THE OLD FOX-HUNTER
Joe Stockman had tried a new haricot bean for his own table and was
now engaged in the easy task of shelling the brown husks and
extracting the pearly white seeds. It amused him and put no strain
upon his faculties. But he tired of it after ten minutes. He sat in
an out-house with a mass of the dried pods beside him, and as the
boy, Neddy Tutt, passed by, Joe's eye twinkled and he called.
"Look here, Ned--a-proper wonder--I'll show 'e something as no human
eye have ever seen since the beginning of the world!" he cried out,
and Neddy, agape, approached.
"Don't you be frightened," said Joe. "Won't hurt 'e."
Then under the lad's round eyes, he opened a bean pod and roared with
laughter. Neddy also grinned.
"Now you go about your business, my son," said his master, and then,
wearying of the beans, he stretched himself and looked out of doors.
The day was mild and still. Mr. Stockman went into his kitchen and
called Susan.
"Get on with they beans, there's a dear; I've been at 'em till my
fingers ache; and we'll have a dish to-night for supper if you
please. Such things be never so nice as when fresh and soft--far
better than boughten beans. And I'll poke round and see if I can
pick up a wood-pigeon to go with 'em. 'Tis soft by the feel of it
this morning and a little exercise won't do me no harm."
She nodded, and getting a gun, Joe disappeared with his dogs. He
skirted an outlying field, where Maynard and Palk were pulling
mangel-wurzel. Bending low they plodded along, with the rhythmic
swing and harmonious action proper to their work. Simultaneously
with each hand they pulled up two roots from the earth, then jerked
their wrists, so that the great turnips fell shorn of their foliage.
The roots dropped on one side, the leaves were thrown down on the
other, and behind each labourer extended long, regular lines--one of
mangel awaiting the cart, one of heavy leaves. Mr. Stockman praised
the roots, put a task or two upon Lawrence and Thomas for later in
the day, and proceeded into the woods. It was Saturday, and when
first they came, there had been a general understanding that on the
afternoon of that day leisure might be enjoyed at Falcon Farm as far
as possible; but slowly--so slowly that Lawrence had hardly remarked
it--the farmer appeared to forget this vague arrangement; indeed, he
exhibited a marked ingenuity in finding minor tasks for the later
hours of that day. Thomas Palk, who had less to occupy his mind than
his fellow labourer, was conscious of this fact, and when Joe had
proceeded after the wood-pigeons he pointed it out.
"His hand tightens," he said. "You may have marked it, or you may
not, and it don't matter to you seemingly, because you've got nothing
to do of a Saturday afternoon; but I have."
Lawrence conceded the fact.
"He likes his pound of flesh. But you haven't got anything to
quarrel with, Tom."
"I don't say I have."
"Best way is to tell him clear at the beginning of a week that you
want next Saturday afternoon off--then he knows and it goes through
all right."
"You might think it was the best way," answered Palk; "but it ain't,
because I've tried it. If you do that, he'll run you off your legs
all the week, and hit upon a thousand jobs, and always remind you
about Saturday, and say he knows as you'll be wanting to put in a bit
extra, owing to the holiday coming. Then he'll offer to do your work
o' Saturday afternoon, though of course there ain't none, and make a
great upstore about putting off a bit of pleasuring he'd planned for
himself."
Maynard laughed and stood up for a moment to rest the muscles of his
back.
"It'll take cleverer chaps than us to be even with him."
"A cruel, vexatious man, and knows how to balance the good against
the bad so clever that nobody in his senses would leave him,"
grumbled the elder.
They continued to pull the great golden roots from the earth, and for
a long time neither spoke. Then Palk, whose mind still ran on his
Saturday afternoon, explained that he had intended to meet a man at
Ashburton and would now be unable to do so.
"If that's it, don't bother. I'm free and I can do all he wanted,"
said Lawrence.
"If you can, then I'm obliged," answered the horseman. "It's
somebody I'm very wishful to see, because he married my sister.
