“OBI” AT MORETON
The red-gold light of evening beat into the bar of the White Hart Inn
at Moretonhampstead, and its rich quality imparted a lustre not only to
the shining pewter, the regiments of bottles, and the handles of the
beer-engines, but also to the countenances of several customers. The
day’s work was done; a moment for leisure had fallen; and it happened
that amongst those that evening assembled were many known to us as well
as to each other.
Mr Beer and Mr Bartley drank together and discussed the times from
different points of view; but both agreed that they were bad. The
constable deplored their quietude, for nothing ever happened to advance
his interests or offer him an opportunity; and Mr Beer protested that
history grew more and more colourless. For a week there had happened
nothing to inspire so much as a couplet. Plenty of incident, however,
fell out before the publican had finished drinking. Titus Sim dropped in
and a murmur greeted his arrival, for behind him walked a tall negro. The
black man was clothed in a long coat that reached to his feet, and a big
slouch hat came low over his forehead and concealed most of his brows.
“’Tis Mister Henry’s new servant,” explained Sim. “He’s deaf and dumb,
poor beggar, but harmless as an infant. I’m just taking him for an
airing.”
The company regarded this man, thus removed from them by barriers
impassable, with great interest.
“How do you make him understand?” asked Bartley.
“All by signs. There are a few very simple signs, and he knows them.
Never was a creature less trouble, and certainly as a valet he couldn’t
be beat. He looks after the new motor-car, too; but there’s a doubt if he
can drive it, being deaf.”
Titus tapped a glass and the black man nodded and grinned.
“Give him rum and water, please; he don’t drink nothing else. He comes
from Tobago, where the Vivian sugar estates are, you know. I asked Mister
Harry however he could choose a poor lad minus two senses, and he said
they were senses that a valet might do without. And so he can. Only we’ve
got to tell him when his master’s bell goes. He can’t hear anything.”
“To think how many of these poor black varmints was choked off like flies
when poor Dan Sweetland died,” said Mr Beer. “He’s a fine figure of a man
for all his blackness, and since he’s deaf and dumb, he can’t do much
evil. Though whether the devil creeps into us more through the ear than
the eye be a nice question. Why, he’d be almost handsome if he wasn’t
such a sooty soul.”
“Mister Henry has a good word for the niggers and says they’m just as
teachable as dogs every bit. But the whites out there have given him more
trouble than all the blacks put together.”
“They’m all human creatures, and their colour don’t count for nought in
the eye of Heaven,” said an ancient man who sat in the corner. He was
mostly in shadow, but his nose and hands caught the red sunshine.
“We’m all corn for the Lord’s grindstones,” he continued; “black or
white--oats or wheat, neighbours. Rich and poor, Christian and heathen
will all be ground alike; and them with horses and carriages and servants
will be scat just so small as us. And that’s a very comforting thought to
me, as have suffered from the quality all my life.”
Mr Beer shook his head.
“Your Radical ideas will undo you yet, Gaffer Hext,” he answered. “But
’tis the way of Hext to be ever vexed. Principalities and powers was
always a thorn in the flesh to him. Yet, when all’s said, the uppermost
folk pay the wages; and where’s the workers without ’em?”
“Hext never had no luck with his wife, you see. It have soured your
spirit--eh, gaffer?” asked Mr Bartley.
“That’s no reason he should be a born Socialist an’ plan what’s going to
happen at the end of the world,” replied Johnny Beer. “The Last Judgment
ban’t his business, I believe. An’ whether the quality will be scat in
pieces is an open question, if you ax me. They’ve got plenty to put up
with so well as us. Look at what Quarter Day means to them--a tragedy;
no doubt. And think how income-tax scourges ’em! No; for my part I don’t
reckon ’tis all fun being a man of rank. I dare say Sir Reginald envies
Sim here sometimes. There’s nought like care to thin the hair, and many
a red-cheeked chap as smiles at market and rides a fine hoss, be so grim
as a ghost behind the scenes, when there’s nobody to see and hear him but
his wife.”
The black man tapped his tumbler again. It was empty.
“He may have one more,” said Titus, “then I must set him going. Mister
Vivian calls him ‘Obi’; but I think he’s invented the name. Obi is a
sort of religion out there among the black people, I hear tell. There’s
been an awful deal of trouble over our estates, by all accounts, and the
old overseer has bolted, or something--don’t know the particulars. But
there’s money in sugar yet. Only last night I heard Sir Reginald say to
his son, ‘The man gives you excellent advice. I shall not stir the dark
depths of that business, but appoint a new overseer immediately--one who
is honest and has our interests at heart.’”
