THREE:The wind seemed to be laughing at him, as it bellowed up in gusts, struck him, sprayed him, roughed his hair out madly, smacked his cheeks, drove the rain into his skin, and then rumbled away with a hundred chatterings and sighings. It seemed to be telling him that as his breath was to this wind so was he himself to Boarzell. The wind was the voice of the Moor, and it told him that in fighting Boarzell, he did not fight the mere earth,[Pg 224] an agglomeration of lime and clay which he could trample and compel, but all the powers behind it. In arming himself against Boarzell he armed himself against the whole of nature's huge resources, the winds, the storms, the droughts, the early and the latter rain, the poisons in plants, and the death in stones, the lusts which spilling over from the beasts into the heart of man slay him from within himself. He had armed himself against all these, and once again the old words sang in his head"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"It was cruel, he knew. She had already given him seven, she could not realise that her task was not yet[Pg 112] done. She had just felt what it was to be well and strong again after long months of illness. It would be cruel to impose on her once more the pains and weariness of motherhood. It would be cruel.But, hem it all! was not the thing he was fighting cruel? Was not Boarzell cruel, meeting his endeavours with every form of violence and treachery? If he was to conquer it he too must be cruel, must harden his heart, and press forward, without caring how much he or anyone bled on the way. He could not stop to consider even his nearest and dearest when his foe had neither mercy nor ruth for him.
