CHAPTER I

From Great Trowlesworthy's crown of rosy granite the world extended to the moor-edge, and thence, by mighty, dim, air-drenched passages of earth and sky, to the horizons of the sea. A clear May noon illuminated the waste, and Dartmoor, soaking her fill of sunshine, ran over with it, so that Devon's self spread little darker of bosom than the grey and silver of high clouds lifted above her, mountainous under the sun.

Hills and plains were still mottled with the winter coat of the heather, and the verdure of the spearing grasses suffered diminution under a far-flung pallor of dead blades above breaking green; but the face of Dartmoor began to glow and the spring gorse leapt like a running flame along it. At water's brink was starry silver of crow-foot, and the heath, still darkling, sheltered sky-blue milk-wort and violet and the budding gold of the tormentil.

One white road ran due north-east and south-west across the desert, and round about it, like the tents of the Anakim, rose huge snowy hillocks and ridges silver-bright in the sun. Here the venerable ArchÆan granites of Dartmoor, that on Trowlesworthy blush to a ruddy splendour, and elsewhere break beautifully in fair colour and fine grain through the coarser porphyritic stone, suffer a change, and out of their perishing constituents emerges kaolin, or china clay.

A river met this naked road, and at their junction the grey bridge of Cadworthy saddled Plym. Beyond, like the hogged back of a brown bear, Wigford Down rolled above the gorges of Dewerstone, and further yet, retreated fields and forests, great uplifted plains, and sudden elevations that glimmered along their crests with the tender green of distant larch and beech.

The atmosphere was opalescent, milky, sweet, as though earth's sap, leaping to the last tree-tip and bursting bud, exuded upon air the very visible incense and savour of life. Running water and lifting lark made the music of this hour; and at one spot on the desert a girl's voice mingled with them and enlarged the melody, for it was gentle and musical and belonged to the springtime.

She sat high on Trowlesworthy, where the rushes chatter and where, to their eternal treble, the wind strikes deep organ music from the forehead of the tor. From the clefts of the rocks around her, where foxes homed sometimes and the hawk made her nest, there hung now russet tassels and tufts of dead lady-fern; and above this rack of the old year sprang dark green aigrettes of the new.

Stonecrops and pennyworts also flourished amid the uncurling fronds; aloft, the heath and whortle made curls for the great tor's brow; below, to the girl's feet, there sloped up boulders that shone with fabric of golden-brown mosses and dappled lichens, jade-green and grey. The woodsorrel had climbed hither, and its frail bells and sparkling trefoils glittered on the earth.

The sun shone with a thready lustre over the million flattened dead rushes roundabout this place, and its light spread out upon them into a pool of pale gold. Thus a radiance as of water extended here and the wind, fretting all this death, heightened the deception; while the scattered rocks shone brilliantly against so much reflected light and looked like boulders half submerged at the fringe of a glittering sea.

The girl laughed and gazed down at her home. It was a squat grey building half-way between the red tor and the distant bridge. It stood amid bright green crofts, and beside it was a seemly hayrick and an unseemly patch of rufous light that stared—hideous as a bloodshot eye—from the harmonious textures of the waste. There a shippen under an iron roof sank to rusty dissolution.

Here was Trowlesworthy Farm and a great rabbit warren that extended round about it.

Milly Luscombe lived at Trowlesworthy with an uncle and aunt. She was accustomed to work very hard for her living, but for the moment she did not work. She only breathed the breath of spring and talked of love.

Beside her sat a sturdy youth with a red face and a little budding flaxen moustache. His countenance was not cast in a cheerful mould. Indeed, he frowned and gazed gloomily out of large grey eyes at the valley beneath him.

"I axed father in plain words if I might be tokened to you—of course, that was if you said 'yes'—and he answered as plainly that I might not. You see, he was terrible up in years afore he got married himself, and so he thinks a man's a fool to go into it young."

"How old was he then?"

"Forty-five to the day. And he's seventy next month, though he don't feel or look anything like so much. He's full of old, stale sayings about marrying in haste and repenting at leisure: and such like. So there it is, Milly."

The girl nodded. She was a dark maiden with brown eyes and a pretty mouth. She sniffed rather tearfully and wiped her eyes with the corner of her sun-bonnet.

"Belike your father only waited so long because the right one didn't come. When he found your mother, I'm sure he married her quick enough."

"No, he didn't. They was tokened when he was forty, and kept company for five years."

"That ban't loving," she said.

"Of course it ban't! And yet father isn't what you might call a hard man. Far from it, to all but me. A big-hearted, kindly creature and a good father, if he could only understand more. Like a boy in some things. I'm sure I feel a lot older than him sometimes. If 'twas Ned now, he'd be friendly and easy as you please."

"What does Mrs. Baskerville say?"

"She's on our side, and so's my sisters. Polly and May think the world of you. 'Tisn't as if I was like my brother Ned—a lazy chap that hates the sight of work. I stand to work same as father himself, and he knows that; and when there's anything calling to be done, 'tis always, 'Where be Rupert to?" But lazy as Ned is, he'd let him marry to-morrow."

"Mr. Baskerville's frighted of losing you from Cadworthy, Rupert."

The young man looked out where a wood rose south of the bridge, and his father's farm lifted its black chimneys above the trees.

"He tells me I'm his right hand; and yet refuses, though this is the first thing that ever I've asked him," he said.

"Wouldn't he suffer it if you promised him to do as he done, and not marry for five years?"

"I'll promise no such thing. Father seems to think 'tis all moonshine, but I shall have another go at him when he comes home next week. Till then I shan't see you no more, for I've promised myself to get through a mighty pile of work—just to astonish him."

"The harder you work, the more he'll want you to bide at home," she said. "Not that I mind you working. All the best sort work—I know that."

"I must work—no credit to me. I'm like father there. I ban't comfortable if I don't get through a good lump of work in the day."

She looked at him with large admiration.

"Where's Mr. Baskerville gone to?"

"To Bideford for the wrestlin' matches. He always stands stickler when there's a big wrestlin'. Such a famous man he was at it—champion of Devon for nine years. He retired after he was married. But now, just on his seventieth birthday, he's as clever as any of 'em. 'Twas his great trouble, I do believe, that neither me nor Ned ever shaped well at it. But we haven't got his weight. We take after my mother's people and be light built men—compared to father."

"Pity May weren't a boy," said Milly. "She's got weight enough."

"Yes," he admitted. "She's the very daps of father. She'll be a whacker when she grows up. 'Tis a nuisance for a woman being made so terrible beamy. But there 'tis—and a happier creature never had to walk slow up a hill."

Silence fell for a while between them.

"We must wait and hope," she declared at last. "I shan't change, Rupert—you know that."

"Right well I know it, and more shan't I."

"You're just turned twenty-three and I'm eighteen. After all, we've got plenty of time," said Milly.

"I hope so. But that's no reason why for we should waste it. 'Tis all wasted till I get you."

She put her hand out to him, and he caught it and held it.

"It might be a long sight worse," she said. "'Tis only a matter of patience."

"There's no need for patience, and there lies the cruelty. However, I'll push him hard when he comes home. Tokened I will be to 'e—not in secret, but afore the nation."

"Look!" she said. "Two men riding up over. Go a bit further off, there's a dear."

Rupert looked where she pointed, and then he showed no little astonishment and concern.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "If 'tisn't my Uncle Humphrey Baskerville; and Mark along with him. What the mischief sent them here, of all ways? Can't we hide?"

But no hiding-place offered. Therefore the young people rose and walked boldly forward.

"He's going out to Hen Tor to look at they ruins, I reckon," said Milly. "I met your cousin Mark a bit ago, and he told me his father was rather interested in that old rogues-roost of a place they call Hen Tor House. Why for I can't say; but that's where they be riding, I doubt."

Two men on ponies arrived as she spoke, and drew up beside the lovers.

The elder exhibited a cast of countenance somewhat remarkable. He was a thin, under-sized man with grey hair. His narrow, clean-shorn face sloped wedge-shaped to a pointed chin, and his mouth was lipless and very hard. Grotesquely large black eyebrows darkened his forehead, but they marked no arch. They were set in two patches or tufts, and moved freely up and down over a pair of rather dim grey eyes. The appearance of dimness, however, was not real, for Humphrey Baskerville possessed good sight. He was sixty-three years old, and a widower. He passed for a harsh, secretive man, and lived two miles from his elder brother, Vivian Baskerville, of Cadworthy. His household consisted of himself, his son Mark, and his housekeeper.

"Good morning, Uncle Humphrey," said Rupert, taking the bull by the horns. "You know Milly Luscombe, don't you? Morning, Mark."

Mr. Baskerville's black tufts went up and his slit of a mouth elongated.

"What's this then?" he asked. "Fooling up here with a girl—you? I hope you're not taking after your good-for-nothing brother?"

"Needn't fear that, uncle."

"How's Mr. Luscombe?" asked the old man abruptly, turning to the girl.

Milly feared nobody—not even this much-feared and mysterious person—and now she turned to him and patted his old pony's neck as she answered—

"Very well, thank you, Mr. Baskerville, and I'm sure he'd hope you are the same."

The tufts came down and he looked closely at her.

"You playing truant too—eh? Well, why not? 'Tis too fine a day for work, perhaps."

"So it is, then. Even your old blind pony knows that."

"Only blind the near side," he answered. "He can see more with one eye than many humans can with both."

"What's his name, please?"

"I don't know. Never gave him one."

They walked a little way forward, while Rupert stopped behind and spoke to his cousin Mark.

"So you like that boy very much—eh?" said the old man drily and suddenly to Milly.

She coloured up and nodded.

"Nonsense and foolery!"

"If 'tis, I wouldn't exchange it for your sense, Mr. Baskerville."

He made a deep grunt, like a bear.

"That's the pert way childer speak to the old folk now—is it?"

"Even you was in love once?"

"Nonsense and foolery—nonsense and foolery!"

"Would you do different if you could go back?"

He did not answer the question.

"I doubt you're too good for Rupert Baskerville," he said.

"He's too good for me."

"He stands to work—I grant that. But he's young, and he's foolish, like all young things. Think better of it. Keep away from the young men. Work—work—work your fingers to the bone. That's the only wise way. I'm going to look at yonder ruin on the side of Hen Tor. I may build it up again and live there and die there."

"What! Leave Hawk House, Mr. Baskerville?"

"Why not? 'Tis too much in the world for me and Mark."

"'Tis the loneliest house in these parts."

"Too much in the world," he repeated.

"That's nonsense and foolery, if you like," she said calmly; "I'm sure love-making be all plain common-sense compared to that."

He pulled up and regarded her with a grim stare.

"I've found somebody to-day that isn't afraid of me, seemingly."

"Why for should I be?"

"For no reason, except that most others are. What do they all think? I'll tell you; they think I'm wrong here."

He tilted up his black wide-awake hat and tapped his forehead.

"Surely never! The folk only be frightened of your great wittiness—so I believe. Rupert always says that you are terrible clever."

"That shows he's a terrible fool. Don't you mate with a fool, Milly."

"I'll promise that anyway, sir."

She spoke with perfect self-possession and interested the old man. Then he found that he was interested, and turned upon himself impatiently and shouted to his son.

"Come on, boy! What are you dawdling there for?"

Mark instantly dug his heels into his pony and followed his father. He was a youthful edition of the elder, with a difference. Humphrey was ill-clad, and Mark was neat. Humphrey's voice was harsh and disagreeable; Mark's was soft and almost womanly. Mark also had a smooth face and heavy eyebrows; but his features were clearer cut, more delicate; his eyes were blue and beautiful. He had a manner somewhat timid and retiring. He was not a cringing man, but a native deference guided him in all dealings with his kind.

Before starting, Mr. Baskerville stopped, drew a letter from his pocket, and called to Rupert.

"Take this to my brother Vivian, will you? I was going to leave it on the way back, but I'll not waste his time."

The youth came forward and took the letter.

"Father's away to Bideford—standing stickler for the wrestlin'," he said.

"Good God! At his age! Can't an old man of seventy find nothing better and wiser to do than run after childish things like that?"

The son was silent, and his uncle, with a snort of deep disdain, rode forward.

"'Tis about the birthday," Rupert explained to Milly. "In June father will turn seventy, and there is to be a rare fuss made, and a spread, and all the family to come round him at Cadworthy. Of course, Uncle Nat will come. In fact, 'twas his idea that we should have a celebration about it; but I doubt if Uncle Humphrey will. He'd think such a thing all rubbish, no doubt, for he's against every sort of merry-making. You see how he went just now when I told him father was gone to the wrestlin' matches."

"Don't you mind him too much, all the same," said Milly. "He looks terrible grim and says dreadful things, but I don't believe he's half in earnest. I ban't feared of him, and never will be. Don't you be neither."

They left the tor and proceeded to the girl's home beneath. The close-cropped turf of the warrens spread in a green and resilient carpet under their feet; and, flung in a mighty pattern upon it, young red leaves of whortleberry broke through and spattered the miles of turf with a haze of russet.

Rupert said farewell at the entrance; then he hastened homeward and presently reached his family circle as it was preparing to dine.

Hester Baskerville, the wife of Vivian, was a quiet, fair woman of fine bearing and above middle height. She was twenty years younger than her husband, but the union had been a happy and successful one in every respect, and the woman's mild nature and large patience had chimed well with the man's strong self-assertion, narrow outlook, and immovable opinions. Kindness of heart and generosity of spirit distinguished them both; and these precious traits were handed to the children of the marriage, six in number.

Ned Baskerville, the eldest son, was considered the least satisfactory and the best looking. Then came Rupert, a commonplace edition of Ned, but worth far more as a responsible being. These men resembled their mother and both lived at home. Young Nathan Baskerville followed. He was a sailor and seldom seen at Cadworthy. The two girls of this family succeeded Nathan. May and Polly were like their father—of dark complexion and inclined to stoutness; while the baby of the household was Humphrey, a youngster of thirteen, called after the dreaded uncle.

All save Nat, the sailor, were at table when Rupert entered with his letter, and all showed keenest interest to learn whether Mr. Baskerville of Hawk House had accepted his invitation.

Rupert handed the letter to his mother, and she was about to put it aside until her husband's return; but her children persuaded her to open it.

"Such a terrible exciting thing, mother," said stout May. "Us never won't sleep a wink till us knows."

"I hope to the Lord he isn't coming," declared Ned. "'Twill spoil all—a regular death's head he'll be, and us shan't dare to have an extra drop of beer or a bit of fun after with the girls."

Beer and a bit of fun with the girls' represented the limit of Edward Baskerville's ambitions; and he gratified them with determination when opportunity offered. His father was blind to his faults and set him on a pedestal above the rest of the family; but his mother felt concern that her eldest son should be so slight a man. She lived in hope that he might waken to his responsibilities and justify existence. Ned was unusually well-educated, and would do great things some day in his father's opinion; but the years passed, he was now twenty-five, and the only great thing that he had done was twice to become engaged to marry and twice to change his mind. None denied him a rare gift of good looks; and his fine figure, his curly hair, his twinkling eyes and his mouth, when it smiled, proved attractive to many maidens.

Mrs. Baskerville left a spoon in the large beef-steak pudding and read her brother-in-law's letter, while a cloud of steam ascended to the kitchen ceiling.

"DEAR BROTHER VIVIAN,

"You ask me to come and eat my dinner with you on the twenty-eighth day of June next, because on that day you will be up home seventy years old. If you think 'tis a fine thing to find yourself past three score and ten—well, perhaps it is. You can't go on much longer, anyway, and journey's end is no hardship. At a first thought I should have reckoned such a birthday wasn't much to rejoice over; but you're right and I'm wrong. A man may pride himself on getting so well through with the bulk of his life and reaching nigh the finish with so few thorns in his feet and aches in his heart as what you have. I'll come.

"Yours faithfully,
"HUMPHREY BASKERVILLE."

A mournful sound like the wind in the trees went up from Uncle Humphrey's nephews and nieces.

"Be damned to him!" said Ned.

"Perhaps he won't come after all, when he hears Uncle Nat is coming," suggested May. She was always hopeful.

Mrs. Baskerville turned and put the letter on the mantel-shelf behind an eight-day clock. Then she sat down and began to help the pudding.

"We must make him as welcome as we can, for father's sake," she said.

CHAPTER II

The hamlet of Shaugh Prior, a gift to the monks of Plympton in time past, stands beneath Shaugh Moor at the edge of a mighty declivity. The Church of St. Edward lifts its battlemented tower and crocketed pinnacles above a world of waste and fallow. It is perched upon a ridge and stands, supported by trees and a few cottages, in a position of great prominence. The scant beauty that this holy place possessed has vanished under restoration; but there yet remain good bells, while a notable font-cover, cast forth by vanished vandals, is now returned to its use.

Round about the church dark sycamores shine in spring, and at autumn drop their patched and mottled foliage upon the dust of the dead. Broad-bosomed fields ascend to the south; easterly a high road climbs to the Moor, and immediately north of Shaugh the slopes of High Down lead by North Wood to Cadworthy Farm and Cadworthy Bridge beyond it.

From High Down the village and its outlying habitations may be perceived at a glance. The cots and homesteads converge and cluster in, with the church as the central point and heart of the organisation. Around it dwellers from afar are come to sleep through their eternal night, and a double row of slates, like an amulet, girdles the ancient fane. Here and there flash white marble in the string of grey above the graves of the people; and beside the churchyard wall stand heaped a pack of Time's playing cards—old, thin, and broken slates from graves forgotten—slates and shattered slabs that have fallen away from the unremembered dust they chronicled, and now follow into oblivion the bones they marked.

A school, a rectory, 'The White Thorn' inn, and a dozen dwellings constitute Shaugh Prior, though the parish extends far beyond these boundaries; and on this spring day, one thrush warbling from a lilac bush at a cottage door, made music loud enough to fill the hamlet.

Undershaugh Farm stood near on the great hill that fell westerly to Shaugh Bridge, at watersmeet in the valley; and upon the land hard by it, two men tramped backward and forward, crossing and re-crossing in the bare centre of a field. They were working over sown mangold and enriching the seed under their feet by scattering upon it a fertile powder. The manure puffed from their hands in little golden clouds under the sunlight. The secret of this mixture belonged to one man, and none grew such mangolds as he could grow.

Undershaugh was the property of Nathan Baskerville, innkeeper, and he had let it for twenty years to a widow; but Mr. Baskerville took an active personal interest in the welfare of his property, and Mrs. Priscilla Lintern, his tenant, was very well pleased to follow his advice on all large questions of husbandry and rotation. As did the rest of the world, she knew his worth and wisdom.

Nathan Baskerville had original ideas, and these were a source of ceaseless and amicable argument between him and his elder brother, Vivian Baskerville, of Cadworthy. But Mr. Nathan's centre of activity and nidus, from which his enterprises and undertakings took shape and separate being, was 'The White Thorn' public-house. Here, at the centre of the little web of Shaugh Prior, he pursued his busy and prosperous life.

Nothing came amiss to him; nothing seemed to fail in his hands. He had a finger in fifty pies, and men followed his lead as a matter of course, for Nathan Baskerville was never known to make a bad bargain or faulty investment. Nor did he keep his good luck to himself. All men could win his ear; the humblest found him kind. He would invest a pound for a day labourer as willingly as ten for a farmer. After five-and-twenty years in Shaugh Prior he had won the absolute trust of his neighbours. All eyes brightened at his name. He was wont to say that only one living man neither believed in him nor trusted him.

