BOOK III

HIS GRANITE CROSS

CHAPTER I

BABY

Succeeding upon the tumultuous incidents of Clement’s death and Chris Blanchard’s disappearance, there followed a period of calm in the lives of those from whom this narrative is gleaned.  Such transient peace proved the greater in so far as Damaris and her son were concerned, by reason of an incident which befell Will on the evening of his sister’s departure.  Dead she certainly was not, nor did she mean to die; for, upon returning to Newtake after hours of fruitless searching, Blanchard found a communication awaiting him there, though no shadow of evidence was forthcoming to show how it had reached the farm.  Upon the ledge of the window he discovered it when he returned, and read the message at a glance: 

“Don’t you nor mother fear nothing for me, nor seek me out, for it would be vain.  I’m well, and I’m so happy as ever I shall be, and perhaps I’ll come home-along some day.—­CHRIS.”

On this challenge Will acted, ignored his sister’s entreaty to attempt no such thing, and set out upon a resolute search of nearly two months’ duration.  He toiled amain into the late autumn, but no hint or shadow of her rewarded the quest, and sustained failure in an enterprise where his heart was set, for his mother’s sake and his own, acted upon the man’s character, and indeed wrought marked changes in him.  Despite the letter of Chris, hope died in Will, and he openly held his sister dead; but Mrs. Blanchard, while sufficiently distressed before her daughter’s flight, never feared for her life, and doubted not that she would return in such time as it pleased her to do so.

“Her nature be same as yours an’ your faither’s afore you.  When he’d got the black monkey on his shoulder he’d oftentimes leave the vans for a week and tramp the very heart o’ the Moor alone.  Fatigue of body often salves a sore mind.  He loved thunder o’ dark nights—­my husband did—­and was better for it seemin’ly.  Chris be safe, I do think, though it’s a heart-deep stroke this for me, ’cause I judge she caan’t ’zactly love me as I thought, or else she’d never have left me.  Still, the cold world, what she knaws so little ’bout, will drive her back to them as love her, come presently.”

So, with greater philosophy than her son could muster, Damaris practised patience; while Will, after a perambulation of the country from north to south, from west to east, after weeks on the lonely heaths and hiding-places of the ultimate Moor, after visits to remote hamlets and inquiries at a hundred separate farmhouses, returned to Newtake, worn, disappointed, and gloomy to a degree beyond the experience of those who knew him.  Neither did the cloud speedily evaporate, as was most usual with his transient phases of depression.  Circumstances combined to deepen it, and as the winter crowded down more quickly than usual, its leaden months of scanty daylight and cold rains left their mark on Will as time had never done before.