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Updated: April 30, 2025
Magnificent sunshine spread over the great wastes of the Moor; and through it, long before he reached Newtake, Clement saw his sweetheart returning. For a little time he seemed intoxicated and no longer his own master. The fires of the morning woke in him again at sight of her. They met and kissed, and he promised her some terrific news, but did not tell it then.
It ascended as he watched, dispensed a sinister illumination, and like some remote bale-fire hung above the bosom of the nocturnal Moor. His dog still barked, and in the silence Will could hear a clink and thud as it leapt to the limit of its chain. Then out of the night a lantern danced at Newtake gate, and Blanchard, his eyes now trained to the gloom, discovered several figures moving about it.
Her girlhood had been spent in the dreary little homestead of "Newtake," above Chagford, within the fringe of the great primeval wastes; and here, on his repeated journeys across the Moor, Tim Blanchard came to know her and love her well.
Surveying the position in the solitude of her home, she felt there was much to be thankful for. Yet she puzzled her heart and head to find schemes by which the miller's charity might be escaped. She considered her own means, and pictured her few possessions sold at auction; she had already offered to go and dwell at Newtake and dispose of her cottage.
A sunbonnet bobbed at the stile and Chris appeared, bearing a roll of chintz for Newtake blinds. In her other hand she carried half a dozen bluebells from the woods, and she came with the free gait acquired in keeping stride through long tramps with Will when yet her frocks were short. Martin loved her characteristic speed in walking. So Diana doubtless moved.
At a spot in the woods some distance below Newtake, Martin Grimbal sat and waited, knowing she whom he sought must pass that way. He had called at the farm and been welcomed by Phoebe. Will was on the peat beds, and, asking after Chris, he learnt that she had gone into the valley to pick blackberries and dewberries, where they already began to ripen in the coombs.
Ess fay, a braave shiny night, wi' the li'l windows thrawed open to give me air. An' 'pon Will's come-of-age birthday, last month, if us didn't all drive up theer an' light a fire an' drink a dish of tea in the identical spot! 'Tis out Newtake' way." "Like a story-book." "'Twas Clem Hicks, his thought, being a fanciful man. But I'll bid you gude-marnin' now.
You 'm low in spirit, else you'd never have spoke so open; but I thank you for tellin' me that things be tighter to Newtake than I guessed. You leave the rest to me. I knaw how far to let 'em go; an' if we doan't agree 'pon that question, you must credit me with the best judgment, an' not think no worse of me for helpin' in my awn way an' awn time." With which promise Mrs. Blanchard was contented.
Seen from the winding road, or from the bird's-eye elevation of the adjacent tor, Newtake, with its mean ship-pens and sties, outbuildings and little crofts, all huddled together, poverty-stricken, time-fretted, wind-worn, and sad of colour, appeared a mere forlorn fragment of civilisation left derelict upon the savage bosom of an untamable land.
The matron proceeded slowly, grazing as she went, while her lanky youngster nibbled at this or that inviting tuft, then raced joyously in wide circles and, returning, sought his mother's milk with the selfish roughness of youth. "Happy as birds, they be," said Chris, referring to the young pair at Newtake. "It do make me long for us to be man an' wife, Clem, when I see 'em."
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