The Torch and Other Tales

people be cruel miserable, and it knocks the heart out of the young to hear of what's coming; but you'm a sensible girl, and don't want to go through life blind. And another

ithout a doubt felt terrible skeered even afore t'other began. Then Mrs. Badge poured a drop of ink into her crystal-some said 'twas only the broken bottom of an old drinking glass; but I don't know nothing about that. Next she dealt

put a bold face on what be coming, for there's troub

he read out

ccording to the cards, and I see him in the crystal very plain. He's flaxen curled with a straight back and a fighting nose, and blue eyes. Very great at horsemanship seemingly, and he'll have you for a wife, so sure

ror down her spine. "'Tis Nathan Coaker as you b

he ain't forgot you by the lo

her hands forced over her heart to he

et. The picture's all ruffled with waves. That means the future's to be hid-even from me. But one thing is only too clear; there'll be a gashly upstore and bl

and Mary wept buckets, and Mrs. Badge remi

now no names. 'Tis better I should not; but 'tis clear there's a fair, poor man coming here to marry you; and there's a dark, rich

with the pale one years ago, and I wouldn't marry him for [206

im? I don't say I can, for 'tis a pretty stiff job;

g I've got, Charity-ever

ten pound the day you'm married to the dark one? That's a

-knowing she would not-and let her go. Poor Mary went off expecting to meet Nathan Coaker at every step o' the

n, yet, like a good few other godless men, he believed in a good bit more than he could understand, and h

and told him about Coaker, and what a strong, hard chap he was, and how he had the trick to ride over a woman's heart and win 'em even against their wills. And altogether she worked upon the mind of Pet

stered a lot, and talked very loud and stamped

s. "I wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it-fri

er, and she knowed Peter and hi

him, calm as c

es ban't warned in time; though now and again, when a sensible creature comes to me and hears what's going to overtake 'em, they

e it! Fortune-telling be forbidden by law, and if I hear any more a

lness for a month of Sundays or longer; and that afore a fortnight's out. Of course, if you don't believe what I know too well to be the truth, then you'll go your rash way and mee

horse at her very door; but that weren't enough

aid. "I'll onlight a

me go out of the kitchen, where I was to work, and leave 'em

ay to a man called Nathan Coaker-a horse-stealer or little better, and a devil of a

man. "How [208] do you dare to talk about 'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither

t she'd hear nought more from him till he'd said

said, "but be civil, or I'll

"It do look as if that man, Na

in the crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't; and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll

g to marry

ou th

ore cowed afore her cold, steady

est will wi

"that's true without a do

ronger than mo

replied; "and a charge of heavy

don't mean he'd lie

But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face in

s my

sets eyes on him again. He's well k

inging smaller and

es the wretched fello

She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make-and a thrifty-but she wo

e keep him off-pay him

ker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the same way. Man

, then,"

e to help-with

oper for a bit, th

ll be generous. If I succeed I shall look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I'll ax for no

e of that-wouldn't bate her offer

l me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker. The more I

r of Mrs. Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one o

the story, and made it l

rse, to say as you won't let her have the cottage your father faithfully promised to her husband, [210] and Coaker's coming over with threatenings

it looks as if he'd better b

l her that you've changed your mind about the cottage-to call it a cottage, for 'tis no better than a pig's lew house. Y

shoul

Coaker in Ireland. If she lets him know as you be going to do the rightful thing, he'll have no more quarrel with you, since he don't know about you and Mary. Then,

s. White to-morrow

n that her brother Nathan don't come from Ireland this side o' Christmas; and she'll bless your name and do her best to keep him away altogether. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she succeeded, and i

as good as her word, and went to se

an in some ways, even where females were concerned, and that he had undertaken to let Sarah keep her house so lo

im 'tisn't so. The longer he supposes that Nathan is alive, the better for us all. And what you've got to say presently be this-t

a lie," sai

"and 'twill help a good many people out of a hobbl

y married Peter Hacker afore the next Christmas and went honeymooning to London town for a week with the man; and it meant that, unbeknownst each to t'others, Sarah and Mary and Peter g

d, though never did they fetch s

aks-C

.