She's dead, but she had a son, and I like to know, for his mother's
sake, how he's going on."
Maynard was not interested and they spoke no more. At the side of
the field they were building up the roots into a "cave"--packing them
together and then heaping earth upon them. The hour was early noon,
and at the end of the row they desisted, emptied the full cart at the
hedge-side and presently went in to dinner.
"I'm going to see that old hunter, Enoch Withycombe, again
to-morrow," declared the younger. "He's a queer man to meet.
Wonderful the learning he's gotten, along of being crippled and
nought much to do but read and think."
"Miss Susan says he's not a very good companion for you young men,
however."
"Why, Tom?"
"Along of his opinions."
"He's taught me a lot."
"That you may have to unlearn. They clever men are dangerous. I
don't like clever men. You never know where you are with 'em."
Mr. Stockman did not return for dinner and they ate it with Susan.
She was perturbed at the necessity of going to Ashburton for her
father.
"He wants half a dozen things, and I'm so properly busy here this
week-end that I don't know how I'll do it," she declared, unaware
that Thomas was going down.
Slowly it dawned over his mind that he might serve her. He
hesitated, for he dreaded making any original proposition. He felt
ready and even desirous to offer his services, but spoke not from
native caution. Maynard, however, helped him.
"Tom's going in," he said. "Can't he do it?"
"I've no right to trouble him," answered Soosie-Toosie.
"Why not, then? I'm sure he'll do anything he can."
"He might be busy on his own account?"
"He'll make time if he can save you trouble."
They debated the question as though Mr. Palk were not present. He
listened quite silently; but finally, when it became impossible not
to state his opinion on the point, he spoke.
"I will certainly do so," he said. "If you'll write them down, I
will carry out the items, miss."
"It's asking too much," hesitated Susan.
"It may be, or it may not," he answered. "But I'll do it--for you."
She thanked him very heartily. She was honestly most grateful.
"It's proper kind and will take a great weight off my mind, Mr. Palk."
"Set 'em down; and if there's anything to be carried, I'll carry it."
Susan evinced her gratitude, but repeated her fears that she was
asking too much. She was almost excited and forgot her dinner.
"There's the patterns from the tailor first. Father wants a new,
warm suit, and be hopeful Mr. West have got the same stuff as before;
but tailor will give you a little book of patterns, as will go in
your pocket I should think. And there's they cough drops made with
black currants for father, and his boots, that went to be mended, and
his new leggings."
"Nought for yourself?" asked Thomas.
"That'll be enough. What I want can wait."
"No," he said slowly. "If there's any chores for you, set 'em down.
In for a penny, in for a pound."
"A reel of thread at Miss Bassett's shop and a pound of loaf
sugar--but there, you've got enough without them."
"Put 'em down."
"And if tailor's shut, will you knock at the side door? 'Tis
understood I be coming."
"I'll knock at the side door if tailor's shut," promised Thomas. He
was really gratified at receiving this commission, but his vague,
subconscious emotion on the subject, even if he had desired to
declare it, was of a nature far too nebulous for any words.
He went and duly returned with the patterns for Joe's new suit, his
cough lozenges and the rest. Both Susan and Mr. Stockman expressed
the deepest thanks.
"Nevertheless, Thomas, another time it may be better, in my humble
judgment, if each of us does his appointed task," said the master.
"You see, if I may say so, it puts us out of our stride if you do my
daughter's lawful work, and Maynard does yours. I'm a great believer
in method, Thomas, as you are yourself, thank God; so I feel pretty
sure you'll put duty afore pleasure another time. And now I hope
you're going to take a spot out of my new bottle of whisky along with
me."
Mr. Palk replied nothing, but accepted the drink and hid his thoughts.