"And that man, as luck will have it, is my own brother Humphrey," the innkeeper would confess over his bar to regular visitors thereat. "'Tis no great odds, however, and I don't feel it so much as you might think, because Humphrey Baskerville is built on a very uncomfortable pattern. If 'twas only me he mistrusted, I might feel hurt about it; but 'tis the world, and therefore I've got no right to mind. There's none—none he would rely upon in a fix—a terrible plight for a man that. But I live in hopes that I'll win him round yet."

The folk condoled with him, and felt a reasonable indignation that this most large-hearted, kindly, and transparent of spirits should rest under his own brother's suspicion. They explained it as the work of jealousy. All Baskervilles had brains, and most were noted for good looks; but both gifts had reached their highest development and culmination in Nathan. He was the handsomest and the cleverest of the clan; and doubtless Humphrey, a sinister and secret character, against whom much was whispered and more suspected, envied his brother's gifts and far-reaching popularity. Nathan was sixty, the youngest and physically the weakest of the three brothers. He had a delicate throat which often caused him anxiety.

The men scattering manure upon the mangolds made an end of their work and separated. One took some sacks and the pails used for the fertiliser. Then he mounted a bare-backed horse that stood in a corner of the field, and rode away slowly to Undershaugh. His companion crossed the stream beneath the village, mounted a hill beyond it, and presently entered 'The White Thorn.' He was a well-turned, fair, good-looking youth in corduroys and black leathern leggings. He wore no collar, but his blue cotton shirt was clean and made a pleasant contrast of colour with the brown throat that rose from it. Young Lintern was the widow Lintern's only son and her right hand at Undershaugh.

The men in the bar gave him good day, and Mr. Baskerville, who was serving, drew for him half a pint of beer.

"Well, Heathman," he said. "So that's done. And, mark me, 'twas worth the doing. If you don't fetch home first prize as usual for they mangolds, say I've forgot the recipe."

"'Tis queer stuff," answered the youngster, "and what with this wind blowing, my eyes and nose and throat's all full of it."

"'Twill do you no harm but rise a pleasant thirst."

Mr. Baskerville had humour stamped at the wrinkled corners of his bright eyes. His face was genial and rubicund. He wore a heavy grey beard, but his hair, though streaked with grey, was still dark in colour. A plastic mouth that widened into laughter a thousand times a day, belonged to him. He was rather above average height, sturdy and energetic. He declared that he had never known what it was to be weary in mind or body. Behind his bar he wore no coat, but ministered in turned-up shirt sleeves that revealed fine hairy arms.

Young Ned Baskerville sat in the bar, and now he spoke to Heathman Lintern.

"Have one with me, Heathman," he said. "I was going down to your mother with a message, but now you can take it and save me the trouble."

His uncle shook his head.

"Ah, boy—always the same with you. Anybody as will save you trouble be your friend. 'Tis a very poor look-out, Ned; for let a certain party only get wind of it that you're such a chap for running from work, and he'll mighty soon come along and save you all trouble for evermore."

"And who might he be, Uncle Nat?"

"Old Nick, my fine fellow! You may laugh, but Tommy Gollop here will bear me out, and Joe Voysey too, won't you, Joe? They be both born and bred in the shadow of the church, and as well up in morals as grave-digging and cabbage-growing. And they'll tell you that the devil's always ready to work for an idle man."

"True," said Mr. Gollop. "True as truth itself. But the dowl won't work for nought, any more than the best of us. Long hours, I grant you—never tired him, and never takes a rest—but he'll have his wages; and Ned here knows what they be, no doubt."

Ned laughed.

"I'm all right," he said. "I shall work hard enough come presently, when it gets to be worth while."

Mr. Gollop spoke again. He was a stout man with a little grey beard, a flat forehead, barely indicated under his low-growing, coarse hair, and large brown, solemn eyes. He and his sister were leading figures at Shaugh Prior, and took themselves and their manifold labours in a serious spirit. Some self-complacency marked their outlook; and their perspective was faulty. They held Shaugh Prior as the centre of civilisation, and considered that their united labours had served to place and helped to maintain it in that position. Thomas Gollop was parish clerk and sexton; his sister united many avocations. She acted as pew-opener at the church; she was a sick-nurse and midwife; she took temporary appointments as plain cook; she posed as intelligencer of Shaugh Prior; and what she did not know of every man, woman, and child in the village, together with their ambitions, financial position, private relations, religious opinions, and physical constitutions, was not worth knowing.

"At times of large change like this, when we are threatened with all manner of doubts and dangers, 'tis well for every man among us to hold stoutly to religion and defy any one who would shake us," said Mr. Gollop. "For my part I shall strike the first blow, and let it be seen that I'm a man very jealous for the Lord, and the village and the old paths."

"What's going to happen?" asked Ned. "You talk as if Doomsday was coming."

"Not at all," answered Mr. Gollop. "When Doomsday comes, if I'm still here, I shall know how to handle it; but 'tis the new vicar. A man is a man; and with a strange man 'tis only too terrible certain there will creep in strange opinions and a nasty hunger for novelty."

"And what's worse," said Mr. Voysey, "a young man. An old man I could have faced from my sixty-five years without fear; but how can you expect a young youth—full of the fiery silliness of the twenties—to understand that as I've been gardener at the vicarage for forty year, so in right and decency and order I ought to go on being gardener there?"

"Have no fear, Joe," said Mr. Baskerville. "If there's one thing among us that Mr. Masterman won't change, 'tis you, I'm sure; for who knows the outs and ins of the garden up the hill like you do?"

"'Tis true," admitted Tommy Gollop. "That land is like a human, you might say—stiff and stubborn and got to be coaxed to do its best; and I'm sure he'll very soon see that only Voysey can fetch his beans and peas out of the soil, and that it's took him a lifetime to learn the trick of the place. And I feel the same to the church. If he's got any new-fangled fashion of worship, Shaugh will rise against him like one man. After fifty-two years of the Reverend Valletort, we can't be blown from our fixed ways at a young man's breath; and I'm sure I do hope that he won't want so much as a cobweb swept down, or else there'll be difficulties spring up around him like weeds after rain."

"What a pack of mouldy old fossils you are in this place!" said Heathman Lintern. "I'm sure, for my part, I hope the man will fetch along a few new ideas to waken us up. If 'twasn't for Mr. Baskerville here, Shaugh would be forgot in the world altogether. You should hear Jack Head on the subject."

But Tommy Gollop little liked such criticism.

"You're young and terribly ignorant, and Jack Head's a red radical as ought to be locked up," he answered. "But you'll do well to keep your ignorance from leaking out and making you look a ninny-hammer afore sensible men. Shaugh Prior's a bit ahead of the times rather than behind 'em, and my fear always is, and always will be, that we shall take the bit in our teeth some day and bolt with it. 'Tis no good being too far ahead of the race; and that's why I'm afeared that this young Masterman, when he finds how forward we are, will try to go one better and stir up strife."

"Don't think it, Tommy," said Nathan Baskerville. "I've had a good tell with him and find him a very civil-spoken and well-meaning man. No fool, neither. You mustn't expect him to leave everything just as Mr. Valletort left it. You must allow for the difference between eighty-two and twenty-eight, which is Mr. Masterman's age; but, believe me, he's calm and sensible and very anxious to please. He's pleased me by praising my beer, like one who knew; and he's pleased my brother Vivian by praising his riding-cob, like one who knew; and he'll please Joe Voysey presently by praising the vicarage garden; and he'll please you, Thomas, by praising your churchyard."

"If he's going to be all things to all men, he'll please none," said Tommy. "We've got no need of one of them easy ministers. Him and me must keep the whip-hand of Shaugh, same as me and the Reverend Valletort used to do. However, the man will hear my views, and my sister's also; because a clear understanding from the start be going to save a world of worry after."

"Not married," said Mr. Voysey. "But he've a sister. I hope she ban't one of they gardening sort, so-called, that's always messing round making work and finding things blowed down here or eaten with varmints there. If she's a flower-liking female, 'twill be my place to tell her straight out from the shoulder that flowers won't grow in the vicarage garden, and that she must be content with the 'dendrums in summer time and the foxgloves and such-like homely old stuff."

"He was a football player to college and very skilled at it, so Barker told me," said Ned Baskerville.

"Then mark me, he'll be for making a club, and teaching the young chaps to play of a Saturday and keeping 'em out of your bar, Mr. Baskerville," declared the parish clerk; "Yes, look at it as you will, there's changes in the air, and I hope we'll all stand shoulder to shoulder against 'em, and down the man afore he gets his foot in the stirrup."

"You two—Joe Voysey and you—be enough to frighten the poor soul out of his seven senses afore he's been in the place a week," declared Ned Baskerville. "And I hope for one that Uncle Nat won't go against him; and I know father won't, for he's said this many a day that old Valletort was past his work and ought to be pensioned off."

"Your father's not a man for unseemly changes, all the same," declared Tommy; "and if this new young minister was to go in the pulpit in white instead of black, for instance, as the Popish habit is, Vivian Baskerville would be the first to rise up and tell him to dress himself decently and in order."

But Ned denied this.

"Don't you think you know my father, Tommy, because you don't. If this chap gets up a football club, he'll have father on his side from the first; and he can preach in black or white or pea-green, so long as he talks sense through his mouth, and not nonsense through his nose, like the old one did."

"Don't you speak for your father," said Joseph Voysey. He was a very tall and a very thin man, with pale, watery eyes and a scanty beard. Nature had done so much for his long and rather absurd hatchet nose, that there was no material left for his chin.

"If I shouldn't talk for my father, who should?" retorted Ned. Then Mr. Voysey descended to personalities and accused the other of irreverence and laziness. The argument grew sharp and Mr. Baskerville was forced to still it.

"Come you along and don't talk twaddle, Ned," he said to his nephew. "I'm going down to Undershaugh myself this minute, to see Mrs. Lintern, and you and Heathman will come with me."

He called to a pot-boy, turned down his sleeves, took his coat from a hook behind the door, and was ready to start.

"When Mr. Masterman does come among us, 'twill be everybody's joy and pride to make him welcome in a kindly spirit," he said. "Changes must happen, but if he's a gentleman and a sportsman and a Christian—all of which he certainly looks to be—then 'twill be the fault of Shaugh Prior, and not the man's, if all don't go friendly and suent. Give and take's the motto."

"Yes," admitted Mr. Gollop. "Give nought and take all: that's the way of the young nowadays; and that'll be his way so like as not; and I'll deny him to his face from the first minute, if he seeks to ride roughshod over me, and the church, and the people."

"Hear! Hear!" cried Mr. Voysey.

"We'll hope he'll have enough sense to spare a little for you silly old blids," said Heathman Lintern. Then he followed the Baskervilles.

CHAPTER III

Nathan Baskerville, like his brother Humphrey, was a widower. Very early in life he had married a young woman of good means and social position superior to his own. His handsome face and manifold charms of disposition won Minnie Stanlake, and she brought to him a small fortune in her own right, together with the detestation of her whole family. Husband and wife had lived happily, save for the woman's fierce and undying jealousy which extended beyond her early grave.

She died childless at eight-and-twenty, and left five thousand pounds to her husband on the understanding that he did not marry again. He obeyed this condition, though it was vain in law, and presently returned to his own people. His married life was spent at Taunton, as a general dealer, but upon his wife's death he abandoned this business and set up another like it at Bath.

At five-and-thirty years of age he came back to Devonshire and his native village. Great natural energy kept him busy. He dearly liked to conduct all manner of pettifogging business, and his good nature was such that the folk did not hesitate to consult him upon their affairs. His legal attainments were considered profound, while his shrewd handling of figures, and his personal prosperity, combined to place him on a pinnacle among the folk as a great financier and most capable man of business. He did not lend money at interest, but was known more than once to have helped a lame dog over a stile. Many kind things he did, and no man spoke a bad word of him.

People brought him their savings and begged him to invest them according to his judgment. They usually asked for no details, but received their interest regularly, and trusted Nathan Baskerville like the Bank of England. He was in truth a large-hearted and kindly spirit, who found his pleasure in the affection and also in the applause of the people. He liked to figure among them as the first. He loved work for itself and enjoyed the universal praise of his attainments.

Mr. Gollop might delude himself into believing that he was the leading citizen of Shaugh; but the master of 'The White Thorn' knew better. Without undue vanity he was not able to hide the fact that he stood above others in the esteem of the countryside. He was not so rich as people thought, and he had not laid foundations of such a fortune as they supposed during the years at Bath; but he fostered the impression and the fame it gave him. It suited better his native idiosyncrasy to tower among smaller men, than to be small amidst his betters. He liked the round-eyed reverence of ploughboys and the curtsey of the school children.

The late vicar, a Tory of the early Victorian age, had contrived to let Mr. Baskerville perceive the gulf that existed between them; and that the more definitely because Nathan was a Nonconformist. The publican professed strong Conservative principles, however, and the attitude of the last incumbent of Shaugh had caused him some secret annoyance; but he too hoped that with the advent of a younger man and modern principles this slight disability might vanish. For the rest he rode to hounds, and his attitude in the hunting field was admitted to be exceedingly correct and tactful.

He had no known confidant and he seldom spoke about himself. That he had never married astonished many people exceedingly; but it was significant of the genuine affection and esteem entertained for him that none, even when they came to learn of his dead wife's bequest and its condition, ever imputed sordid motives to his celibacy. Five thousand pounds was guessed to be but a small part of Mr. Baskerville's fortune, and, when the matter chanced upon local tongues, men and women alike were quite content to believe that not affection for money, but love for his dead partner, had proved strong enough to maintain Nathan in widowhood. He liked the company of women, and was never so pleased as when doing them a service. For their part they admired him also and wished him well.

Mr. Baskerville not only owned 'The White Thorn' and its adjacencies, but had other house property at Shaugh and in the neighbouring parish of Bickleigh. His principal possession was the large farm of Undershaugh; and thither now he proceeded with his nephew, Ned Baskerville, on one side of him and young Heathman Lintern on the other.

According to his wont Nathan chattered volubly and suited the conversation to his listeners.

"You young chaps must both join the football club, if there is one. I'm glad to think new parson's that sort, for 'tis just the kind of thing we're wanting here. You fellows, and a lot like you, spend too much time and money at my bar to please me. You may laugh, Ned, but 'tis so. And another thing I'd have you to know: so like as not we shall have a rifle corps also. I've often turned my mind on it. We must let this man see we're not all willingly behind the times, but only waiting for a bit of encouragement to go ahead with the best."

Ned pictured his own fine figure in a uniform, and applauded the rifle corps; and Heathman did the like.

"Ned here would fancy himself a lot in that black and silver toggery the yeomanry wear, wouldn't you, Ned?"

"'Tis a very good idea, and would help to make you and a few other round-backed chaps as straight in the shoulders as me," declared Ned complacently.

"Well, you may be straight," answered the other with a laugh. "Certainly you've never been known yet to bend your shoulders to work. A day's trout-fishing be the hardest job that ever you've taken on—unless courting the maidens be a hard job."

Ned laughed and so did his uncle.

"You're right there, Heathman," declared Mr. Baskerville. "A lazy scamp you are, Ned, though your father won't see it; but nobody knows it better than the girls. They like you very well for a fine day and a picnic by the river; but I can tell you this: they're getting to see through you only too well. They don't want fair-weather husbands; but stout, hard fellows, like Heathman here, as have got brains and use 'em, and arms and legs and use 'em."

"No more use—you, than a pink and white china joney stuck on a mantelshelf," said Heathman. Whereupon Ned dashed at him and, half in jest, half in earnest, they wrestled by the roadside. Mr. Baskerville looked on with great enjoyment, and helped presently to dust Heathman after he had been cross-buttocked.

"That'll show 'e if I'm a pink and white puppet for a mantelpiece," declared Ned.

The other laughed and licked a scratch on his hand.

"Well done you!" he said. "Never thought you was so spry. But let's have a whole day's ploughing over a bit of the five-acre field to Undershaugh, and see what sort of a man you are in the evening."

"Not me," answered the other. "Got no use for the plough-tail myself. Rupert will take you on at that."

"To see you wrestle puts me in mind of your father," said Nathan. "This generation can't call home his greatness, and beside him you're a shrimp to a lobster, Ned; but 'twas a grand sight to see him handle a man in his prime. I mind actually getting him up to London once, because I named his name there among some sporting fellows and 'twas slighted. They thought, being my brother, that I held him too high, though he was champion of Devon at the time. But my way is never to say nought with my tongue that I won't back with my pocket, and I made a match for thirty pounds a side for your father. A Middlesex man called Thorpe, from down Bermondsey way, was chosen, and your father came up on a Friday and put that chap on his back twice in five minutes, and then went home again fifteen pound to the good. A very clever man too, was Thorpe, but he never wanted to have no more to do with your father. Vivian weighed over fourteen stone in them days, and not a pound of fat in the lot, I believe. He could have throwed down a tor, I reckon, if he could have got a hold on it. But you fellows be after your mother's build. The best of you—him that's at sea—won't never draw the beam to twelve stone."

A tramp stopped Mr. Baskerville, touched his hat and spoke.

"You gave me a bit of work harvesting two year ago, master, and you didn't pull much of a long face when I told you I wasn't fond of work as a rule. I'm more broke than usual just for the minute, and rather short o' boot-leather. Can 'e give me a job?"

Nathan was famous at making work for everybody, and loafers rarely appealed to him in vain. How such an exceedingly busy man could find it in his heart to sympathise with drones, none knew. It was another of the anomalies of Mr. Baskerville's character. But he often proved good for a square meal, a day's labour and a night's rest, as many houseless folk well knew.

"You're the joker who calls himself the 'Duke of Drake's Island,' aren't you?"

"The Duke of Drake's Island" grinned and nodded. He was a worthless soul, very well known to the Devon constabulary.

"Get up to the village and call at 'The White Thorn' in an hour from now, and ask for me."

"Thank you kindly, Mr. Baskerville."

"We'll see about that later. I can find a job for you to-night; but it ain't picking primroses."

Priscilla Lintern met her landlord at the gate of Undershaugh. They were on terms of intimacy, and nodded to each other in an easy and friendly manner. She had been feeding poultry from a basin, and now set it down, wiped her fingers on her apron, and shook hands with Ned Baskerville.

"How be you, then? 'Tis a longful time since you called on us, Master Ned."

"I'm clever, thank you; and I see you are, Mrs. Lintern. And I hope Cora and Phyllis be all right too. Heathman here be growing as strong as a lion—ban't you, Heathman?"

Mrs. Lintern was a brown, good-looking woman of rather more than fifty. For twenty years she had farmed Undershaugh, and her power of reserve surprised a garrulous village. It was taken by the sensible for wisdom and by the foolish for pride. She worked hard, paid her rent at the hour it was due, as Nathan often mentioned to her credit, and kept her own counsel. Very little was known about her, save that she had come to Shaugh as a widow with three young children, that she was kind-hearted and might have married Mr. Gollop a year after her arrival, but had declined the honour.

Her daughters were at dinner when the men entered, and both rose and saluted Ned with some self-consciousness. Phyllis, the younger, was like her mother: brown, neat, silent and reserved; the elder was cast in a larger mould and might have been called frankly beautiful.

