The hamlet of Shaugh Prior, a gift to the monks of Plympton in time
past, stands beneath Shaugh Moor at the edge of a mighty declivity.
The Church of St. Edward lifts its battlemented tower and crocketed
pinnacles above a world of waste and fallow. It is perched upon a
ridge and stands, supported by trees and a few cottages, in a position
of great prominence. The scant beauty that this holy place possessed
has vanished under restoration; but there yet remain good bells, while
a notable font-cover, cast forth by vanished vandals, is now returned
to its use.
Round about the church dark sycamores shine in spring, and at autumn
drop their patched and mottled foliage upon the dust of the dead.
Broad-bosomed fields ascend to the south; easterly a high road climbs
to the Moor, and immediately north of Shaugh the slopes of High Down
lead by North Wood to Cadworthy Farm and Cadworthy Bridge beyond it.
From High Down the village and its outlying habitations may be
perceived at a glance. The cots and homesteads converge and cluster
in, with the church as the central point and heart of the organisation.
Around it dwellers from afar are come to sleep through their eternal
night, and a double row of slates, like an amulet, girdles the ancient
fane. Here and there flash white marble in the string of grey above
the graves of the people; and beside the churchyard wall stand heaped a
pack of Time's playing cards--old, thin, and broken slates from graves
forgotten--slates and shattered slabs that have fallen away from the
unremembered dust they chronicled, and now follow into oblivion the
bones they marked.
A school, a rectory, 'The White Thorn' inn, and a dozen dwellings
constitute Shaugh Prior, though the parish extends far beyond these
boundaries; and on this spring day, one thrush warbling from a lilac
bush at a cottage door, made music loud enough to fill the hamlet.
Undershaugh Farm stood near on the great hill that fell westerly to
Shaugh Bridge, at watersmeet in the valley; and upon the land hard by
it, two men tramped backward and forward, crossing and re-crossing in
the bare centre of a field. They were working over sown mangold and
enriching the seed under their feet by scattering upon it a fertile
powder. The manure puffed from their hands in little golden clouds
under the sunlight. The secret of this mixture belonged to one man,
and none grew such mangolds as he could grow.
Undershaugh was the property of Nathan Baskerville, innkeeper, and he
had let it for twenty years to a widow; but Mr. Baskerville took an
active personal interest in the welfare of his property, and Mrs.
Priscilla Lintern, his tenant, was very well pleased to follow his
advice on all large questions of husbandry and rotation. As did the
rest of the world, she knew his worth and wisdom.
Nathan Baskerville had original ideas, and these were a source of
ceaseless and amicable argument between him and his elder brother,
Vivian Baskerville, of Cadworthy. But Mr. Nathan's centre of activity
and nidus, from which his enterprises and undertakings took shape and
separate being, was 'The White Thorn' public-house. Here, at the
centre of the little web of Shaugh Prior, he pursued his busy and
prosperous life.
Nothing came amiss to him; nothing seemed to fail in his hands. He had
a finger in fifty pies, and men followed his lead as a matter of
course, for Nathan Baskerville was never known to make a bad bargain or
faulty investment. Nor did he keep his good luck to himself. All men
could win his ear; the humblest found him kind. He would invest a
pound for a day labourer as willingly as ten for a farmer. After
five-and-twenty years in Shaugh Prior he had won the absolute trust of
his neighbours. All eyes brightened at his name. He was wont to say
that only one living man neither believed in him nor trusted him.
"And that man, as luck will have it, is my own brother Humphrey," the
innkeeper would confess over his bar to regular visitors thereat.
"'Tis no great odds, however, and I don't feel it so much as you might
think, because Humphrey Baskerville is built on a very uncomfortable
pattern. If 'twas only me he mistrusted, I might feel hurt about it;
but 'tis the world, and therefore I've got no right to mind. There's
none--none he would rely upon in a fix--a terrible plight for a man
that. But I live in hopes that I'll win him round yet."
The folk condoled with him, and felt a reasonable indignation that this
most large-hearted, kindly, and transparent of spirits should rest
under his own brother's suspicion. They explained it as the work of
jealousy. All Baskervilles had brains, and most were noted for good
looks; but both gifts had reached their highest development and
culmination in Nathan. He was the handsomest and the cleverest of the
clan; and doubtless Humphrey, a sinister and secret character, against
whom much was whispered and more suspected, envied his brother's gifts
and far-reaching popularity. Nathan was sixty, the youngest and
physically the weakest of the three brothers. He had a delicate throat
which often caused him anxiety.
The men scattering manure upon the mangolds made an end of their work
and separated. One took some sacks and the pails used for the
fertiliser. Then he mounted a bare-backed horse that stood in a corner
of the field, and rode away slowly to Undershaugh. His companion
crossed the stream beneath the village, mounted a hill beyond it, and
presently entered 'The White Thorn.' He was a well-turned, fair,
good-looking youth in corduroys and black leathern leggings. He wore
no collar, but his blue cotton shirt was clean and made a pleasant
contrast of colour with the brown throat that rose from it. Young
Lintern was the widow Lintern's only son and her right hand at
Undershaugh.