“I suppose it’s not a job within the reach of the likes of me?” hazarded
Mr Bartley. “I wouldn’t mind a warm climate at all, and I wouldn’t mind a
change. My chance is gone--I feel that. Ever since the affair of Daniel
Sweetland--”
“You was hookwinked in company.”
“That don’t make it better. And Corder be in high favour again--just
because he catched that chap as killed his wife to Ashburton. To think
Sweetland didn’t jump down Wall Shaft Gully after all! A crafty soul, a
very first-rate rascal.”
“Don’t you speak like that,” said Sim, sharply. “Sweetland’s gone; but I
ban’t, and ’tis pretty well known we were better than brothers. ’Twasn’t
him that was crafty, but you and t’others that were fools. His craft got
him free, and he died like a man in the hand of God, not like a dog in
the hand of man. I am speaking of your son, Matthew,” he continued, for
at that moment Sweetland the elder had entered the bar. He was grey,
silent, morose as usual. Upon his left arm he wore a mourning band.
“Can’t his name rest? Ban’t it enough he’s gone to answer for his short
life, an’ taken the secrets of it along with him?” asked the father. “A
drop of gin cold,” he added; then he turned and looked at the tall, dumb
Ethiopian who was regarding him.
“God’s truth!” he said harshly, “if that savage ban’t built the very daps
of my dead boy--the very daps of un, if he wasn’t black!”
The others regarded the stranger critically, and “Obi” grinned about him
and tapped his glass again. But Sim shook his head.
“No more, my lad. You must be moving soon. He’s Mister Henry’s servant,”
he continued to Sweetland--“a poor, simple, afflicted creature, but true
and faithful; and wonderful smart, seeing he can’t hear or speak. He
saved Mister Henry’s life in some row he had in foreign parts, and now
he’s thought the world of. Providence was looking after him, I reckon.
He’ll drive the new motor so like as not, if it can be proved his
deafness don’t matter.”
Sweetland still regarded the coloured man with interest. Then he turned
to his glass. Presently he spoke to Beer.
“How’s it with you?” he asked. “A man may get a merry answer from you;
and for my part, being near the end of my days, I shun sorrow where it
can be done. Though it meets you everywhere. There’s nought else moving
in town or country.”
“Don’t think it, Matthew,” urged the publican. “Sorrow be like a lot of
other things; go to meet it and ’twill come half way. Put off sorrow till
to-morrow, and very often you can stave it off altogether.”
“It’s no time for mourning either,” continued Titus. “It’s the time to be
busy. Dan be gone; the memory of him be here. ’Tis for us to round off
his history and let him be remembered as an honest man. And maybe afore a
week’s out, ’twill be done.”
“Obi” had his glass in his hand, and at this noble sentiment he dropped
it suddenly and it broke to pieces.
He shrugged his shoulders and produced twopence from his pocket and
placed them on the counter.
“He’ve got his intellects, evidently. He knows it costs money to break
glass,” said Bartley. “That one may say for him.”
“That he has,” assented Titus. “And as good-tempered as a bull-dog.
Where’s my parcels? I must be going. Have you seen your daughter-in-law,
Matthew?”
“Yes,” answered the gamekeeper. “I gave her a lift to Moreton. She’s
gone to her aunt’s. She told me to tell you that she’d be in the yard of
the White Hart afore seven o’clock. I hear poor Rix Parkinson be set on
speaking to her afore he dies.”
“Yes; we’re going there now. Much may come of it.”
“A wasted life,” mused Mr Beer. “An’ a man of great parts was Rix
Parkinson. God never made such a thirst afore. He’ll have to lift that
excuse at Judgment--not that excuses will alter the set of things there.
Yet they’m a part of human nature come to think of it. Adam’s self began
it. He ate of the tree, then said ’twas she. Drunkard Parkinson’s cruel
thirst have driven him from bad to worse; and though he often had D.T.’s,
he never was seen upon his knees. If I had to write his tombstone, that
would be the rhyme of it,” said Mr Beer.
“’Tis wrong to admire him, but I never could help doing so,” confessed
Sim. “As a sportsman myself, I always felt his cleverness. He’ve had many
and many a bird as you bred, Matthew.”
“If he knows ought as would clear Daniel, I’ll forgive him all,” answered
the old keeper.