Cora was dark, with black eyes and a fair skin whose purity she took pains to preserve. She was tall, straight and full in the bosom. Her mouth alone betrayed her, for the lips set close and they were rather thin; but people forgot them when she laughed and showed her pretty teeth. Her laugh again belied her lips, for it was gentle and pleasant. She had few delusions for a maiden, and she worked hard. To Cora belonged a gift of common-sense. The girl lacked sentiment, but she was shrewd and capable. She kept her mother's books and displayed a talent for figures. It was said that she had the brains of the family. Only Mr. Baskerville himself doubted it, and maintained that Cora's mother was the abler woman. Phyllis was lost at all times in admiration of her more brilliant sister, but Heathman did not like Cora and often quarrelled with her.

Ned gave his message and asked for a drink of cider. Thereupon Phyllis rose from her dinner and went to fetch it. But young Baskerville's eyes were on Cora while he drank. He had the manner of a man very well accustomed to female society, and long experience had taught him that nine girls out of ten found him exceedingly attractive. His easy insolence won them against their will. Such girls as demanded worship and respect found Ned not so agreeable; but those who preferred the male creature to dominate were fascinated by his sublimity and affectation of knowledge and worldly wisdom. He pretended to know everything—a convincing attitude only among those who know nothing.

The talk was of a revel presently to take place at Tavistock. "And what's your gown going to be, Phyllis?" asked Ned.

The gown of Phyllis did not interest him in the least, but this question was put as a preliminary to another, and when the younger sister told him that she meant to wear plum-colour, he turned to Cora.

"Cora's got a lovely frock—blue muslin wi' little pink roses, and a straw hat wi' big pink roses," said Phyllis.

Ned nodded.

"I'd go a long way to see her in such a beautiful dress," he said; "and, mind, I'm to have a dance or two with you both. There's to be dancing in the evening—not rough and tumble on the grass, but boards are to be laid down and everything done proper."

They chattered about the promised festivity, while Nathan and Mrs. Lintern, having discussed certain farm matters, spoke of another and a nearer celebration.

"You see, my brother Vivian and I are of the good old-fashioned sort, and we're bent on the whole family meeting at a square feed, with good wishes all round, on his seventieth birthday. To think of him turned seventy! I can't believe it. Yet Time won't stand still—not even with the busiest. A family affair 'tis to be, and none asked outside ourselves."

"Does Mr. Humphrey go? He's not much of a hand at a revel."

"He is not; and I thought that he would have refused the invitation. But he's accepted. We shall try our hardest to cheer him up and get a drop of generous liquor into him. I only hope he won't be a damper and spoil the fun."

"A pity he's going."

"We shall know that better afterwards. 'Twill be a pity if he mars all; but 'twill be a good thing if we overmaster him amongst us, and get him to take a hopefuller view of life and a kinder view of his fellow-creatures."

Ned chimed in.

"You'll never do that, Uncle Nat. He's too old to change now. And Cousin Mark be going just the same way. He's getting such a silent, hang-dog chap, and no wonder, having to live with such a father. I'd run away if I was him."

Nathan laughed.

"I believe you'd almost rather work than keep along with your Uncle Humphrey," he said.

"'Tis pretty well known I can work when I choose," declared Ned.

"Yes," said Heathman, with his mouth full; "and 'tis also pretty well known you never do choose."

The elder Baskerville clapped his hands.

"One to you, Heathman!" he said. "Ned can't deny the truth of that."

But Ned showed no concern.

"I shall make up for lost time very easily when I do start," he said. "I've got ideas, I believe, and they go beyond ploughing. I'm like Cora here—all brains. You may laugh, Uncle Nat, but you're not the only Baskerville with a head on your shoulders. I'll astonish you yet."

"You will—you will—the day you begin to work, Ned; and the sooner the better. I shall be very glad when it happens."

The women laughed, and Cora much admired Ned's lofty attitude. She too had ambitions, and felt little sympathy with those who were content to labour on the soil. She strove often to fire her brother and enlarge his ambitions; but he had the farmer's instinct, enjoyed physical work, and laughed at her airs and graces.

"Give me Rupert," said Heathman now. "He's like me—not much good at talking and ain't got no use for the girls, but a towser to work."

"The man who ain't got no use for the girls is not a man," declared Ned very positively. "They're the salt of the earth—ban't they, Mrs. Lintern?"

She smiled and looked at him curiously, then at his uncle; but she did not answer.

"Anyway," continued Ned, "you're out when you say Rupert's like you; for hard worker that he is, he's found time for a bit of love-making."

Cora and Phyllis manifested instant excitement and interest at this news.

"Who is she? You must tell us," said the elder.

"Why, I will; but say nought, for nothing be known about it outside the families, and Rupert haven't said a word himself to me. I reckon he don't guess that I know. But such things can't be hid from my eyes—too sharp for that, I believe. 'Tis Milly Luscombe, if you must know. A very nice little thing too in her way. Not my sort—a bit too independent. I like a girl to feel a man's the oak to her ivy, but——"

Uproarious laughter from his uncle cut Ned short.

"Mighty fine oak for a girl's ivy—you!" he said.

"You wait," repeated the younger. "Anyway, Rupert be sweet on Milly, and father knows all about it, and won't hear of it. So there's thunder in the air for the moment."

They discussed this interesting private news, but promised Ned not to retail it in any ear. Then he left them and, with Nathan, returned to the village.

Ned, undeterred by Mr. Baskerville's raillery, began loudly to praise Cora as soon as they had passed beyond earshot of the farmhouse-door.

"By Jove, she's a bowerly maiden and no mistake! Not her like this side of Plymouth, I do believe. Haven't seen her for a month of Sundays, and she's come on amazing."

"She's a very handsome girl without a doubt," admitted Nathan. "And a very clever girl too; but a word in your ear, my young shaver: you mustn't look that way once and for all."

"Why not, if I choose? I'm a free man."

"You may be—now—more shame to you. But Cora—well, your cousin Mark be first in the field there. A word to the wise is enough. You'll be doing a very improper thing if you look in that quarter, and I must firmly beg you won't, for everybody's sake."

"Mark!"

"Mark. And a very good chap he is—worth fifty of you."

"Mark!" repeated Ned, as though the notion was unthinkable. "I should have guessed that he would rather have run out of the country than lift his eyes to a girl!"

CHAPTER IV

The Reverend Dennis Masterman was a bachelor. He came to Shaugh full of physical energy and certain hazy resolutions to accomplish notable work among a neglected people. His scholastic career was nugatory, and his intellect had offered no bar to his profession. He was physically brave, morally infirm. Therefore his sister, Alice Masterman, came to support him and share his lot and complement his character. She might indeed fly from cows, but she would not fly from parochial opposition. She was strong where he was weak. They were young, sanguine, and of gentle birth. They enjoyed private means, but were filled with wholesome ardour to justify existence and leave the world better than they found it. Dennis Masterman possessed interest, and regarded this, his first cure, as a stepping-stone to better things.

Shaugh Prior was too small for his natural energies and powers of endurance—so he told his sister; but she said that the experience would be helpful. She also suspected that reform might not be a matter of energy alone.

One evening, a week after their arrival, they were planning the campaign and estimating the value of lay helpers, when two important visitors were announced. A maiden appeared and informed the clergyman that Thomas Gollop and Eliza Gollop desired to see him.

"Show them into the common room," said he; then he twisted a little bronze cross that he wore at his watchchain and regarded Miss Masterman.

"The parish clerk and his sister—I wonder if you'd mind, Alice?" he asked.

For answer she put down her work.

"Certainly. Since you saw Joe Voysey alone and, not only engaged him, but promised he might have a boy for the weeding, I feel—well, you are a great deal too easy, Dennis. Gollop is a very masterful person, clearly, and his sister, so I am told, is just the same. You certainly must not see women alone. They'll get everything they want out of you."

"Of course, one wishes to strike a genial note," he explained. "First impressions count for such a lot with common people."

"Be genial by all means; I say nothing against that."

"Let's tackle them, then. Gollop's a tremendous Conservative, but we must get Liberal ideas into him, if we can—in reason."

Dennis Masterman was tall, square-shouldered and clean-shaven. He regarded himself as somewhat advanced, but had no intention of sowing his opinions upon the parish before the soil was prepared. He considered his character to be large-minded, tolerant, and sane; and for a man of eight-and-twenty he enjoyed fair measure of these virtues.

His sister was plain, angular, and four years older than Dennis. She wore double eyeglasses and had a gruff voice and a perceptible beard.

The Gollops rose as the vicar and his sister appeared. Miss Gollop was shorter and stouter than her brother, but resembled him.

"Good evening, your reverence; good evening, miss," said the parish clerk. "This is my sister, Miss Eliza. For faith, hope, and charity she standeth. In fact, a leading light among us, though I say it as should not."

Mr. Masterman shook hands with the woman; his sister bowed only.

"And what does Miss Gollop do?" asked Dennis.

"'Twould be easier to say what she don't do," answered Thomas. "She's butt-woman to begin with, or as you would call it, 'pew-opener.' Then she's sick-nurse to the parish, and she's midwife, and, when free, she'll do chores or cook for them as want her. And she's got a knowledge and understanding of the people round these parts as won't be beaten. She was Mr. Valletort's right hand, wasn't you, Eliza?"

"So he said," answered Miss Gollop. She was not self-conscious, but bore herself as Fame's familiar and one accustomed to admiration. She had estimated the force of the clergyman's character from his first sermon, and judged that her brother would be a match for him. Now she covertly regarded Miss Masterman, and perceived that here must lie any issue of battle that might arise.

"Do you abide along with your brother, miss, or be you just settling him into the vicarage?" she asked.

"I live with him."

Miss Gollop inclined her head.

"And I'm sure I hope, if I can serve you any way at any time, as you'll let me know."

"Thank you. Everybody can serve us: we want help from one and all," said Mr. Masterman.

"Ezacally so!" said Thomas. "And you must larn each man's value from those that know it—not by bitter experience. Likewise with the women. My sister can tell you, to threepence a day, what any female in this parish be good for; and as to the men, you'll do very well to come to me. I know 'em all—old and young—and their characters and their points—good and bad, crooked and odd. For we've got some originals among us, and I'm not going to deny it, haven't us, Eliza?"

"Every place have," she said.

"Might we sit down?" asked the man. "We'm of the bungy breed, as you see, and not so clever in our breathing as we could wish. But we'm here to go through the whole law and the prophets, so to speak, and we can do it better sitting."

"Please sit down," answered Dennis. Then he looked at his watch. "I can give you an hour," he said. "But I'm going to ride over to Bickleigh at nine o'clock, to see the vicar there."

"And a very nice gentleman you'll find him," declared Thomas. "Of course, Bickleigh be but a little matter beside Shaugh Prior. We bulk a good deal larger in the eyes of the nation, and can hold our heads so much the higher in consequence; but the Reverend Coaker is a very good, humble-minded man, and knows his place in a way that's a high example to the younger clergymen."

Miss Masterman cleared her throat, but her voice was none the less gruff.

"Perhaps you will now tell us what you have come for. We are busy people," she said.

Her brother deprecated this brevity and tried to tone it down, but Thomas accepted the lady's statement with great urbanity.

"Miss be right," he answered. "Busy as bees, I warrant—same as me and my own sister here. She don't wear out many chairs, do you, Eliza?"

"Not many," said Miss Gollop. "I always say, 'Let's run about in this world; plenty of time to sit down in the next.'"

"I may tell you," added Thomas kindly, "that your first sermon went down very suent. From where I sits, along by the font, I can get a good look across the faces, and the important people, the Baskervilles and the Lillicraps and the Luscombes and the Mumfords—one and all listened to every word, and nodded now and again. You'll be glad to know that."

"Some thought 'twas a sermon they'd heard afore, however," said Miss Gollop; "but no doubt they was wrong."

"Quite wrong," declared Dennis warmly. "It was a sermon written only the night before I preached it. And talking of the font——"

"Yes, of course, you've marked the famous font-cover over the holy basin, I suppose?" interrupted Mr. Gollop. "'Tis the joy and pride of the church-town, I assure you. Not another like it in the world, they say. Learned men come all across England to see it—as well they may."

The famous font-cover, with its eight little snub-nosed saints and the Abbot elevated in the midst, was a special glory of St. Edward's.

"I meant to speak of that," said the clergyman. "The figure at the top has got more than his proper vestments on, Gollop. In fact, he's wrapped up in cobwebs. That is not worthy of us. Please see they are cleaned off."

"I hadn't noticed them; but since you say so—I'll look to it myself. Where the vamp-dish be concerned I allow none to meddle. It shall be done; but I must say again that I haven't noticed any cobwebs—not last Sunday. Have you, Eliza?" said Thomas.

"No, I have not," answered his sister.

"The dirt has clearly been there for months," remarked Miss Masterman.

There was a painful pause, during which Miss Gollop gazed at the vicar's sister and then at the vicar.

"'Tis a well-known fact that spiders will spin," she said vaguely, but not without intention. The other woman ignored her and turned to Thomas.

"Will you be so good as to proceed?"

"Yes, and gladly, miss," he answered. "And I'll begin with the Gollops, since they've done as much for this parish as anybody, living or dead. My father was parish clerk afore me, and a very remarkable man, wasn't he, Eliza?"

"He was."

"A remarkable man with a large faith in the power of prayer, was father. You don't see such faith now, worse luck. But he believed more than even I hold to, or my sister, either. You might say that he wasn't right always; but none ever dared to doubt the high religious quality of the man. But there he was—a pillar of the Church and State, as they say. He used to help his money a bit by the power of prayer; and they fetched childer sick of the thrush to him; and he'd tak 'em up the church tower and hold 'em over the battlements, north, south, east, and west—while he said the Lord's Prayer four times. He'd get a shilling by it every time, and was known to do twenty of 'em in a good year, though I never heard 'twas a very quick cure. But faith moves mountains, and he may have done more good than appeared to human eyes. And then in his age, he very near let a heavy babby drop over into the churchyard—just grabbed hold of un by a miracle and saved un. So that proper terrified the old man, and he never done another for fear of some lasting misfortune. Not but what a few devilish-natured people said that if 'twas knowed he let the childer fall now and again, he'd brisk up his business a hundred per centum. Which shows the evil-mindedness of human nature."

"I'll have no gross superstition of that sort here," said Mr. Masterman firmly.

"No more won't I," answered Thomas. "'Other times, other manners,' as the saying is. Have no fear. The church is very safe with me and Eliza for watch-dogs. Well, so much for my father. There was only us two, and we never married—too busy for that. And we've done no little for Shaugh Prior, as will be better told you in good time by other mouths than ours."

He stopped to take breath, and Miss Masterman spoke.

"My brother will tell you that with regard to parish clerks the times are altering too," she said.

"And don't I know it?" he answered. "Why, good powers, you can't get a clerk for love or money nowadays! They'm regular dying out. 'He'll be thankful he've got one of the good old sort,' I said to my sister. 'For he'd have had to look beyond Dartymoor for such another as me.' And so he would."

"That's true," declared Miss Gollop.

"I mean that the congregation takes the place of the clerk in most modern services," continued Miss Masterman. "In point of fact, we shall not want exactly what you understand by a 'clerk.' 'Other times, other manners,' as you very wisely remarked just now."

Mr. Gollop stared.

"Not want a clerk!" he said. "Woman alive, you must be daft!"

"I believe not," answered Miss Masterman. "However, what my brother has got to say regarding his intentions can come later. For the present he will hear you."

"If you don't want a clerk, I've done," answered Mr. Gollop blankly. "But I'll make bold to think you can't ezacally mean that. Us'll leave it, and I'll tell my tale about the people. The Lillicraps be a harmless folk, and humble and fertile as coneys. You'll have no trouble along with them. The Baskervilles be valuable and powerful; and Mr. Humphrey and his son is Church, and Mr. Vivian and his family is Church also, and his darters sing in the choir."

"We shall manage without women in the choir," said Miss Masterman.

"You may think so, but I doubt it," answered Eliza Gollop almost fiercely. "You'll have to manage without anybody in the church also, if you be for up-turning the whole order of divine service!" She was excited, and her large bosom heaved.

"Not up-turning—not up-turning," declared the clergyman. "Call it reorganisation. Frankly, I propose a surpliced choir. I have the bishop's permission; he wishes it. Now, go on."

"Then the Lord help you," said Thomas. "We'd better be going, Eliza. We've heard almost enough for one evening."

"Be reasonable," urged Miss Masterman with admirable self-command. "We are here to do our duty. We hope and expect to be helped by all sensible people—not hindered. Let Mr. Gollop tell us what he came to tell us."

"Well—as to reason—I ask no more, but where is it?" murmured Thomas. "'Twas the Baskervilles," he continued, wiping his forehead. "The other of 'em—Nathan—be unfortunately a chapel member; and if you be going to play these here May games in the House of the Lord, I'm very much afeared he'll draw a good few after him. They won't stand it—mark me."

"Where do the people at Undershaugh worship? I did not see Mrs. Lintern and her family last Sunday."

"They'm all chapel too."

Mr. Masterman nodded.

"Thank you for these various facts. Is there anything more?"

"I've only just begun. But I comed with warnings chiefly. There be six Radicals in this parish, and only six."

"Though the Lord knows how many there will be when they hear about the choir," said Eliza Gollop.

"I'm an old-fashioned Liberal myself," declared the vicar. "But I hope your Radicals are sound churchmen, whatever else they may be."

"Humphrey Baskerville is—and so's his son."

"Is that young Mark Baskerville?"

"Yes—tenor bell among the ringers. A very uneven-minded man. He's a wonderful ringer and wrapped up in tenor bell, as if 'twas a heathen idol. In fact, he'm not the good Christian he might be, and he'll ring oftener than he'll pray. Then Saul Luscombe to Trowlesworthy Warren—farmer and rabbit-catcher—be a very hard nut, and so's his man, Jack Head. You won't get either of them inside the church. They say in their wicked way they ain't got no need for sleeping after breakfast of a Sunday—atheists, in fact. The other labouring man from Trowlesworthy is a good Christian, however. He can read, but 'tis doubtful whether he can write."

"You'll have to go to keep your appointment, Dennis," remarked his sister.

"Plenty of time. Is there anything more that's particularly important, Gollop?"

"Lots more. Still, if I'm to be shouted down every minute—— I comed to encourage and fortify you. I comed to tell you to have no fear, because me and sister was on your side, and always ready to fight to the death for righteousness. But you've took the wind out of our sails, in a manner of speaking. If you ban't going to walk in the old paths, I'm terrible afraid you'll find us against you."

"This is impertinence," said Miss Masterman.

"Not at all," answered the clerk's sister. "It's sense. 'Tis a free country, and if you'm going to set a lot of God-fearing, right-minded, sensible people by the ears, the sin be on your shoulders. You'd best to come home, Thomas."

Mr. Masterman looked helplessly at his watch.

"We shall soon arrive at—at—a modus vivendi," he said.

"I don't know what that may be, your reverence," she answered; "but if 'tis an empty church, and sour looks, and trouble behind every hedge, then you certainly will arrive at it—and even sooner than you think for."

"He's going to give ear to the Radicals—'tis too clear," moaned Thomas, as he rose and picked up his hat.

"I can only trust that you two good people do not represent the parish," continued the vicar.

"You'll terrible soon find as we do," said Miss Gollop.

"So much the worse. However, it is well that we understand one another. Next Sunday I shall invite my leading parishioners to meet me in the schoolroom on the following evening. I shall then state my intentions, and listen to the opinions and objections of every man among you."

"And only the men will be invited to the meeting," added Miss Masterman.

