The Broom-Squire

CHAPTER LI

THOR'S STONE AGAIN

Stunned with the sense that her last hope was taken from her, the cable of her one anchor cut, Mehetabel left the Ship Inn, and turned from the village. It would be in vain for her to seek hospitality there. Nothing was open to her save the village pound and the cell in which the crazy man, Sammy Drewitt, had perished of cold. There was the cave in which she had found refuge the night before the death of Jonas. She took her way to that again, over the heath.

There was light in the sky, and a star was shining in the west, above where the sun had set.

How still her baby was in her arms! Mehetabel unfolded the shawl, and looked at the pinched white face in the silvery light from the sky. The infant seemed hardly to breathe. She leaned her cheek against the tiny mouth, and the warm breath played over it. Then the child uttered a sob, drew a long inspiration, and continued its sleep. The fresh air on the face had induced that deep, convulsive inhalation.

Mehetabel again covered the child's face, and walked on to the gully made by the ancient iron-workers, and descended into it.

But great was her disappointment to find that the place of refuge was destroyed. Attention had been drawn to it by the evidence of Giles Cheel and Sally Rocliffe. The village youths had visited it, and had amused themselves with dislodging the great capstone, and breaking down the sandstone walls. No shelter was now obtainable there for the homeless: it would no more become a playing place for the little children of the Dame's school.

She stood looking dreamily at the ruin. Even that last place of refuge was denied her, had been taken from her in wantonness.

Leisurely she retraced her steps; she saw again the light in the window of the Ship, and the open door. She, however, turned away – the welcome was not for her – and entered the village. Few were about, and such as saw her allowed her to pass without a salutation.

She staggered up some broken steps into the churchyard, and crossed it, towards the church. No friendly light twinkled through the window, giving evidence of life, occupation, within. The door was shut and locked. She seated herself wearily in the porch. The great building was like an empty husk, from which the spirit was passed, and it was kept fast barred lest its emptiness should be revealed to all. The stones under her feet struck a chill through her, the wall against which she leaned her back froze her marrow, the bench on which she sat was cold as well. Why had she come to the porch? She hardly knew. The period at which Mehetabel lived was not one in which the Church was loved as a mother, nestled into for rest and consolation. She performed her duties in a cold, perfunctory manner, and the late Vicar had, though an earnest man, taught nothing save what concerned the geography of Palestine, and the weights and measures of Scripture – enough to interest the mind, nothing to engage the heart, to fill and stablish the soul.

And now, as Mehetabel sat in the cold porch by the barred door, looking out into the evening sky, she extended, opened, and closed her right hand, as though trying to grasp, to cling to something, in her desolation and friendlessness, and could find nothing. Again a horror came over her, because her child lay so still. Again she looked at it, and assured herself that it lived – but the life seemed to be one of sleep, a prelude to the long last sleep.

She wiped her brow. Cold drops stood on it, as she struggled with this thought. Why was the child so quiet now, after having been so restless? Was it that it was really better? Was this sleep the rest of exhausted nature, recovering itself, or was it – was it – she dared not formulate the thought, complete the question.

Again, in the anguish of her mind, in her craving for help in this hour of despondency, she put forth her hand in the air gropingly, and clutched nothing. She fully opened her palm, extended it level before her, and then, wearily let it fall.

From where she sat she could not see even the star that had glimmered on her as she crossed the common.

She heard the crackling of the gravel of the path under a foot, and a figure passed the porch door, then came back, and stood looking at her.

She recognized the sexton.

"Who are you there?" he asked.

She answered him.

"Do you want to see where Jonas is laid? Come along with me, and

I'll show you."

She shrank back.

"He's where the Kinks all are. You must look and see that it is all right. I haven't been paid my fee. Them Rocliffes buttoned up their pockets. They sed it was for you to pay. But I hear they have put their hands on the property. They thought you would be hanged, but as you ain't they'll have to turn out, and you'll have to pay me for buryin' of Jonas, I reckon."

The old fellow was much bowed, and hard of hearing. He came into the porch, laid hold of Mehetabel, and said, "I'm goin to lock the gate. You must turn out; I can't let you bide in the churchyard till you come to bide there forever. Be that your baby in your arms?"

"Yes, Mr. Linegar, it is."

"It don't make much noise. Ain't a very lively young Radical."

"Would you like to see my baby?" asked Mehetabel, timidly, and she uncovered the sleeping child.

The sexton bowed over the little face, and straightening himself as much as he could, said, "It seems not unlike as that the child be comin' to me."

"What do you mean?" Her heart stood still.

"If you hadn't showed it me as alive, I'd ha' sed it were dead, or dyin'. Well, come and tell me where it's to be laid. Shall it go beside Jonas?"

"Mister Linegar!" Mehetabel stood still trembling. "Why do you say that? My babe is well. He is sleeping very sound."

"He looks won'erful white."

"That's because of the twilight. You fancy he is white. He has the most beautiful little color in his lips and cheeks, just like the crimson on a daisy."

"Well, come along, and choose a place. It'll save comin' again. I'll let you see where Jonas lies. And if you want to put up a monument, that's half-a-guinea to the passon and half-a-crown to me. There, do you see that new grave? I've bound it down wi' withies, and laid the turf nice over it. It's fine in the sun, and a healthy situation," continued the sexton, pointing to a new grave. "This bit of ground is pretty nigh taken up wi' the folks of the Punch-Bowl, the Boxalls, and the Nashes, and the Snellings, and the Kinks, and the Rocliffes. We let 'em lie to themselves when dead, as they kep' to theirselves when livin'. Where would you like to lie, you and the baby – you may just as well choose now – it may save trouble. I'm gettin' old, and I don't go about more than I can help.