The men in the bar gave him good day, and Mr. Baskerville, who was
serving, drew for him half a pint of beer.
"Well, Heathman," he said. "So that's done. And, mark me, 'twas worth
the doing. If you don't fetch home first prize as usual for they
mangolds, say I've forgot the recipe."
"'Tis queer stuff," answered the youngster, "and what with this wind
blowing, my eyes and nose and throat's all full of it."
"'Twill do you no harm but rise a pleasant thirst."
Mr. Baskerville had humour stamped at the wrinkled corners of his
bright eyes. His face was genial and rubicund. He wore a heavy grey
beard, but his hair, though streaked with grey, was still dark in
colour. A plastic mouth that widened into laughter a thousand times a
day, belonged to him. He was rather above average height, sturdy and
energetic. He declared that he had never known what it was to be weary
in mind or body. Behind his bar he wore no coat, but ministered in
turned-up shirt sleeves that revealed fine hairy arms.
Young Ned Baskerville sat in the bar, and now he spoke to Heathman
Lintern.
"Have one with me, Heathman," he said. "I was going down to your
mother with a message, but now you can take it and save me the trouble."
His uncle shook his head.
"Ah, boy--always the same with you. Anybody as will save you trouble
be your friend. 'Tis a very poor look-out, Ned; for let a certain
party only get wind of it that you're such a chap for running from
work, and he'll mighty soon come along and save you all trouble for
evermore."
"And who might he be, Uncle Nat?"
"Old Nick, my fine fellow! You may laugh, but Tommy Gollop here will
bear me out, and Joe Voysey too, won't you, Joe? They be both born and
bred in the shadow of the church, and as well up in morals as
grave-digging and cabbage-growing. And they'll tell you that the
devil's always ready to work for an idle man."
"True," said Mr. Gollop. "True as truth itself. But the dowl won't
work for nought, any more than the best of us. Long hours, I grant
you--never tired him, and never takes a rest--but he'll have his wages;
and Ned here knows what they be, no doubt."
Ned laughed.
"I'm all right," he said. "I shall work hard enough come presently,
when it gets to be worth while."
Mr. Gollop spoke again. He was a stout man with a little grey beard, a
flat forehead, barely indicated under his low-growing, coarse hair, and
large brown, solemn eyes. He and his sister were leading figures at
Shaugh Prior, and took themselves and their manifold labours in a
serious spirit. Some self-complacency marked their outlook; and their
perspective was faulty. They held Shaugh Prior as the centre of
civilisation, and considered that their united labours had served to
place and helped to maintain it in that position. Thomas Gollop was
parish clerk and sexton; his sister united many avocations. She acted
as pew-opener at the church; she was a sick-nurse and midwife; she took
temporary appointments as plain cook; she posed as intelligencer of
Shaugh Prior; and what she did not know of every man, woman, and child
in the village, together with their ambitions, financial position,
private relations, religious opinions, and physical constitutions, was
not worth knowing.
"At times of large change like this, when we are threatened with all
manner of doubts and dangers, 'tis well for every man among us to hold
stoutly to religion and defy any one who would shake us," said Mr.
Gollop. "For my part I shall strike the first blow, and let it be seen
that I'm a man very jealous for the Lord, and the village and the old
paths."
"What's going to happen?" asked Ned. "You talk as if Doomsday was
coming."
"Not at all," answered Mr. Gollop. "When Doomsday comes, if I'm still
here, I shall know how to handle it; but 'tis the new vicar. A man is
a man; and with a strange man 'tis only too terrible certain there will
creep in strange opinions and a nasty hunger for novelty."
"And what's worse," said Mr. Voysey, "a young man. An old man I could
have faced from my sixty-five years without fear; but how can you
expect a young youth--full of the fiery silliness of the twenties--to
understand that as I've been gardener at the vicarage for forty year,
so in right and decency and order I ought to go on being gardener
there?"
"Have no fear, Joe," said Mr. Baskerville. "If there's one thing among
us that Mr. Masterman won't change, 'tis you, I'm sure; for who knows
the outs and ins of the garden up the hill like you do?"
"'Tis true," admitted Tommy Gollop. "That land is like a human, you
might say--stiff and stubborn and got to be coaxed to do its best; and
I'm sure he'll very soon see that only Voysey can fetch his beans and
peas out of the soil, and that it's took him a lifetime to learn the
trick of the place. And I feel the same to the church. If he's got
any new-fangled fashion of worship, Shaugh will rise against him like
one man. After fifty-two years of the Reverend Valletort, we can't be
blown from our fixed ways at a young man's breath; and I'm sure I do
hope that he won't want so much as a cobweb swept down, or else
there'll be difficulties spring up around him like weeds after rain."