"'Tis a parlous come-along-of-it," moaned the parish clerk. "I meant well. You can bear me out, Eliza, that I meant well—never man meant better."

"Good evening," said Miss Masterman, and left them.

"Be sure that we shall soon settle down," prophesied the vicar. "I know you mean well, Gollop; and I mean well, too. Where sensible people are concerned, friction is reduced to a minimum. We shall very soon understand one another and respect one another's opinions."

"If you respect people's opinions, you abide by 'em," declared Miss Gollop.

"Us shan't be able to keep the cart on the wheels—not with a night-gowned choir," foretold her brother.

Then Dennis saw them to the door; they took their leave, and as they went down the vicarage drive, their voices bumbled together, like two slow, shard-borne beetles droning on the night.

CHAPTER V

Both the yeoman and gentle families of Devon have undergone a wide and deep disintegration during the recent past. Many are swept away, and the downfall dates back beyond the eighteenth century, when war, dice, and the bottle laid foundations of subsequent ruin; but the descendants of many an ancient stock are still with us, and noble names shall be found at the plough-handle; historical patronymics, on the land.

The race of Baskerville had borne arms and stood for the king in Stuart times. The family was broken in the Parliamentary Wars and languished for certain centuries; then it took heart and lifted head once more. The three brothers who now carried on their line were doubly enriched, for their father had died in good case and left a little fortune behind him; while an uncle, blessed with some tincture of the gipsy blood that had flowed into the native stock a hundred years before, found Devon too small a theatre for his activities and migrated to Australia. He died a bachelor, and left his money to his nephews.

Thus the trio began life under fortunate circumstances; and it appeared that two had prospered and justified existence; while concerning the other little could be affirmed, save a latent and general dislike founded on vague hearsay.

They were different as men well could be, yet each displayed strong individuality and an assertive temperament. All inherited some ancestral strength, but disparities existed between their tastes, their judgments, and their ambitions.

Vivian Baskerville was generous, self-opinionated, and kind-hearted. He loved, before all things, work, yet, in direct opposition to this ruling passion, tolerated and spoiled a lazy eldest son. From the rest of his family he exacted full measure of labour and very perfect obedience. He was a man of crystallised opinions—one who resented change, and built on blind tradition.

Nathan Baskerville had a volatile and swift-minded spirit. He was sympathetic, but not so sympathetic as his manner made him appear. He had a histrionic knack to seem more than he felt; yet this was not all acting, but a mixture of art and instinct. He trusted to tact, to a sense of humour with its accompanying tolerance, and to swift appraisal of human character. Adaptability was his watchword.

Humphrey Baskerville personified doubt. His apparent chill indifference crushed the young and irritated the old. An outward gloominess of manner and a pessimistic attitude to affairs sufficed to turn the folk from him. While he seemed the spirit of negation made alive, he was, nevertheless, a steadfast Christian, and his dark mind, chaotic though it continued to be even into age, enjoyed one precious attribute of chaos and continued plastic and open to impressions. None understood this quality in him. He did not wholly understand it himself. But he was ever seeking for content, and the search had thus far taken him into many fruitless places and landed him in blind alleys not a few.

These adventures, following his wife's death, had served to sour him in some directions; and the late ripening of a costive but keen intelligence did not as yet appear to his neighbours. It remained to be seen whether time would ever achieve a larger wisdom, patience, and understanding in him—whether considerable mental endowments would ultimately lift him nearer peace and content, or plunge him deeper into despondence and incorrigible gloom. He was as interesting as Nathan was attractive and Vivian, obvious.

The attitude of the brothers each to the other may be recorded in a sentence. Vivian immensely admired the innkeeper and depended no little upon his judgment in temporal affairs, but Humphrey he did not understand; Nathan patronised his eldest brother and resented Humphrey's ill-concealed dislike; while the master of Hawk House held Vivian in regard, as an honest and single-minded man, but did not share the world's esteem for Nathan. They always preserved reciprocal amenities and were accounted on friendly terms.

Upon the occasion of the eldest brother's seventieth birthday, both Vivian and Nathan stood at the outer gate of Cadworthy and welcomed Humphrey when he alighted off his semi-blind pony.

Years sat lightly on the farmer. He was a man of huge girth and height above the average. He had a red moon face, with a great fleshy jowl set in white whiskers. His brow was broad and low; his small, pig-like eyes twinkled with kindliness. It was a favourite jest with him that he weighed within a stone or two as much as his brothers put together.

They shook hands and went in, while Mark and Rupert took the ponies. The three brothers all wore Sunday black; and Vivian had a yellow tie on that made disharmony with the crimson of his great cheeks. This mountain of a man walked between the others, and Nathan came to his ear and Humphrey did not reach his shoulder. The last looked a mere shadow beside his brother.

"Seventy year to-day, and have moved two ton of sacks—a hundredweight to the sack—'twixt breaksis and noon. And never felt better than this minute," he told them.

"'Tis folly, all the same—this heavy work that you delight in," declared Nathan. "I'm sure Humphrey's of my mind. You oughtn't to do such a lot of young man's work. 'Tis foolish and quite uncalled for."

"The young men can't do it, maybe," said Humphrey. "Vivian be three men rolled into one—with the strength of three for all his threescore and ten years. But you're in the right. He's too old for these deeds. There's no call for weight-lifting and all this sweating labour, though he is such a mighty man of his hands still."

Mr. Baskerville of Cadworthy laughed.

"You be such brainy blids—the pair of you—that you haven't got no patience with me and my schoolboy fun. But, then, I never had no intellects like you—all ran into muscle and bone. And 'tis my pleasure to show the young generation what strength be. The Reverend Masterman preached from a very onusual text Sunday, 'There were giants in those days,' it was—or some such words, if my memory serves me. And Rupert and May, as were along with me, said as surely I belonged to the giant race!"

He laughed with a loud, simple explosion of ingenuous merriment, and led the way to the parlour.

There his wife, in black silk, welcomed her brothers-in-law and received their congratulations. Humphrey fumbled at a parcel which he produced from his breast. He untied the string, wound it up, and put it into his pocket.

"'Tis a book as I heard well spoken of," he said. "There's only one Book for you and me, I believe, Vivian; but an old man as I know came by this, and he said 'twas light in his darkness; so I went and bought a copy for you by way of something to mark the day. Very like 'tis all rubbish, and if so you can throw it behind the fire."

"Sermons, and good ones without a doubt," answered the farmer. "I'm very fond of sermons, and I'll lay on to 'em without delay and let you know what I think. Not that my opinion of such a thing do count; but I can tell to a hair if they'm within the meaning of Scripture, and that be all that matters. And thank you kindly, I'm sure."

"Tom Gollop's got terrible down-daunted about Mr. Masterman," said Nathan. "He says that your parson is a Radical, and will bring down dreadful things on the parish."

"Old fool," answered Humphrey. "'Tis just what we want, within the meaning of reason, to have a few of the cobwebs swept away."

"But you're a Radical too, and all for sweeping away," argued his eldest brother doubtfully.

"I'm for folly and nonsense being swept away, certainly. I'm for all this cant about humility and our duty to our superiors being swept away. I hate to see chaps pulling their hair to other men no better than themselves, and all that knock-kneed, servile rubbish."

Nathan felt this to be a challenge.

"We take off our hats to the blood in a man's veins, if 'tis blue enough—not to the man."

"And hate the man all the time, maybe—and so act a lie when we cap to him and pretend what isn't true."

"You go too far," declared Nathan.

"I say that we hate anything that's stronger than we are," continued his brother. "We hate brains that's stronger than our own, or pockets that's deeper. The only folk that we smile upon honestly be those we reckon greater fools than ourselves."

Vivian laughed loud at this.

"What a sharp tongue the man hath!" he exclaimed. "But he's wrong, for all that. For if I only smiled at them who had less brains than myself, I should go glum from morn till night."

"Don't say it, father!" cried his wife. "Too humble-minded you be, and always will be."

"'Tis only a very wise man that knows himself for a fool, all the same," declared Nathan. "As for Humphrey here, maybe 'tis because men hate brains bigger than their own, as he says, that he hasn't got a larger circle of friends himself. We all know he's the cleverest man among us."

Humphrey was about to speak again, but restrained the inclination and turned to his nieces who now appeared.

Polly lacked character and existed as the right hand of her mother; but May took physically after Vivian, and represented his first joy and the apple of his eye. She was a girl of great breadth and bulk every way. The beauty of youth still belonged to her clean white and red face, and her yellow hair was magnificent; but it required no prophet to foretell that poor May, when her present colt-like life of physical activity decreased, must swiftly grow too vast for her own comfort or the temptation of the average lover.

The youngest of the family—his Uncle Humphrey's namesake—followed his sisters. He was a brown boy, well set up and shy. Of all men he feared the elder Humphrey most. Now he shook hands evasively.

"Don't stare at the ceiling and the floor, but look me in the eyes. I hate a chap as glances athwart his nose like that," said the master of Hawk House. Whereat the lesser Humphrey scowled and flushed. Then he braced himself for the ordeal and stared steadily into his uncle's eyes.

The duel lasted full two minutes, and the boy's father laughed and applauded him. At last young Humphrey's eyes fell.

"That's better," said Humphrey the elder. "You learn to keep your gaze on the eyes of other people, my lad, if you want to know the truth about 'em. A voice will teach you a lot, but the eyes are the book for me—eh, Nathan?"

"No doubt there's a deal in that."

"And if 'twas followed, perhaps we shouldn't take our hats off to certain people quite so often as we do," added Humphrey, harking back to the old grievance. "What's the good of being respectful to those you don't respect and ought not to respect?"

"The man's hungry!" said Vivian. "'Tis starvation making him so crusty and so clever. Come now, ban't dinner ready?"

Mrs. Baskerville had departed and Polly with her.

"Hurry 'em up," cried Vivian, and his youngest son hastened to do so.

Meantime Nathan, who was also hungry, and who also desired to display agility of mind before his elder brother, resumed the argument with Humphrey and answered his last question.

"Because we've everything to gain by being civil, and nought to gain by being otherwise, as things are nowadays. Civility costs nothing and the rich expect it of the poor, and gentle expect it of simple. Why not? You can't mar them by being rude; but you can mar yourself. 'The golden rule for a pushing man is to be well thought upon.' That's what our father used to say. And it's sound sense, if you ask me. Of course, I'm not speaking for us, but for the younger generation, and if they can prosper by tact and civility to their betters, why not? We like the younger and humbler people to be civil to us; then why shouldn't they be civil to parson and squire?"

"How if parson be no good, and squire a drinker or a rascal?"

"That's neither here nor there. 'Tis their calling and rank and the weight behind 'em."

"Trash!" said Humphrey sourly. "Let every man be weighed in his own balance and show himself what he is. That's what I demand. Why should we pretend and give people the credit of what they stand for, if they don't stand for it?"

"For a lot of reasons——" began Nathan; then the boy Humphrey returned to say that dinner was ready.

They sat down, and through the steam that rose from a dish of ducks Humphrey looked at Nathan and spoke.

"What reasons?" he said. "For your credit's sake you can't leave it there."

"If you will have it, you will have it—though this isn't the time or place; but Vivian must blame you, not me. Life's largely a game of make-believe and pretence, and, right or wrong, we've got to suffer it. We should all be no better than lonely monkeys or Red Indians, if we didn't pretend a bit more than we meant and say a bit more than we'd swear to. Monkeys don't pretend, and what's the result? They've all gone under."

They wrangled until the food was on the plates, then Vivian, who had been puffing out his cheeks, rolling his eyes and showing uneasiness in other ways, displayed a sudden irritability.

"God damn it!" he cried. "Let's have no more of this! Be the meal to be sarved with no sauce but all this blasted nonsense? Get the drink, Rupert."

Nathan expressed instant regret and strove to lift the tone of the company. But the cloud did not pass so easily. Vivian himself soon forgot the incident; his children and his wife found it difficult. The young people, indeed, maintained a very dogged taciturnity and only talked among themselves in subdued tones. May and Polly waited upon the rest between the intervals of their own meal. They changed the dishes and went to and from the kitchen. Rupert and his youngest brother helped them, but Ned did not.

Some cheerfulness returned with the beer, and even Humphrey Baskerville strove to assist the general jollity; but he lacked the power. His mind was of the discomfortable sort that cannot suffer opinions, believed erroneous, to pass unchallenged. Sometimes he expressed no more than doubt; sometimes he dissented forcibly to Nathan's generalities. But after Vivian's heat at the beginning of the entertainment, his brother from 'The White Thorn' was cautious, and took care to raise no more dust of controversy.

The talk ran on the new vicar, and the master of Cadworthy spoke well of him.

"An understanding man, and for my part, though I can't pretend to like new things, yet I ban't going to quarrel for nothing. And if he likes to put the boys in surplices and make the maidens sit with the congregation, I don't see no great harm. They can sing praises to God wi' their noses to the east just so easy as they can facing north."

"Well said," declared Humphrey. "I've no patience with such fools as Gollop."

"As one outside and after a different persuasion, I can look on impartial," declared Nathan. "And I think with you both that Masterman is a useful and promising man. As for Gollop, he's the sort that can't see further than the end of the parish, and don't want to do so."

"For why? He'd tell you there's nought beyond," said Humphrey. "He foxes himself to think that the world can go on without change. He fancies that he alone of us all be a solid lighthouse, stuck up to watch the waves roll by. 'Tis a sign of a terrible weak intellect to think that everybody's changeable but ourselves, and that we only be the ones that know no shadow of changing. Yet I've seen many such men—with a cheerful conceit of themselves too."

"There's lots like that—common as blackberries in my bar," declared Nathan. "Old fellows most times, that reckon they are the only steadfast creatures left on earth, while everybody else be like feathers blown about in a gale of change."

"Every mortal man and woman be bound to change," answered his brother. "'Tis the law of nature. I'd give nought for a man of hard and fast opinions. Such stand high and dry behind the times."

But Vivian would not allow this.

"No, no, Humphrey; that won't do. If us wasn't fixed and firm, the world couldn't go on."

"Vivian means we must have a lever of solid opinions to lift our load in the world," explained Nathan. "Of course, no grown man wants to be flying to a new thing every day of his life, like the young people do."

"The lever's the Bible," declared Humphrey. "I've nought to do with any man who goes beyond that; but, outside that, there's a margin for change as the world grows, and 'tis vain to run your life away from the new facts the wise men find out."

"I don't hold with you," declared Vivian. "At such a gait us would never use the same soap or wear the same clothes two years together. If you'm going to run your life by the newspapers, you'm in the same case with the chaps and the donkey in the fable. What father believed and held to, I shall believe and hold to; for he was a better man than me and knowed a lot more."

Humphrey shook his head.

"If we all thought so, the world would stand still," he replied. "'Tis the very argument pushed in the papers to-day about teaching the young people. 'Tis said they must be taught just what their parents want for 'm to be taught. And who knows best, I should like to know—the parents and guardians, as have finished their learning years ago and be miles behind-hand in their knowledge, or the schoolmasters and mistresses as be up to date in their larning and full of the latest things put into books? There's no standing still with the world any more than there's standing still with the sun. It can't be. Law's against it."

"We must have change," admitted Nathan.

"For sure we must. 'Tis the only way to keep sweet—like water running forward. If you block it in a pond, it goes stagnant; and if you block your brains, they rot."

"Then let us leave it at that," said Vivian's wife. "And now, if you men have done your drink, you can go off and smoke while we tidy up."

But there was yet a duty to perform, and Nathan rose and whispered in Humphrey's ear.

"I think the time's come for drinking his health. It must be done. Will you propose it?"

His brother answered aloud.

"Nathan wants for me to propose your good health, Vivian. But I ban't going to. That sort of thing isn't in my line. I wish you nought but well, and there's an end on't."

"Then I'll say a word," declared the innkeeper, returning to his place. "Fill your glasses—just a drop more, Hester, you must drink—isn't it to your own husband? And I say here, in this family party, that 'tis a proud and a happy thing to have for the head of the family such a man as our brother—your husband, Hester; and your father, you boys and girls. Long may he be spared to stand up among us and set us a good example of what's brave and comely in man; long may he be spared, I say, and from my heart I bless him for a good brother and husband and father, and wish him many happy returns of his birthday. My love and honour to you, Vivian!"

They all rose and spoke after the custom of the clan.

"My love and honour to you, brother," said Humphrey.

"My love and honour to you, Vivian Baskerville," said his wife.

"Love and honour to you, father," murmured the boys and girls.

And Mark said, "Love and honour to you, uncle."

There was a gulching of liquor in the silence that followed, and Mr. Baskerville's little eyes twinkled.

"You silly folk!" he said. "God knows there's small need of this. But thank you all—wife, children, brothers, and nephew. I be getting up home to my tether's end now, and can't look with certainty for over and above another ten birthdays or thereabouts; but such as come we'll keep together, if it pleases you. And if you be drinking, then here's to you all at a breath—to you all, not forgetting my son Nathan that's sailing on the sea."

"I'll write to Nat and tell him every blessed word of it, and what we've had for dinner and all," said May.

The company grew hilarious and Nathan, leaving them, went to the trap that had brought him from Shaugh Prior and returned with a bottle.

"'Tis a pretty cordial," he said, "and a thimbleful all round will steady what's gone and warm our hearts. Not but what they'm warm enough already."

The liquor was broached and all drank but Humphrey.

"Enough's as good as a feast. And you can saddle my pony, Mark. I'm going home now. I'm glad to have been here to-day; but I'm going now."

They pressed him to remain, but he judged the invitation to be half-hearted. However, he was tranquil and amiable at leave-taking. To Rupert he even extended an invitation.

Rupert was the only one of his brother's family for whom he even pretended regard.

"You can come and see me when you've got the time," he said. "I'll go for a walk along with you and hear what you have to say."

Then he rode off, but Mark stopped and finished the day with his cousins.

He talked to Rupert and, with secret excitement, heard the opinions of May and Polly on the subject of Cora Lintern.

A very glowing and genial atmosphere settled over Cadworthy after the departure of Humphrey Baskerville. Even the nervous Mark consented to sing a song or two. The musical traditions of the Baskervilles had reawakened in him, and on rare occasions he favoured his friends with old ballads. But in church he never sang, and often only went there to ring the tenor bell.

Mr. Nathan also rendered certain comic songs, and May played the aged piano. Then there was dancing and dust and noise, and presently the meal called 'high tea.' Hester Baskerville protested at last against her brother-in-law's absurdities, for everybody began to roll about and ache with laughter; but he challenged her criticism.

"Clever though you all are," he said, "no woman that ever I met was clever enough to play the fool. 'Tis only the male creature can accomplish that."

"No woman ever wanted to, I should hope," she answered; and he retorted triumphantly—

"There you are! There's my argument in a nutshell!"

She was puzzled.

"What d'you mean by that?" she asked, and, from the standpoint of his nimble wit, he roared.

"There you are again!" he said. "I can't explain; but the lack in you be summed in the question."

"You'm a hopeless case," she said. "We all laugh at you, and yet couldn't for the life of us tell what on earth 'tis we be laughing at."

"That's the very highest art and practice of playing the fool!" he told them.

CHAPTER VI

Where Wigmore Down descends in mighty shoulders clad with oak, there meet the rivers Plym and Mew, after their diverse journeyings on Dartmoor. The first roars wild and broken from its cradle aloft on the midmost waste, and falls with thunder under Cadworthy and beneath the Dewerstone; the other, as becomes a stream that has run through peaceful valleys by bridges and the hamlets of men, shall be found to wander with more gentle current before she passes into the throbbing bosom of her sister. Above them, on a day in early summer, the hill ascended washed with light, spread hugely for the pomp of the leaf.