"If anything were to happen, Mr. Linegar, then let us be laid – me and my darling – on the other side of the church, where my father's grave is."

"That's the north side – never gets no sun. I don't reckon it over healthy."

"I would rather lie there. If it gets no sun on that side, my poor babe and I have been in shade all our lives, and so it fits us best to be on the north side."

"Well, there's no accountin for tastes," said the sexton. "But I've hear you be a little troubled in the intellecks."

"Is it strange," answered Mehetabel, "that one should wish to be laid beside a father – my poor father, who is alone?"

"Come, come," said the old man, "it is time for me to lock up the churchyard gate. I only left it open because I had been doing up Jonas Kink's grave with withies."

He made Mehetabel precede him down the path, saw her through the gate, and then fastened that with a padlock.

"Even the dead have a home – a place of rest," she said. "I have none. I am driven from theirs."

It was not true that she had no home, for she had one, and could claim it by indefeasible right, the farmhouse of the Kinks in the Punch-Bowl. But her heart revolted against a return to the scene of the greatest sorrows. Moreover, if, as it was told her, the Rocliffes had taken possession, then she could not enter it without a contest, and she would have perhaps to forcibly expel them. But even if force were not required, she was quite aware that Sally Rocliffe would make her position intolerable. She had the means, she could enlist the other members of the squatter community on her side, and how could she – Mehetabel – maintain herself against such a combination? To return to the Punch-Bowl would be to enter on ignoble broils, and to run the gauntlet of a whole clique united to sting, wound, bruise her to death. How could she carry on the necessary business of the farm when obstructed in every way? How manage her domestic affairs, without some little assistance from outside, which would be refused her?

She entertained no resentment against Iver Verstage for having excluded her from the inn, but a sense of humiliation at having ventured to seek his help unsolicited. Surely she had an excuse. He had always been to her the one to whom her thoughts turned in confidence and in hope. It was in him and through him that all happiness was to be found. He had professed the sincerest attachment to her. He had sought her out at the Punch-Bowl, when she shrank from him; and had she not been sacrificed – her whole life blighted for his sake? Surely, if he thought anything of her, if he had any spark of affection lingering in his heart for her, any care for her future, he would never leave her thus desolate, friendless, houseless!

She wandered from the churchyard gate, aimless, and before she was aware whither she was going, found herself in the confines of Pudmoor. How life turns in circles! Before, when she had run from the Ship, self-excluded, she had hasted to Pudmoor. Now, again, excluded, but by Iver, she turned instinctively to Pudmoor. Once before she had run to Thor's Stone, and now, when she found help nowhere else, she again took the same direction. She had asked assistance once before at the anvil, she would ask it there again. Before she had asked to be freed from Iver. She had no need to ask that now, he had freed himself from her. She would seek of the spirits, what was denied her by her fellow-men, a home where she might rest along with her baby.

The first time she had sought Thor's Stone she had been alone, with herself only to care for, though indeed for herself she had cared nothing. Now, on this second occasion, she was burdened with the child infinitely precious to her heart, and for the sake of which even a stumble must be avoided. The first time she had been fresh, in the full vigor of her strength. Now she was worn out with a long tramp, and all the elasticity gone out of her, all the strength of soul and body broken.

Slowly, painfully she crept along, making sure of every step. The full moon did not now turn the waters into gold, but the illumined twilight sky was mirrored below – as steel.

She feared lest her knees should fail, and she should fall. She dared not seat herself on a ridge of sand lest she should lack power to rise again. When she came to a crabbed fir she leaned against it and stooped to kiss her babe.

"Oh, my golden darling! My honeycomb! How cold you are! Cling closer to your mother's breast. She would gladly pour all the warmth out of her heart into your little veins."

Then on again, amidst the trilling of the natterjacks and the croaking of the frogs. Because of their noise she could not hear the faint breath of her infant. Although she walked slowly, she panted, and through panting could not distinguish the pulsation of the little one she bore from the bounding of her own veins. At last she saw, gleaming before her – Thor's Stone, and she hasted her steps to reach it.

Then she remembered that she was without a hammer. That mattered not. She would strike on the anvil with her fingers. The spirits – whatever they were – the good people – the country folk called them, would hear that. She reached the stone, and sank exhausted below it She was too weary to do more than lie, with her child in her lap, and hold up her face bathed in sweat, for the cool evening wind to wipe it, and at the same time feed with fresh breath her exhausted lungs.

Then looking up, she saw the little star again, the only one in the light-suffused heavens, but it twinkled faintly, with a feeble glitter, feeble as the frail life of the child on her lap.

And now a strange thing occurred.

As she looked aloft suddenly the vault was pervaded with a rosy illumination, like the flushing of a coming dawn, and through this haze of rosy light, infinitely remote, still flickered the tiny spark of the star.

What was this? Merely some highly uplifted vapor that caught the sun after it had long ceased to shine on the landscape.

There were even threads of amber traced in this remote and attenuated glory – and, lo – in that wondrous halo, the little star was eclipsed.

Suddenly – with an unaccountable thrill of fear, Mehetabel bent over her babe – and uttered a cry that rang over the Mere.

The hand she had laid on Thor's Stone to tap struck it not. She had nothing to ask; no wish to express. The one object for which she lived was gone from her.