generous heart determined that moorland delicacies must await her, if his right arm, long fowling-piece and liver-coloured spaniel could secure them. With this excuse he had won John Aggett away from the cow-byres, and together, as day broke, they passed southward p. 20to Dartmeet, held on by Combestone Tor and presently tramped into the lonely and desolate fastnesses of Holne Moor. Here, with cautious passage across half-frozen swamps, the sportsmen sought their game.
To the progress of that day no part of this narrative need be devoted; suffice it that we meet the men again coming homeward under an early, universal twilight and a cold northern wind. In certain marshes, rumoured to send forth warm springs even at dead of frosty nights, John Aggett had found good sport, and now from the servant’s waist-girdle a big bag bulged with two brace of teal, three snipe, two woodcock and a hare. Through the grey promise of coming snow they pushed homeward where the wind wailed a sad harmony in the dead heath, and all the ground was very hard save upon the black bogs that froze not. John was clad as the Kurds and Mountain Syrians to this day; he wore a sheep’s pelt with the hair toward his body, the skin turned out. Arms of like material fitted into this snug vest, and his breeches were similarly fashioned. Timothy, as he faced the north wind booming over a heather ridge, envied Aggett, for his own garments, albeit stout enough, lacked the warmth of the natural skin.
“Colder and colder,” he said, “and the last drop of sloe gin drunk and five good miles before us yet.”
p. 21“’Tis so; but theer’s Gammer Gurney’s cot down along in a lew place under Yar Tor. If you mind to turn out of the way a bit, ’tis certain she’ll have gude, heartening liquors hid away, though how she comes by the fiery stuff, an’ the tobacco her sells in secret, an’ the frill-de-dills o’ precious silks an’ foreign lace-work ban’t my business to knaw.”
“Good! We’ll pay Gammer a visit. My father gets many a gill of brandy from the old rascal.”
“In league wi’ the Dowl, I doubt.”
“More likely with the smugglers. Plenty of cargoes are run down Teignmouth way, and when they’ve dodged the gaugers and made a good haul, the farther they take their wares inland the better. She pays them well, be sure.”
“She do awften talk ’bout a sailor son, come to think on’t.”
“Ay, many and many a sailor son, I warrant you! My father says her cognac is drink for the gods; yet if they are pleased to make him a Justice of the Peace, then he will adopt different measures with Mother Gurney, for a man’s conscience must be set above his stomach.”
“Her be a baggarin’ auld sarpent for sartain, an’ goeth through the air on a birch broom or awver the sea in a eggshell, an’ many such-like devilries. In times past I judge the likes o’ she would burn p. 22for such dark wickednesses; though her did me a gude turn once, I’ll allow.”
While speaking, they had rounded the ragged side of Yar Tor, and then proceeding, passed to the north by some ancient hut circles of the old stone men. Following a wall, where the hill sloped, they found themselves confronted with the bird’s-eye view of a lonely, thatched cottage. Below it the land sank with abruptness; before the entrance extended a square patch of garden. No sign of life marked the spot; but as the men climbed down a pathway through withered fern, they aroused a bob-tailed, blue-eyed sheep-dog which leapt, gaunt and apelike, to the limit of its tether and barked wildly at the intruders. A naked austerity, a transparent innocence and poverty, marked the spot to casual eyes.
“Down these winding ways, or else out of the woods below, come Mother Gurney’s ‘sailor sons’ with their packs and barrels hid under innocent peat and rushes, no doubt,” commented Timothy.
Then John Aggett knocked at the door with a modest tap and young Chave noted that he spat over his left shoulder before doing so.
“’Tis plaguey hard to be upsides wi’ a witch, I do assure ’e; but she’m a wonnerful clever woman, as all in these paarts do very well knaw,” confessed John.