CHAPTER XVIII

Jack Head entered the bar of 'The White Thorn,' and was glad to find

Nathan Baskerville at home.

"I don't want to drink, I want to talk," he said.

"Then come into my room, Jack," answered the innkeeper, and Mr. Head

followed him into a little chamber known as 'Mr. Nathan's office.'

"I've got together another five pounds," explained the labourer, "and I

know you'll do for me what you do for all--put it by with the rest. We

come to you, Mr. Baskerville, and we trust you with our savings, for

why? Because you ban't a lawyer. You're the poor man's bank, as I

always say, and I only hope you get your fair share of good for all the

money you put away to goody for us."

"That's all right, Jack."

Mr. Nathan produced a ledger and turned over the pages.

"This makes twenty to you, and interest three-ten."

He wrote a receipt and handed it to the other.

"Wish I'd got your 'mazing head for figures; and so I should if I'd

been properly eggicated."

"I shall have some pretty big money on my hands before long, I'm

afraid," said Nathan gloomily. "Doctor called coming back from

Cadworthy. 'Tis all over with my poor brother, I'm afraid."

"My stars--that mighty man to drop amongst us! Well, he's had a good

life and full share of fortune."

"His own folly has finished him too--that's the worst of it. Would be

doing the young men's work, and did it once too often."

"A fall, so they say. But none appear to know the rights seemingly."

"Simple enough. Vivian was carrying oats, and slipped his foot on a

frosty place. Down he came with the sack on his back. He went

insensible; but by the time young Humphrey, who was along with him, had

fetched help, Vivian had come to again. He crept in the house and up

to his bed. ''Tis nought,' he told 'em, 'just a shake up; I'll be

right in the morning.' But he wasn't. He couldn't rise, and felt a

lot of pain to the inwards. Doctor won't be sure what's gone, but he

reckons that the poor man's ruptured spleen or liver. Anyway, he's

going. Fading out fast--and suffering, too."

"Such a mountain as him. I suppose they can't reach the evil. And

will all his affairs come down on your shoulders?"

"That is so. Everything will have to be done by me. The boys know

nought of business. He's a rich man--I know that."

"A great responsibility, but no doubt you're up to it."

"Not that it will be so difficult either," added Nathan, "because all

his money was invested pretty much as I advised. His wife is joint

executor with me; but she knows nothing. I could have wished he'd

drawn my brother Humphrey in and made him responsible; but he never was

sure of Humphrey, I'm sorry to say; and, as bad luck would have it,

just before Vivian met with this trouble, he had a terrible quarrel

with Humphrey--so terrible, in fact, that when Humphrey called, after

the accident, farmer wouldn't see him."

"Nor his son neither. I took hope from that, for if a man's well

enough to keep up such a hatred against his own kin, it looks as if he

was likely to get better."

"I'm afraid not. I'm going over this afternoon to see him and hear

about his will. Please God he'll prove softer. 'Twould be a cruel

thing if he clouded his great name for justice at the end by striking

from the grave."

"Where should he strike?"

"Rupert, I mean. He took Rupert's going terrible to heart, and when

Rupert wrote very properly last Christmas and offered his father his

respects, and said as he meant to marry Saul Luscombe's niece next

spring, Hester tells me that my brother pretty well threw the doors out

of windows. He went to Tavistock next day, and there's an ugly fear in

his wife's mind that he had his will out and tinkered it. I shall ax

him this evening, and try to get him to see sense."

Elsewhere Hester Baskerville spoke with her husband, and found that he

already knew what the doctor had advised her to tell him.

"You can spare speech," he said, "I saw it in the man's eyes; and I

knew it afore he came, for that matter. I'm not going to get better.

I'm going to die."

"There's hope still, but not enough to----"

"I'm going to die. Where's Eliza Gollop?"

"I'll call her."

"You'd best to hot up the milk he ordered. I'll try to let it down if

I can. And give Eliza pen, ink, and paper."

"Don't be writing. Lie still and let her read to you."

"You needn't be afraid. My writing was done to Tavistock afore I came

to grief. You're all right, and all that have treated me as a father

should be treated are all right. There's tons of money. Where's Ned

to?"

"He's going to ride in to the surgery for the medicine to stop that

cruel pain."

"Let Humphrey get it. And send Ned to me instead of Eliza Gollop.

'Tis him I want--not her."

She pressed his hand and kissed him, and went out. The huge form lay

still, breathing slowly. A fly, wakened out of hibernation by the heat

of the fire, buzzed about his face. He swore, and his scarlet nightcap

bobbed as he moved painfully.

Ned came in, little liking to be there. He lacked the spirit and

mental courage for such a time.

"Kill this blasted fly, will 'e? Then get pen and ink. 'Tis a very

old custom in our race, Ned, to write our own epitaphs when we can.

I've put mine off and off, along of a silly fancy about doing it; but

the time be ripe, and my head's clear."

"Don't say things like that, father. You may get better yet. He's

going to fetch another doctor to-morrow."

"Let him fetch twenty--they can do nought. 'Tis the last back-heel

that none ever stand against. I don't grumble. I'm only sorry that

'twas my own son has struck his father. Death don't matter, but 'tis a

bitter death to know the fruit of your loins---- His work I was doing:

let him know that--his work. An old man doing a young man's work. If

Rupert had been here, he'd have been shifting they sacks. Let none

deny it. 'Tis solemn truth."

Ned knew the extreme falsity of this impression, but he made no effort

to contradict his father.

"What I done to Tavistock a month agone, I might have undone afore I

went," continued the sick man. "But not now--not when I remember 'twas

his wickedness has hurried me into my grave. Where be my son Nathan's

ship to now?"

"Don't know, father."

"You ought to know, then. Him that I would see I can't see; and him

that would see me I won't see."

"You might see him, father, for his peace."

"'Peace'! Damn his peace! What peace shall he have that killed his

own father? He don't deserve to look upon me again, and he

shan't--living nor dead--mark that. Tell your mother that when I'm

dead, Rupert ban't to see me. Only the coffin lid shall he see."

The old man snorted and groaned. Then he spoke again.

"Have you got pen and ink ready?"

"Yes, father."

"Turn to the first leaf of the Bible, then, and see my date."

Ned opened the family register and read the time of his father's birth.

"Born June, died January--and just over the allotted span. Let me see,

how shall the stone read? There's good things on the Baskerville

stones. 'Sacred to the memory of Vivian Baskerville, of Cadworthy

Farm, in this parish, yeoman.' You can begin like that."

"Shall you say anything about being champion of the west country at

wrestling?" asked Ned.

"No. That ban't a thing for the grave--at least, perhaps it might be.

Your uncle, the great musicker, had a fiddle cut 'pon his stone very

clever. If 'twas thought that the silver belt could be copied upon my

slate---- But no, let that pass, 'tis but a small matter."

"Better leave it to us to think about. Uncle Nathan will know best."

"So he will, then. And we must work in a rhyme, for certain; but

first, I've got a fine thought to put down."

Ned waited, pen in hand; then his father continued to dictate:--

"'What it pleased the great I AM'--capital letters for I AM--'what it

pleased the great I AM to give me in shape of a body in eighteen

hundred and eighteen, it likewise pleased Him to call home again in

eighteen hundred and eighty-nine.' How does that sound?"

"Splendid, father."

"Now there's the rhyme to follow. I want to work in 'breath' and

'death' if it can be done. You ought to be able to do it, seeing all

the learning you've had and what it cost."

Ned frowned and puzzled. Then, while Vivian groaned, he had an

inspiration, and wrote rapidly.

"How's this, father?" he asked. "It just flashed in my mind." Then he

read:--

"Three score years and ten I kept my breath;

So long I felt no fear of Death."

"It goes very well, but I haven't got no more fear of death now than

ever I had. You must alter that."

Silence fell again and Ned mended his rhyme.

"How would this answer?" he asked:--

"Three score years and ten I kept my breath

And stood up like a man and feared not Death."

"Yes, that's very good indeed. Now us must make two more lines to

finish--that is, if we can be clever enough to think of 'em."

Ned's pen squeaked and stopped, squeaked and stopped again. He

scratched out and wrote for several minutes.

"Listen to this, father," he said at length, "'tis better even than the

first." He read once more:--

"Yet now I'm gone, my thread is spun,

And I know my God will say, 'Well done!'"

"The cleverness of it! And didn't I always say you were crammed up

with cleverness? But the last line won't do."

"'Tis the best of all, father."

"Won't do, I tell you. Who be I to know my God will pat me on the

back? Little enough to be pleased with--little enough. Put, 'I hope

my God will say, "Well done!"'"

"You may only hope, but all else know that He will," declared Ned

stoutly.

As he finished writing Nathan Baskerville entered with the wife of the

sufferer. Hester brought a cup of hot milk, but Vivian in his

excitement would not taste until the epitaph had been rehearsed.

"Ned's thought," he said. "And I helped him. And I shall be proud to

lie under it--any man might. Give me the paper."

His son handed it to him, and he read the rhyme aloud with great

satisfaction.

"Three score years and ten I kept my breath,

And stood up like a man and feared not Death;

Yet now I'm gone, my thread is spun,

And I hope my God will say, 'Well done!'"

How's that, Nat? So good as the musicker's own in my judgment."

"Splendid! Splendid!" declared Nathan. He was much moved. He blew

his nose and went to the window awhile. Then, Vivian being relieved

and fed, the innkeeper returned to him and sat beside him. Hester

Baskerville and her son went out and left the brothers together.

"Us'll talk business, Nat," said the sick man presently.

"And first I want you to know that you'll have more than your trouble

for your pains. 'Tis a common thing with dying people to leave a lot

of work behind 'em for somebody to do, and never a penny piece of

payment for doing it. But not me. There's fifty pound for you, Nat.

I've scrimped in reason all my life. I've----"

He was stopped by pain.

"Ban't far off, I reckon. Can't talk much more. You'll do all right

and proper. I trust my widow and childer to you. My boy Ned be no

good at figures, so I look to you."

"To the very best of my power I'll do by them all. Leave that now.

You're the sort who isn't taken unprepared. I want to say a word about

Rupert, if you'll let me."

"Not a word--not a breath! That book is closed, not to be opened no

more. You don't want to add another pang to my end, do you? Let me

forget him. I've forgiven him--that's enough."

"'Tisn't to forgive him, my dear Vivian, if you have cut him off with

nought."

"I'll hear no more!" cried the other. "I'll think no more of him, nor

yet of Humphrey. 'Tis they have cruelly and wickedly wronged me. 'Tis

Rupert have brought me here, and hastened me into my grave ten years

afore the time, and he'll have to answer to his God for it."

"Leave it then--leave it and talk of other things. You'll like Ned to

take Cora Lintern? You'll like that? And I shall do something for

Cora. I'm very fond of her."

They talked for half an hour. Then Vivian cried out for his wife and

Nathan left him.

That evening Dennis Masterman came to see the farmer, and on the

following day he called again. None knew what passed between them, but

it seemed that by some happy inspiration the clergyman achieved what

Vivian Baskerville's wife and brother had failed to do. Dennis had

heard, from the master of 'The White Thorn,' that the sick man was

passing at enmity with his brother and with his son; but he strove

successfully against this determination and, before he left Cadworthy,

Vivian agreed to see his relations. The day was already waning when

Ned Baskerville himself rode to fetch Rupert, and the lad Humphrey

hastened to Hawk House.

Eliza Gollop told the sequel to her brother afterwards.

"It got to be a race towards the end, for the poor man fell away all of

a sudden after three o'clock. Nature gived out, as it will sometimes,

like a douted candle. He'd forgot all about everything afore he died.

