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Somewhat earlier on the same night, under the northern ramparts of Dartmoor, and upon the long, creeping hill that rises aloft from Okehampton, then dips again, passes beneath the Belstones, and winds by Sticklepath and Zeal under Cosdon, there rattled a trap holding two men. From their conversation it appeared that one was a traveller who now returned southward from a journey.
Before that event, however, incidents befell Will's household, the first being an unexpected visit from Martin Grimbal; for the love-sick antiquary nerved himself to this great task a week after his excursion to Cosdon. He desired to see Will, and was admitted without comment by Mrs. Blanchard.
The sketches made, both men ascended immense Cosdon, where its crown of cairns frets the long summit; and here, to the sound of the wind in the dead heather, with all the wide world of Northern Devon extended beneath his gaze under a savage sunset, Martin found courage to speak. At first Hicks did not hear.
"Gert, gay, fanciful doin's to-night," said the driver, looking aloft where Cosdon Beacon swelled. "You can see the light from the blaze up-long, an' now an' again you can note a sign in the night like a red-hot wire drawed up out the airth. They 'm sky-rockets, I judge." "'T is a joyful night, sure 'nough."
I'll go up village for the news in a minute. I lay 'tis knawn theer." "Ban't I tellin' of 'e? 'Tis like this. Will Blanchard's been mixin' a bit of chopped fuzz with the sheep's meal these hard times, like his betters. But now I've seed hisself today, lookin' so auld as Cosdon 'bout it. He was gwaine to the horse doctor to Moreton.
I'm too hard grit to wink an eyelid at sight of the old scenes again myself; but Martin, when he caught first sight of great rolling Cosdon crowning the land why, his eyes were wetted, if you'll believe it." "And you comed right off to fish the river fust thing," said Will admiringly. "Ay, couldn't help it. When I heard the water calling, it was more than my power to keep away.
Here and there drying turfs were propped in pairs and dotted the hillsides; emerald patches of moss jewelled the prevailing sobriety of the valley, a single curlew, with rising and falling crescendos of sound, flew here and there under needless anxiety, and far away on White Hill and the enormous breast of Cosdon glimmered grey stone ghosts from the past, track-lines and circles and pounds, the work of those children of the mist who laboured here when the world was younger, whose duty now lay under the new-born light of the budding heath.
It was long before Martin found courage to bring forth the words he desired to utter, but finally he managed to do so, in the bracing conditions that obtained on Cosdon Beacon upon the occasion of a visit to its summit. By this time he had grown friendly with Hicks and must have learnt all and more than he desired to know but for the bee-keeper's curious taciturnity.
I go on peeping and prying after a spark of truth. I probe here, and in the fallen circle yonder towards Cosdon; I follow the stone rows to Fernworthy; I trudge again and again to the Grey Wethers that shattered double ring on Sittaford Tor. I eat them up with my eyes and repeople the heath with those who raised them. Some clay a gleam of light may come.
Upon the shaggy fastnesses of Devon's central waste, within the bounds, metes, and precincts of Dartmoor Forest, there shone a whole constellation of little suns, and a wanderer in air might have counted a hundred without difficulty, whilst, for the beholders perched upon Yes Tor, High Wilhays, or the bosom of Cosdon during the fairness and clearness of that memorable night, fully threescore beacons flamed.
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