"He'm a dead corpse sure 'nuff," said Peter. "Who be ye?" he shouted.
As there was neither reply nor movement the only course was to apply a
test to ascertain whether the man was living or dead. The method which
suggested itself to Peter was to apply his boot, and this he did, with
considerable energy, but without success. Then he reviled the body; but
that too was useless.
"Get up, man! Why don't ye get up?" he shouted.
There was no response, so Peter began to kick again; and when the figure
refused to be reanimated by such treatment he lost his temper at so much
obstinacy and went on shouting: "Get up, man! Wun't ye get up? To hell,
man! Why don't ye get up?"
It did not appear to occur to Peter that the man could not get up.
The next course was the very obvious one of securing those good things
which the gods had provided. Farmer Chegwidden had not much money left
in his pockets, but Peter discovered it was almost enough to pay for the
new lamps. Mary had advanced the money for them, so what Peter gained
through the farmer's misfortune was all profit. Then he picked up his
lamps, and hurried back to the village to lodge the information of the
"dead corpse lying up on Dartmoor" in the proper quarter.
He had not been gone long when Pendoggat rode up. Thomasine had hurried
back to Town Rising by the "lower town," afraid to cross by the moor in
that wind. He too discovered the farmer, or rather his horse did; and he
too refused to pass by on the other side. Dismounting, he knelt and
struck a match. The wind blew it out at once, but the sudden flash
showed him the man's face. Chegwidden was breathing heavily, a fact
which Peter had omitted to notice.
"Dead drunk! He can bide there," muttered Pendoggat.
He got upon his horse and rode on. As he crossed the brow, and reached a
point where there was nothing to break the strength of the wind, he
pulled his horse round, hesitated a moment, then cantered back. The wind
was in his lungs and in his nostrils, and he was himself again, a strong
man, not a weak creature in love with a farm-wench, not a singer of
hymns nor a preacher of sermons, but a hungry animal to whom power had
been given over weak and lesser beings of the earth.
He knelt at Chegwidden's side, and tore the clothes off him until he had
stripped him naked. He dragged the body to the side of the road and
toppled it into the gorse. The clothes he rolled up, took with him, and
higher up flung into an old mine-shaft. Then he rode on his way,
shouting, fighting with the wind.
CHAPTER XIV
ABOUT A STRUGGLE AT THE GATE OF FAIRYLAND
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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