Only his grave stuck in his mind, and I read over the epitaph till I

was weary of it. Then he went frightened all of a sudden. 'To think

o' me lying there alone among dead folk of evenings, wi' nought but the

leather-birds[1] squeaking over the graves,' he said. 'You won't be

there, my dear,' I told him. 'You'll be up where there's no sun nor

yet moon, bathing for evermore in the light of righteousness.' Then he

flickered and he flickered, and wandered in his speech, and the last

words I could catch was, 'What's all this pucker about? I shall be my

own man again in a day or two.' He was hollow-eyed and his nose growed

so sharp as a cobbler's awl, poor dear, and I knowed he'd soon be out

of his misery. His wife was along with him when he died, her and the

two daughters; and poor Hester--Hester I call her, for she let me use

the Christian name without a murmur--she was cut in half listening to

his death-rattle o' one side and hoping to hear her son Rupert gallop

up 'pon the other. 'Twas a race, as I say; but Rupert had been long

ways off to work, and Ned had to find him, and what with one thing and

another, his father had been out of the world twenty good minutes afore

he came. He runned up the stairs white from the clay-works. But there

was only more clay on the bed to welcome him. I left 'em at that

sacred moment, as my custom is, and went down house, and was just in

time to see Humphrey Baskerville ride up in hot haste on his one-eyed

pony. 'How is it with him?' he said, getting off very spry. 'I hope,

as he could send for me, that he finds hisself better.' 'Not at all,'

I answered him. 'The poor man sent because he was worse, and felt

himself slipping away.' 'Then I'd best be quick,' he replied to me;

and I broke it to him that 'twas too late. 'He's gone, sir,' I said.

'Like the dew upon the fleece he be gone. Half an hour ago he died,

and suffered very little at the end, so far as a mortal but experienced

woman can tell you.' He stared slap through me, in that awful way he

has, then he turned his back and got up on his beast and rode off

without a word or a sign. Lord, He knows what that old pony must have

thought of it all. 'Twas sweating and staggering, and, no doubt, full

of wonder and rage at being pushed along so fast."

[1] _Leather-birds_--bats.

END OF FIRST BOOK

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

Upon the highway between Cadworthy and the border village of Cornwood

there stands an ancient granite cross. For many years the broken head

reposed in the heather; then it was lifted upon the pedestal again and

the vanished shaft restored. To north and south the white road sweeps

by it; easterly tower Penshiel and Pen Beacon, and westerly rolls

Shaugh Moor.

Here, upon a day one year after the death of Vivian Baskerville, there

met two of his sons, and the conversation that took place between them

served roughly to record the development of their affairs, together

with the present situation and future interests of the family.

Ned Baskerville was riding home from Cornwood, and his brother Rupert,

knowing that he must come this way, sat by St. Rumon's Cross, smoked

his pipe and waited. The younger had found himself forgotten when his

father's will came to be read. It was a pious fiction with Hester

Baskerville that her husband had striven, when too late, against his

own hasty deed. She believed that near his end the dying man attempted

to repair this wrong. She declared that his eyes and his mutterings

both spoke to that effect.

But the fact of disinheritance was all that remained for Rupert to

face, and in his bitterness he had turned from his family and continued

to toil at the china-clay works, despite his mother's entreaties and

Ned's handsome propositions.

Now, however, the case was altered. After nine months of this

unwisdom, Milly prevailed with Rupert to go back to Cadworthy and take

her with him. His mother was thankful to welcome him home, and Ned did

what he might to further the prospect.

Rupert stood within sight of marriage, and he and his wife were

presently to dwell at Cadworthy. Then control of the farm would be

made over by Ned Baskerville to his brother.

Now Rupert, in working clothes, sat by the cross. Opportunity to see

Ned was not always easy, for the elder lived a life of pure pleasure

and occupied much of his time from home. He was only concerned to

spend money, but showed no interest in the sciences of administering

and making it.

He rode up presently, stopped, and, bending over, shook hands with his

brother, but did not dismount.

"Hullo! Don't often see you smoking and taking your ease. Look at my

new mare. Isn't she a beauty? But Lord knows what Uncle Nathan will

say when I come down upon him for the cash. And I've got another

unpleasant surprise in store for him. I've bought a horse for Cora.

It'll be my wedding-present to her, but she may as well have it now."

"Pity we couldn't have all been married together; then one fuss and

flare up and expense would have done for the lot of us."

"I shouldn't have minded; but she didn't take to the idea at all.

Wants to have a first-prize wedding all to herself. And about time

too. I'm sick of waiting."

As a matter of fact Ned had found no difficulty in suspense. With

possession of money, life's boundaries considerably enlarged for him,

and he became a person of increased importance.

Cora was not jealous, and finding Ned extremely generous, she continued

content with the engagement. The present year was to see her married,

however; but when Nathan Baskerville suggested a triple wedding, Cora

objected very strongly. She intended that her nuptials should be in a

style considerably grander than those of Milly Luscombe, or Polly

Baskerville; but she finally promised Ned to marry him during the

following autumn.

"A nice mare," admitted Rupert; "she's got a temper, though--won't

carry beer. I know the man who used to own her. She very near broke

his neck for him the night after Cornwood revel."

"The horse isn't foaled that will ever throw me, I believe."

"I reckon not. Well, I'm here to meet you, Ned. I want to run over

the ground. You hate business so bad that 'tis difficult to talk about

it with you; but, all the same, as a man with money you must think a

bit."

"Uncle Nathan thinks for me. He was paid to. Didn't father leave him

fifty pounds to be trustee, or whatever 'tis?"

"But you never will look ahead. Uncle Nathan, since that bad bout of

health last winter, isn't what he was. Clever enough, I grant; but he

has got his own affairs, and his own worries too, for that matter.

Everything be safe and proper in his hands; but suppose he fell ill?

Suppose he was to die?"

"You're such a beggar for supposing. Never meet troubles

half-way--that's my rule, and I've found it work very well too. I

trust Uncle Nathan like the rest of the world trusts him. I sign his

blessed papers and I get my quarter's allowance very regular, with a

bit of money over and above when I want it, though he grumbles. I ask

for no more but to be allowed to enjoy life as long as I can."

"I'm going to do this anyway," said Rupert. "I'll tell you my hopes

and plans. 'Tis right and wise to make plans and look ahead and set

yourself a task. And my task be to get Cadworthy Farm away from you

for my own in twenty years from the time I go there."

"I shan't object--be sure of that. 'Tisn't likely I'd make hard terms

with my own brother. You go in as my tenant at just what rent you

please to pay in reason; and you pay me as much over and above the rent

as you can afford till the price of the farm is polished off. And

mother stops with you, and May stops with you. Mother has her

allowance and May has hers, so they'll be no charge on you. And I stop

too--till I'm married."

"That's all clear, then."

"Yes; and what I'm going to do is this. It seems there are things

called sleeping partnerships--jolly convenient things too. All you do

is to find a good, safe, established business that wants a bit of cash.

And you put your cash in, and just go to the business once in a blue

moon and sign your name in a book or two and draw your fees, and there

you are! Uncle Nathan's on the look-out for some such a thing for a

bit of my money. And I hope it will be in Plymouth for choice, because

Cora's frightfully keen to be near Plymouth. She wants to make some

decent woman pals, naturally. It's ridiculous such a girl messing

about in a hole like Shaugh. She hinted at a shop, but I won't have

that for a moment."

"All the same, I don't see why you shouldn't try and look out for

something that would give you a bit of work. Work won't hurt her or

you. You must be pretty well sick of doing nothing by this time, I

should think."

"Far from it," declared Ned. "I find myself quite contented. I shall

turn my hand to work presently. No hurry that I can see. I'm learning

a lot, remember that. A great learner I am. The first use of money is

to learn the world, Rupert. That's where that old fool at Hawk House

has messed up his life. No better than a miser, that man. A

spendthrift may be a fool, but a miser always is. And so it comes back

to the fact that Uncle Humphrey's a fool, as I always said he was--a

fool and a beast both."

"He's different enough from Uncle Nathan, I grant you--can't be soft or

gentle; but he's no fool, and though he pretends he's not interested in

people, he is. Things slip out. Look how he reads the newspapers."

"Yet now, for very hatred of all human beings--it can't be for anything

else--'tis rumoured he'll leave Hawk House and get away from the sight

of roads even. Susan Hacker told mother, not a week agone, that he was

getting restless to go farther off. Pity he don't go and stick his

head in Cranmere, and choke himself, and leave you and me and a few

other dashing blades to spend his money. We ought to be his heirs--all

of us. But we shan't see the colour of his cash, mark me."

"You won't. He hates your way of life. But he's got no quarrel with

the rest of us. You never know with a man like him. I'm going over to

him now; and I've got a tale of a chap that's broke his legs. He may

give me five shillings for the man's wife. He's done it before to-day.

'Tis in him to do kind things, only there's no easy outlet for 'em.

Keeps his goodness bottled up, as if he was afraid of it."

"You've got his blind eye, I reckon," said Ned. "It's all up with me

anyway. I look t'other way when I pass him. He'll never forgive me

for marrying Cora."

"Well, you'd best to go on and not keep your horse dancing about no

longer."

Ned galloped off, and his brother, having sat a little longer by St.

Rumon's Cross, rose and struck over Shaugh Moor in the direction of

Humphrey Baskerville's dwelling.

The old man was expecting his nephew and came upon the waste to meet

him. They had not spoken together for many days and Rupert was glad to

see the elder again.

A year had stamped its record upon Humphrey Baskerville, and the

significance of his son's death might now be perceived. Mark's passing

left a permanent scar, but the expected callosity of spirit by no means

overtook the sufferer.

Man, if he did not delight him, bulked upon his mind as the supreme

experience. It was an added tribulation that, upon his brother's

estrangement and death, one of the few living beings with whom he

enjoyed the least measure of intimacy had dropped out of his life.

And now he became increasingly sensitive to the opinion of the people

and developed a morbidity that was new.

Mrs. Hacker was his frank intelligencer, and more than once he smarted

to hear her tell how sensible men had spoken ill of him.

Now he fell into talk with Rupert and uttered the things uppermost in

his mind.

"Well enough in body, but sometimes I doubt if my brain's all it used

to be. Mayhap in the head is where I'll go first."

Rupert laughed. "Not much fear of that, uncle."

"You must know," answered the other, "that every man in this life has

to suffer a certain amount of injustice. From the king on his throne

to the tinker in his garret, there are thorns stuffed in all pillows.

Human nature misunderstands itself at every turn, and the closest,

life-long friends often catch their secret hearts full of wonder and

surprise at each other. But I--I've had more than my share of that.

The injustice that's heaped upon me is insufferable at times. And why?

Because I don't carry my heart on my sleeve, and won't palter with

truth at the world's bidding."

"'Tis only fools laugh at you or grumble at you."

"You're wrong there," answered Humphrey. "The scorn of fools and the

snarl of evil lips are a healthy sign. There are some men and some

dogs that I would rather bark at me than not. But how is it that wise

men and understanding men hold aloof and say hard things and look

t'other way when I pass by?"

"Lord knows," answered Rupert. "They'm too busy to think for

themselves, I suppose, and take the general opinion that you're

rather--rather unsociable. You do many and many a kind thing, but they

ban't known."

"No I don't. I can't--'tisn't my nature. Kind things are often

terrible silly things. Leave your Uncle Nathan to do the kind things.

He did a kind thing when my son died; and I felt it. For warmth of

heart there never was such another. The trouble that man takes for

people is very fine to see. I'm not saying he's wise. In fact, I

don't think he is wise. To do other folks' work for 'em and shelter

'em from the results of their own folly is to think you know better

than God Almighty."

"He's wonderful good, I'm sure. A godsend to my mother. Taken all the

business over for her. When father died----"

"Leave that. Keep on about his character," said Humphrey. "There's

nought so interesting to a man like me as burrowing into human nature

and trying the works. Now, in your Uncle Nathan you see one that has

the cleverness to make nearly every human being like him and trust him.

But how does he get his hold on the heart? Is it by shutting his eyes

to what people really are, like I shut my ears to Jack Head's arguments

against the Bible; or is it by sheer, stupid, obstinate goodness, that

can't see the weakness and folly and wickedness and craft of human

beings?"

"He puts a large trust in his fellow-creatures," answered Rupert. "He

believes everybody is good till he's proved 'em bad."