From Plym beneath, flashing arrowy under their lowermost branches, to the granite tonsure of the hill above, ten thousand trees ascended in a shining raiment of all greens—a garment that fitted close to the contours of each winding ridge, sharp cleeve, and uplifted knoll of the elevation that they covered. Lustrous and shimmering, this forest garb exhibited every vernal tint that nature knows, for upon a prevalent, triumphant fabric of golden-green were cast particular jewels and patterns; against the oaken undertones, where they spread a dappled verdure of amber and carmine, there sprang the tardy ash, shone the rowan's brightness, sparkled the whitethorn at river's brink, and rose the emerald pavilions of the larch. Beeches thrust their diaphanous foliage in veils athwart the shadows; here a patchwork of blue firs added new harmonies to the hill; here the glittering birch reflected light from every tiny leaf; and here the holly's sobriety was broken by inflorescence and infant foliage, young and bright.

The forest spread its new-born leaves under a still, grey evening, upon which, suddenly, the sun thrust through before it sank. Shafts of light, falling from west to east upon the planes of the woods, struck out a path of sudden glory along the pine-tops and thrust down in rain of red gold even to the river's face; while on Dewerstone's self, where it towered above the trees and broke the green with grey, this gracious light briefly brooded and flashed genial into dark crevices and hidden nests of birds.

The great rock falls by abrupt acclivity to the water; it towers with pinnacle and peak aloft. Planted in the side of the forest it stands veined, scarred; it is fretted with many colours, cut and torn into all manner of fantastic shapes by work of roots and rain, by centuries of storm and the chisel of the lightning. Bedded here, with ivy on its front, the smile of evening for a crown, and the forest like a green sea breaking in foam of leaves around it, the Water Stone stood. Night was already come upon its eaves and cornices; from its feet ascended musical thunder of Plym in a riot of rocks; and aloft, clashing, echoing and re-echoing from scarp and precipice, there rang the cheerful chiming music of unnumbered jackdaws, who made these crags their home.

Mark Baskerville, descending into the valley from Shaugh, beheld this scene with understanding. He had been well educated; he was sentimental; he regarded wild Nature in a manner rare amid those born and bred upon her bosom. Beauty did not find him indifferent; old legends gave him joy. He knew the folk-tales of the land and dwelt upon them still with pleasure—an instinct surviving from boyhood, and deliberately suffered to survive. He loved the emotion of awe and cultivated it; he led a life from choice much secluded; he had walked hitherto blind, in so far as women were concerned; but now a woman had entered his life, and Nature shone glorified throughout by the experience.

Mark was in love with Cora Lintern; yet this prime fact did not lessen his regard for the earth and the old stories concerning it. He found the things that were good aforetime still good, but changed. His emotions were all sharpened and intensified. His strength was stronger; his weakness was weaker than of yore. She was never out of his thoughts; she made the sunlight warmer, the bird's song sweeter, the night more wonderful. He woke and found himself brave enough to approach her in the deep, small hours of morning; but with dawn came fear, and with day his courage melted. By night also he made rhymes that seemed beautiful to him and brought moisture to his eyes; but when the sun came and he repeated his stumbling periods, he blushed at them and banished them.

She was friendly and not averse; but she was clever, and had many friends among young men. Nathan Baskerville rejoiced in her, and often foretold a notable match for Cora. What Mark could offer seemed very little to Mark himself. His father, indeed, was reputed rich; but life at Hawk House revealed no sign of it. They lived hard, and Humphrey Baskerville affected a frugality that would have been unusual in the homes of humbler people.

Humphrey had often told his son that he did not know how to spend money; and as for Mark, until the present, he had shared his father's indifference and been well content. But he felt that Cora might be fond of money; and he was glad sometimes that his father spent so little; because, if all went well, there must surely come a time when he would be able to rejoice Cora with great riches. The obstacle, however, he felt to be himself. His distrust of himself was morbid; the folk said that he was frightened of his own voice, and only spoke through the tenor bell of St. Edward's.

Now he descended into the shadows of the valley and moved along the brink of Plym, seeking for certain young wood, ripe for cutting. Presently Mark found what he sought, but made no immediate effort to begin work. He flung down a frail which contained a bill-hook and saw. Then he sat upon a rock overhanging the river and buried himself in his own thoughts.

A path wound beside the stream, and along it sauntered suddenly the maiden of this man's dream. She looked fair enough and moved in deep apparent unconsciousness of any human presence.

But her ignorance was simulated. She had seen young Baskerville pass over the hill; she had known his destination, and by a detour she had entered the valley from below.

Now she started and exhibited astonishment.

"Mark! Whoever would have thought——! What be you doing here all alone like this—and you not a fisherman?"

He stammered, and grew pale.

"Fancy meeting; and I might ask what brought you, Cora?"

"Oh, just a silly fondness for the river and the trees and my own thoughts. I like being about among the wild things, though I dare say you won't believe it."

"Of course, I'll believe it—gladly too. Don't I like being about among 'em better than anything else? I'm very pleased to meet you, I'm sure. There's no lovelier bit of the river than here."

"Dewerstone do look fine to-night," she said, glancing up at the crags above them.

"It does, then. The Water Stone I always call it, since I read in a book that that was what it meant. 'Tis the great stone by the water, you see. Have you ever heard tell of the Black Hunter, Cora? But perhaps you don't hold with such old wife's tales?"

She put him at his ease and assured him that she loved ancient fables and liked to go on believing them, despite her better knowledge.

"Just the same as me!" he cried eagerly. "The very thing I do. How wonderful you should feel the same! I know 'tis rubbish, yet I let it go sadly. I'd believe in the pixies, if I could!"

"Who was the Black Hunter, if you don't mind telling me?" she asked. "I'll sit here a bit afore I go on, if it won't be to hinder you."

"Proud I am, I'm sure," he said. "And as for him, the Black Hunter, that's no more than another name for the Devil himself. 'Twas thought that he'd come here by night with his great, bellowing, red-eyed dogs, and go forth to hunt souls. A coal-black horse he rode; but sometimes he'd set out afoot, for 'tis well remembered how once in the deep snow, on a winter morn, human footprints, along with hoofmarks, were traced to the top of the hill, but not down again!"

"The devil flew away with somebody?"

"So the old story says. But I like the thought of the little Heath Hounds better. For they hunt and harry old Nick's self. They are the spirits of the young children who die before they are baptised; and the legend hath it that they win to heaven soon or late by hunting the Prince of Darkness. 'Tis the children that we bury with maimed rites upon 'Chrisomers' Hill' in the churchyard. They put that poor woman who killed herself in the same place, because the old parson wouldn't read 'sure and certain hope' over her."

But Cora was not interested in his conversation, though she pretended to be. She endeavoured to turn speech into a more personal road.

"What have you come here for? I hadn't any idea you ever took walks alone."

"I take hundreds—terrible poor hand at neighbouring with people, I am—like my father. But I'm here to work—getting handles for tools. There's no wood for light tools like alder. You know the old rhyme—

'When aller's leaf is so big as a penny,
The stick will wear so tough as any.'

That's true enough, for I've proved it."

"Set to work and I'll watch you, if I may."

"Proud, I'm sure. And I'll see you home after. But there's no haste. I was thinking that bare, dark corner in the garden at Undershaugh might do very nice for ferns—if you'd care——?"

"The very thing! How kind to think of it. I love the garden and the flowers. But none else cares about them. D'you think you could get me one of they king ferns? But I suppose that would be too much to ask."

"I'll get you more than one."

"I'll try to plant 'em then, but I'm not very clever."

"I'll come and make a bit of a rockery myself, if—if you like."

"'Like!" I should love it. But 'tis very good of you to bother about a stupid girl."

"Don't you say that. Far, far from stupid. Never was a cleverer girl, I'm sure."

She shook her head and talked about the ferns. Then she became personal.

"I've always felt somehow with you; but I suppose it ban't maidenly to say such things—but I've always felt as you understood me, Mark."

"Ah!" he said. "And as for me, I've felt—God, He knows what I've felt."

The man broke off, and she smiled at him and dropped her eyes. She knew the thing that shared his heart with her, and now spoke of it.

"And through you I've got to love tenor bell almost as much as you do. Of a Sunday the day isn't complete till I've heard the beautiful note of your bell and thought of you at the rope. I always somehow think of you when I hear that bell; and I think of the bell when I see you! Ban't that strange?"

"'Tis your wonderful quick mind, and you couldn't say anything to please me better."

"I wanted to ask you about the bells. I'm so ignorant; but I thought, if 'twasn't silly of me, I'd ask you about 'em. I suppose they'm awful difficult to ring?"

"Not a bit. Only wants steady practice. The whole business is little understood, but 'tis simple enough. I've gone into it all from the beginning, and I'm glad—very glad—you care about it. The first thing is for a ring of bells to be in harmony with itself, and founders ought to be free to make 'em so. The bells are never better than when they are broken out of the moulds, and every touch of the lathe, or chip of the chisel, is music lost. The thickness of the sound-bow should be one-thirteenth of the diameter, you must know; but modern bells are made for cheapness. Long in the waist and high in the shoulder they should be for true fineness of sound; but they cast 'em with short waists and flat shoulders now. 'Tis easier to hang and ring them so; but they don't give the same music. My tenor is a wonderful good bell—a maiden bell, as we say—one cast true, that has never had a chip at the sound-bow. 'I call the quick to church and dead to grave,' is her motto. A Pennington bell she is, and no bell-founder ever cast a better. Every year makes her sweeter, for there's nothing improves bell-metal like time."

"I suppose it wouldn't be possible for me actually to see the bells?"

"It can be done and shall be," he promised. Then he went off again.

"I've been in nearly every bell-cot and bell-turret in Devonshire, one time and another, and I've took a hand in change-ringing far and wide; but our ring of six, for its size and weight, can't be beat in the county, and there's no sweeter tenor that I've heard than mine. And I'm very hopeful that Mr. Masterman will take my advice and have our wheels and gear looked to, and the bell-chamber cleaned out. 'Tis the home of birds, and the nest litter lies feet deep up there. The ladder's all rotten too. We ought to have stays and slides; and our ropes are a bit too heavy, and lack tuftings for the sally. I'm hopeful he'll have a care for these things."

He prattled on, for it was his subject and always loosed his tongue. She was bored to death, but from time to time, when he feared that he wearied her, she assured him that her interest did not wane and was only less than his own. He showed unusual excitement at this meeting, was lifted out of himself, and talked until grey gloaming sank over the valley and the jackdaws were silent. Then Cora started up and declared that she must return home quickly.

"Listening to you has made me forget all about the time and everything," she said. "They'll wonder whatever has befallen me."

"I'll see you home," he answered. "'Tis my fault you'll be late, and I must take the blame."

"And I've kept you from your work, I'm afraid."

"That's no matter at all. To-morrow will do just as well for the alder."

He rose and walked beside her. She asked him to help her at one place in the wood, and her cool, firm hand thrilled him. Once or twice he thought to take this noble opportunity and utter the thing in his heart; but he could not bring himself to do it. Then, at her gate, he left her, and they exchanged many assurances of mutual thanks and obligation. He promised to bring the ferns in three days' time, and undertook to spend an evening with the Linterns, build the rockery, and stay to supper with the family afterwards.

He walked home treading on air, with his mind full of hope and happiness. Cora had never been so close as on this day; she had never vouchsafed such an intimate glimpse of her beautiful spirit before. Each word, each look seemed to bring her nearer; and yet, when he reflected on his own imperfections, a wave of doubt swept coldly over him. He supped in silence, but, after the meal, he confessed the thoughts in his mind.

"Never broke a twig this evening," he said. "Was just going to begin, when who should come along but Cora Lintern."

"Has she forgiven parson for turning her out of the choir? Can't practise that side-glance at the men no more now."

"She's not that sort, father."

"Not with a face like hers? That girl would rather go hungry than without admiration and flattering. A little peacock, and so vain as one."

"You're wrong there. I'll swear it. She's very different to what you reckon. Why, this very evening, there she was under the Water Stone all alone—walking along by herself just for love of the place. Often goes there, she tells me."

"Very surprised to find you there—eh?"

"That she was. And somehow I got talking—such a silent man as me most times. But I found myself chattering about the bells and one thing and another. We've got a lot more in common than you might think."

Mr. Baskerville smoked and looked into the fire.

"Well, don't be in a hurry. I'm not against marriage for the young men. But bide your time, till you've got more understanding of women."

"I'll never find another like her. I'm sure she'd please you, father."

"You'll be rich in a small way, as the world goes, presently. Remember, she knows that as well as you do."

"She never speaks of money. Just so simple and easily pleased as I am myself, for that matter. She loves natural things—just the things you care about yourself."

"And very much interested in tenor bell, no doubt?"

"How did you guess that? But 'tis perfectly true. She is; and she said a very kind thing that was very hopeful to me to hear. She said that the bell always put her in mind of me, and I always put her in mind of the bell."

"I wonder! And did you tell her what was writ on the bell?"

"Yes, I did, father."

"And d'you know what she thought?"

Mark shook his head.

"She thought that the sooner it called you and her to church together, and the sooner it called me to my grave, the pleasanter life would look for her hard eyes."

"Father! 'Tis cruel and unjust to say such things."

"Haven't I seen her there o' Sundays ever since she growed up? There's nought tells you more about people than their ways in church. As bright as a bee and smart and shining; but hard—hard as the nether millstone, that woman's heart. Have a care of her; that's all I'll say to you."

"I hope to God you'll know her better some day, father."

"And I hope you will, my lad; and I'll use your strong words too, and hope to God you'll know her better afore 'tis too late."

"This is cruel, and I'm bitter sorry to hear you say it," answered the young man, rising. Then he went out and left his father alone.

Elsewhere Phyllis Lintern had eagerly inquired of Cora as to the interview with the bellringer.

The girls shared many secrets and were close friends. They knew unconsciously that their brother was more to the mother than were they. Heathman adored Mrs. Lintern and never wearied of showing it; but for his sisters he cared little, and they felt no interest in him.

Now Phyllis sympathised with Cora's ambitions and romances.

"How was it?" she asked. "I warrant you brought him to the scratch!"

"'Tis all right," declared her sister. "'Tis so good as done. The word was on his tongue coming up-along in the dimpsy; but it stuck in his throat. I know the signs well enough. However, 'twill slip out pretty soon, I reckon. He's a good sort, though fidgety, but he's gotten lovely eyes. I'll wake him up and smarten him up, too—presently."

CHAPTER VII

When man builds a house on Dartmoor, he plants trees to protect it. Sometimes they perish; sometimes they endure to shield his dwelling from the riotous and seldom-sleeping winds. Round the abode of Humphrey Baskerville stood beech and pine. A solid old house lurked beneath, like a bear in its grove. People likened its face to the master's—the grey, worn, tar-pitched roof to his hair, and the small windows on either side of the door to his eyes. A few apple trees were in the garden, and currant and gooseberry bushes prospered indifferent well beneath them. Rhubarb and a row of elders also flourished here. The latter were permitted to exist for their fruit, and of the berries Mrs. Susan Hacker, Humphrey's widowed housekeeper, made medicinal preparations supposed to possess value.

Hawk House lay under a tor, and behind it the land towered to a stony waste that culminated in wild masses of piled granite, where the rowan grew and the vixen laid her cubs. From this spot one might take a bird's-eye survey of Humphrey Baskerville's domain. Gold lichens had fastened on the roof, and the folk conceited that since there was no more room in the old man's house for his money, it began to ooze out through the tiles.

Humphrey himself now sat on a favourite stone aloft and surveyed his possessions and the scene around them. It was his custom in fair weather to spend many hours sequestered upon the tor. Dwarf oaks grew in the clitters, and he marked the passage of the time by their activity, by the coming of migrant birds, by the appearance of the infant foxes and by other natural signs and tokens. Beneath Hawk House there subtended a great furze-clad space flanked with woods. The Rut, as it was called, fell away to farms and fertile fields, and terminated in a glen through which the little Torry river passed upon her way to Plym. Cann Wood fringed the neighbouring heights, and far away to the south Laira's lake extended and Plymouth appeared—faint, grey, glittering under a gauze of smoke.

The tor itself was loved by hawks and stoats, crows and foxes. Not a few people, familiar with the fact that Humphrey here took his solitary walks and kept long vigils, would affirm that he held a sort of converse with these predatory things and learned from them their winged and four-footed cunning. His sympathy, indeed, was with fox and hawk rather than with hunter and hound. He admitted it, but in no sense of companionship with craft did he interest himself in the wild creatures. He made no fatuous imputation of cruelty to the hawk, or cunning to the fox. His bent of mind, none the less, inclined him to admire their singlehanded fight for life against long odds; and thus he, too, fell into fallacy; but his opinion took a practical turn and was not swiftly shattered, as such emotions are apt to be, when the pitied outlaw offers to the sentimental spectator a personal taste of his quality.

If a hawk stooped above his chickens, he felt a sort of contempt for the screaming, flying fowls—let the hawk help itself if it could—and did not run for his gun. Indeed, he had no gun. As men said of this or that obstinate ancient that he had never travelled in a train, so they affirmed, concerning Humphrey Baskerville, that he had never in his life fired a gun.

He sat and smoked a wooden pipe and reflected on the puzzles of his days. He knew that he was held in little esteem, but that had never troubled him. His inquiring spirit rose above his fellow-creatures; and he prided himself upon the fact, and did not see that just in this particular of a flight too lofty did he fail of the landmarks and sure ground he sought.

A discontent, in substance very distinguished and noble, imbued his consciousness. He was still seeking solace out of life and a way that should lead to rest. But he could not find it. He was in arms on the wrong road. He missed the fundamental fact that from humanity and service arise not only the first duties of life, but also the highest rewards that life can offer. He had little desire towards his fellow-creatures. His mind appeared to magnify their deficiencies and weakness. He was ungenerous in his interpretation of motives. Mankind awoke his highest impatience. He sneered at his own shortcomings daily, and had no more mercy for the manifold disabilities of human nature in general. In the light of his religion and his learning, he conceived that man should be by many degrees a nobler and a wiser thing than he found him; and this conclusion awoke impatience and a fiery aversion. He groped therefore in a blind alley, for as yet service of man had not brought its revelation to his spirit, or opened the portals of content. He failed to perceive that the man who lives rationally for men, with all thereby involved in his duty to himself, is justifying his own existence to the limit of human capacity.

Instead, he fulfilled obligations to his particular God with all his might, and supposed this rule of conduct embraced every necessity. He despised his neighbour, but he despised himself also. Thus he was logical, but such a rule of conduct left him lonely. Hence it came about that darkness clothed him like a garment, and that his kind shunned him, and cared not to consider him.

He sat silent and motionless. His gift of stillness had often won some little intimate glimpse of Nature, and it did so now. A fox went by him at close quarters. It passed absorbed in its own affairs, incautious and without fear. Then suddenly it saw him, braced its muscles and slipped away like a streak of cinnamon light through the stones.

It made for the dwarf oaks beneath the head of the tor, and the watcher saw its red stern rise and its white-tipped brush jerk this way and that as it leapt from boulder to boulder. A big and powerful fox—so Humphrey perceived; one that had doubtless stood before hounds in his time, and would again.

