makes no man sad. That's why you love it, and love to be in it, as I do. The blush of dawn is like the warm cheek of a waking child—lovely; but sunset is a dying thing. There's sadness in that, and the more beautiful, the more sad."
"I cannot see anything to call sad in one or other."
"No, I suppose you can't; you've got such a devilish well-balanced mind."
A faint shadow of annoyance if not absolute contempt lurked in the tones of the speech; but Stapledon failed to see it.
"I wish I had," he answered. "There are plenty of things in Nature that make a man sad—sounds, sights, glimpses of the eternal battle under the eternal beauty. But sadness is weakness, say what you will. There's nothing to be sentimental about really. It's because we apply our rule of thumb to her; it's because we try to measure her wide methods by our own opinions on right and justice that we find her unjust. I told Honor something of this; but she agrees with you that Nature's quite beyond apology, and won't be convinced."
"You've told her so many things lately—opened her eyes, I'm sure, in so many directions. She's as solemn as an owl sometimes when I'm with her. Certainly she doesn't laugh as often as she used to."
Myles was much startled.
"Don't say that; don't say that. She's not meant to take sober views—not yet—not yet. She's living sunlight—the embodiment of laughter, and all the world's a funny picture-book to her still. To think I should have paid for the pleasure she's brought me by lessening her own! I hope you're utterly wrong, Yeoland. This is a very unquieting thought."
The man spoke much faster than usual, and with such evident concern that Christopher endeavoured to diminish the force of his speech.
"Perhaps I'm mistaken, as you say; perhaps the reason is that we are now definitely engaged. That may have induced gravity. Of course it is a solemn thing for an intelligent girl to cast in her lot with a pauper."
But Myles would not be distracted from the main issue.
"Her laughter is characteristic—marvellously musical—part of herself, like bells are part of a fair church. Think of making a belfry dumb by a deliberate act! Honor should always be smiling. A little sister of the spring she seems to me, and her laughter goes to my heart like a lark's song, for there's unconscious praise of God in it."
Yeoland glanced at the other.
"You can be sentimental too, then?"
"Not that, but I can be sad, and I am now. A man may well be so to think he has bated by one smile the happiness of Honor."
"Sorry I mentioned it."
"I'm glad. It was a great fault in me. I will try desperately to amend. I'm a dull dog, but I'll——"
"Don't, my dear chap. Don't do anything whatever. Be yourself, or you won't keep her respect. She hates shams. I would change too if I could. But she'd be down on me in a second if I attempted any reformation. The truth is we're both bursting with different good and brilliant qualities—you and I—and poor Honor is dazzled."
Stapledon did not laugh; he only experienced a great desire to be alone.
"Are you going to wait for the badger?" he asked, as they turned and retraced their way.
"Good Lord, no! Are you?"
"Certainly. It's only a matter of hours at most. I can sit silent in the fern with my eyes on the earth. I thought you wanted to see him."
"Not an atom. It's enough for me that he's here in snug quarters. My lord badger will show at moonrise, I expect. You'd better come down to the house and have a drink after the manifestation."
He tramped away; his footfall faded to a whisper in the fern; and Myles, reaching a place from which the aperture below was visible, settled himself and took a pipe from his pocket from habit, but did not load or light it. He had an oriental capacity for waiting, and his patience it was that had won much of his curious knowledge. A few hours more or less under the stars on a fine summer night were nothing but a pleasure to him. Rather did he welcome the pending vigil, for he desired to think, and he knew that a man may do so to best purpose in the air.
Once out of sight Christopher also stopped awhile and sat down upon a rock with his face uplifted. The rosy sky was paling, and already a little galaxy of lights afar off marked the village of Chagford, where it stood upon its own proper elevation under the Moor. Thus placed, in opposition to the vanished sun, detail appeared most clearly along the eastern hills and valleys. Cot, hamlet, white winding road stood forth upon the expanse, and while Christopher Yeoland watched the dwindling definition on earth there ascended a vast and misty shield of pearl into the fading sky. Through parallel bands of grey, like a faint ghost, it stole upwards into a rosy after-glow. Then the clouds faded, and died, and wakened again at the touch of the moon, as she arose with heightened glory and diminished girth, to wield a sceptre of silver over sleep. There descended then the great silence of such places, the silence that only country dwellers understand, the silence that can fret urban nerves into absolute suffering. Bedewed fern-fronds gathered light, and flung it like rain across the gloom, and brought far-reaching peace and contentment to the mind of Christopher. He dreamed dreams; he rose in spirit through the moony mist—a dimensionless, imponderable, spirit thing, ready to lose himself in one drop of diamond dew, hungry to fill high heaven and hug the round moon to his heart. For a little season he rejoiced in the trance of that hushed hour; then the moment of intoxication vanished, and he rose slowly and went his way.
The other man, after long waiting, was also rewarded. From beneath him, where he sat, there came at last a sound and a snuffling. The badger appeared, and the moonlight touched his little eyes and gleamed along his amber side-streaks as he put up his nose, sniffed the air with suspicion, stretched himself, scratched himself, then paddled silently away upon his nightly business through the aisles of the fern.
CHAPTER VIII.
OUT OF THE MIST
The calm awakened of moonlight, as quickly died, and Christopher Yeoland found himself in some uneasiness when he thought of his love. Whereon he based this irritation would have been difficult to determine, but a variety of small annoyances conspired to build it. These trifles, separately, laughter could blow away at a breath, but combined they grew into a shadow not easily dispelled. Already the name of Myles had oftener sounded upon Honor's lips than seemed necessary, even when Stapledon's position and importance at Bear Down were allowed; and now her name similarly echoed and re-echoed in the utterances of her cousin. Still Christopher smiled in thought.
"It's the novelty of him after me. I'm a mere rollicking, irresponsible brook—only good to drink from or fish in—for ideas; he's a useful, dreary canal—a most valuable contrivance—smooth, placid, not to say flat. Well, well, I must shake Honor up; I must——"
He reflected and debated upon various courses though immediate marriage was not included amongst them. But a fortnight later the situation had developed.
Honor and Christopher were riding together over the Moor; and, albeit the physical conditions promised fair enough until sunset-time, when both man and woman turned homewards very happy, yet each had grown miserable before the end, and they parted in anger upon the heathery wastes where northern Teign and Wallabrook wind underneath Scor Hill. For the weather of the high land and the weather of their minds simultaneously changed, and across both there passed a cloud. Over against the sunset, creeping magically as she is wont to creep, from the bosom of the Moor and the dark ways of unseen water,