Humphrey nodded.

"True enough, and I'll tell you what that means in Nathan. The real

secret of sympathy in this world is to be a sinner yourself. There's

no end to the toleration and forgiveness and large-mindedness of

people, if they know in their own hearts that they be just as bad. A

wise man hedges, and never will be shocked at anything--why? Because

he says, 'I may be found out too, some day.'"

He broke off and his nephew spoke.

"I know you're just as kind, really. By the same token I've come

begging to-day. A poor Cornwood chap has had a bad accident. Market

merry he was and got throwed off his pony. He's in hospital with both

legs broke and may not recover, and his wife and four children----"

"What about his club?"

"He wasn't a member of a club."

"What's his name?"

"Coombes."

"Drunk too? And you ask me to take my money and help that sort of man?

But I won't."

"Perhaps, in strict justice, he don't deserve it; but----"

"Did you ask your Uncle Nathan for him?"

"Yes. It shows the difference between you, I suppose."

"He gave?"

"He gave me ten shillings. There's a nice point to argify about.

Which of you was right, Uncle Humphrey--you or Uncle Nat? You can't

both be right."

"We can both be right and both be wrong," answered the old man.

"Uncle Nat was preaching at the chapel a bit ago, afore he had his

illness; and me and Milly went to hear him."

"He preaches, does he?"

"Now and again--to work off his energy, he says. But never no more

will he. His voice won't stand it, he says. He chose for his text a

question, and he said 'twas a simple and easy thing, afore we took any

step in life, to ax ourselves and say, what would the Lord do?"

"Simple enough to ask--not so simple to answer."

"He seemed to think 'twas as simple to answer as to ask."

"His brain isn't built to see the difficulties. Jack Head laughs at

all these here Tory Christians. He says that a man can no more be a

Tory and a Christian than he can walk on water. He says, flat out,

that Christ was wrong here and there--right down wrong. Mind, I don't

say so; but Head will argue for it very strong if you'll let him."

"Uncle Nat wouldn't hear of that."

"Nor would I. I've got as much faith as my brother. And as to what

Christ would do or would not do in any given case, 'tis a matter for

very close reasoning, because we act only seeing the outside of a

puzzle; He would act seeing the inside. To say that we always know

what the Lord would do, is to say we're as wise as Him. To go to the

Bible for an answer to trouble is right enough though. 'Tis like a

story I read in a wise book a few nights agone; for I've taken to

reading a terrible lot of books lately. It told how two fellows fell

out and fought like a pair of martin-cats over a bit of ground. Each

said 'twas his, and presently they carried their trouble to a wise

king, as reigned over a near nation, and was always happy to talk sense

to anybody who had the time to listen. So to the neighbour kingdom

they went, and yet never got to the king at all. And why not?

Because, so soon as they were in his land, they found the spirit and

wisdom of him working like barm in bread throughout the length and

breadth of the place. They saw peace alive. They saw the people

living in brotherly love and unity and understanding. They saw the

religion of give and take at work. They saw travellers yielding the

path to each other; they saw kindness and goodness and patience the

rule from the cradle to the grave; and they felt so terrible ashamed of

their own little pitiful quarrel that they dursn't for decency take it

afore the throne, but made friends there and then and shared the strip

of earth between 'em. And so 'tis with the Bible, Rupert: you bring a

trouble into the Lord's kingdom and you'll find, in the clear light

shining there, that it quickly takes a shape to shame you."

"'Tis pretty much what Uncle Nat said in other words. But didn't it

ought to make you give me ten shillings for Coombes?"

"'Tisn't for us to stand between the State and its work."

"But his wife and children?"

"The sins of the fathers are visited on the children. Who are we to

come between God Almighty and His laws?"

Rupert shrugged his shoulders.

"Christ Almighty would have done--what?" asked Mr. Baskerville.

Rupert reflected.

"He'd have done something, for certain. Why, of course! He'd have

healed the man's broken legs first!"

"And that's what mankind is doing as best it can."

"And if the man dies?"

"Then the State will look after his leavings."

"You're justice itself," said Rupert; "but man's justice be frosty

work."

"That's right enough. Justice and mercy is the difference between God

and Christ. The one's a terrible light to show the way and mark the

rock and point the channel through the storm; but 'twill dazzle your

eyes if you see it too close, remember. And t'other's to the cold

heart what a glowing fire be to the cold body."

"And I say that Uncle Nathan's just that--a glowing, Christlike sort of

man," declared the younger fervently.

"Say so and think so," answered his uncle. "He stands for mercy; and

I'll never say again that he stands for mercy, because he knows he'll

stand in need of mercy. I'll never say that again. And I stand for

justice, and hope I'll reap as I have sowed--neither better nor worse.

But between my way and Nathan's way is yet another way; and if I could

find it, then I should find the thing I'm seeking."

"The way of justice and mercy together, I suppose you mean?"

"I suppose I do. But I've never known how to mix 'em and keep at peace

with my own conscience. Justice is firm ground; mercy is not. Man

knows that very well. We may please our fellow-creatures with it; but

for my part, so far as I have got till now, I'm prone to think that

mercy be God's work only--same as vengeance is. For us 'tis enough

that we try to be just, and leave all else in higher hands. Life ban't

a pretty thing, and you can't hide its ugliness by decorating it with

doubtful mercies, that may look beautiful to the eye but won't stand

the stark light of right."

"Justice makes goodness a bit hard at the edges, however," answered his

nephew. "And when all's said, if mercy be such treacherous ground, who

can deny that justice may give way under us too now and again?"

They now stood at the door of Hawk House.

"Enter in," said Mr. Baskerville. "You argue well, and there's a lot

in what you say. And words come all to this, as the rivers come all to

the sea, that we know nothing, outside Revelation. And now let's talk

about your affairs. When is your marriage going to be? Has Milly

Luscombe said she wants me to come to it? Answer the truth."

CHAPTER II

Dennis Masterman took the opportunity that offered after a service to

meet his parish clerk and perambulate the churchyard. For the vicar's

sister had pointed out that the burying-ground of St. Edward's was

ill-kept and choked with weeds.

Overhead the bells made mighty riot. Two weddings had just been

celebrated, and the ringers were doing their best.

"With spring here again, this place will be a scandal," said Dennis.

"You must set to work in earnest, Gollop, and if it's more than you can

do single-handed, you'd better get help."

"Hay is hay," answered the other; "and the Reverend Valletort was above

any fidgets like what some people suffer from nowadays. He had the

churchyard hay as his right in his opinion, and, given a good year, us

made a tidy little rick for him. 'All flesh is grass,' he used to say

in his wise fashion, 'and grass is not the less grass because it comes

off a man's grave.'"

"I think differently. To make hay in a churchyard, Thomas, is very bad

form, and shows a lack of proper and delicate feeling. Anyway, there's

to be a thorough clean-up. We've got a lot of very interesting graves

here, and when people come and ask to see the churchyard I don't like

wading through a foot of weeds. Where's the famous tomb with the music

book and bass viol on it? I wanted to show it to a man only last week,

and couldn't find it."

Mr. Gollop led the way and indicated a slate amid the Baskerville

monuments.

"There 'tis. A riddle and an open book; and the book actually had a

bit of the Old Hundredth--the music, I mean--scratched on it when first

'twas set up. But time have eaten that off, I believe. He was a fine

fiddler in the days afore the organs was put in the church, and then he

had to go; and he soon died after the joy of playing on Sundays was

taken from him. He made up his verse himself."

Mr. Gollop drew back the herbage from this slate and read out the rhyme

half hidden beneath.

"'Praises on tombs are to no purpose spent,

A man's good name is his own monument.'

"But a good name don't last as long as a good slate, when all's said.

There's Vivian Baskerville's stone, you see. 'Tis a great addition to

the row, and cost seven pounds odd. And there lieth the suicide, as

should be yonder if justice had been done. But Humphrey Baskerville

don't mean to take his place in the family row. Like him, that is.

Won't even neighbour with his fellow dust."

"You oughtn't to repeat such nonsense, Gollop."

"Nonsense or no nonsense, 'tis the truth. Here's the place he's

chosen, and bought it, too, right up in this corner, away from

everybody; and his gravestone is to turn its back upon t'other dead

folk--like he's always turned his back upon the living."

Mr. Gollop indicated a lonely corner of the churchyard.

"That's where he's going to await the trump."

"Well, that's his business, poor man. He's a good Christian, anyway."

"If coming to church makes him so, he may be; but Christian is as

Christian does in my opinion. Show me a man or beast as be the better

for Humphrey Baskerville, and I'll weigh up what sort of Christian he

may be."

"Judge nobody; but get this place respectable and tidy. No half

measures, Gollop. And you'll have to work out all those unknown mounds

with a pair of shears. They are running together, and will disappear

in a year or two. And that pile of broken slates in the corner had

better be carted away altogether. You ought to know the graves they

belong to, but of course you don't."

"No, I don't, and more don't any other living man. I ban't God

Almighty, I believe. 'Tis Miss Masterman have put you on to harrying

me out of my seven senses this way, and I wish she'd mind her own

business and let me mind mine."

"No need to be insolent. I only ask you to mind your own business. If

you'd do that we should never have a word."

Mr. Gollop grunted rudely. When conquered in argument he always

reserved to himself, not the right of final speech, but the licence of

final sound. On these occasions he uttered a defiant, raucous

explosion, pregnant with contempt and scorn, then he hurried away. At

times, under exceptional stress, he would also permit himself an

offensive gesture before departing. This consisted in lifting his

coat-tail and striking the part of his person that occurred beneath it.

But such an insult was reserved for his acquaintance; obviously it

might not be exploited against the vicar of the parish.

Now Gollop marched off to 'The White Thorn,' and Masterman, turning,

found that the man of whom they had recently spoken walked alone not

far off. Dennis instantly approached him. It was his wish to know

this member of his congregation better, but opportunity to do so had

been denied. Now there was no escape for Humphrey Baskerville, because

the minister extended his hand and saluted him.

"How do you do, Mr. Baskerville? Glad to see you. A pretty pair of

weddings, and two very popular young couples, I fancy."

Humphrey admitted it.

"There's no better or harder working man about here than my nephew

Rupert Baskerville," he said.

"So I understand. Not much of a church-goer, though, I'm afraid.

However, perhaps he'll come oftener now. The bells make the tower

shake, I do believe. We've never had the tenor bell rung like your son

rang it, Mr. Baskerville."

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"I always fancy so; but then, I've a right to fancy so. I was his

father. No doubt 'tis folly. One pair of hands can pull a rope as

well as another. But 'as the heart thinketh, so the bell clinketh,'

though the heart of man is generally wrong. My son would have done his

best to-day, no doubt, though such was his nature that he'd sooner toll

alone than peal in company."

"Are you going to the wedding breakfast?"

"Yes; not that they really want me. 'Twas only because the boys and

girls wouldn't take 'no' for an answer that I go. I doubt whether

they're in earnest. But I'm glad to be there too."

"Who was the fine young brown fellow in the Baskerville pew beside Mrs.

Baskerville?"

"Nathan Baskerville the younger. Called after my brother, the

innkeeper. He's just off the sea for a bit."

"A handsome man."

"He is for certain."

"Well, I'm very glad to meet you. I was telling Gollop that our graves

are not worthy of us. We must make the churchyard tidier."

They had reached the lich-gate and Dennis held Mr. Baskerville's pony

while he mounted it.

"Thank you," said the elder.

"By the way, I've never called at Hawk House, because I've been told

you wouldn't care about it."

"As to that, 'tisn't whether I'd care or not, 'tis whether you ought to

call or not."

"You're right. Then come I shall. How about next Friday?"

"I shall be there."

"I hear you're a great reader, Mr. Baskerville. I might lend you some

of my books--and gladly would do so, if you'd care to have them."

