crickets, in dark caves and crannies behind the hearth, maintained a cheerful chorus; and from behind the screen came tapping of wooden needles, where sat an old man knitting yarn.
"Honor at last," he said, as he heard her feet.
"Yes, uncle Mark; and late I'm afraid."
"I didn't wait for you. The dinner is on the table. What has kept you?"
"Christo has been asking me to marry him again."
"But that's an everyday amusement of his, so I've heard you say."
"Uncle, I'm going to."
The needles stopped for one brief moment; then they tapped on again.
"Well, well! Almost a pity you didn't wait a little longer."
"I know what's in your head—Myles Stapledon."
"He was. I confess to it."
"If only you could see his photograph, dearest. Oh so cold, hard, inscrutable!"
"I remember him as a boy—self-contained and old-fashioned I grant you. But sober-minded youths often take life too seriously at the start. There's a sort of men—the best sort—who grow younger as they grow older. Mrs. Loveys told me that the picture he sent you makes a handsome chap of Myles."
"Handsome—yes, very—like something carved out of stone."
The blind man was silent for a moment; then he said—
"This shows the folly of building castles in the air for other folks to live in. Anyway you must make him welcome during his visit, Honor, for there are many reasons why you should. The farm and the mill, once his father's, down Tavistock way, have passed out of his hands now. He is free; he has capital; he wants an investment. At least you'll treat him as a kinsman; while as to the possibilities about Bear Down, Myles will very quickly find those out for himself if he's a practical man, as I guess."
"You don't congratulate me on Christo," she said petulantly.
"I hardly seem able to take it seriously yet."
Honor turned away with impatience. Her uncle's attitude to the engagement was almost her own, allowing for difference of standpoint; and the discovery first made her uncomfortable, then angry. But she was too proud to discuss the matter or reveal her discomposure.
CHAPTER III.
A WISE MAN AND A WISE WOMAN
Mr. Scobell, the Vicar of Little Silver, often said, concerning Mark Endicott, that he was as much the spiritual father of the hamlet as its parson. Herein he stated no more than the truth, for the blind man stood as a sort of perpetual palliative of human trouble at Bear Down; in his obscure, night-foundered passage through the world, he had soothed much sorrow and brought comfort to not a few sad, primitive hearts in the bosoms of man and maid. He was seventy years old and knew trouble himself; for, born to the glory of light, he had been blind since the age of thirty, about which period the accident of a bursting gun destroyed his right eye. The other, by sympathetic action, soon became darkened also; and Mark Endicott endured the full storm-centre of such a loss, in that he was a man of the fields, who had depended for his life's joy on rapid movement under the sky; on sporting; on the companionship of horse and dog and those, like himself, whose lives were knit up in country pursuits. He had dwelt at Bear Down before the catastrophe, with his elder brother, Honor Endicott's father; and, after the affliction, Mark still remained at the farm. He was a bachelor, possessed small means sufficient for his needs, and, when the world was changed for him, cast anchor for life in the scene of his early activities. Before eclipse the man had been of a jovial, genial sort, wholly occupied with the business of his simple pleasures, quite content to remain poor; since loss of sight he had fallen in upon himself and developed mentally to an extent not to have been predicted from survey of his sunlit youth. Forty years of darkness indeed ripened Mark Endicott into an original thinker, a man whose estimate of life's treasures and solutions of its problems were broad-based, tolerant, and just. If stoical, his philosophy was yet marked by that latter reverence for humanity and patience with its manifold frailties that wove courses of golden light into the decaying fabric of the porch, and wakened a dying splendour in those solemn and austere galleries ere the sun set upon their grey ruins for ever. Epictetus and Antonine were names unknown to him, yet by his own blind road he had groped to some of their lucid outlook, to that forbearance, fearless courage, contempt of trifles and ruthless self-estimate an emperor learned from a slave and practised from the lofty standpoint of his throne. Mark Endicott appraised his own conduct in a spirit that had been morbid exhibited by any other than a blind man; yet in him this merciless introspection was proper and wholesome. The death of his sight was the birth of his mind, or at least the first step towards his intellectual education. Seeing, the man had probably gone down to his grave unconsidered and with his existence scarcely justified; but blind, he had accomplished a career of usefulness, had carved for himself an enduring monument in the hearts of rustic men and women. He was generally serious, though not particularly grave, and he could tolerate laughter in others though he had little mind to it himself. His niece represented his highest interest and possessed all his love. Her happiness was his own, and amongst his regrets not the least centred in the knowledge that he understood her so little. Mark's own active participation in affairs extended not far beyond speech. He sat behind his leathern screen, busied his hands with knitting great woollen comforters for the fishermen of Brixham, and held a sort of modest open court. Often, during the long hours when he was quite alone, he broke the monotony of silence by talking to himself or repeating passages, both sacred and secular, from works that gave him satisfaction. Such were his reflections that listeners never heard any ill of themselves, though it was whispered that more than one eavesdropper had overheard Mr. Endicott speak to the point. His quick ear sometimes revealed to him the presence of an individual; and, on such occasions, the blind man either uttered a truth for that particular listener's private guidance, or published an opinion, using him as the intelligencer. It is to be noted also that Mark Endicott oftentimes slipped into the vernacular when talking with the country people—a circumstance that set them at ease and enabled him to impart much homely force to his utterances. Finally of him it may be said that in person he was tall and broad, that he had big features, grizzled hair, which he wore rather long, and a great grey beard that fell to the last button of his waistcoat. His eyes were not disfigured though obviously without power of sight.
Honor made a hearty meal and then departed to continue preparations for her cousin's visit. In two days' time he was arriving from Tavistock, to spend a period of uncertain duration at Bear Down. The bright afternoon waned; the shadows lengthened; then there came a knock at the outer door of the kitchen and Henry Collins entered. He had long been seeking for an opportunity to speak in private with Mr. Endicott; and now his face brightened from its usual vacuity to find that Mark was alone.
"Could I have half a word, maister, the place bein' empty?"
"You're Collins, the new man, are you not?"
"Ess, sir; Henery Collins at your sarvice; an' hearin' tell you'm ready to give your ripe judgment wheer 'tis axed an' doan't grudge wisdom more'n a cloud grudges rain, I made so bold—ess, I made that bold like as to—as to——"
"What is it? Don't waste breath in vain words. If I can give you a bit of advice, it's yours; an' take it or leave it as you mind to."
"I'll take it for sure. 'Tis this then: I be a man o' big bones an' big appetite, an' do handle my share o' vittles braavely; but I do allus get that cruel hot when I eat—to every pore as you might say—which swelterin' be a curse to me—an' a painful sight for a female, 'specially if theer's like to be anything 'twixt
