his sensations to an interested audience when Doctor Clack arrived. The physician, who loved well the sound of his own voice, lectured on the recumbent Libby as soon as he had learnt particulars.
"First let me assure you all that he's in no danger—none at all," he began. "Nature is more skilful, more quick-witted, more resourceful than the most learned amongst us. Even I, beside Nature, am as nothing. I should have ordered an emetic. Behold! Nature anticipates me and takes all the necessary steps. Really one might have suspected a case of Colica Damnoniensis—which doesn't mean a damned stomach-ache, as you might imagine, having no Latin, but merely 'Devonshire Colic'—an old-time complaint—old as cider in fact—but long since vanished. It was caused by the presence of deleterious substances, or, as you would describe it more simply, dirt, in the apple-juice; and those eminent men, Doctor John Huxham and Sir George Baker, arrived at the conclusion some hundred years ago that the ailment arose from presence of lead in the cider vats. Nowadays such things cannot happen; therefore, to return to our friend here, we must seek elsewhere for an explanation of his collapse. Whatever he was unfortunate or unwise enough to partake of has happily been rejected by that learned organ, the human stomach—so often wiser than the human head—and my presence ceases to be longer necessary. A little more brandy and water and our friend will be quite equal to walking home."
Myles and Honor had now reached the scene, and the mistress of Endicott's insisted that a cart should convey Gregory to his mother. The unconscious victim of love therefore departed making the most of his sufferings.
Sally also withdrew from the toil of the day, retired to her little bedroom in Mr. Cramphorn's cottage near Bear Down, and wept without intermission for a space of time not exceeding two hours. She then cheered up and speculated hopefully upon the future.
To explain these matters it need only be said that, like many a better botanist before her, the girl had mistaken one herb of the field for another, and, instead of gathering innocent wild chamomile, collected good store of mayweed—a plant so exactly like the first to outward seeming that only most skilled eyes detect the differences between them. Thus, instead of receiving the beneficent and innocuous Matricaria chamomilla, Mr. Libby's stomach had been stormed by baleful Anthemis cotula, with the results recorded.
CHAPTER VII.
A BADGER'S EARTH
While Myles Stapledon played a busy part at the farm and found ample outlet for his small capital, ample occupation for his energies, Honor roamed dreaming through the August days with Christopher. As for Myles, he was a practical farmer and soon discovered what Mark Endicott had anticipated, that no mean possibilities lurked in Bear Down. The place indeed cried out for spending of money and increase of stock, but it promised adequate return upon outlay—a return at least reasonable viewed from the present low estate and reduced capabilities of English land. Stapledon was not hungry for any immediate or amazing profit, but Endicott's seemed certain to produce a fair interest upon the two thousand pounds he embarked there; he liked the farm and he was satisfied. At his cousin's particular desire, Myles stayed to see the money spent according to his will. Some of it went in building; and bygone beauties of old ripe thatches and cob walls that crumbled their native red through many coats of mellow whitewash, now vanished, yielding place to bricks, blue slates, and staring iron. A new atmosphere moved over the stagnation of Endicott's and the blind man settled into a great content.
The mistress had other matters to fill her thoughts, and, as the autumn approached, private concerns wholly occupied her. For Honor was more frank with herself than is possible to a soul that lacks humour; and a problem now rose ahead of her beyond the solution of days and nights; a mystery that developed, deepened, heightened, until it became a distraction and a trouble. Yet there was laughter in it, but of a sub-acid sort, neither wholesome nor pleasant.
Once in position of proud possessor, Christopher Yeoland exhibited no further alarm and but little apparent eagerness in the matter of his united future with Honor. Marriage appeared to be the last thing in his thought, and the temperament of the man at this crisis became visible and offered matter of comment for the most cursory observers. The fact of delay suited Honor well enough in reality, for she had little intention or desire to marry immediately, but that Christopher should be of this mind piqued her. His perfect equanimity before the prospect of an indefinite engagement secretly made Honor somewhat indignant. It did not become her lover in her eyes. He was not indifferent, that she knew; he was not cold, that she hoped; but his temper in this perfect readiness to postpone matrimony showed him to Honor in a new sidelight. Naturally enough she did not understand the trait, though it was characteristic; and her discomfort existed in a vague sense that his attitude, so much the reverse of a compliment to her, must have been awakened by some deficiency in herself. That the imperfection lay in him she did not imagine; that his love was a little anæmic in a positive direction she could not be supposed to suspect. Intellectually at least Christopher always sufficed, and Honor's uneasiness usually evaporated when in his company, though it was prone to take shape and substance again when absent from him. He always spoke of marriage as a remote goal—wholly desirable indeed—but approached by such pleasant ways that most rambling and desultory progress thereto was best; and, though entirely of his mind, it is a fact that the girl felt fluctuations of absolute annoyance that this should be his mind.
From which cause sprang secret laughter, that was born of fretfulness, that died in a frown.
Other trouble, of a sort widely different, also appeared upon Honor's horizon. After a period of supreme command, to find another enjoying almost like share of obedience and service at Bear Down seemed strange. But with absolute unconsciousness Myles Stapledon soon blundered into a prominence at Endicott's second only to her own. Nor was his position even second in some directions. Labouring folk follow a strong will by instinct, and Myles was striking such a dominant note of energy, activity, despatch in affairs, that the little community came presently to regard him as the new controller of its fortunes. Stapledon's name was upon the lips of the people more often than Honor's; even Jonah Cramphorn, whose noblest qualities appeared in a doglike and devout fidelity to the mistress, found Myles filling his mind as often as the busy new-comer filled his eye. At such times, in common with Churdles Ash and any other who might have enough imagination to regret an impossibility, Jonah mourned that it was Yeoland rather than Stapledon who had won his mistress's heart.
But the latter, full of business and loving work as only those love it who have devoted life thereto, overlooked the delicacy of his position at various minor points; and with sole purpose to save his cousin trouble he took much upon himself. It was sufficient that she said nothing and Mark Endicott approved. Once he offered to pay the hands at the accustomed hour of noon on Saturday; whereupon Honor blushed, and, becoming aware that he had hurt her, Myles expressed contrition with the utmost humility and heaped blame upon his blunder.
"It was only to save you trouble," he concluded.
"I know it; you are always doing so," she answered without irony. "But pay-day—that's the farmer's work."
Her answer, though not intended to do anything of the sort, forcibly reminded Myles that he had but a limited interest in Bear Down.
"Be frank," he said. "I'm such a thick-skinned fool that I may have blundered before and hurt you and never known it. Do not suffer me to do so again, Honor. I'm only very jealous for you and all that is yours."
"You are a great deal too kind to me, Myles, and have done more than I can find words to thank you for. You are the good genius here. I don't like to think of the loneliness we shall feel when you go from us."
"I'm not going yet awhile, I promise you," he answered.
Honor indeed appreciated her cousin's goodness fully, and, after this incident, had no more occasion to deplore his tact. She only spoke truth when affirming regret at the possibility of his departure. Her