"Thank you, I'm sure. A kindly thought in you. 'Tis no great art to

think kindly; but let the thought blossom out into a deed and it grows

alive. Yes, I read a lot now since my son died. Jack Head is a

reading man, likewise; but he reads terrible dangerous books. He lent

me one and I burnt it. Yes, I burnt it, and told him so."

"Probably you were right."

"No, I wasn't. He showed me very clearly that I was wrong. You can't

burn a book. A bad book once out in the world is like a stone once

flung--it belongs to the devil. Not but what Jack Head says many

things that can't be answered--worse luck."

"I wish he'd bring his difficulties to me."

"You needn't wish that. _He's_ got no difficulties. _He's_ going with

the wind and tide. 'Tis you, not him--'tis you and me, and the likes

of us--that will be in difficulties afore long. I see that plain

enough. 'Tis idle to be blind. I shall die a Christian, and so will

you, and so belike will your childer, if ever you get any; but all's in

a welter of change now, and very like your grandchilder will think

'twas terrible funny to have a parson for a grandfather. Jack Head

says they'll put stuffed curates in the British Museum afore three

generations."

"A free-thought wave," said Dennis. "Be under no concern, Mr.

Baskerville. Christianity is quite unassailable. Remember the Rock

it's founded on."

"'Tis the rock it will split on be the thing to consider. However, if

you've got any books that stand for our side, I shall thank you to lend

'em to me. Jack's had it all his own way of late."

"I'll bring some," declared Masterman.

They parted, and Humphrey trotted off on his pony.

Meantime at 'The White Thorn' a considerable gathering had met to

discuss the weddings, and Nathan Baskerville, his namesake, the sailor,

Heathman Lintern, Joe Voysey, and others enjoyed a morning drink. For

some the entertainment was now ended, but not a few had been bidden to

the feast at Cadworthy, where a double banquet was planned, and many

would soon set out on foot or in market-carts for the farm.

"One may hope for nought but good of these here weddings," said Voysey.

"There's only one danger in my judgment, and that is for two of the

young people to set up living with the bridegroom's mother; but Rupert

ban't Hester Baskerville's favourite son, I believe. If he was it

certainly wouldn't work. The poor chap would be pulled in two pieces

between mother and wife. However, if the mother ban't jealous of him,

it may do pretty well."

"When Master Ned marries, he'll have to go a bit further off," said the

innkeeper.

"How is it brother Ned ban't married a'ready?" asked the younger

Nathan. "Why, 'tis more than a year agone since I heard from my sister

that he was going to marry Heathman's sister, and yet nothing done.

I'd make her name the day jolly quick if 'twas me."

Heathman laughed and shook his head.

"No, you wouldn't, Nat. You don't know Cora. None will hurry her if

she's not minded to hurry. Ned has done what he could, and so have

I--and so has my mother. But she's in no haste. Likes being engaged

and making plans, getting presents, and having a good time and being

important."

"The autumn will see them married, however," declared Mr. Baskerville.

"I've told Master Ned that he'll have to draw in his horns a bit, for

he's not made of money, though he seems to think so. 'Twill be his

best economy to marry pretty quick and settle down. Never was a man

with wilder ideas about money; but Cora's different. She's a woman

with brains. He'll do well to hand her over the purse."

"She wants to start a shop at Plymouth," said Heathman. "A shop for

hats and women's things. But Ned's against it. He says she shan't

work--not while he can help it; and as he certainly won't work himself

while he can help it, we must hope they've got tons of money."

"Which they have not," answered Nathan Baskerville. "And the sooner

Ned understands that and gives ear to me, the better for his peace of

mind."

Mr. Gollop entered at this moment. He was ruffled and annoyed.

"That man!" he moaned, "that headstrong, rash man will be the death of

me yet. Of course, I mean Masterman. Won't let the dead rest in their

graves now. Wants the churchyard turned into a pleasure-ground

seemingly. Must be mowing and hacking and tacking and trimming; and no

more hay; and even they old holy slates in the corner to be carted off

as if they was common stones."

"Lie low and do nought," advised Joe Voysey. "'Tis a sort of fever

that takes the gentleman off and on. He catches the fit from his

sister. She'll be down on me sometimes, with all her feathers up and

everything wrong. I must set to that instant moment and tidy the

garden for my dear life, till not a blade be out of place. Likes to

see the grass plot so sleek as a boy's head after Sunday pomatum. But

the way is to listen with all due and proper attention, as becomes us

afore our betters, and then--forget it. The true kindness and charity

be to let 'em have their talk out, and even meet 'em in little things

here and there--if it can be done without loss of our self-respect.

But we understand best. Don't you never forget that, Thomas. Where

the yard and the garden be concerned, you and me must be first in the

land. They be children to us, and should be treated according. We've

forgot more than they ever knowed about such things."

Others came and went; Joe and Thomas matured their Fabian tactics;

Nathan Baskerville, with his nephew and young Lintern, set off in a

pony trap for Cadworthy. The bells still rioted and rang their

ceaseless music; for these new-made wives and husbands were being

honoured with the long-drawn, melodious thunder of a full five-bell

'peal.'

CHAPTER III

Cora Lintern waited for Ned Baskerville at the fork of the road above

Shaugh. Here, in the vicarage wall, the stump of a village cross had

been planted. Round about stitchwort flashed its spring stars, and

foxgloves made ready, while to the shattered symbol clung ivy tighter

than ever lost sinner seeking sanctuary.

Upon a stone beneath sat the woman in Sunday finery, and she was

beautiful despite her garments. They spoke of untutored taste and a

mind ignorantly attracted by the garish and the crude. But her face

was fair until examined at near range. Then upon the obvious beauty,

like beginning of rust in the leaf, there appeared delicate signs of

the spirit within. Her eyes spoke unrest and her mouth asperity. The

shadow of a permanent line connected her eyebrows and promised a

network too soon to stretch its web, woven by the spiders of

discontent, upon her forehead.

Cora built always upon to-morrow, and she suffered the fate of those

that do so. She was ambitious and vain, and she harboured a false

perspective in every matter touching her own welfare, her own desert,

and her own position in the world. She largely overrated her beauty

and her talents. She was satisfied with Ned Baskerville, but had

ceased to be enthusiastic about him. A year of his society revealed

definite limitations, and she understood that though her husband was

well-to-do, he would never be capable. The power to earn money did not

belong to him, and she rated his windy optimisms and promises at their

just value. She perceived that the will and intellect were hers, and

she knew that, once married, he would follow and not lead. The

advantage of this position outweighed the disadvantages. She desired

to live in a town, and rather favoured the idea of setting up a shop,

to be patronised by the local leaders of rank and fashion. She loved

dress, and believed herself possessed of much natural genius in matters

sartorial.

At present Ned absolutely refused any suggestion of a shop; but she

doubted not that power rested with her presently to insist, if she

pleased to do so. He was a generous and fairly devout lover. He more

than satisfied her requirements in that direction. She had, indeed,

cooled his ardour a little, and she supposed that her common-sense was

gradually modifying his amorous disposition. But another's

common-sense is a weak weapon against lust, and Ned's sensual energies,

dammed by Cora, found secret outlet elsewhere.

So it came about that he endured the ordeal of the lengthy engagement

without difficulty, and the girl wore his fancied sobriety and

self-control as a feather in her cap. When she related her achievement

to Ned and explained to him how much his character already owed to her

chastening influence, he admitted it without a blush, and solemnly

assured her that she had changed his whole attitude to the sex.

Now the man arrived, and they walked together by Beatland Corner,

southerly of Shaugh, upon the moor-edge.

Their talk was of the autumn wedding and the necessity for some active

efforts to decide their domicile. Cora was for a suburb of Plymouth,

but Ned wanted to live in the country outside. The shop she did not

mention after his recent strong expressions of aversion from it; but

she desired the first step to be such that transition to town might

easily follow, when marriage was accomplished and her power became

paramount.

They decided, at length, to visit certain places that stood between

town and country above Plymouth. There were Stoke and Mannamead to

see. A villa was Cora's ambition--a villa and two servants. Ned's

instincts, on the other hand, led to a small house and a large stable.

He owned some horses and took great part of his pleasure upon them.

Since possession of her own steed, however, Cora's regard for riding

had diminished. It was her way to be quickly satisfied with a new toy.

Now she spoke of a 'victoria,' so that when she was married she might

drive daily upon her shopping and her visiting.

"The thing is to begin well," she said. "People call according to your

house, and often the difference between nice blinds and common blinds

will decide women whether they'll visit a newcomer or not. With my

taste you can trust the outside of your home to look all right, Ned.

At Mannamead I saw the very sort of house I'd like for us to have.

Such a style, and I couldn't think what 'twas about it till I saw the

short blinds was all hung in bright shining brass rods across the

windows, and the window-boxes was all painted peacock-blue. 'I'll have

my house just like that!' I thought."

"So you shall--or any colour you please. And I'll have my stable smart

too, I promise you. White tiles all through. I shall have to do a bit

myself, you know--looking after the horses, I mean--but nobody will

know it."

"You'll keep a man, of course?"'

"A cheap one. Uncle Nathan went into figures with me last week. He

was a bit vague, and I was a bit impatient and soon had enough of it.

'All I want to know,' I told him, 'is just exactly what income I can

count upon,' and he said five hundred a year was the outside figure.

Then, against that, you must set that he's getting a bit old and, of

course, being another person's money, he's extra cautious. He admitted

that if I sold out some shares and bought others, I could get pretty

near another one hundred a year by it. But, of course, we've got to

take a bite out of the money for furnishing and all the rest of it. My

idea, as you know, is to invest a bit in a sleeping partnership, but he

hasn't found anything of the sort yet, apparently. He's not the man he

was at finding a bargain."

Here opened a good opportunity for her ambitions, and Cora ventured to

take it.

"I wish you'd think twice about letting me start a little business.

It's quite a ladylike thing, or I wouldn't offer it, but with my

natural cleverness about clothes, and with all the time I've given to

the fashions and all that--especially with the hats I can make--it

seems a pity not to let me do it. You don't want much money to start

with, and I should soon draw the custom."

"No," he said. "Time enough if ever we get hard up. I'm not going to

have you making money. 'Tis your business to spend it. You'll be a

lady, with your own servants and all the rest of it. You'll walk

about, and pick the flowers in your garden, and pay visits; and if you

do have a little trap, you can drive out to the meets sometimes when I

go hunting. Why, damn it all, Cora, I should have thought you was the

last girl who would ever want to do such a thing!"

"That's all you know," she said. "People who keep hat shops often get

in with much bigger swells than ever we're likely to know at Mannamead,

or Stoke either. They come into the shop and they see, of course, I'm

a lady, and I explain that I only keep the shop for fun, and then I get

to know them. I'd make more swell friends in my hat shop than ever you

do on your horse out fox-hunting."

"I know a lot of swells, for that matter."

"Ask 'em to come to tea and then you'll see if you know 'em," she said.

"'Tis no use for us to be silly. We're poor people, compared to rich

ones, and we always shall be, so far as I can see. We must be content

with getting up the ladder a bit--and that's all I ask or expect."

"I know my place all right, if that's what you mean," answered Ned.

"I'm not anxious to get in with my betters, for they're not much use to

me. I'm easily satisfied. I want for you to have a good time, and I

mean for myself to have a good time. You can only live your life once,

and a man's a fool to let worry come into his life if he can escape

from it. The great thing in the world is to find people who think as

you do yourself. That's worth a bit of trouble; and when you've found

them, stick to them. A jolly good motto too."

They spilt words to feeble purpose for another half-hour, and then

there came an acquaintance. Timothy Waite appeared on his way from

Coldstone Farm. He overtook them and walked beside them.

"I suppose you don't want company," he said, "but I'll leave you half a

mile further on."

"We do want company, and always shall," declared Cora. "And yours most

of all, I'm sure. We're past the silly spooning stage. In fact, we

never got into it, did we, Edward?"

"You didn't," said her betrothed, "and as you didn't, I couldn't.

Spooning takes two."

Mr. Waite remained a bachelor and no woman had ever been mentioned in

connection with him. He was highly eligible and, indeed, a husband

much to be desired. He enjoyed prosperity, good looks, and a

reputation for sense and industry.