Arrived at the confines of the wood, the brute hurried himself no more; but rested awhile and, with a sort of highwayman insolence, surveyed the object of alarm. Then it disappeared, and the man smiled to himself and was glad that he had seen this particular neighbour.

At the poultry-house far below, moved Mrs. Hacker. Viewed from this elevation she presented nothing but a sun-bonnet and a great white square of apron. She wore black, and her bust disappeared seen thus far away, though her capacious person might be noted at a mile. Susan Hacker was florid, taciturn, and staunch to her master. If she had a hero, it was Mr. Baskerville; and if she had an antipathy, Miss Eliza Gollop stood for that repugnance.

Of Susan it might be said that she was honest and not honest. In her case, though, she would have scorned to take a crust; she listened at doors. To steal a spoon was beyond her power; but to steal information not intended for her ears did not outrage her moral sense. Her rare triumphs were concerned with Humphrey's ragged wardrobe; and when she could prevail with him to buy a new suit of clothes, or burn an old one, she felt the day had justified itself.

Now, through the clitters beneath him, there ascended a man, and Humphrey prepared to meet his nephew. He had marked Rupert speak with Mrs. Hacker and seen her point to the tor. It pleased the uncle that this youth should sometimes call unasked upon him, for he rated Rupert as the sanest and usefulest of his kindred. In a sense Rupert pleased Humphrey better than his own son did. A vague instinct to poetry and sentiment and things of abstract beauty, which belonged as an ingredient to Mark's character, found no echo in his father's breast.

"I be come to eat my dinner along with you and fetch a message for Mark," began the young man. "Mr. Masterman's meeting, to tell everybody about the play, will be held in the parish room early next month, and parson specially wants you and Mark to be there. There's an idea of reviving some old-fangled customs. I dare say 'tis a very good idea, and there will be plenty to lend a hand; but I doubt whether Mark will dress up and spout poetry for him—any more than I would."

"He means to perform 'St. George' next Christmas and invite the countryside," said Mr. Baskerville. "Well, one man's meat is another man's poison. He's young and energetic. He'll carry it through somehow with such material as lies about him. The maidens will all want to be in it, no doubt."

"I think 'tis foolery, uncle."

"You think wrong, then. Ban't always foolery to hark back to old ways. He's got his ideas for waking the people up. You and me might say, 'don't wake 'em up'; but 'tisn't our business. It is his business, as a minister, to open their eyes and polish their senses. So let him try with childish things first—not that he'll succeed, for he won't."

"Then what's the good of trying?"

"The man must earn his money."

"Fancy coming to a dead-alive hole like this! Why, even Jack Head from Trowlesworthy—him as works for Mr. Luscombe—even he laughs at Shaugh."

"He's a rare Radical, is Head. 'Tis the likes of him the upper people don't want to teach to read or to think—for fear of pickling a rod for themselves. But Head will be thinking. He's made so. I like him."

"He laughed at me for one," said Rupert; "and though I laughed back, I smarted under his tongue. He says for a young and strapping chap like me to stop at Cadworthy doing labourer's work for my father, be a poor-spirited and even a shameful thing. He says I ought to blush to follow a plough or move muck, with the learning I've learnt. Of course, 'tis a small, mean life, in a manner of speaking, for a man of energy as loves work like I do."

Mr. Baskerville scratched his head with the mouthpiece of his pipe, and surveyed Rupert for some time without speaking.

Then he rose, sniffed the air, and buttoned up his coat.

"We'll walk a bit and I'll show you something," he said.

They set out over Shaugh Moor and Rupert proceeded.

"I do feel rather down on my luck, somehow—especially about Milly Luscombe. It don't seem right or fair exactly—as if Providence wasn't on my side."

"Don't bleat that nonsensical stuff," said his uncle. "You're the sort that cry out to Providence if you fall into a bed of nettles—instead of getting up quick and looking for a dock-leaf. Time to cry to Providence when you're in a fix you can't get out of single-handed. If you begin at your time of life, and all about nothing too, belike 'twill come to be like the cry of 'Wolf, wolf!' and then, when you really do get into trouble and holloa out, Providence won't heed."

"Milly Luscombe's not a small thing, anyway. How can I go on digging and delving while father withstands me and won't hear a word about her?"

"She's too good for you."

"I know it; but she don't think so, thank the Lord."

"Your father's a man that moves in a groove. Maybe you go safer that way; but not further. The beaten track be his motto. He married late in life, and it worked very well; so it follows to his narrow mind that late in life is the right and only time to marry."

"I wish you'd tell him that you hold with Milly and think a lot of her. Father has a great opinion of your cleverness, I'm sure."

"Not he! 'Tis your uncle Nathan that he sets store by. Quite natural that he should. He's a much cleverer man than me, and knows a lot more about human nature. See how well all folk speak of him. Can't you get him your side? Your father would soon give ear to you if Uncle Nathan approved."

"'Tis an idea. And Uncle Nat certainly be kind always. I might try and get him to do something. He's very friendly with Mr. Saul Luscombe, Milly's uncle."

"How does Luscombe view it?"

"He'll be glad to have Milly off his hands."

"More fool him then. For there's no more understanding girl about."

"So Jack Head says. Ban't often he's got a good word for anybody; but he's told me, in so many words, that Milly be bang out of the common. He said it because his savage opinions never fluster her."

They stood on Hawk Tor, and beneath them stretched, first, the carpet of the heath. Then the ground fell into a valley, where water meadows spread about a stream, and beyond, by woods and homesteads, the earth ascended again to Shaugh Prior. The village, perched upon the apex of the hill, twinkled like a jewel. Glitter of whitewash and rosy-wash shone under the grey roofs; sunlight and foliage sparkled and intermingled round the church tower; light roamed upon the hills, revealing and obscuring detail in its passage. To the far west, above deep valleys, the world appeared again; but now it had receded and faded and merged in tender blue to the horizon. Earth spread before the men in three huge and simple planes: of heath and stone sloping from north to south; of hillside and village and hamlet perched upon their proper crest; of the dim, dreaming distance swept with the haze of summer and rising to sky-line.

"That's not small—that's big," said Humphrey Baskerville. "Plenty of room here for the best or worse that one boy can do."

But Rupert doubted.

"Think of the world out of sight, uncle. This bit spread here be little more than a picture in its frame."

"Granted; but the frame's wide enough to cage all that your wits will ever work. You can run here and wear your fingers to the bone without bruising yourself against any bars. Go down in the churchyard and take a look at the Baskerville slates—fifty of 'em if there's one: your grandfather, your great-uncle, the musicker, and all the rest. And every man and woman of the lot lived and died, and suffered and sweated, and did good or evil within this picture-frame."

"All save the richest—him that went to foreign parts and made a fortune and sent back tons of money to father and you and Uncle Nat."

Humphrey laughed.

"Thou hast me there!" he said. "But don't be discontented. Bide a bit and see how the wind blows. I'm not against a man following the spirit that calls him; but wait and find out whether 'tis a true voice or only a lying echo. What does Milly say?"

"'Tis Milly have put the thought into me, for that matter. She's terrible large in her opinions. She holds that father haven't got no right to refuse to let us be tokened. She'd come and talk to him, if I'd let her. A regular fear-nothing, she is."

"What would she have you do?"

"Gird up and be off. She comes of a very wandering family, and, of course, one must allow for that. I've nought to say against it. But they can't bide in one spot long. Something calls 'em to be roaming."

"The tribe of Esau."

They talked on, and Rupert found himself the better for some caustic but sane counsel.

"'Tis no good asking impossibilities from you, and I'm the last to do it," said Humphrey. "There are some things we can't escape from, and our characters are one of them. There's no more sense in trying to run from your character than in trying to run from your shadow. Too often your character is your shadow, come to think on it; and cruel black at that. But don't be impatient. Wait and watch yourself as well as other people. If these thoughts have been put in your head by the girl, they may not be natural to you, and they may not be digested by you. See how your own character takes 'em. I'm not against courting, mind, nor against early marriages; and if this woman be made of the stuff to mix well and close with your own character, then marry her and defy the devil and all his angels to harm you. To take such a woman is the best day's work that even the hardest working man can do in this world. But meantime don't whine, but go ahead and gather wisdom and learn a little about the things that happen outside the picture-frame—as I do."

They turned presently and went back to dinner.

Rupert praised his uncle, and declared that life looked the easier for his advice.

"'Tis no good being called 'The Hawk' if you can't sharpen your wits as well as your claws," said the old man. "Yes—you're astonished—but I know what they call me well enough."

"I knocked a chap down last Sunday on Cadworthy bridge for saying it," declared Rupert.

"Very thoughtful and very proper to stand up for your family; but I'm not hurt. Maybe there's truth in it. I've no quarrel with the hawks—or the herons either—for all they do eat the trout. By all accounts there was birds to eat trout afore there was men to eat 'em. We humans have invented a saying that possession is nine points of the law; but we never thought much of that when it comed to knocking our weaker neighbours on the head—whether they be birds or men."

"You've made me a lot more contented with the outlook, anyway."

"I'm glad to hear it. Content's the one thing I'd wish you—and wish myself. I can't see the way very clear yet. Let me know if ever you come by it."

"You! Why, you'm the most contented of any of us."

"Come and eat, and don't talk of what you know nought," said Mr. Baskerville.

They went through the back yard of the homestead presently, where a hot, distinctive odour of pigs saturated the air. As they passed by, some young, very dirty, pink porkers grunted with fat, amiable voices and cuddled to their lean mother, where she lay in a lair of ordure.

"That's content," explained Humphrey; "it belongs to brainless things, and only to them. I haven't found it among men and women yet, and I never count to. Rainbow gold in this world. Yet, don't mistake me, I'm seeking after it still."

"Why seek for it, if there's no such thing, uncle?"

"Well may you ask that. But the answer's easy. Because 'tis part of my character to seek for it, Rupert. Character be stronger than reason's self, if you can understand that. I seek because I'm driven."

"You might find it after all, uncle. There must be such a thing—else there'd be no word for it."

The older sighed.

"A young and hopeful fashion of thought," he said. "But you're out there. Men have made up words for many a fine, fancied thing their hearts long for; but the word is all—stillborn out of poor human hope."

He brooded deep into his own soul upon this thought and spoke little more that day. But Mark was waiting for his dinner when they returned, and he and Rupert found themes in common to occupy them through the meal.

The great project of the new vicar chiefly supplied conversation. Rupert felt indifferent, but Mark was much interested.

"I'm very willing to lend a hand all I can, and I expect the parish will support it," he said. "But as for play-acting myself, and taking a part, I wouldn't for all the world. It beats me how anybody can get up on a platform and speak a speech afore his fellow-creatures assembled."

"The girls will like it," foretold Rupert.

"Cora Lintern is to play a part," declared Mark; "and no doubt she'll do it amazing well."

Rupert was up in arms at once.

"I should think they'll ask Milly Luscombe too. She's got more wits than any of 'em."

"She may have as much as Cora, but not more, I can assure you of that," answered Mark firmly.

He rarely contradicted a statement or opposed an assertion; but upon this great subject his courage was colossal.

Mr. Masterman and his sister made more friends than enemies. The man's good-nature and energy attracted his parishioners; while Miss Masterman, though not genial, was sincere. A certain number followed the party of Mr. Gollop and Eliza, yet, as time passed, it diminished. The surplices arrived; the girls were turned out of the choir; but the heavens did not fall. Even the Nonconformists of Shaugh Prior regarded the young vicar with friendliness, and when he called a meeting at the parish room, Mr. Nathan Baskerville and others who stood for dissent, attended it in an amiable spirit.

Rumours as to the nature of the proposition had leaked out, and they were vague; but a very general interest had been excited, and when the evening came the vicar, his churchwardens, and friends, found a considerable company assembled.

There were present Vivian and Nathan Baskerville, with most of the former's family. Mrs. Lintern and her two daughters from Undershaugh also came; while Heathman Lintern, Ned Baskerville, and other young men stood in a group at the rear of the company. From Trowlesworthy arrived the warrener, Saul Luscombe, his niece, Milly, and his man, Jack Head. People looked uneasy at sight of the last, for he was a revolutionary and firebrand. The folk suspected that he held socialistic views, and were certain that he worked harm on the morals of younger people. Susan Hacker, at her master's wish, attended the meeting and sat impassive among friends. Thomas Gollop and Joe Voysey, the vicarage gardener, sat together; but Miss Gollop was not present, because her services were occupied with the newly-born.

A buzz and babel filled the chamber and the heat increased. Jack Head opened a window. Whereupon Mr. Gollop rose and shut it again. The action typified that eternal battle of principle which waged between them. But Vivian Baskerville was on the side of fresh air.

"Let be!" he shouted. "Us don't want to be roasted alive, Thomas!"

So the window was opened once more, and Head triumphed.

Dennis Masterman swiftly explained his desire and invited the parish to support him in reviving an ancient and obsolete ceremonial.

"The oldest men among you must remember the days of the Christmas mummers," he said. "I've heard all about them from eye-witnesses, and it strikes me that to get up the famous play of 'St. George,' with the quaint old-world dialogue, would give us all something to do this winter, and be very interesting and instructive, and capital fun. There are plenty among you who could act the parts splendidly, and as the original version is rather short and barren, I should have some choruses written in, and go through it and polish it up, and perhaps even add a character or two. In the old days it was all done by the lads, but why not have some lasses in it as well? However, these are minor points to be decided later. Would you like the play? that's the first question. It is a revival of an ancient custom. It will interest a great many people outside our parish; and if it is to be done at all, it must be done really well. Probably some will be for it and some against. For my part, I only want to please the greater number. Those who are for it had better elect a spokesman, and let him say a word first; then we'll hear those who are against."

The people listened quietly; then they bent this way and that, and discussed the suggestion. Some rose and approached Vivian Baskerville, where he sat beside his brother. After some minutes of buzzing conversation, during which Vivian shook his head vigorously, and Nathan as vigorously nodded, the latter rose with reluctance, and the folk stamped their feet.

"'Tis only because of my brother's modest nature that I get up," he explained. "As a Church of England man and a leader among us, they very properly wanted for him to speak. But he won't do it, and no more will young Farmer Waite, and no more will Mr. Luscombe of Trowlesworthy; so I'll voice 'em to the best of my power. Though I'm of t'other branch of the Christian Church, yet my friends will bear me out that I've nothing but kind feeling and regard for all of them, and in such a pleasant matter as this I shall do all in my power to help your reverence, as we all shall. For I do think there's none but will make the mummers welcome again, and lend a hand to lift the fun into a great success. Me and my brother and Luscombe, and Waite and Gollop, and Joe Voysey, and a good few more, can well remember the old mumming days; and we'll all do our best to rub up our memories. So what we all say is, 'Go ahead, Mr. Masterman, and good luck to it!'"

Applause greeted Nathan. The folk were filled with admiration at his ready turn of speech. He sat down again between Mrs. Lintern and Cora. Everybody clapped their hands.

Then came a hiss from the corner where Jack Head stood.

"A dissentient voice," declared the clergyman. "Who is that?"

"My name is Jack Head, and I be gwaine to offer objections," said the man stoutly.

"Better save your wind then!" snapped Mr. Gollop. "You be one against the meeting."

Head was a middle-aged, narrow-browed, and underhung individual of an iron-grey colour. His body was long and thin; his shoulders were high; his expression aggressive, yet humorous. He had swift wits and a narrow understanding. He was observant and impressed with the misery of the world; but he possessed no philosophical formulas to balance his observation or counsel patience before the welter of life. He was honest, but scarce knew the meaning of amenity.

"One or not won't shut my mouth," he said. "I'm a member of the parish so much as you, though I don't bleat a lot of wild nonsense come every seventh day, and I say that to spend good time and waste good money this way be a disgrace, and a going back instead of going forward. What for do we want to stir up a lot of silly dead foolishness that our grandfathers invented? Ban't there nothing better to do with ourselves and our wits than dress up like a ship-load of monkeys and go play-acting? We might so well start to wassail the apple-trees and put mourning on the bee-butts when a man dies. I'm against it, and I propose instead that Mr. Masterman looks round him and sees what a miserable Jakes of a mess his parish be in, and spends his time trying to get the landlords to——"

"Order! Order! Withdraw that!" cried out Mr. Gollop furiously. "How dare this infidel man up and say the parish be in a Jakes of a mess? Where's Ben North?"

"I'm here, Thomas," said a policeman, who stood at the door.

"You'm a silly old mumphead," replied Jack. "To hear you about this parish—God's truth! I'll tell you this, my brave hero. When the devil was showing the Lord the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of 'em, he kept his thumb on Shaugh Prior, so as none should see what a dung-heap of a place it was."

"Order! Order!" cried Miss Masterman shrilly, and Mr. Gollop grew livid.

"I appeal to the chair! I appeal to the nation!" he gasped. Then he shook his fist at Jack.

"There's no chair—not yet," explained Dennis. "As soon as we decide, I'll take the chair, and we'll appoint a committee to go into the matter and arrange the parts, and so on. The first thing is, are we agreed?"

One loud shout attested to the sense of the meeting.

"Then, Mr. Head, you're in a minority of one, and I hope we may yet convince you that this innocent revival is not a bad thing," said Dennis. "And further than that, you mustn't run down Shaugh Prior in this company. We've got a cheerful conceit of ourselves, and why not? Don't think I'm dead to the dark side of human life, and the sorrows and sufferings of the poor. I hope you'll all very soon find that I'm not that sort, or my sister either. And the devil himself can't hide Shaugh Prior from the Lord and Saviour of us all, Mr. Head—have no fear of that."

"Sit down, Jack, and say you'm sorry," cried Mr. Luscombe.

"Not me," replied Head. "I've stated my views at a free meeting, and I'm on the losing side, like men of my opinions always be where parsons have a voice. But me and my friends will be up top presently."

"Turn him out, Ben North!" shouted Mr. Gollop; but Ben North refused. Indeed, he was of Jack's party.

"He've done nought but say his say, and I shan't turn him out," the policeman answered. "There's nobody in the chair yet, and therefore there's none here with power to command the Law to move."

A committee was swiftly formed. It consisted of the clergyman and certain parishioners. Nathan joined it for his family; Mr. Luscombe also joined, and Dennis promised that certain local antiquaries and the lord of the manor would assist the enterprise.

"While we are here," he said, "we may as well get the thing well advanced and decide about the characters. All those interested are here, so why not let me read through the old play as it stands? Then we'll settle the parts, and each can copy his or her part in turn."

"There's nothing like being fore-handed," admitted Nathan. "Let's have it by all means. We shall want young and old to play, if my memory serves me."

"We shall, and a good company to sing the songs that I hope to add. My sister, our organist, will undertake the music."

"And right well she'll do it, without a doubt," declared Nathan. "On all hands 'tis admitted how the church music has mended a lot since she took it up."

Mr. Masterman then read a version of the old play, and its ingenuous humour woke laughter.

"Now," said the vicar when his recital was at an end, "I'll ask those among us who will volunteer to act—ladies and gentlemen—to come forward. Especially I appeal to the ladies. They'll have to say very little."

"Only to look nice, and I'm sure that won't cost 'em an effort, for they can't help it," declared Nathan.

None immediately rose. Then Ned Baskerville strolled down the room.

"Best-looking young man in Shaugh," cried an anonymous voice.

"And the laziest!" answered another unknown.

There was a laugh and Ned turned ruddy.