“I hope to goodness it may be so,” replied Titus. “My ear will be quick
to hear it, I promise you. And this I’d say: leave it to Mrs Sweetland’s
good time. If poor Parkinson have got any dark thing to get off his
conscience, he won’t want it brought to the light of day while yet he
lives.”
“You make my flesh creep,” said Beer. “Why for don’t the man call parson
to him? You can only hear; but parson can both hear and forgive.”
The ancient in the corner spoke again.
“Don’t you know no wiser than that rot? You read your Bible better,
Johnny Beer, an’ you’ll very soon find that nobody can forgive sins but
God alone. An’ I lay it takes Him all His holy time, with such a rotten
world as this.”
“No politics,” said the man behind the bar. “No politics, an’ no
religion, Mister Hext, if you please.”
“You’m getting too cross-grained to deal with, gaffer,” answered Mr Beer,
mildly. “’Tis well known in a general way that the clergy have power to
forgive sins; an’ ’tis a very proper accomplishment, come to think of it,
for their calling. Now, for my part--”
In the yard a voice broke into Beer’s argument, and a venerable rhyme
ascended from an ostler’s throat:--
“Old Harry Trewin
Had no breeches to wear,
So he stole a ram’s skin
To make him a pair.
The skinny side out
And the woolly side in,
And thus he doth go--old Harry Trewin!”
“There’s a proper song for ’e!” said Bartley. “When you can turn a verse
like that, you may call yourself a clever chap, John Beer.”
“The rhyme’s nought--’tis the tune,” retorted Beer. “The verse be very
vulgar, and so’s the subject. You don’t understand these things, as how
should a policeman? Take _Widecombe Fair_ even. ’Tis the tune of thicky
that folks like. Never was foolisher verses.”
A little figure crossed the inn yard, and Sim leapt up. “Obi” followed,
carrying certain parcels that the footman had brought with him. Matthew
Sweetland stared at the tall, retreating figure in its long strangely-cut
coat.
“The very cut of his shoulders,” he said; but nobody was listening to him.
In the yard Sim saw Minnie waiting for him. She wore black.
“I’m quite ready, Mrs Sweetland, if you are,” he said. Then he took off
his hat to her.
Minnie nodded.
“I have come to see Mr Parkinson. It’s just time. Is that the poor negro
that Mister Henry has brought home with him?”
“Yes. A fine fellow for all his afflictions.”
The widow stared fixedly at “Obi.” The black man drew in his breath and
endured the ordeal. But he did not face her and grin. He turned his eyes
away. He believed that if his hands had not been full of parcels, they
must have gone round her.
“He is deaf and dumb, poor creature,” said Titus.
“Is Mister Henry going to keep him?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t he be cold in the winter? To think--to think! His eyes have seen
all the things that my Daniel wrote about! He may have seen Dan’s dear
self!”
The parcels fell; but “Obi” only stooped quickly and picked them up
again. He remembered in time the appalling fright that his black paws
would bring to Minnie if they closed suddenly around her. He turned and
went his way, then, looking round, he was in time to see Titus offer his
arm to Minnie Sweetland and to mark that she refused it.
The black man winked great tears out of his eyes. He had not cried since
he was a child.
“My own li’l, dear, dinky wife! The shape of her--the lovely voice of
her! ‘Won’t he be cold in the winter?’ She axed that. ‘No, by God, he
won’t!’ I had ’pon the tip of my tongue to tell her. But ’tis lucky I
held it in, for it might have spoilt all.”
Deep in thought, Daniel returned to Middlecott Court. At the lodge gates
he stood a moment, and stared up at the metal Diana with the bullet-hole
under her breast. Once he had thought her a remarkable curiosity. Now,
since his eyes had seen some of the world’s wonders, she seemed a poor
thing upon her lofty pedestal. Somebody moved at the lodge gate and he
knew that it was his mother. Instinctively he turned his head away and
hurried forward.
There are no more profound disguises than a silent tongue and a black
face. Even Titus Sim had not the least suspicion that Sweetland now
lived at his elbow and listened to his every utterance. But Sim’s subtle
genius never deserted him. No man had heard him say one unkind word of
Daniel; many had listened to his fierce reproofs when others ventured
to criticise the vanished man. Perfectly he played his part, and Daniel
often warmed to the friend who could thus defend him and fight for his
good name, even though, with the rest of the world, he supposed that his
old comrade was dead and buried deep in the blue waters of the Caribbean.