Cora he had always admired, and still did so. At heart he wondered why

she had chosen Ned Baskerville, and sometimes, since the marriage hung

fire, he suspected that she was not entirely satisfied of her bargain

and might yet change her mind.

He would have married her willingly, for there was that in her

practical and unsentimental character which appealed to him. He had

indeed contemplated proposing when the announcement of young

Baskerville's engagement reached him. He met Cora sometimes and always

admired her outlook on life. He did so now, yet knowing Ned too,

doubted at heart whether the woman had arrested his propensities as

completely as she asserted.

"The question on our lips when you came along was where we should set

up shop," said Ned.

"A shop is what I really and truly want to set up," declared Cora; "but

Edward won't hear of it--more fool him, I say. He can't earn money,

but that's no reason why I shouldn't try to."

Mr. Waite entirely agreed with her.

"No reason why you shouldn't. If Cadworthy's to be handed over to

Rupert and you're going to live in Plymouth, as I hear," he said, "then

why not business? There's nothing against it that I know, and there's

nothing like it. If I wasn't a farmer, I'd keep a shop. For that

matter a farmer does keep a shop. Only difference that I can see is

that he has fields instead of cupboards and loses good money through

the middleman between him and his customers. I'm going to take another

stall in Plymouth market after Midsummer. There's nought like market

work for saving cash."

"And as nearly half our money will come from the rent that Rupert pays

for Cadworthy, we shall be living by a shop in a sense whether you

pretend to or not," added Cora.

But Ned denied this. He aired his views on political economy, while

Waite, who valued money, yet valued making it still more, reduced the

other's opinions to their proper fatuity and laughed at him into the

bargain.

Timothy's contempt for Baskerville was not concealed. He even

permitted himself a sly jest or two at the expense of the other's

mental endowments; and these thrusts, while unfelt by the victim,

stabbed Cora's breast somewhat keenly. Even Timothy's laughter, she

told herself, was more sane and manly than Ned's.

She fell into her own vice of contrasting the thing she had with the

thing she had not, to the detriment of the former. It was an instinct

with her to under-value her own possessions; but the instinct stopped

at herself--an unusual circumstance.

With herself and her attributes of mind and body, she never quarrelled;

it was only her environment that by no possibility compared favourably

with that of other people. Her mother, her sister, her brother, her

betrothed, and her prospects--none but seemed really unworthy of Cora

when dispassionately judged by herself.

Now she weighed Timothy's decision against Ned's doubt, his knowledge

against Ned's ignorance, his sense against Ned's nonsense. She felt

the farmer's allusions, and she throbbed with discomfort because Ned

did not also feel them and retort upon Mr. Waite in like manner. She

told herself that the difference between them was the radical

difference between a wise man and a fool. Then she fell back in

self-defence of her own judgment, and assured herself that, physically,

there could be no comparison, and that Ned had a better heart and would

make a gentler husband.

Timothy had admired her--she remembered that; but he was caution

personified and, while he had considered, Ned had plunged. She strove

to see this as a virtue in Ned. Yet Timothy's old attitude to her

forbade any slighting of him. She remembered very well how, when he

congratulated her on her engagement, he had pointedly praised Ned for

one thing alone: his precipitation. A fault at other seasons may be a

virtue in the love season.

"I thought him not very clever," said Timothy on that occasion; "but

now I see he was cleverer than any of us. Because he was too clever to

waste a moment in getting what every other chap wanted. We learn these

things too late."

He said that and said it with great significance. It comforted Cora

now to remember the circumstance. Whatever else Ned might not know, he

knew a good deal about women; and that would surely make him by so much

a better husband. Then her wits told her the opposite might be argued

from this premise. She was not enjoying herself, and she felt glad

when Waite left them. Anon Ned rallied her for lengthened taciturnity

and even hinted, as a jest, that he believed she was regretting her

choice.

They turned presently and went back over Shaugh Moor to drink tea at

the man's home. But upon the threshold Cora changed her mind. She

pleaded headache and some anxiety about her health.

"I've got a cold coming--else I wouldn't be so low-spirited," she said.

"I'll get back through North Wood and go to bed early."

He instantly expressed utmost solicitation and concern.

"I'll come back with you, then. If you like, I'll put in the pony and

drive you," he said. But she would neither of these things.

"I shall be all right. You go in and have your tea, and don't trouble.

I'll get back by the wood path, and you'll find I shall be better

to-morrow."

"'Tis that flimsy dress that lets the wind through like a net," he

said. "The weather's not right for such clothes as you will wear."

But she laughed and told him to mind his own business. Then she kissed

him on the cheek and went away.

He stood doubtful. First he felt moved to follow her, and then he

changed his mind. He knew Cora better than she thought he did, and he

was aware that at the present moment she felt perfectly well but

desired to be alone.

He had not missed the significance of Mr. Waite's views on his

sweetheart's mind, though he had failed to appreciate Timothy's sly

humour at his own expense.

Now, therefore, he let Cora have her will and made no further effort to

overtake her. He waited only until she looked back, as he knew she

would; then he kissed his hand, turned, and departed.

She passed along through the forest homeward, and, when hidden in a

silent place, dusted a stone and sat down to think.

A wild apple tree rose above her, half smothered in a great ivy-tod.

But through the darkness of the parasite, infant sprays of bright young

foliage sprang and splashed the gloomy evergreen with verdure.

Aloft, crowning this gnarled and elbowed crab, burst out a triumphant

wreath of pale pink blossom--dainty, diaphanous, and curled. Full of

light and pearly purity it feathered on the bough, and its tender

brightness was splashed with crimson beads of the flower-buds that

waited their time and turn to open.

Higher still, dominating the tree, thrust forth a crooked, naked bough

or two. They towered, black, dead, and grim above the loveliness of

the living thing beneath.

From reflections not agreeable, this good sight attracted Cora and

turned the tide of her thoughts.

Even here the instinct of business dominated any sentiment that might

have wakened in another spirit before such beauty. She gazed at it,

then rose and plucked a few sprays of the apple-blossom. Next she took

off her hat and began to try the effect of the natural flowers therein.

Her efforts pleased her not a little.

"Lord! What a hand I have for it!" she said aloud. Then, refreshened

by this evidence of her skill, she rose and proceeded to Shaugh. "I

know one thing," she thought, "and that is, man or no man, I shall

always be able to make my living single-handed in a town. 'Tisn't for

that I want a husband. And be it as 'twill, when master Ned finds a

lot more money coming in, he'd very soon give over crying out at a

shop."

CHAPTER IV

Humphrey Baskerville still sought to determine his need, and sometimes

supposed that he had done so. More than once he had contemplated the

possibility of peace by flight; then there happened incidents to change

his mind.

Of late the idea of a home further from distracting influences had

again seemed good to him. More than once he considered the advantages

of isolation; more than once he rode upon the Moor and distracted his

gloom with visions of imaginary dwellings in regions remote.

The folly of these thoughts often thrust him with a rebound into the

life of his fellow-beings, and those who knew him best observed a

rhythmic alternation in Humphrey.

After periods of abstention and loneliness would follow some return to

a more sociable style of living. From a fierce hectic of mind that

sent him sore and savage into the heart of the wilderness, he cooled

and grew temperate again as the intermittent fever passed.

And then, when the effort towards his kind had failed by his own

ineptitude and the world's mistrust, he retreated once more to suffer,

and banished himself behind the clouds of his own restless soul.

Humanity has no leisure to decipher these difficult spirits; the pathos

of their attempts must demand a philosophic eye to perceive it; and

unless kind chance offers the key, unless opportunity affords an

explanation, the lonely but hungry heart passes away unfathomed, sinks

to the grave unread and unreconciled.

Inner darkness turned Baskerville to the Moor again, and he rode--where

often he had already ridden: to inspect the ruin of an old dwelling

upon the side of a great hill above the waters of Plym.

Brilliant summer smiled upon this pilgrimage, and as he went, he fell

in with a friend, where Jack Head tramped the high road upon his way to

Trowlesworthy. Jack now dwelt at Shaugh, but was head man of Saul

Luscombe's farm and rabbit warren.

"A fine day," said Humphrey as he slowed his pony.

"Yes, and a finer coming," answered the other. Mr. Baskerville was

quick to note the militant tone.

"Been at your silly books again, I warrant," he said. "There's one

book I could wish you'd read along with t'others, Jack. 'Tis the salt

to all other books, for all you scorn it."

"Bible's a broken reed, master, as you'll live to find out yet."

"No, Jack. 'Tis what makes all other writing but a broken reed. A

fountain that never runs dry, I promise you. No man will ever get the

whole truth out of the Bible."

"No, by Gor! Because it ban't there," said the other.

"It's there all right--hidden for the little children to find it. You

bandage your eyes and then you say you can't see--a fool's trick that."

"I can see so far as you. 'Tis you put coloured spectacles on your

nose to make things look as you'd have 'em. Your book be played out,

master. Let the childer read it, if you like, along with the other

fairy tales; but don't think grown men be going to waste their time

with it. The whole truth is that the book be built on a lie. There

never was no Jehovah and never will be. Moses invented Him to frighten

the folk from their naughtiness, same as you invent a scarecrow to

frighten the birds from the seed. And the scarecrow works better than

Jehovah did, by all accounts."

"You talk out of your narrow, bitter books, Jack."

"No need to call my books names. That's all your side can do. Why

don't they try to answer 'em instead of blackguarding 'em?"

"'Tis a great danger to the poor that they begin to think so much."

"Don't you say that. Knowledge be the weapon the poor have been

waiting for all these years and years. 'Tis the only weapon for a poor

man. And what will it soon show 'em? It'll show 'em that the most

powerful thing on this earth be the poor. They are just going to find

it out; then you rich people will hear of something that will terrible

astonish you."

"You're a rank Socialist, Jack. I've no patience with you."

"There you are: 'no patience!' But that's another thing we men of the

soil be going to teach you chaps who own the soil. 'Patience,' you

say. There's a time coming when the rich people will have to be mighty

patient, I warn you! And if you're impatient--why, 'tis all one to us,

for never was heard that any impatient man could stop the tide flowing."

"I believe that," said Baskerville grimly. "You'll pay us presently

for teaching you, and clothing you, and helping to enlarge your minds.

When you're learned enough, you'll turn round, like the snake, and bite

the hand that fed you. Gratitude the common soul never knows and never

will, whatever else it may learn. Knowledge is poison to low natures,

and we ought to have kept you ignorant and harmless."

Jack Head stared.

"That's a pretty speech!" he said. "That's a good healthy bit of

Christian charity--eh? Why for should you ax so much credit for your

side? Take me. What's the rich man done for me? A workhouse boy I

was."

"And look at you now--a prosperous man and saving money. Who fed you

and taught you and brought you up? The State. Society saved you;

society played mother to you; and now you want to kick her. That's how

you'd pay your debts. You take a base and a narrow view--dishonest

too. The State have got to look after the rich as well as the poor.

Why not? The poor aren't everybody. You're the sort that think no man

can be a decent member of society unless he was born in a gutter.

Class prejudice 'tis called, and some of the chaps who think they're

the salt of the earth, stink of it."

"Class be damned," said Mr. Head. "Class is all stuff and nonsense.

There are only two classes--good men and bad ones. The difference

between a duke and me be difference between a pig with a ring in his

nose and another without one. We'm built the same to the last bone in

our bodies, and I've got more sense than half the dukes in the kingdom."

"And t'other half have got more sense than you," returned the rider.

"It's summed up in a word. Class there will be, because class there

must be. The poor we have always with us--you know that well enough.

Your books, though they deny most things, can't deny that."

"Another of your silly Christian sayings. We have got the poor with

us--but it won't be always. So long as we have the rich with us, we

shall have the poor, and no longer. No longer, master! Finish off the

one and you'll finish off t'other. That's a bit of home-grown wisdom,

that is got from no book at all."