Next day Lawrence kept his engagement to see the old huntsman, and
their conversation advanced their friendship. Maynard was under a
common experience and had found that one man might charm his
confidence in one direction, while another could win him upon a
different plane. One string in him had vibrated to the geniality,
tolerance and worldly wisdom of his new master and he had responded
thereto; while the bed-ridden man in the valley served to awaken a
different interest and attract the young man on higher, impersonal
grounds. Enoch Withycombe was friendly and fearless. He loved
talking, for no other social activity remained to him, and he enjoyed
to retail the experiences of his life and the results of his reading,
both in season and out. He declared that there was no better way to
remember the things that he best liked in his past, and in his books,
than by restating them to any who would listen. Some indeed mourned
Enoch's opinions; but others were impressed by his acquired learning,
and humble men, though they failed to follow his arguments, felt
flattered that he should be at the trouble to discourse with them on
such large subjects.
Maynard had found a common bond, and with the enthusiasm of the young
went farther in some directions than the veteran was prepared to
follow. For Enoch had a great theory that nobody must move faster
than his wits could carry him, or accept any truth beyond his
intelligence to grasp and, if need be, explain again.
Thus it happened that while Joe Stockman knew most about Lawrence's
actual history, Mr. Withycombe alone learnt the result of the young
man's experience in terms of opinion and belief. The one had
sympathy and understanding for the objective events in Maynard's
life, the other listened to the subjective convictions arising from
those events. To-day Enoch's visitor indicated the nature of his own
ideas, in language that Mr. Withycombe felt was too definite.
Lawrence sat by the invalid's bed, for the day was cold and wet and
Enoch had not risen. Melinda was out for the afternoon, and Maynard
had undertaken to keep her father company and make the tea. Invited
to give his views on the eternal question, the young man did so.
"You can only judge of things by your own experience," he said. "You
must talk of life as you find it, I reckon, not as somebody else
finds it. It's what God Almighty does to us must decide our honest
view about Him--not what He does to our neighbours."
Enoch was alert at once.
"A doubtful view, but go on; I'll hear your argument first."
"My argument is that God Almighty have treated me like a cat treats a
mouse--that's my argument. Let me go a little way in hope, then down
comes His Hand again; let me think I'm clear and free of doubt and
difficulty and begin to get my breath and look round, and He pounces
again. Cruelty for certain, and makes you feel that what He taught
the cat to do, He thinks is a very good plan and worth copying."
"That's too ownself a view--too narrow far. You're not everybody."
"No; but I'm somebody; and if God makes a mouse, He ought to respect
it; and since He's made me, He ought to respect me, so long as I'm
respectable. I've got my rights, same as everything that comes in
the world. If you make a child, it's your duty to cherish it, and
think for it, and be jealous for it."
"But God don't make us like we make our children," said Enoch. "We
ain't His own flesh and blood, Maynard. With a child, the kinship's
closer. Our blood be in them and our faults, belike, are handed on.
In fact, 'tis a terrible serious thing, knowing yourself, to make a
child in your own image; and that's why Nature tickles us to do it
afore we've got the wits to think twice. But God--that's different."
"Why? Either He's our Eternal, loving Father, or He ain't? And
we're told He is. Then why don't He go one better than our good,
earthly fathers, Mr. Withycombe, and put a bit more of Himself into
us to start us safer? Have God ever neighboured with me? Have He
ever allowed for my weakness, or lent a hand to help me through the
dark places, or shown a light when I needed it most? Never. I've
had to go single-handed all my life. And, when I've done my best to
be straight and honest, has He ever patted me on the back and
rewarded me? Never. He's flung my pride and my blood in my face,
and showed up the past, when I hoped and prayed it was buried, and
landed me in new difficulties, when I thought by my own just acts I
had the right to suffer no more. He won't come between a man and his
past, or save your character from the tyrant things stuffed into it
by your havage."*
* _Havage_--ancestry.
"The sins of the fathers are visited on the children, my lad, because
the Lord's reasonable and can't strain His own laws for special
cases."
"Then He's weaker than man, who can do so. A just judge will often
strain a law in particular cases, when he knows that to enforce it
would be unjust. No God of justice would visit the sins of the
fathers on the children surely?"