TO

d only go back along into time and get hold of it. Anyway, there's a 'mazing fine thing to be told a

forgot. The "tenements" are scattered over Dartmoor, mostly in the valleys of East and West Dart; but Vitifer and Furze Hill stood together half a mile distant from the famous Vit

inute the two brothers-middle-aged bachelors both-held on where their forefathers had worked before them time out of mind, and it looked almost as though they was going to be the last o

his wife were dead, and their only son lived with Joe and was thought to be his heir. Ernest Gregory he was called, and few thought he'd make old

aid to be vain behind his silence and to reckon himself a good deal cleverer than us Merripit people; but I never found him anything but well behaved and civil spoken to his elders, and I went so far sometimes as

adn't got no deep cause

e in his eye, poor chap, and God knows that's not a fault, and yet I never can abide tha

uman nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't trust one of they humped people-m

ite from Postbridge, everybody wished him luck, including his uncles-especially Amos himself; for Joe's younger brother was very friendly to the Postbridge Whites, and them who thought they

orning for Exeter to see his lawyers. He'd done very well that year-better than Amos-and he was taking a matter of one hundred and fifty pounds in cash to Exeter for his ma

ht. Then Amos Gregory, just finishing his nightcap and knocking out his pipe to go to bed, much to his astonishment heard somebody banging on the front door of Furze Hill. Guessing it was some night-foundered tramp,

Ernest, and the young man was clad in his oilskins and dr

last train of all, and still Joe hadn't turned up. So Ernest drove home, hoping to find a telegram had come meanwhile and been brought up from

n down Ernest's neck; then, when the shaking chap had got a bit of fight i

s the family men of business, so if us hear nought when the post office opens [217] to-morrow, we

ither, for a more orderly man than Joe Gregory and one more steadfast in doing what he promised couldn't easily be fou

t post office and sent a wire off to the Exeter lawyers axing for news o

h us yesterday and left at fo

s and

the Ashburton line, had seen him to their knowledge. Yet in the course of the next few days, when his disappearance had got in the papers, three separate people testified as they'd met Joe that evening, and Ernest Gregory was able to prove they must have seen right. The first was a tobacconist's assistant at Exeter, who came forward [218] and said a little, countrified man had bought two wooden pipes from him and a two-ounce packet of shag tobacco; and he said the little man wore a billycock hat with a jay's blue wing feather in it. And a barmaid at Newton Abbot testified that she'd served just such a man at the station after the train from Exeter had come in, about five-thirty, and afore it went out. She minded the jay's feather in his hat, because she'd asked the customer what it was, and he'd told her. And lastly a porter up at Moretonhampstead said that a small chap answering to the description had got out of the Newton train to Moreton, which arr

ight he disappeared. He'd got a friend or two at Moreton; but not one had fallen in w

offered a reward of fifty pounds for any news of his lost brother; but not a speck, or sig

nd he told me that he was bound for the lawyers, [219] to make inquiry of

h and can be trusted to do all that's right; but there's no money to be touched and

very good friends; and he was troubled for his nephew also, b

off. He never had more wits than please God he should have, and this great disaster finds him unmanned. He will have it his uncle's alive. He's heard of men losing their memory and getting into wron

without a doubt, and 'twill take a mir

ing truth. In fact you may say it took two. And one without the other might just as well no

Farm to Amos, on the condition that he would keep on his nephew Ernest. It was four year old; and the codicil, that Joe wrote the day he disappeare

, and he said he had not. And when he learned of his uncle's kind thought for him, he broke down and wept like

may do something you won't like. This tragedy reminds me, Ernest," he said, "that I haven't made my own will yet, and as you be my next-of-kin, if your poor uncle have gone home, that means you'll inherit Furze Hill also in course of time and be able to run a ri

told him he'd best to go on courting the

ith a strong-willed woman at your elbow in my opini

tifer in the course of nature, decided Sarah, for she agreed to wed the young man ten days

it very deep, and in the glory of winning Sarah, he beamed forth again like the sun from a cloud. And nobody blamed him, because, whether your heart b