"Wisdom, you call it! And what power is going to root out the rich?

How are you clever folk going to alter human nature, and say to this

man you shan't save your money and to this man you shall save yours?

While some men and women are born to thrift and sense, and some to

folly and squandering, there must be rich and poor; and while men are

born to hunger for power, there must be war. These things can't be

changed. And you can't say where any man can reach to; you can't put

up a mark and tell your fellow-man, 'you shan't go higher than that.'"

"Granted. You can't say where they shall reach to; but you can say

where they shall start from. Half the world's handicapped at the

starting-post. I only ax for the race to be a fair one. I only ax for

my son to start fair with yours. If yours be the better man, then let

him win; but don't let him win because he's got too long a start.

That's not justice but tyranny. Give every man his chance and make

every man work--that's all I ask. If a man's only got the wits to

break stones, then see that he breaks 'em; and let them who can do

better and earn better money not grudge the stone-breaker a little over

and above what his poor wits earn in the market."

"I grant that's good," admitted Baskerville. "Let the strong help the

weak. 'Twas Christ found that out, not you Socialists."

"'Tis found out anyway," said Jack Head. "And 'tis true; and therefore

it will happen and we can't go back on it. And it follows from that

law of strong helping weak that nobody ought to be too rich, any more

than they ought to be too poor. Let the State be a millionaire a

million times over, if you like--and only the State. So long as the

hive be rich, no bee is poor."

Humphrey did not immediately reply. He was following Head's argument

to a still larger conclusion.

"And you'd argue that as the strong man can help the weak one, so in

time the strong State might help the weak one instead of hindering it,

and the powerful of the earth give of their abundance to strengthen the

humble and feeble?"

"Why not? Instead of that, the great Powers be bristling with fighting

men, and all the sinews of the world be wasted on war. And it shows

the uselessness of the Book, anyway, that the Christian

nations--so-called--keep the biggest armies and the largest number of

men idle, rotting their bodies and souls away in barracks and

battleships."

Baskerville nodded.

"There's sense of a lop-sided sort in much that you say, Jack. But

'tisn't the Book that's to blame--'tis the world that misunderstands

the Book and daren't go by the Book--because of the nations around that

don't go by it."

"Then why do they pretend they'm Christians? They know if they went by

the Book they'd go down; yet they want to drive it into the heads of

the next generation. The child hears his father damning the Government

because they ban't building enough men-of-war, and next day when the

boy comes home with a black eye, his father turns round and tells him

to mind his Bible and remember that the peacemakers be blessed."

"I could wish a Government would give Christianity a chance," confessed

Mr. Baskerville; "but I suppose 'tis much the same thing as Free

Trade--a fine thing if everybody played the game, but a poor thing for

one nation if t'others are all for Protection."

"That's a lie," answered Mr. Head. "We've shown Free Trade is a fine

thing--single-handed we've shown it, and why? Because Free Trade's a

strong sword; but Christianity's rusty and won't stand the strain no

longer. We've passed that stage; and if we was to start Christianity

now and offer the cheek to the smiter--well, he'd damn soon smite, and

then where are we?"

They chattered on and set the world right according to their outlook,

instinct, and understanding. Then the conversation turned into

personal channels, and Mr. Baskerville, while admitting the justice of

much that Jack asserted, yet blamed him for a certain impatience and

bitterness.

"If evolution is going to set all right and the unborn will come into a

better world, why get so hot?" he asked.

"Because I'm a thinking, feeling man," answered the other. "Because I

hate to see wrong done in the name of right. And you're the same--only

you haven't got as much sense as me seemingly. I'm useful--you only

want to be useful and don't see how."

"I want to do my part in the world; but just the right way is difficult

to choose out among the many roads that offer, Jack. You are positive,

and that saves a deal of trouble, no doubt. The positive people go the

furthest--for good or evil. But I'm not so certain. I see deeper than

you because I've been better educated, though I'm not so clever by

nature. Then there's another thing--sympathy. People don't like me,

and to be disliked limits a man's usefulness a lot."

"That's stuff," answered Jack; "no more than a maggot got in your head.

If they don't like you, there's a reason. They'm feared of your sharp

tongue, and think 'tis the key to a hard heart. Then 'tis for you to

show 'em what they can't see. I'll tell you what you are: you'm a man

sitting hungry in a wheat-field, because you don't know and won't larn

how to turn corn into bread. That's you in a word."

Trowlesworthy was reached and Jack went his way.

"You might come and drink a dish of tea some Sunday," said Mr.

Baskerville, and the other promised to do so. Then Humphrey proceeded

beside the river, and presently ascended a rough slope to his

destination. The ruin that alternately drew and repelled him lay

below; but for the moment he did not seek it. He climbed to the high

ground, dismounted, turned his pony loose, and took his pipe out of his

pocket.

The great cone of granite known as Hen Tor lies high upon the eastern

bank of Plym, between that streamlet and the bog-foundered table-land

of Shavercombe beyond. From its crown the visitor marked Cornwall's

coastline far-spreading into the west, and Whitsand Bay reflecting

silver morning light along the darker boundaries of earth.

Spaces of grass and fern extended about the tor, and far below a midget

that was a man moved along the edge of the ripe bracken and mowed it

down with a scythe.

Half a dozen carrion crows took wing and flapped with loud croaking

away as Humphrey ascended the tor and sat upon its summit. Again he

traversed the familiar scene in his mind, again perceived the

difficulties of transit to this place. Occasionally, before these

problems, he had set to work obstinately and sought solutions.

Once he had determined to rebuild the ruin in the valley, so that he

might turn his back on man and make trial of the anchorite's isolation

and hermit's bastard peace; but to-day he was in no mood for such

experiments; his misanthropic fit passed upon the west wind, and his

thoughts took to themselves a brighter colour.

Where he sat two roof-trees were visible, separated by the distant

height of Legis Tor. Trowlesworthy and Ditsworthy alone appeared, and

for the rest the river roamed between them, and flocks and herds

wandered upon the hills around. The man still moved below, and long

ribbons of fallen fern spread regularly behind him.

A foul smell struck on Baskerville's nostrils, and he saw death not far

distant, where the crows had been frightened from their meal. He

climbed away from the main pile of the tor and sat in a natural chair

hollowed from the side of an immense block of granite that stands hard

by. He smoked, and his pony grazed.

A storm of rain fell and passed. The sun succeeded upon it, and for a

little while the moor glittered with moisture. Then the wind dried all

again. The old man was now entirely out of tune with any thought of a

dwelling here. He did not even descend the hill and inspect the ruin

beneath. But he had come to spend the day alone, and was contented to

do so. His mind busied itself with the last thing that a fellow-man

had said to him. He repeated Jack Head's word over and over to

himself. Presently he ate the food that he had brought with him, drank

at a spring, and walked about to warm his body. The carrion crows

cried in air, soared hither and thither, settled again on the rocks at

hand and waited, with the perfect patience of unconscious nature, for

him to depart. But he remained until the end of the day.

Then occurred a magnificent spectacle. After gold of evening had

scattered the Moor and made dark peat and grey rock burn, there rolled

up from the south an immense fog, that spread its nacreous sea under

the sunset. Born of far-off fierce heat upon the ocean, it advanced

and enveloped earth, valley by valley, and ridge by ridge. Only the

highest peaks evaded this flood of vapours, and upon them presently

sank the sun. His light descending touched many points and uplifted

sprays of mist; whereon, like magic, a thousand galleons rode over the

pearl and advanced in a golden flotilla upon this fleeting sea. The

rare, brief wonder passed, and the sky above it faded; the sun sank;

the fog rolled forward--heavy, cold, a burden for the wet wings of

night.

Humphrey set off, and the carrion crows, full hungry, returned to sup.

In Baskerville's mind certain words reverberated still, as they had

often done since they were spoken during the morning. They chimed to

the natural sounds that had fallen upon his ear throughout the day;

they were echoed in the wind and the distant water-murmur; in the cry

of birds and call of beasts; in the steady rasping of his pony's teeth

through the herbage; and now, in its hoof-beat as it trotted by a

sheep-track homeward.

And louder than all these repetitions of it, louder than the natural

music that seemed to utter the words in many voices, there came the

drumming of his own pulse, laden with the same message, and the

answering beat of his heart that affirmed the truth of it.

"A man sitting hungry in a wheat-field, because you don't know and

won't learn how to turn corn into bread."

CHAPTER V

Milly and her husband Rupert came on a Sunday to drink tea at Hawk

House. They found Humphrey from home, but he had left a message with

Susan Hacker to say that he would return before five o'clock.

"He's got the rheumatics," said Mrs. Hacker. "They have fastened cruel

in his shoulder-blades, and he've started on his pony and gone off to

see the doctor. Won't have none of my cautcheries, though I know

what's good for rheumatics well enough, and I've cured three cases to

common knowledge that neither doctor nor that Eliza Gollop could budge,

do as they would."

Rupert expressed concern, and went out to meet his uncle, while Milly

stopped and helped Susan Hacker to prepare tea.

"And how do 'e like being married?" asked the elder.

"Very well; but not quite so well as I thought to," answered Milly with

her usual frankness.

"Ah! same with most, though few have the pluck to confess it."

"Being married is a very fine thing if you've got such a husband as

Rupert; but living along with your husband's people ain't so fine, if

you understand me. You see, he's farmer now, and he will have his

way--a terrible resolute chap where the land and the things be

concerned. But sometimes his mother gets a bit restive at Rupert's

orders, and sometimes she says, in her quiet way, as her husband never

would have held with this or that. 'Tis a thought awkward now and

again, because, you see, Rupert ban't the favourite, and never was."

"You side with him, of course?"

"Always, and always shall do--right or wrong."

"Maybe when Master Ned's married and away Mrs. Baskerville will go

easier."

"Don't think I'm grumbling. She's a kind woman, but, like all old

married folk, seem to think young married folk be only playing at it.

The truth is that I haven't got enough to do for the minute."

Mr. Baskerville returned in half an hour, and Rupert walked beside him.

Then, with some silent suffering, the old man alighted, and a boy took

the pony to its stable.

"Doctor was out," he said, "so I'll have to trouble you to make up a

bit of your ointment after all."

"And so I will," answered Susan. "And if you'd gone to that Gollop

woman for the beastliness she pretends will cure everything, I'd never

have forgiven you. She helped to kill off your brother, no doubt, but

that's no reason why you should give her a chance to kill you."

"You're all alike," he said; "a jealous generation. But if you can

have your physic ready in an hour, so much the better; then Rupert

shall give my back a good rub before he goes."

Mrs. Hacker was doubtful.

"Better I do it," she said. "'Tis the way it's rubbed in makes the

cure."

"He's stronger and can rub harder," answered the patient.

"Uncle Nathan's none too grand, neither," declared his nephew. "Won't

say what's amiss, but I do think he's not all he might be. I asked

Mrs. Lintern, who knows more about him than anybody, I reckon, and she

told me 'twas nothing much in her opinion--only his throat a bit queer."

"You and Uncle Nathan ought to have wives to look after you," declared

Milly as she poured out tea. "You men be unfinished, awkward things

alone. You'm always wanting us at every turn, for one reason or

another, and after middle age a man looks a fool half his time if he

haven't got a woman for his own. Men do the big things and alter the

face of the earth and all that, but what becomes of their clever

greatness without our clever littleness?"

"Cant!--cant! You all talk that stuff and 'tisn't worth answering.

Ask the sailors if they can't sew better than their sweethearts."

Mr. Baskerville was in a hard mood and would allow no credit to the

sex. He endured his pain without comment, but it echoed itself in

impatient and rather bitter speeches. Rupert fell back on other

members of the family, and spoke of his uncle, the master of 'The White

Thorn.'

"The good that man does isn't guessed," he said. "The little

things--you'd be surprised--yet 'tisn't surprising neither, for every

soul you meet speaks well of him; and a man can't win to that without

being a wonder. He's made of human kindness, and yet never remembers

the kind things he does--no memory for 'em at all."

