Lying Prophets. Eden Phillpotts

as they walked home. "'Tis the duty of man an' maid to spread the truth an' bring peace to the troubled, an' strength to the weak-hearted, an' rise up them that fall."

      A week later Mr. Tregenza heard how Albert Vallack had burst a blood-vessel and died, fighting horribly with awful invisible terrors.

      "Another sawl gone down into the Pit," he said. "I reckon fewer an' fewer be chosen every year as the world do grow older an' riper for the last fires."

CHAPTER SIX

       Table of Contents

      FAIRY STORIES

      Joan found her sketch waiting for her the next day when she reached Gorse Point about eleven o'clock; and she also discovered John Barron with a large canvas before him. He had constructed his picture and already made many drawings for it. Now he knew exactly what he wanted, and he designed to paint Joan standing looking out at a distant sea which would be far behind the spectator of the picture. When she arrived, on a fine morning and mild, Barron rose from his camp-stool, lifted up a little canvas which stood framed at his side and presented it to her. The sketch in oils of the "Anna" was cleverer than Joan could possibly know, but she took no small delight in it and in the setting of rough deal brightly gilded.

      "Sure 'tis truly good of 'e, sir!"

      "You are more than welcome. Only let me say one word, Joan. Keep your picture hidden away until Joe comes back from sea and marries you. From what you tell me, your father might not like you to have this trifle, and I should be very sorry to annoy him."

      "I waddun' gwaine to show en," she confessed. "I shall store the picksher away as you sez."

      "You are wise. Now look here, doesn't this promise to be a big affair? The gorse will be nearly as large as life, and I've been wondering ever so long what I shall put in the middle; and whatever do you think I've thought of?"

      "I dunnaw. That white pony us saw, p'raps?"

      "No; something much prettier. How would it do, d'you think, if you stood here in front of the gorse, just to fill up the middle piece of the picture?"

      "Oh, no, no! My faither—"

      "You misunderstand, Joan. I don't want a picture of you, you know; I'm going to paint the gorse. But if you just stood here, you'd make a sort of contrast with your brown frock. Not a portrait at all, only just a figure to help the color. Besides, you mustn't think I'm an artist, I shouldn't go selling the picture or hanging it up for everybody to stare at it. I'm certain your father wouldn't mind, and I'll tell him all about it afterward, if you like."

      She hesitated and reflected with trouble in her eyes, while Barron quietly took the picture he had brought her and wrapped it up in a piece of paper. His object was to remind her without appearing to do so of her obligation to him, and Joan was clever enough to take the hint, though not clever enough to see that it was an intentional one.

      "Would it be a long job, sir?" she asked at length.

      "Yes, it would; because I'm a slow painter and rather stupid. But I should think it very, very kind of you. I'm not strong, you know, and I daresay this is the last picture I shall ever paint."

      "You ed'n strong, sir?"

      "Not at all."

      She was silent, and a great sympathy rose in her girl's heart, for frail health always made her sad.

      "You don't judge 'tis wrong then for a maiden to be painted in a picksher?"

      "Certainly not, Joan. I should never suggest such a thing to you if I thought it was in the least wrong. I know it isn't wrong."

      "I seed you issterday," she said, changing the subject suddenly, "but you dedn see me, did 'e?"

      "Yes, I did, and your father. He is a grand-looking man. By the way, Joan, I think I never told you my name. I'm called John; that's short and simple, isn't it?"

      "Mister Jan," she said.

      "No, not 'mister'—just 'Jan,'" he answered, adopting her pronunciation. "I don't call you 'Miss' Joan."

      She looked at once uncomfortable and pleased.

      "We must be friends," the man continued calmly, "now you have promised to let me put you here among the gorse bushes."

      "Sure, I dunnaw 'bout the picksher, Mister Jan."

      "Well, you would be doing me a great service. I want to paint you very much and I think you will be kind."

      He looked into her eyes with a steady, inquiring glance, and Joan experienced a new emotion. Joe had never looked like that; nor yet her father. She felt a will stronger than her own was busy with her inclinations. Volition remained free, and yet she doubted whether under any circumstances could she refuse his petition. As it happened, however, she already liked the man. He was so respectful and polite. Moreover, she felt sad to hear that he suffered in health. He would not ask her to do wrong and she felt certain that she might trust him. A trembling wish and a longing to comply with his request already mastered her mind.

      "You'm sure—gospel truth—theer ed'n no harm in it?"

      "Trust me."

      In five minutes he had posed her as he wished and was drawing, while every word he spoke put Joan more at her ease. The spice of adventure and secrecy fired her and she felt the spirit of romance in her blood, though she knew no name for it. Here was a secret delight knocking at the gray threshold of every-day life—an adventure which might last for many days.

      Barron, to touch the woman in her if he could, harped upon her gown and the color of it, on her shoes and sun-bonnet—on everything but herself. Presently he reaped his reward.

      "Ban't you gwaine to paint my faace as well, Mister Jan."

      "Yes, if I can. But your eyes are blue, and blue eyes are hard to paint well. Yours are so very blue, Joan. Didn't Joe ever tell you that?"

      "No—that's all fulishness."

      "Nothing that's true is foolish. Now I'm going to make some little sketches of you, so as to get each fold and shadow in your dress right."

      Barron drew rapidly, and Joan—ever ready to talk to a willing listener when her confidence was won—prattled on, turning the conversation as usual to the matters she loved. Upon her favorite subjects she dared not open her mouth at home, and even her lover refused to listen to the legends of the land, but they were part of the girl's life notwithstanding, drawn into her blood from her mother, a thousand times more real and precious than even the promised heaven of Luke Gospeldom, not to be wholly smothered at any time. Occasionally, indeed, uneasy fears that discussion of such concerns was absolutely sinful kept her dumb for a week, then the religious wave swept on, and Cornish folk-lore, with its splendor and romance, again filled her heart and bubbled from her lips. Her little stories pleased Barron mightily. Excitement heightened Joan's beauty. Her absolute innocence at the age of seventeen struck him as remarkable. It seemed curious that a child born in a cottage, where realities and facts are apt to roughly front boy and girl alike, should know so little. She was a beautiful, primitive creature, with strange store of fairy fable in her mind; a treasury which brought color and joy into life. So she prattled, and the man painted.

      Pure artistic interest filled Barron's brain at this season; not a shadow of passion made his pencil shaky or his eye dim; he began to learn the girl with as little emotion as he had learned the gorse. He asked her to unfasten the top button of her dress that he might see the lines of her plump throat, and she complied without hesitation or ceasing from her chatter. He noted where the tan on her neck faded to white under her dress, and occupied himself with all the artistic problems she unconsciously spread before him; while she merely talked, garnered in his questions and comments on all she said, and found delight in the apparent interest and entertainment her conversation afforded him.