"Thou'lt never take trouble enough to learn thy part, Ned!" cried Heathman Lintern.

"Play Turkish knight, my son," said his father. "Then thou can'st be knocked on the head and die comfortable without more trouble."

Others followed Ned, and Mr. Masterman called for Mark.

"You'll not desert us, Mark? I shall want your help, I know."

"And glad to give it," answered the young man. He grew very hot and nervous to find himself named. His voice broke, he coughed and cut a poor figure. Somebody patted him on the back.

"Don't be frighted, Mark," said Vivian Baskerville; "his reverence only wants for you to do what you can. He wouldn't ask impossibilities."

Mrs. Baskerville compared her handsome son to stammering Mark and felt satisfied. Cora Lintern also contrasted the young men, and in her bosom was anything but satisfaction.

"You needn't act, but you must help in many ways. You're so well up in the old lore—all about our legends and customs," explained the clergyman. "We count on you. And now we want some of the older men among you, and when we've settled them we must come to the ladies. We're getting on splendidly. Now—come—you set a good example, Thomas."

"Me!" cried Mr. Gollop. "Me to play-act! Whoever heard the like?"

"You must play, Thomas," urged Vivian Baskerville of Cadworthy. "Such a voice can't be lost. What a King of Egypt the man will make!"

"I'll do a part if you will, but not else," returned Gollop, and the Baskerville family lifted a laugh at their father's expense.

"For that matter I've took the stage often enough," admitted Vivian; "but 'twas to work, not to talk. All the same, if his reverence would like for me to play a part, why, I'm ready and willing, so long as there isn't much to say to it."

"Hurrah for Mr. Baskerville!" shouted several present.

"And Mr. Nathan must play, too," declared Joe Voysey. "No revel would be complete without him."

"If you'll listen I'll tell you what I think," said the clergyman. "I've considered your parts during the last five minutes, and they go like this in my mind. Let's take them in order:—

"St. George, Mr. Ned Baskerville. Will you do St. George, Ned?"

"Yes, if you can't find a better," said the young man.

"Good! Now the Turkish knight comes next. He must be young and a bit of a fighter. Will you be Turkish knight, Mr. Waite?"

He addressed a young, good-looking, dark man, who farmed land in the parish, and dwelt a few miles off.

Mr. Waite laughed and nodded.

"Right—I'll try."

"Well done! Now"—Mr. Masterman smiled and looked at Jack Head—"will Mr. Head play the Bear—to oblige us all?"

Everybody laughed, including Jack himself.

"The very living man for Bear!" cried Mr. Luscombe. "I command you, Jack, to be Bear!"

"You ain't got much to do but growl and fight, Jack, and you're a oner at both," said Heathman.

"Well, I've said my say," returned Mr. Head, "and I was in a minority. But since this parish wants for me to be Bear, I'll Bear it out so well as I can; and if I give St. George a bit of a hug afore he bowls me over, he mustn't mind that."

"Capital! Thank you, Jack Head. Now, who'll be Father Christmas? I vote for Mr. Nathan Baskerville."

Applause greeted the suggestion, but Miss Masterman bent over from her seat and whispered to her brother. He shook his head, however, and answered under his breath.

"It doesn't matter a button about his being a dissenter. So much the better. Let's draw them in all we can."

"You ought to choose the church people first."

"It's done now, anyway," he replied. "Everybody likes the man. We must have him in it, or half the folk won't come."

"The King of Egypt is next," said Nathan, after he had been duly elected to Father Christmas. "I say Thomas Gollop here for the part."

"I don't play nought," answered Thomas firmly, "unless Vivian Baskerville do. He's promised."

"I'll be Giant, then, and say 'Fee-fo-fum!" answered the farmer. "'Twill be a terrible come-along-of-it for Ned here, and I warn him that if he don't fight properly valiant, I won't die."

"The very man—the only man for Giant," declared Dennis Masterman. "So that's settled. Now, who's for Doctor? That's a very important part. I suppose your father wouldn't do it, Mark? He's just the wise-looking face for a doctor."

"My brother!" cried Vivian. "Good Lord! he'd so soon stand on his head in the market-place as lend a hand in a bit of nonsense like this. Ask Luscombe here. Will you be Doctor, Saul?"

But Mr. Luscombe refused.

"Not in my line. Here's Joe Voysey—he's doctored a lot of things in his time—haven't you, Joe?"

"Will you be Doctor, Joe?" asked Mr. Masterman.

But Joe refused.

"Too much to say," he answered. "I might larn it with a bit of sweat, but I should never call it home when the time came."

"Be the French Eagle, Joe," suggested Mark Baskerville. "You've got but little to say, and St. George soon settles you."

"And the very living nose for it, Joe," urged Mr. Gollop.

"Very well, if the meeting is for it, I'll be Eagle," assented Mr. Voysey.

The part of Doctor remained unfilled for the present.

"Now there's the fair Princess Sabra and Mother Dorothy," explained the vicar. "Princess Sabra, the King of Egypt's daughter, will be a novelty, for she didn't come into the old play in person. She doesn't say anything, but she must be there."

"Miss Lintern for Princess Sabra!" said Mark.

Everybody laughed, and the young man came in for some chaff; but Dennis approved, and Mrs. Lintern nodded and smiled. Cora blushed and Nathan patted Mark on the back.

"A good idea, and we're all for it," he said.

To Cora, as the belle of the village, belonged the part by right. She was surprised and gratified at this sudden access of importance.

Then the vicar prepared to close his meeting.

"For Mother Dorothy we want a lady of mature years and experience. The part is often played by a man, but I would sooner a lady played it, if we can persuade one to do so," he said.

"Mrs. Hacker! Mrs. Hacker!" shouted a mischievous young man at the back of the hall.

"Never," said Susan Hacker calmly. "Not that I'd mind; but whatever would my master say?"

"Let my sister play the part," suggested Thomas. "Eliza Gollop fears nought on two legs. She'll go bravely through with it."

Mr. Nathan's heart sank, but he could not object.

The company was divided. Then, to the surprise of not a few, Mrs. Hacker spoke again. The hated name had dispelled her doubts.

"I'll do it, and chance master," she said. "Yes, there's no false shame in me, I believe. I'll do it rather than——"

"You're made for the part, ma'am," declared Mr. Nathan, much relieved. "And very fine you'll look. You've got to kiss Father Christmas at the end of the play, though. I hope you don't mind that."

"That's why she's going to act the part!" shouted Heathman, and laughter drowned Mrs. Hacker's reply.

In good spirits the company broke up, and the young folk went away excited, the old people interested and amused.

Merriment sounded on the grey July night; many women chattered about the play till long after their usual hour for sleep; and plenty of coarse jests as to the promised entertainment were uttered at the bar of 'The White Thorn' presently.

As for the vicar and his sister, they felt that they had achieved a triumph. Two shadows alone darkened the outlook in Miss Masterman's eyes. She objected to the Nonconformist element as undesirable or unnecessary; and she did not like the introduction of Queen Sabra.

"That showy girl is quite conceited enough already," she said.

But her brother was young and warm-hearted.

"She's lovely, though," he said. "By Jove! the play will be worth doing, if only to see her got up like a princess!"

"Don't be silly, Dennis," answered his sister. "She's a rude wretch, and the Linterns are the most independent people in the parish."

CHAPTER IX

At high summer two men and two maids kept public holiday and wove romance under the great crown of Pen Beacon. From this border height the South Hams spread in a mighty vision of rounded hills and plains; whole forests were reduced to squat, green cushions laid upon the broad earth's bosom; and amid them glimmered wedges and squares of ripening corn, shone root crops, smiled water meadows, and spread the emerald faces of shorn hayfields.

It was a day of lowering clouds and illumination breaking through them. Fans of light fell between the piled-up cumuli, and the earth was mottled with immense, alternate patches of shadow and sunshine. Thick and visible strata of air hung heavy between earth and sky at this early hour. They presaged doubt, and comprehended a condition that might presently diffuse and lift into unclouded glory of August light, or darken to thunderstorm. Southerly the nakedness of Hanger Down and the crags of Eastern and Western Beacons towered; while to the east were Quickbeam Hill, Three Barrows, and the featureless expanses of Stall Moor. Northerly towered Penshiel, and the waste spread beyond it in long leagues, whose planes were flattened out by distance and distinguished against each other by sleeping darkness and waking light.

A fuliginous heaviness, that stained air at earth's surface, persisted even on this lofty ground, and the highest passages of aerial radiance were not about the sun, but far beneath it upon the horizon.

Rupert Baskerville trudged doubtfully forward, sniffing the air and watching the sky, while beside him came Milly Luscombe; and a quarter of a mile behind them walked Mark and Cora Lintern. The men had arranged to spend their holiday up aloft, and Milly was well pleased; but Cora held the expedition vain save for what it should accomplish. To dawdle in the Moor when she might have been at a holiday revel was not her idea of pleasure; but as soon as Mark issued his invitation she guessed that he did so with an object, and promised to join him.

As yet the definite word had not passed his lips, though it had hovered there; but to-day Miss Lintern was resolved to return from Pen Beacon betrothed. As for Mark, his hope chimed with her intention. Cora was always gracious and free of her time, while he played the devout lover and sincerely held her above him every way. Only the week before Heathman, obviously inspired to do so, had asked him why he kept off, and declared that it would better become him to speak. And now, feeling that the meal presently to be taken would be of a more joyous character after than before the deed, he stopped Cora while yet a mile remained to trudge before they should reach the top of the tor.

"Rest a bit," he said. "Let Rupert and Milly go forward. They don't want us, and we shall all meet in the old roundy-poundies up over, where we're going to eat our dinner."

"Looks as if 'twas offering for bad weather," she answered, lifting her eyes to the sky. "I'm glad I didn't put on my new muslin."

She sat on a stone and felt that he was now going to ask her to marry him. She was not enthusiastic about him at the bottom of her heart; but she knew that he would be rich and a good match for a girl in her position. She was prone to exaggerate her beauty, and had hoped better things from it than Mark Baskerville; but certain minor romances with more important men had come to nothing. She was practical and made herself see the bright side of the contract. He was humble and she could influence him as she pleased. He worshipped her and would doubtless continue to do so.

Once his wife she proposed to waken in him a better conceit of himself and, when his father died, she would be able to 'blossom out,' as she put it to her sister, and hold her head high in the land. There were prospects. Nathan Baskerville was rich also, and he was childless. He liked Mark well, and on one occasion, when she came into the farm kitchen at Undershaugh suddenly, she overheard Nathan say to her mother, "No objection—none at all—a capital match for her."

Mark put down the basket that carried their meal and took a seat beside Cora.

"'Tisn't going to rain," he said. "I always know by my head if there's thunder in the elements. It gets a sort of heavy, aching feeling. Look yonder, the clouds are levelling off above the Moor so true as if they'd been planed. That's the wind's work. Why, there's enough blue showing to make you a new dress a'ready, Cora."

"I'd love a dress of such blue as that. Blue's my colour," she said.

"Yes, it is—though you look lovely enough in any colour."

"I like to please you, Mark."

"Oh, Cora, and don't you please me? Little you know—little you know. I've had it on my tongue a thousand times—yet it seems too bold—from such as me to you. Why, there's none you mightn't look to; and if you'd come of a higher havage, you'd have been among the loveliest ladies in the land. And so you are now, for that matter—only you're hid away in this savage old place—like a beautiful pearl under the wild sea."

This had long been Cora's own opinion. She smiled and touched the hair on her hot forehead.

"If there comes on a fog, I shall go out of curl in a minute," she said. Then, seeing that this prophecy silenced him, she spoke again.

"I love to hear you tell these kind things, Mark. I'd sooner please you than any man living. Perhaps 'tis over-bold in me to say so; but I'm telling nought but truth."

"Truth ban't often so beautiful as that," he said slowly. "And 'tis like your brave heart to say it out; and here's truth for your truth, Cora. If you care to hear me say I think well of you, then I care to hear you speak well of me; and more: nobody else's good word is better than wind in the trees against your slightest whisper. So that I please you, I care nothing for all the world; and if you'll let me, I'll live for you and die for you. For that matter I've lived for only you these many days, and if you'll marry me—there—'tis out. I'm a vain chap even to dare to say it; but 'tis you have made me so—'tis your kind words and thoughts for me—little thoughts that peep out and dear little kind things done by you and forgotten by you; but never by me, Cora. Can you do it? Can you sink down to me, or is it too much of a drop? Others have lowered themselves for love and never regretted it. 'Tis a fall for such a bright, lovely star as you; but my love's ready to catch you, so you shan't hurt yourself. I—I——"

He broke off and she seemed really moved. She put her hand on his two, which were knotted together; and then she looked love into his straining eyes and nodded.

His hands opened and seized hers and squeezed them till she drew in her breath. Then he put his arms round her and kissed her.

"Don't move, for God's sake!" he said. "D'you know what you've done?"

"Given myself to a dear good chap," she answered.

In her heart she was thanking heaven that she had not worn the new muslin dress.

"Weather or no weather, he'd have creased it and mangled it all over and ruined it for ever," she thought.

They proceeded presently, but made no haste to overtake their companions. Their talk was of the future and marriage. He pressed for an early union; she was in no hurry.

"You must learn a bit more about me first," she told him. "Maybe I'm not half as nice as you think. And there's your father. I'm terrible frightened of him."

"You need not be, Cora. He's not against early marriage. You must come and see him pretty soon. He'll be right glad for my sake, though he'll be sure to tell me I've had better luck than I deserve."

She considered awhile without speaking.

"I'm afraid I shan't bring you much money," she said.

"What's money? That's the least thing. I shall have plenty enough, no doubt."

"What will your father do? Then there's your uncle, Mr. Nathan. He's terrible rich, by all accounts, and he thinks very well of you."

"I shall be all right. But I'm a lazy man—too lazy. I shall turn my hand to something steady when we're married."

"Such a dreamer you are. Not but what, with all your great cleverness, you ban't worth all the young men put together for brains."

"I'm going to set to. My father's often at me about wasting my life. But, though he'd scorn the word, he's a bit of a dreamer too—in his way. You'd never guess it; but he spends many long hours all alone, brooding about things. And he's a very sharp-eyed, clever man. He marks the seasons by the things that happen out of doors. He'll come down off our tor that cheerful sometimes, you wouldn't believe 'twas him. 'Curlew's back on the Moor,' he'll say one day; then another day, 'Oaks are budding'; then again, 'First frost to-night,' or 'Thunder's coming.' His bark is worse than his bite, really."

"'Tis his terrible eyes I fear. They look through you. He makes me feel small, and I always hate anybody that does that."

"You mustn't hate him. Too many do already. But 'twould be better to feel sorry for him. He's often a very unhappy old man. I feel it, but I can't see the reason, and he says nothing."

She pouted.

"I wish I hadn't got to see him. Why, his own brother—your Uncle Nathan—even he can't hit it off with him. And I'm sure there must be something wrong with a man that can't get on with Mr. Nathan. Everybody is fond of him; but I've often heard him say——"

"Leave it," interrupted Mark. "I know all that, Cora. 'Tis just one of those puzzles that happen. 'Tis no good fretting about anybody else: what you've got to do is to make my father love you. And you've only got to be yourself and he must love you."

"Of course I'll do my best."

"Give me just one more lovely kiss, before we get over the hill-top and come in sight of them. We're to meet at the 'old men's' camp."

She kissed him and then silence fell between them. It lasted a long while until he broke it.

"Don't fancy because I'm so still that I'm not bursting with joy," he said. "But when I think of what's happened to me this minute, I feel 'tis too big for words. The thoughts in me can't be spoken, Cora. They are too large to cram into little pitiful speeches."

"I'm getting hungry; and there's Milly waving," she answered.

"Milly's hungry too, belike."

Eastward, under Pen Beacon, lay an ancient lodge of the neolithic people. The circles of scattered granite shone grey, set in foliage and fruit of the bilberry, with lichens on the stone and mosses woven into the grass about them. A semicircle of hills extended beyond and formed a mighty theatre where dawn and storm played their parts, where falling night was pictured largely and moonshine slept upon lonely heights and valleys. In the glen beneath spread Dendles Wood, with fringes of larch and pine hiding the River Yealm and spreading a verdant medley of deep summer green in the lap of the grey hills. Gold autumn furzes flashed along the waste, and the pink ling broke into her first tremble of colourless light that precedes the blush of fulness.

The party of four sat in a hut circle and spoke little while they ate and drank. Rupert, unknown to the rest, and much to his own inconvenience, had dragged up six stone bottles of ginger-beer hidden under his coat. These he produced and was much applauded. A spring broke at hand, and the bottles were sunk therein to cool them.

They talked together after a very practical and businesslike fashion. Milly and Rupert were definitely engaged in their own opinion, and now when Mark, who could not keep in the stupendous event of the moment, announced it, they congratulated the newly engaged couple with the wisdom and experience of those who had long entered that state.

"'Tis a devilish unrestful condition, I can promise you," said Rupert, "and the man always finds it so if the girl don't. Hanging on is just hell—especially in my case, where I can't get father to see with my eyes. But, thank God, Milly's jonic. She won't change."

"No," said Milly, "I shan't change. 'Tis you have got to change. I respect your father very much, like the rest of the world, but because he didn't marry till he was turned forty-five, that's no reason why you should wait twenty years for it. Anyway, if you must, so will I—only I shall be a thought elderly for the business by that time. However, it rests with you."

"I'm going—that's what she means," explained Rupert. "Jack Head and me have had a talk, and he's thrown a lot of light on things in general. I can't be bound hand and foot to my father like this; and if he won't meet me, I must take things into my own hands and leave home."

Mark was staggered at the enormity of such a plan.

"Don't do anything in a hurry and without due thought."

"Very well for you to talk," said Milly. "You do nought but ring the bells on Sundays, and play at work the rest of the week. Mr. Humphrey won't stand in your way. I suppose you could be married afore Christmas, if you pleased."

She sighed at the glorious possibility.

"I hope we shall be; but Cora's in no hurry, I'm afraid."

"And when I've got work," continued Rupert, "then I shall just look round and take a house and marry; and why not?"

"Your father will never let you go. It isn't to be thought upon," declared Mark.

"Then he must be reasonable. He appears to forget I'm nearly twenty-four," answered his cousin.

Conversation ranged over their problems and their hopes. Then Rupert touched another matrimonial disappointment.

"It looks as if we were not to be fortunate in love," he said. "There's Ned terrible down on his luck. He's offered marriage again—to Farmer Chave's second daughter; and 'twas as good as done; but Mr. Chave wouldn't hear of it, and he's talked the girl round and Ned's got chucked."

"Serve him right," said Milly. "He jilted two girls. 'Twill do him good to smart a bit himself."

"The Chaves are a lot too high for us," asserted Mark. "He's a very well-born and rich man, and his father was a Justice of the Peace, and known in London. He only farms to amuse himself."

"'Twas Ned's face, I reckon," said Cora. "They Chave women are both terrible stuck up. Makes me sick to see 'em in church all in their town-made clothes. But fine feathers won't make fine birds of them. They'm both flat as a plate, and a lot older than they pretend. Ned is well out of it, I reckon."

"He don't think so, however," replied Rupert. "I've never known him take any of his affairs to heart like this one. Moped and gallied he is, and creeps about with a face as long as a fiddle; and off his food too."

"Poor chap," said Cora feelingly.

"Even talks of ending it and making away with himself. Terrible hard hit, I do believe."