Humphrey conceded the nobility of this trait, and Milly spoke.

"Not like some we could name, who'll give a gift to-day and fling it in

your face to-morrow."

"There are such. My mother's father was such a one," said Mr.

Baskerville. "He never forgot a kindness--that he'd done himself. He

checked his good angel's record terrible sharp, did that man."

There came an interruption here, and unexpected visitors in the shape

of Nicholas Bassett, the young man who had married Polly Baskerville,

and Polly herself. Nicholas was nervous and stood behind his wife;

Polly was also nervous, but the sight of her brother Rupert gave her

courage.

Her uncle welcomed her with astonishment.

"Wonders never cease," he said. "I didn't count to get a visit from

you, Polly, or your husband either. You needn't stand there turning

your Sunday hat round and round, Bassett. I shan't eat you, though

people here do seem to think I'm a man-eater."

"We came for advice," said Polly, "and I made bold to bring Nicholas.

In fact, 'twas his idea that I should speak to you."

Mr. Baskerville was gratified, but his nature forbade him to show it.

"A new thing to come to Uncle Humphrey when you might go to Uncle

Nathan," he said.

"'Tis just about Uncle Nathan is the difficulty," declared his niece.

Then she turned to her husband. "You speak, Nick. You must know that

Nick's rather slow of speech, and can't get his words always, but he's

improving. Tell Uncle Humphrey how 'tis, Nick."

Mr. Bassett nodded, dried a damp brow with a red handkerchief, and

spoke.

"'Tis like this here," he began. "Under Mr. Vivian Baskerville's

will--him being my wife's father--she had five hundred pound."

"We all know that," said Rupert. "And May, too."

"Well, the law of the will was that the money should be handed over

when the girls was wedded, or when they comed to the age of

five-and-twenty. Therefore, surely it's clear as my wife ought to have

her five hundred--eh?"

"Perfectly clear--on the day she married you," said Rupert. "I thought

you'd got it, Polly."

"But I haven't. There's legal difficulties--so Uncle Nathan says; and

he told Nicholas that there was a doubt in his mind whether--what was

it, Nick?"

"The man said that as trustee for everybody he was very unwilling to

disturb the money. He said 'twas out at interest and doing very well;

and he said he'd pay us five per centum upon it, which comed to

twenty-five pounds a year."

"You're entitled to the capital if you want it," declared Mr.

Baskerville. "It can't be withheld."

"I've been to the man twice since," said Polly's husband, "and he's

always terrible busy, or else just going into it in a few days, or

something like that. We've had six months' interest on it; but we want

the money--at least, half of it--because we've got ideas about leasing

a field where we live to Bickleigh, and buying a cow in calf and a lot

of poultry. With all Polly's farm cleverness we can do better with a

bit of money than leave it in the bank. At least, that's what we

think."

"Ask Rupert here to help," suggested her uncle. "He's on very good

terms with Uncle Nat, and he's a man of business now, and Polly's elder

brother, and a right to be heard. No doubt, if he says plain and clear

that he wants you to have your money without delay, you'll get it."

"I'd leave it till autumn, after Ned's marriage," said Rupert, "then

I'd press him to clear things up. Ned will want tons of money then,

and I believe Cora Lintern is to have a money present from Uncle

Nathan. She got the secret out of her mother, and, of course, told

Ned; and now everybody knows. But nobody knows the figure. Therefore,

I say Polly had better do nought till the wedding."

"Mr. Nathan's temper isn't what it was," said Rupert's wife. "His

health be fretting him a lot, I believe."

"I wish I had our money, anyhow," declared Mr. Bassett; "but if you say

wait till autumn, of course we will do so."

Humphrey Baskerville spoke but little. He had fallen into deep private

thought upon this news, and now was only aroused by his niece getting

up to depart.

"I hope you'll forgive us for troubling you," said Polly; "but we've

talked it over a thousand times, and we felt we ought to take the

opinion of some wiser person. Still, if you say wait, we'll wait."

"I didn't say wait," answered her uncle, "and I don't take any

responsibility for it. Rupert advised you to wait, not me. If a man

owed me twopence under a will--let alone five hundred pound--I'd have

it, and wouldn't wait a minute."

The young couple departed in a good deal of agitation, and debated this

advice very earnestly all the way home; but Rupert stuck to his own

opinion, and, when they were gone, chode Humphrey for giving such

counsel.

"I'm sure such a thing would hurt Uncle Nathan cruelly," he said.

"'Tis as much as to say that you don't trust him--don't trust a man who

is trusted by the countryside as none ever was before."

"Easy to be large-minded about other people's money," answered his

uncle. "Only if 'twas yours, and not your sister's, I rather think

you'd be a bit less patient with the man that held it from you."

Yet another visitor appeared and the family matter was dropped.

Mrs. Hacker brought in Mr. Head.

"Looks as if the whole countryside was coming here," she declared.

"Here's Jack for a cup of tea; and the ointment will be cool enough to

use in half an hour."

"Hullo, Bear!" said Rupert. "Who'd have thought of seeing you?"

"I was axed to tea when I felt in a mind to come," replied Mr. Head;

"and here I am, if not in the way. And as to being a bear, I'm the

sort that needs a lot of stirring up afore I roar--your wife will back

me up in that. How's Mr. Baskerville faring?"

"Got the rheumatism," answered Humphrey. "Rupert here be going to rub

in some ointment presently."

"I hope 'twill break the heart of it, I'm sure. There's nothing worse.

It tells us the truth about our parts better than any sermon. I'm not

too gay to-day myself. We was at it hammer and tongs in 'The White

Thorn' last night--me and your brother. Such a Tory was never seen in

the land afore. I very soon settled Tom Gollop and a few others like

him, but Mr. Nathan's got more learning and more power of argument. We

drank, too--more than usual, owing to the thirstiness of the night and

the flow of speech. Quarts I must have took, and when Ben North looked

in to say 'twas closing time, nothing would do but a few of us went in

your brother's room, after house was shut, and went at it again."

"Say you were drunk in a word, Jack," suggested Rupert.

"Not drunk, Rupert--still, near it. We all got in sight of it.

There's no prophet like the next morning after a wet night. As a man

fond of the flesh I say it. And the older you grow, the sharper comes

the day after a bust-up. Then Nature gives you a proper talking to,

and your heart swells with good resolutions against beer and other

things. And then, as soon as you are as right as ninepence--just by

keeping those good resolves--blest if Nature don't tumble down what

she's set up, and tempt you with all her might to go on the loose

again. You can't steady her, though she can mighty soon steady you.

Preaches to you one minute, and then starts off to get you into

mischief the next. That's her way--no more sense than any other

female."

"Then so much the less reason to put your trust in her," answered Mr.

Baskerville. "She's a poor, untaught, savage thing at best. 'Tis

madness to trust her, for nothing is weaker than she."

"Nothing is stronger or so strong," declared Jack. "Nature knows what

she wants, and she gets what she wants. You can't deny that. She's

just, and never does nothing without a reason. Very different to a

woman there. She'm digging her claws into your back because you've

been doing some foolish thing, I'll warrant."

He drank his tea and aired his opinions. But Mr. Baskerville was in no

mood for Jack's philosophy. He retired presently with Rupert, stripped

to the waist, and endured a great and forcible application of Mrs.

Hacker's ointment. The friction brought comfort with it, and he

declared himself better as a result. But he did not again descend from

his chamber, and presently the three visitors departed together.

Mr. Head expressed great admiration for Susan Hacker.

"I should like to be better acquaint with that woman," he declared.

"For sense in few words there's not her equal about."

"If you want to please her, cuss Eliza Gollop," explained Rupert.

CHAPTER VI

The setting sun burnt upon Dewerstone's shoulder and beat in a sea of

light against the western face of North Wood, until the wind-worn

forest edge, taking colour on trunk and bough, glowed heartily.

Already the first summer splendour was dimmed, for these lofty domains

suffered full fret of storm and asperity of season. A proleptic

instinct, stamped by the centuries, inspired this wood; it anticipated

more sheltered neighbours in autumn, though it lagged behind them in

spring. Upon its boughs the last vernal splendour fluttered into

being, and the first autumnal stain was always visible. Now beech and

larch revealed a shadow in their texture of leaf and needle though

August had not passed, for their foliage was born into elemental

strife. Here homed the west wind, and the salt south storms emptied

their vials; here the last snows lingered, and May frost pinched the

young green things.

Now roseal and gracious light penetrated the heart of the wood, warmed

its recesses, and dwelt upon a grass-grown track that wound through the

midst. Toward this path by convergent ways there came a man and woman.

As yet half a mile separated them, for they had entered the wood at

opposite places; but one desire actuated both, and they moved slowly

nearer until they met at a tryst in the deep heart of the trees.

Undergrowth rose about them, and their resort was carefully chosen and

perfectly concealed. Here oak closely clad the hill, and granite

boulders offered an inner rampart against observation. The man and

woman were elderly, yet she was still personable, and he retained a

measure of unusual good looks. They came to perform a little rite,

sacred and secret, an event celebrated these many years, and unknown to

any other human beings but themselves.

Nathan Baskerville put his arms round Priscilla Lintern and drew her

beside him and kissed her.

"We shall never find it this year, I'm much afraid," he said. "The

time is past. 'Tis always later far than other lilies in the garden,

but not so late as this. However, I'll do my best."

"No matter for the flower," she answered, "so long as we keep up our

custom."

A slant flame from the sunset stole deliciously through the dusky

hiding-places of the wood, and played on the deep mosses and

fern-crowns and the tawny motley of the earth, spread like a coverlet

beneath. Here dead litter of leaf and twig made the covering of the

ground, and through it sprang various seedling things, presently to

bear their part in the commonwealth and succeed their forefathers. The

ground was amber-bright where the sunshine won to it, and everywhere

stretched ivy and bramble, gleamed the lemon light of malempyre,

sparkled green sorrel, and rose dim woodbine that wound its arms around

the sapling oaks. Wood-rush and wood-sage prospered together, and

where water spouted out of the hill there spread green and ruddy

mosses, embroidered with foliage of marsh violet and crowned by pallid

umbels of angelica. The silver of birches flashed hard by, and the

rowan's berries already warmed to scarlet.

Hither after their meeting came the man and woman, and then Nathan,

searching sharply, uttered a cry of triumph, and pointed where, at

their feet, grew certain dark green twayblade leaves that sprouted from

the grass. Here dwelt lilies-of-the-valley--their only wild haunt in

Devon--and the man now made haste to find a blossom and present it to

his mistress. But he failed to do so. Only a dead spike or two

appeared, and presently he gave up the search with some disappointment.

"They must have bloomed just when I was ill and couldn't come," he said.

"'Tis no matter at all," she answered. "The thought and the meeting

here are the good thing. We'll go back into the wood now, further from

the path. To me 'tis marvellous, Nat, to think the crafty world has

never guessed."

"It is," he admitted. "And sometimes in my dark moments--however, we

can leave that to-day. We're near at the end of our labours, so far as

the children are concerned. Cora was always the most difficult. But

the future's bright, save for the cash side. I hope to God 'twill come

right afore the wedding; but----"

"Go on," she said. "We can't pretend to be so happy as usual this

year. Let's face it. I know you're worried to death. But money's

nought alongside your health. You're better again; you've shown me

that clear enough. And nothing else matters to us."

"Yes, I'm all right, I hope. But I'm a bit under the weather. Things

have gone curiously crooked ever since Vivian died. I was a fool. I

won't disguise that; but somehow my luck seemed so good that a few

little troubles never looked worth considering. Then, just before he

went, I got into a regular thunderstorm. It blew up against the steady

wind of my good fortune, as thunderstorms will. Vivian did me a good

turn by dying just when he did--I can't deny it; and everything is all

right now--for all practical purposes. The silver mine will be a

wonder of the world by all accounts. Still, I've had a good deal to

trouble me, and things look worse when a man's sick."

"Shall you be giving Polly Bassett her money soon? Heathman tells me

her husband's grumbling a bit."