"When you say 'justice,' you use a very big word. There's the
justice of Nature, which often looks unjust to our eyes, the justice
that makes the fittest to survive. Not the fittest in our point of
view, very likely. We fight Nature there, because what we understand
by 'fittest' be what makes for our own convenience and advancement.
But she's not out for us more'n anything else, and if she was to set
to work on our account, and banish our enemies, and serve our
friends, that wouldn't be justice from her point of view. And the
justice of God's the same as that, Maynard. You may be tolerable
sure He ain't out for us first and last and always. God's got a
darned sight more on His hands than Buckland-in-the-Moor, or the
world for that matter; and if our intellects was big enough to fathom
His job, or get an idea of the Universe and the meaning of the
Creator of the Universe, then we should see that His justice must be
something long ways different from ours. 'Tis a quality of sin that
it plays back and forth, like an echo, and every human knows that the
sins of the children be visited on the parents, quite as often as it
goes t'other way. Law's law."
"You wouldn't whip your child for showing the sins you put into him
yourself?"
"Yes, I would, if I could help whip 'em out of him by so doing. I
know a man, who told me he never felt his own sins come back to roost
so bitter cruel, as when he had to flog his son for committing the
same. These things are dark mysteries, you must know, and we can
only see 'em, not solve 'em. But you mustn't let your own faults and
misfortunes make you a sour man. That won't help you."
"It comes down to this," said Maynard: "either you end in believing
in God, or not. I can talk to you, because you're broadminded and a
thinker."
"Yes, it comes down to God, or no God," admitted Enoch. "And if you
do believe in Him, then it's no manner of use yelping at Him, or
whining at the way He treats you. You've got to knuckle under and
there's an end of it. And if you don't believe in Him, then it's
equally silly to snivel; because, if there's no God, then you might
as well be a hound and bay at the moon as talk hard words against
Him. There's a lot I read in my books that shows me the
free-thinkers ain't so much angry with God, as angry with their
neighbours for believing in Him. And what's the sense of that?"
"Do you believe in Him, if I may ask?"
"Most certainly I do. But once I did not. For a time I did in my
fox-hunting days. Then I was terrible frightened of Him and felt a
lot of fear when I saw good men suffer bad things. Then, when I was
smashed, I flung Him over, lock, stock and barrel, and didn't worry
no more. But now I believe in Him again."
"I believe in Him too," said Lawrence.
"Then believe in Him, and don't waste your wind and fret your wits
blaming Him, because He don't do to others as He teaches us to do to
others. If you believe, you must hold that His ways ain't our ways
and that He sees the end from the beginning and suchlike comforting
opinions. To believe in Him and think that you could go one better
than Him is silly."
"One thing's certain: you can't have it both ways."
"You never spoke a truer word," admitted Mr. Withycombe. "Foxhunting
taught me that afore you were born; and life didn't ought to hurt a
man that admits it. You've looked at life with seeing eyes no doubt,
and you must have seen lots of men treated worse than you, as well as
better. The machine treats the blades of grass much the same,
whether they be tall or short, and to be under the harrow, or under
the weather, is the common lot of us all. Only a man's self knows
his luck--not them looking at him from outside. One primrose be set
on the south side of the hedge, another on the north; but that never
puzzles me, or troubles them."
Maynard was very silent before this philosophy. The ideas came as
something new and the speaker's attitude of good-humoured, mental
superiority did not tempt him to explain the reason for his own
pessimistic attitude.
Presently Enoch challenged him.
"And what have you got to say against that?" he asked.
"Nothing at all. The point of view's everything, and if you, from
your bed of sickness, can feel all's for the best, I suppose I ought."
"There's all sorts of beds of sickness," answered Mr. Withycombe,
"and no doubt the highest wisdom would say that sickness of the body
is a lesser evil than sickness of the mind. But it's a very natural
thing that a young man like you should be more interested in your own
case than any other, and think it harder than any other. You all do;
I don't blame you for that. But, with your good wits and good health
and the world before you, there's no reason why you should let the
past make you too down-daunted, whatever it may have done to you.