"What a pack of mouldy old fossils you are in this place!" said
Heathman Lintern. "I'm sure, for my part, I hope the man will fetch
along a few new ideas to waken us up. If 'twasn't for Mr. Baskerville
here, Shaugh would be forgot in the world altogether. You should hear
Jack Head on the subject."
But Tommy Gollop little liked such criticism.
"You're young and terribly ignorant, and Jack Head's a red radical as
ought to be locked up," he answered. "But you'll do well to keep your
ignorance from leaking out and making you look a ninny-hammer afore
sensible men. Shaugh Prior's a bit ahead of the times rather than
behind 'em, and my fear always is, and always will be, that we shall
take the bit in our teeth some day and bolt with it. 'Tis no good
being too far ahead of the race; and that's why I'm afeared that this
young Masterman, when he finds how forward we are, will try to go one
better and stir up strife."
"Don't think it, Tommy," said Nathan Baskerville. "I've had a good
tell with him and find him a very civil-spoken and well-meaning man.
No fool, neither. You mustn't expect him to leave everything just as
Mr. Valletort left it. You must allow for the difference between
eighty-two and twenty-eight, which is Mr. Masterman's age; but, believe
me, he's calm and sensible and very anxious to please. He's pleased me
by praising my beer, like one who knew; and he's pleased my brother
Vivian by praising his riding-cob, like one who knew; and he'll please
Joe Voysey presently by praising the vicarage garden; and he'll please
you, Thomas, by praising your churchyard."
"If he's going to be all things to all men, he'll please none," said
Tommy. "We've got no need of one of them easy ministers. Him and me
must keep the whip-hand of Shaugh, same as me and the Reverend
Valletort used to do. However, the man will hear my views, and my
sister's also; because a clear understanding from the start be going to
save a world of worry after."
"Not married," said Mr. Voysey. "But he've a sister. I hope she ban't
one of they gardening sort, so-called, that's always messing round
making work and finding things blowed down here or eaten with varmints
there. If she's a flower-liking female, 'twill be my place to tell her
straight out from the shoulder that flowers won't grow in the vicarage
garden, and that she must be content with the 'dendrums in summer time
and the foxgloves and such-like homely old stuff."
"He was a football player to college and very skilled at it, so Barker
told me," said Ned Baskerville.
"Then mark me, he'll be for making a club, and teaching the young chaps
to play of a Saturday and keeping 'em out of your bar, Mr.
Baskerville," declared the parish clerk; "Yes, look at it as you will,
there's changes in the air, and I hope we'll all stand shoulder to
shoulder against 'em, and down the man afore he gets his foot in the
stirrup."
"You two--Joe Voysey and you--be enough to frighten the poor soul out
of his seven senses afore he's been in the place a week," declared Ned
Baskerville. "And I hope for one that Uncle Nat won't go against him;
and I know father won't, for he's said this many a day that old
Valletort was past his work and ought to be pensioned off."
"Your father's not a man for unseemly changes, all the same," declared
Tommy; "and if this new young minister was to go in the pulpit in white
instead of black, for instance, as the Popish habit is, Vivian
Baskerville would be the first to rise up and tell him to dress himself
decently and in order."
But Ned denied this.
"Don't you think you know my father, Tommy, because you don't. If this
chap gets up a football club, he'll have father on his side from the
first; and he can preach in black or white or pea-green, so long as he
talks sense through his mouth, and not nonsense through his nose, like
the old one did."
"Don't you speak for your father," said Joseph Voysey. He was a very
tall and a very thin man, with pale, watery eyes and a scanty beard.
Nature had done so much for his long and rather absurd hatchet nose,
that there was no material left for his chin.
"If I shouldn't talk for my father, who should?" retorted Ned. Then
Mr. Voysey descended to personalities and accused the other of
irreverence and laziness. The argument grew sharp and Mr. Baskerville
was forced to still it.
"Come you along and don't talk twaddle, Ned," he said to his nephew.
"I'm going down to Undershaugh myself this minute, to see Mrs. Lintern,
and you and Heathman will come with me."
He called to a pot-boy, turned down his sleeves, took his coat from a
hook behind the door, and was ready to start.
"When Mr. Masterman does come among us, 'twill be everybody's joy and
pride to make him welcome in a kindly spirit," he said. "Changes must
happen, but if he's a gentleman and a sportsman and a Christian--all of
which he certainly looks to be--then 'twill be the fault of Shaugh
Prior, and not the man's, if all don't go friendly and suent. Give and
take's the motto."
"Yes," admitted Mr. Gollop. "Give nought and take all: that's the way
of the young nowadays; and that'll be his way so like as not; and I'll
deny him to his face from the first minute, if he seeks to ride
roughshod over me, and the church, and the people."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Mr. Voysey.
"We'll hope he'll have enough sense to spare a little for you silly old
blids," said Heathman Lintern. Then he followed the Baskervilles.