"All in good time. When our Cora is married I shall try and fork out a

good slice of Vivian's estate. Ned must have the capital he wants, and

I've got to find a hundred for Cora's wedding gift."

"Why do that yet?"

"I'll do it if I have to sell myself up," he said fiercely. "Isn't she

my first favourite of our three? Don't I worship the ground she goes

on, and love her better than anything in the world after you yourself?"

She sighed.

"How it weighs heavier and heavier after all these years! And I always

thought 'twould weigh lighter and lighter. We were fools to have

childer. But for them we could have let the world know and been

married, and gived back the five thousand to your wife's people. But

not now--never now, for the children's sake, I suppose."

"They'll know in good time, and none else. When I come to my end, I'm

going to tell 'em I'm their father, according to your wish, and because

I've promised you on my oath to do it; but none else must ever know it;

and it would be a wiser thing, Priscilla, if you could only see it so,

that they didn't either."

"They must know, and they shall."

"Well, it may be sooner than anybody thinks. The position is clear

enough: I might have married and still kept the five thousand, because

the lawyers said that my dead wife's wish wouldn't hold water in law;

but I didn't know that till 'twas too late, and your first child had

come. Then we talked it out, and you was content and so was I. Now

there are three of them, and though I'd face the music so brave as you

and go to my grave spurned by all men, if necessary, what would better

it for them? Nothing short of an Act of Parliament would make 'em

legitimate now. I kept the condition of my dead wife, because you

urged me to do it and weren't feared of the consequences; but now,

though I can make you my lawful wife, I can't make them my lawful

children, and therefore surely 'tis better they shall never know they

are my children at all?"

"'Twas a promise," she said, "and I hold you to it. I'm fixed on it

that they shall know."

"Very well, so it shall be, then. Only for God's sake look to it for

everybody's sake that it don't get out after, and ruin you all. I

shouldn't sleep in my grave if I thought the life-long secret was

common knowledge."

"You can trust them to keep it, I should think."

"The girls, yes; but Heathman's so easy and careless."

"Suppose you was to marry me even now, Nat, would that help?"

"I'll do it, as I've always said I'll do it. But that means I should

be in honour bound to pay five thousand to my first wife's people.

Well, I can't--I can't at this moment--not a penny of it. Just now I'm

a good deal driven. In a year or two I might, no doubt; but there's

that tells me a year or two----"

He put up his hand to his throat.

"You swore to me on your oath that you were better, last time you came

down by night."

"I was; but--it's here, Priscilla--deep down and---- Maybe 'twill lift

again, and maybe it won't. But we must be ready. I'd give my eternal

soul if things were a little straighter; but time--plenty of time--is

wanted for that, and 'tis just time I can't count upon. I'm not so

young as I was, and I've not the head for figures I used to have."

"If you don't marry, you've got absolute power to dispose of that five

thousand. 'Tis yours, in fact. Yet at best that's a paltry quibble,

as you've admitted sometimes."

"Leave it," he said. "Don't let this day be nought but cloud. We're

married afore God, but not afore man, because to do that would have

lost me five thousand pounds. When I die, I've the right to make over

that money to you--at least, what's left of it."

"That's a certainty for me and Heathman and Phyllis?"

"Leave it--leave it," he cried irritably. "You know that what a man

can do I shall do. You're more to me than any living thing--much, much

more. You're my life, and you've been my life for thirty years--and

you will be to the end of my life. I know where I stand and how I

stand."

"Don't think I'd care to live a day longer than you do, Nat. Don't

think I'm careful for myself after you be gone. 'Tis only for your boy

and girl as I care to know anything."

He took her hand.

"I know you well enough--you priceless woman!" he answered. "Let's go

a bit further through the forest. Come what may, all's got to be

bright and cheerful at Cora's wedding; and after, when they've got

their money, I'll have a good go into things with Mr. Popham, my lawyer

at Cornwood. He's heard nothing yet, but he shall hear everything.

Have no fear of the upshot. I know where I've always trusted, and

never in vain."

Like two children they walked hand in hand together. For a long time

neither spoke, then she addressed him.

"You've taught me to be brave and put a bright face on life afore the

world, and now I'll not be wanting."

"Well I know that. 'Brave!' 'Tis too mild a a word for you. You've

come through your life in a way that would maze the people with wonder

if they only knew it. So secret, so patient, so clever. Never was

heard or known the like. A wonderful wife--a wife in ten thousand."

The sun began to sink where Cornwall, like a purple cloud, rose far off

against the sky; yet still the undulations of the land, mingling with

glory, melted into each other under the sunset, and still North Wood

shone above the shadows. But a deep darkness began to stretch upwards

into it, where the Dewerstone's immense shade was projected across the

valley. At length only the corner of the forest flashed a final fire;

then that, too, vanished, and the benighted trees sighed and shivered

and massed themselves into amorphous dimness under the twilight.

The man and woman stopped together a while longer, and after that their

converse ended. They caressed and prepared to go back by different

ways into the world.

"Come good or evil, fair weather or foul, may we have a few happy

returns yet of this day; and may I live to find you the

lily-of-the-valley again once or twice before the end," he said.

For answer she kissed him again, but could not trust herself to speak.

CHAPTER VII

Life is a compromise and a concession. According to the measure of our

diplomacy, so much shall we win from our fellows; according to our

physical endowment, so much will Nature grant. All men are envoys to

the court of the world, and it depends upon the power behind them

whether they are heard and heeded, or slighted and ignored. To change

the figure, each among us sets up his little shop in the social mart

and tries to tempt the buyer; but few are they who expose even

necessary wares, and fewer still the contemporary purchasers who know a

treasure when they see it.

An accident now lifted the curtain from Humphrey Baskerville's nature,

threw him for a day into the companionship of his kind, and revealed to

passing eyes a gleam of the things hidden within him. No conscious

effort on his part contributed to this illumination, for he was

incapable of making such. His curse lay in this: that he desired to

sell, yet lacked wit to win the ear of humanity, or waken interest in

any buyer's bosom. Yet now the goods he offered with such ill grace

challenged attention. Accident focussed him in a crowd; and first the

people were constrained to admit his presence of mind at a crisis, and

then they could not choose but grant the man a heart.

It happened that on the day before Princetown pony fair Mr.

Baskerville's groom fell ill and had to keep his bed; but twenty ponies

were already at Princetown. Only Humphrey and his man knew their exact

value, and the market promised to be unusually good. His stock

represented several hundred pounds, for Mr. Baskerville bred a special

strain possessing the Dartmoor stamina with added qualities of speed

and style. The irony of chance ordained that one who despised all

sport should produce some of the best polo ponies in the West of

England.

Mr. Baskerville saw nothing for it but to sell by deputy at loss, or

withdraw his stock from the fair. He debated the point with Mrs.

Hacker, and her common-sense revealed an alternative.

"Lord, man alive, what are you frightened of?" she asked. "Can't you

go up along, like any other chap with summat to sell, and get rid of

your beasts yourself? You did use to do it thirty year ago, and nobody

was any the worse, I believe."

He stared at her.

"Go in a crowd like that and barter my things like a huckster?"

"Well, why not? You'm only made of flesh and bone like t'others. You

won't melt away. 'Tis just because you always avoid 'em, that they

think you give yourself airs, and reckon they ban't good enough company

for you."

"I don't avoid 'em."

"Yes, you do. But you'm not the only honest man in the world, though

sometimes you think you are. And if you'd ope your eyes wider, you'd

find a plenty others. For my part, if I was paid for it, I couldn't

number more rogues in Shaugh than I can count upon the fingers of both

hands."

"To go up myself! Who'd believe it was me if they saw me?"

"They want your ponies, not you; and when it came to paying the price

of the ponies, they'd soon know 'twas you then."

"I suppose you think I charge too much. Like your impudence! Are you

going?" he asked.

"Why, of course I'm going. 'Tis my only 'out' for the year."

"They'll fancy 'tis the end of the world up at 'Duchy Inn' if I come

along and take my place at the ordinary."

"No, they won't: they'll be a deal too busy to trouble about you. You

go, master, and you'll stand a lot better in your own eyes for going.

'Twill be a great adventure in your life. You'm a deal too much up on

the hill there, along with the foxes and other wild things; and you

know it."

"I haven't the cut for a revel. 'Tis nonsense to think of my going up."

"To think of it can't do no harm, anyway," she said. "You think and

think, and you'll find 'tis your duty as a sensible creature to go."

"Not my duty. 'Twill hurt none if I stay away."

"'Twill hurt your pocket. You know right well 'tis the proper thing

that you go. And if you do, I'll ax for a fairing. And if you get me

one, I'll get you one."

"You can put off old age like a garment and be a girl again," he said.

"So I can, then. 'Tis your brother sets that wise fashion, not you.

He's as lively as a kitten when there's a frolic in the air. And so be

I--though all sixty-five. You should have seen me at giglet market in

my youth!"

He did not answer; but the next morning he appeared shamefaced and clad

for the fair.

"Well done, you!" cried Mrs. Hacker. "Be you going to drive the black

gig? I was riding up in the pony-cart along with Mr. Waite's

housekeeper from Coldstone, but----"

"You can come with me, if you please. All foolery, and 'tis offering

to rain--however, I'm going through with the job now. And mind you

don't take too much liquor up there. I know your ways when you get

with a lot of silly people."

They started presently, and Humphrey made sour remarks at the expense

of Susan's bonnet. Then by steep ascent and descent they went their

way and fell in with other folk also bound for the festivity. Some

they passed and some passed them. Cora Lintern and Ned Baskerville

drove together in a flashy, high-wheeled dog-cart; and the sight of

Cora brought a cloud upon Mr. Baskerville. She was soon gone, however.

The lofty vehicle slipped by with a glitter of wheels, a puff of dust,

a shout from Ned as he lifted his whip hand, and a flutter of pale pink

and blue where Cora sat in her finery.

"Heartless minx!" growled the old man. "A parrot and a popinjay. No

loss to the world if that pair was to break their necks together."

"Don't you tell such speeches as that, there's a good man," answered

Mrs. Hacker. "The mischief with your sort is that you be always crying

out nasty things you don't think; which is just the opposite of us

sensible people, as only think the nasty things, but take very good

care for our credit's sake not to say 'em. None like you for barking;

and them as hear you bark take it for granted you bite as well. And

when I tell 'em you don't bite, they won't believe it."

"Take care I never bite you for so much plain speaking," he said; "and

I'll thank you to lay hold on the reins while we walk up this hill; for

I want to read a letter. 'Tis about the ponies from a would-be buyer."

He read and Mrs. Hacker drove. They traversed the miles of moorland at

a slow pace, and not a few who passed them displayed surprise at the

spectacle of Mr. Baskerville on his way to the fair.

At Devil's Bridge, beneath the last long hill into Princetown, a

vehicle from Shaugh overtook them and the Linterns appeared. Heathman

was driving, and beside him sat his mother; while at the back of the

cart were Nathan Baskerville and Phyllis Lintern.

"Hullo! Wonders never cease!" cried the publican. "Good luck and long

life to you, Humphrey! Now I couldn't have seen a better sight than

this. Hold on! I want to have a talk afore the fair."

"If you want to talk, I'll onlight and you do the same," said Nathan's

brother. "The women can drive on, and we'll walk into Princetown."

Priscilla Lintern and Mrs. Hacker kept their places and drove slowly up

the hill side by side; but not before Nat had chaffed Susan and

applauded her holiday bonnet. Heathman and his sister walked on

together; the brothers remained behind.

The younger was in uproarious mood. He laughed and jested and

congratulated Humphrey on his courage in thus coming among the people.

None would have recognised in this jovial spirit that man who walked

not long before with a woman in North Wood, and moved heavily under the

burdens of sickness and of care. But to Nathan belonged the art of

dropping life's load occasionally and proceeding awhile in freedom. He

felt physically a little better, and intended to enjoy himself to-day

to the best of his power. Resolutely he banished the dark clouds from

his horizon and let laughter and pleasure possess him.