There's always the future for a young man."
"The past can bitch up the future past praying for, however," argued
Maynard, and the hunter considered the statement.
"The future be at the mercy of the past in a manner of speaking I
grant," he said; "but a lot depends on whether we hurt ourselves in
the past, or was only hurt by other people. Of course bad blood in
our veins and vices can maim our future past praying for, as you say;
but, with an even-minded man like you, I should judge you'd always
been master of your past, and so ought to face the future more
hopeful than what you seem to."
Lawrence still felt no desire to go into details. He guessed that
Mr. Withycombe must be a great talker and knew not as yet whether
confidences would be sacred. Moreover, he was weary of the subject
and thought that the other might be.
"I dare say you're right. It may be a fool's trick always to keep
the past before your eyes and let it shadow the future. That is if
you can help it. But--however, you'll be pretty tired of me and my
affairs. The thing is to take big views."
"It is--and to take views that ain't got the figure of No. 1 stuck in
front of 'em, Maynard. The first thing to do, if you be going to set
up for a thinker, is to rule yourself out, and all you dread and
fear, and all you wish and desire. You've got to clear yourself out
of the way; and some can, and then, if they've got brains, they see
things clearer; and some can't, and that sort will never add a mite
to their own wisdom, or anybody's. Get me my tea now. Us'll drink
some tea. It's good of you and other men to be here now and again,
because it gives my daughter a chance to stretch her legs and get the
news. Now I should call her a sensible pattern of woman."
"So she is then. And a very popular woman, Mr. Withycombe."
"She's one that haven't let ill fortune sour her. No childer, and a
husband lost before his time. But there she is, fifty year old and
facing life and its duties and the dull task of a bed-ridden father,
all so quiet and seemly as need be. No grumbling--not a sigh. I'm
devilish cranky when the pain's bad; and though we can all be very
wise to our neighbours of a Sunday afternoon, like this, there's
times when we ain't very wise to our relations on weekdays. The
past--the past--small wonder we look back if it's been as good as
mine."
Maynard got the tea from the kitchen and arranged a bed-table for the
invalid.
"Fire's right for toasting," he said. "Shall I make some?"
"Do so. A good thought. You don't tell me the reasons for your dark
view of things and I don't want 'em--don't think it. But I'll ax you
something of a private nature, because you'll respect confidence. No
need to answer, however, if you feel it's none of your business. And
it certainly is not. But if you can reply in strict confidence,
young man, you'll pleasure me. Does Joe Stockman ever tell about
Melinda, or give his opinion upon her?"
"He does. He's got a mighty high opinion of her and says she's a
burning light and a lesson to all the women. He don't hide his
feelings. He was figuring up her age a bit backalong."
Enoch laughed.
"Ah! But you can't have it both ways, as we said just now. Master
Joe's always crying out about being an old man, but he don't want to
feel an old man, or look an old man where my Melinda's concerned. I
read Joe like a book I may tell you. He often thinks what a fine
thing it would be to wed Melinda; but he knows he couldn't make a
servant of her, like he does of his daughter."
"He's always been uncommon friendly to me," said Lawrence.
"Long may he continue so. You're a good man at your job I doubt not,
and he knows it. But--well, enough said."
Maynard sat another hour with the old man and the talk drifted to
fox-hunting.
When Melinda returned, she found her father in the best of tempers
and the tea things cleared away and washed up.
"My!" she exclaimed. "What a husband you'll make some of these days,
Mr. Maynard!"
"And he's going to come again," said Enoch. "He's promised. We'll
set the world right between us afore we've done--him and me. And
next time you go up over to Falcon Farm, you've got to take the man a
book. I can't put my hand on it for the minute; but he's got to read
it."
"You let what my father says go in at one ear and out at the other,"
warned Melinda. "He's a dangerous old man and we all know it."
"You won't fright him," declared Enoch. "He's going to be a great
thinker some day, same as me!"
Then Lawrence went his way.