"Your mother must be in a bad way about him," said Milly.

"She is. Why, he took mother down to the river last Sunday and showed her a big hole there, where Plym comes over the rocks and the waters all a-boil and twelve feet deep. 'That's where you'll find me, mother,' he says. And she, poor soul, was frightened out of her wits. And father's worried too, for Ned can't go wrong with him. Ned may always do what he likes, though I may not."

Cora declared her sympathy, but Mark did not take the incident as grave.

"You needn't fear," he assured Ned's brother. "Men that talk openly of killing themselves, never do it. Words are a safety-valve. 'Tis the sort that go silent and cheerful under a great blow that be nearest death."

Cora spoke of Ned's looks with admiration and feared that this great disappointment might spoil them; but Milly was not so sympathetic.

"If he stood to work and didn't think so much about the maidens, they might think a bit more about him," she said.

"He swears he won't play St. George now," added Rupert. "He haven't got the heart to go play-acting no more."

"He'll find twenty girls to go philandering after afore winter," foretold Milly. "And if Cora here was to ask him, he'd play St. George fast enough."

"'Twill be a very poor compliment to me if he cries off now," declared Cora. "For I'm to be the princess, and 'tis pretended in the play that he's my true lover."

"Mark will be jealous then. 'Tis a pity he don't play St. George," said Milly.

But Mark laughed.

"A pretty St. George me!" he answered. "No, no; I'm not jealous of Ned. Safety in numbers, they say. Let him be St. George and welcome; and very noble he'll look—if ever he's got brains enough in his empty noddle to get the words and remember them."

Cora cast a swift side glance at her betrothed. She did not speak, but the look was not all love. Discontent haunted her for a little space.

The ginger-beer was drunk and the repast finished. The men lighted their pipes; the girls talked together.

Milly congratulated Cora very heartily.

"He's a fine, witty chap, as I've always said. Different to most of us, along of being better eggicated. But that modest and retiring, few people know what a clever man he is."

These things pleased the other, and she was still more pleased when Milly discussed Mark's father.

"I often see him," she said—"oftener than you might think for. He'll ride to Trowlesworthy twice and thrice a month sometimes. Why for? To see my uncle, you might fancy. But that's not the reason. To talk with Jack he comes. Jack Head and me be the only people in these parts that ban't afraid of him. And that's what he likes. You be fearless of him, Cora, or he'll think nought of thee. Fearless and attentive to what he says—that's the rule with him. And pretend nothing, or he'll see through it and pull you to pieces. Him and Jack Head says the most tremendous things about the world and its ways. They take Uncle Saul's breath away sometimes, and mine too. But don't let him frighten you—that's the fatal thing. If a creature's feared of him, he despises it. Never look surprised at his speeches."

Cora listened to this advice and thanked the other girl for it.

"Why should I care a button for the old man, anyway?" she asked. "If it comes to that, I'm as good as him. There's nought to fear really, when all's said. And I won't fear."

The men strolled about the old village and gathered whortleberries; then Rupert judged that the storm that had skulked so long to the north, was coming at last.

"We'd best be getting down-along," he said. "Let's go across to Trowlesworthy; then, if it breaks, we can slip into the warren house a bit till the worst be over.

"You be all coming to drink tea there," said Milly. "Uncle Saul and Jack Head are away, but aunt be home, and I made the cakes specially o' Saturday."

Drifting apart by a half a mile or so, the young couples left the Beacon, climbed Penshiel, and thence passed over the waste to where the red tor rose above Milly Luscombe's home.

A sort of twilight stole at four o'clock over the earth, and it seemed that night hastened up while yet the hidden sun was high. The sinister sky darkened and frowned to bursting; yet no rain fell, and later it grew light again, as the sun, sinking beneath the ridges of the clouds, flooded the Moor with the greatest brightness that the day had known.

CHAPTER X

Some few weeks after it was known that young Mark Baskerville would marry Cora Lintern, a small company drank beer at 'The White Thorn' and discussed local politics in general, and the engagement in particular. The time was three in the afternoon.

"They'll look to you for a wedding present without a doubt," said Mr. Gollop to Nathan, who stood behind his bar.

"And they'll be right," answered the innkeeper. "I'm very fond of 'em both."

"You'll be put to it to find rich gifts for all your young people, however."

"That's as may be. If the Lord don't send you sons, the Devil will send you nephews—you know the old saying. Not but what Vivian's boys and girls are a very nice lot—I like 'em all very well indeed. Mark's different—clever enough, but made of another clay. His mother was a retiring, humble woman—frightened of her own shadow, you might say. However, Cora will wake him into a cheerfuller conceit of himself."

There was an interruption, for Dennis Masterman suddenly filled the doorway.

"The very men I want," he said; then he entered.

"Fine sweltering weather for the harvest, your honour," piped an old fellow who sat on a settle by the window with a mug of beer beside him.

"So it is, Abel, and I hope there's another month of it to come. Give me half a pint of the mild, will you, Baskerville? 'Tis about the rehearsal I've looked in. Thursday week is the day—at seven o'clock sharp, remember. And I'm very anxious that everybody shall know their words. It will save a lot of trouble and help us on."

"I've got mine very near," said Nathan.

"So have I," declared Mr. Gollop. "Here I, the King of Egypt, boldly do appear; St. Garge, St. Garge, walk in, my only son and heir!"

"Yes, but you mustn't say 'heir'; the h isn't sounded, you know. Has anybody seen Ned Baskerville? I heard that he was in trouble."

"Not at all," said Nathan. "He's all right—a lazy rascal. 'Twas only another of his silly bits of work with the girls. Running after Mr. Chave's daughter. Like his cheek!"

Mr. Masterman looked astonished.

"I thought Mr. Chave——" he said.

"Exactly, vicar; you thought right. 'Tis just his handsome face makes my nephew so pushing. We be a yeoman race, we Baskervilles, though said to be higher once; but of course, as things are, Ned looking there was just infernal impudence, though his good old pig-headed father, my brother, couldn't see it. He's only blind when Ned's the matter."

"'Twas said he was going to jump in the river," declared the ancient Abel.

"Nonsense and rubbish!" declared Nathan. "Ned's not that sort. Wait till he sees himself in the glittering armour of St. George, and he'll soon forget his troubles."

"We must talk about the dresses after rehearsal. A good many can be made at home."

"Be you going to charge at the doors?" asked Mr. Gollop. "I don't see why for we shouldn't."

"Yes, certainly I am," answered Dennis. "The money will go to rehanging the bells. That's settled. Well, remember. And stir up Joe Voysey, Thomas. You can do anything with him, but I can't. Remind him about the French Eagle. He's only got to learn six lines, but he says it makes his head ache so badly that he's sure he'll never do it."

"I'll try and fire the man's pride," declared Mr. Gollop. "Joe's not a day over sixty-eight, and he's got a very fair share of intellect. He shall learn it, if I've got to teach him."

"That's right. Now I must be off."

When the vicar was gone Gollop reviewed the situation created by young Masterman's energy and tact.

"I never could have foreseen it, yet the people somehow make shift to do with him. It don't say much for him, but it says a lot for us—for our sense and patience. We'm always ready to lend the man a hand in reason, and I wish he was more grateful; but I shouldn't call him a grateful man. Of course, this here play-acting will draw the eyes of the country on us, and he'll get the credit, no doubt; yet 'twill be us two men here in this bar—me and you, Nathan—as will make or mar all."

"I'm very glad to help him. He's a good chap, and my sort. Lots of fun in the man when you know him."

"Can't say I look at him like that. He's not enough beholden to the past, in my opinion. However, I believe he's woke up a bit to who I am and what my sister is," answered Gollop.

"Not your fault if he hasn't."

"And another thing—he don't take himself seriously enough," continued the parish clerk. "As a man I grant you he has got nought to take seriously. He's young, and he's riddled with evil, modern ideas that would land the country in ruin if followed. But, apart from that, as a minister he ought to be different. I hate to see him running after the ball at cricket, like a school-child. 'Tisn't decent, and it lessens the force of the man in the pulpit come Sunday, just as it lessened the force of physician Dawe to Tavistock when he took to singing comic songs at the penny readings. Why, 'twas money out of the doctor's pocket, as he lived to find out, too late. When Old Master Trelawny lay dying, and they axed un to let Dawe have a slap at un, he wouldn't do it. 'Be that the man that sang the song about locking his mother-in-law into the coal-cellar?' he axed. 'The same,' said they; 'but he's a terrible clever chap at the stomach, and may save you yet if there be enough of your organs left for him to work upon.' 'No, no,' says old Trelawny. 'Such a light-minded feller as that couldn't be trusted with a dying man's belly.' I don't say 'twas altogether reasonable, because the wisest must unbend the bow now and again; but I will maintain that that minister of the Lord didn't ought to take off his coat and get in a common sweat afore the people assembled at a cricket match. 'Tis worse than David making a circus of himself afore the holy ark; and if he does so, he must take the consequences."

"The consequences be that everybody will think a lot better of him, as a manly and sensible chap, wishful to help the young men," declared Mr. Baskerville. "One thing I can bear witness to: I don't get the Saturday custom I used to get, and that's to the good, anyway." Then he looked at his watch and changed the subject.

"Mrs. Lintern's daughter is paying a sort of solemn visit to my brother to-day, and they are all a little nervous about it."

"He'll terrify her out of her wits," said Mr. Gollop. "He takes a dark delight in scaring the young people."

"'Tisn't that, 'tis his manner. He don't mean to hurt 'em. A difficult man, however, as I know only too well."

"If he can't get on with you, there's a screw loose in him," remarked the old man, sitting on the settle.

"I won't say that, Abel; but I don't know why 'tis that he's got no use for me."

"No loss, however," asserted Thomas. "A cranky and heartless creature. The likes of him couldn't neighbour with the likes of us—not enough human kindness in him."

"Like our father afore him, and yet harder," explained the publican. "I can see my parent now—dark and grim, and awful old to my young eyes. Well I remember the first time I felt the sting of him. A terrible small boy I was—hadn't cast my short frocks, I believe—but I'd sinned in some little matter, and he give me my first flogging. And the picture I've got of father be a man with a hard, set face, with a bit of a grim smile on it, and his right hand hidden behind him. But I knowed what was in it! A great believer in the rod. He beat us often—all three of us—till we'd wriggle and twine like a worm on a hook; but our uncle, the musicker, he was as different as you please—soft and gentle, like my nephew Mark, and all for spoiling childer with sweeties and toys."

Mr. Gollop rose to depart, and others entered. Then Nathan called a pot-man and left the bar.

"I promised Mrs. Lintern as I'd go down to hear what Cora had to say," he explained. "I'm very hopeful that she's had the art to win Humphrey, for 'twill smooth the future a good bit for the people at Undershaugh if my brother takes to the wench. You'd think nobody could help it—such a lovely face as she has. However, we shall know how it fell out inside an hour or so."

Meanwhile Cora, clad in her new muslin, had faced Humphrey Baskerville, and faced him alone. For her future father-in-law expressly wished this, and Mark was from home on the occasion of his sweetheart's visit. Cora arrived twenty minutes before dinner, and watched Susan Hacker dish it up. She had even offered to assist, but Susan would not permit it.

"Better you go into the parlour and keep cool, my dear," she said. "You'll need to be. Master's not in the best of tempers to-day. And your young man left a message. He be gone to Plympton, and will be back by four o'clock; so, when you take your leave, you are to go down the Rut and meet him at Torry Brook stepping-stones, if you please."

"Where's Mr. Baskerville?"

"Taking the air up 'pon top the tor. He bides there most mornings till the dinner hour, and he'd forget his meal altogether so often as not, but I go to the hedge and ring the dinner bell. Then he comes down."

"How can I best please him, Susan?"

"By listening first, and by talking afterwards. He don't like a chatterbox, but he don't like young folk to be too silent neither. 'Twill be a hugeous heave-up of luck if you can get on his blind side. Few can—I warn you of that. He's very fond of natural, wild things. If you was to talk about the flowers and show him you be fond of nature, it might be well. However, do as you will, he'll find out the truth of 'e."

"I'm all of a tremor. I wish you hadn't told me that."

"Mark might have told you. Still, for your comfort it may be said you're built the right way. You'll be near so full-blown as I be, come you pass fifty. He hates the pinikin,[1] pin-tailed sort. Be cheerful,

[1] Pinikin—delicate.

eat hearty, don't leave nothing on your plate, and wait for him to say grace afore and after meat. The rest must fall out according to your own sense and wit. Now I be going to ring the bell."

"I half thought that he might come part of the way to meet me."

"You thought wrong, then. He don't do that sort of thing."

"I wish Mark was here, Susan."

"So does Mark. But master has his own way of doing things, and 'tis generally the last way that other people would use."

Mrs. Hacker rang the bell, and the thin, black figure of Humphrey Baskerville appeared and began to creep down the side of the hill. He had, of course, met Cora on previous occasions, but this was the first time that he had spoken with the girl since her betrothal.

He shook hands and hoped that her mother was well.

"A harvest to make up for last year," he said. "You ought to be lending a hand by rights."

"I don't think Mr. Baskerville would like for Polly and me to do that. 'Tis too hot," she said.

"Nathan wouldn't? Surely he would. Many hands make light work and save the time. You're a strong girl, aren't you?"

"Strong as a pony, sir."

"Don't call me 'sir.' And you're fond of wild nature and the country—so Mark tells me."

"That I am, and the wild flowers."

"Why didn't you wear a bunch of 'em then? Better them than that davered[2] rose stuck in your belt. Gold by the look of it—the belt I mean."

[2] Davered—withered.

She laughed.

"I'll let you into the secret," she said. "I wanted to be smart to-day, and so I took one of my treasures. You'll never guess where this gold belt came from, Mr. Baskerville?"

"Don't like it, anyway," he answered.

"Why, 'twas the hat-band round my grandfather's hat! He was a beadle up to some place nigh London; and 'twas an heirloom when he died; and mother gived it to me, and here it is."

He regarded the relic curiously.

"A funny world, to be sure," he said. "Little did that bygone man think of such a thing when he put his braided hat on his head, I'll warrant."

He relapsed into a long silence, and Cora's remarks were rewarded with no more than nods of affirmation or negation. Then, suddenly, he broke out on the subject of apparel long after she thought that he had forgotten it.

"Terrible tearing fine I suppose you think your clothes are, young woman—terrible tearing fine; but I hate 'em, and they ill become a poor man's wife and a poor man's daughter. My mother wore her hair frapped back light and plain, with a forehead cloth, and a little blue baize rochet over her breast, and a blue apron and short gown and hob-nailed shoon; and she looked ten thousand times finer than ever you looked in your life—or ever can in that piebald flimsy, with those Godless smashed birds on your head. What care you for nature to put a bit of a dead creature 'pon top of your hair? A nasty fashion, and I'm sorry you follow it."

She kept her temper well under this terrific onslaught.

"We must follow the fashion, Mr. Baskerville. But I'll not wear this hat again afore you, since you don't like it."

"Going to be married and live up to your knees in clover, eh? So you both think. Now tell me what you feel like to my son, please."

"I love him dearly, I'm sure, and I think he's a very clever chap, and quite the gentleman in all his ways. Though he might dress a bit smarter, and not be so friendly with the other bellringers. Because they are commoner men than him, of course."

"'Quite the gentleman'—eh? What's a gentleman?"

"Oh, dear, Mr. Baskerville, you'll spoil my dinner with such a lot of questions. To be a gentleman is to be like Mark, I suppose—kind and quick to see what a girl wants; and to be handsome and be well thought of by everybody, and all the rest of it."

"You go a bit too high at instep," he said. "You're too vain of your pretty face, and you answer rather pertly. You don't know what a gentleman is, for all you think yourself a fine lady. And I'll tell you this: very few people do know what a gentleman is. You can tell a lot about people by hearing them answer when you ask them what a gentleman is. Where would you like to live?"

"Where 'twould please Mark best. And if the things I say offend you, I'm sorry for it. You must make allowances, Mr. Baskerville. I'm young, and I've not got much sense yet; but I want to please you—I want to please everybody, for that matter."

This last remark much interested her listener. He started and looked at the girl fixedly. Then his expression changed, and he appeared to stare through her at somebody or something beyond. Behind Cora the old man did, indeed, see another very clearly in his mind's eye.

After a painful silence she spoke again, and her tone was troubled.

"I want to say the thing that will please you, if I can. But I must be myself. I'm sorry if you don't like me."

"You must be yourself, and so must I," he answered; "and if I'm not liking you, you're loathing me. But we're getting through our dinner very nicely. Will you have any more of this cherry tart?"

"No, I've done well."

"You've eaten nought to name. I've spoiled your appetite, and you—well, you've done more than you think, and taught me more than you know yourself."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Mark says puzzling things like that sometimes."

There was another silence.

"You ride a pony, don't you?" he asked presently; and the girl brightened up. Mr. Baskerville possessed some of the best ponies on Dartmoor, and sold a noted strain of his own raising.

"He's going to make it up with a pony!" thought sanguine Cora.

"I do. I'm very fond of riding."

"Like it better than walking, I dare say?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you'd like driving better still, perhaps?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"What are the strangles?" he asked suddenly and grimly.

"It's something the ponies get the matter with them."

"Of course; but what is it? How does it come, and why? Is it infectious? Is it ever fatal to them?"

She shook her head.

"I don't know nothing about things like that."

"No use having a pony if you don't understand it. The strangles are infectious and sometimes fatal. Don't forget that."

Cora felt her temper struggling to break loose. She poured out a glass of water.

"I promise not to forget it," she answered. "Shall I put the cheese on the table for you??

"No, I thank you—unless you'll eat some."

"Nothing more, I'm sure."

"We'll walk out in the air, then. With your love of nature, you'll like the growing things up on top of my hill. Mark will be back for tea, I think. But maybe you'll not stop quite so long as that."

"I'll stop just as long as you like," she said. "But I don't want to tire you."

"You've got your mother's patience, and plenty of it, I see. That's a good mark for you. Patience goes a long way. You can keep your temper, too—well for you that you can. Though whether 'tis nature or art in you——"

He broke off and she followed him out of doors.

Upon the tor he asked her many things concerning the clouds above them, the cries of the birds, and the names of the flowers. The ordeal proved terrible, because her ignorance of these matters was almost absolute. At last, unable to endure more, she fled from him, pleaded a sudden recollection of an engagement for the afternoon, and hastened homeward as fast as she could walk. Once out of sight of the old man she slowed down, and her wrongs and affronts crowded upon her and made her bosom pant. She clenched her hands and bit her handkerchief. She desired to weep, but intended that others should see her tears. Therefore she controlled them until she reached home, and then she cried copiously in the presence of her mother, her sister, and Nathan Baskerville, who had come to learn of her success.

The directions of Mark, to meet him at Torry stepping-stones, Cora had entirely forgotten. Nor would she have kept the appointment had she remembered it. In her storm of passion she hated even Mark for being his father's son.

Nathan was indignant at the recital, and Mrs. Lintern showed sorrow, but not surprise.

"'Twas bound to be difficult," she said. "He sent Mark away, you see. He meant to get to the bottom of her."

"A very wanton, unmanly thing," declared Nathan. "I'm ashamed of him."

"Don't you take it too much to heart," answered the mother. "Maybe he thought better of Cora than he seemed to do. He's always harsh and hard like that to young people; but it means nought. I believe that Cora's a bit frightened, that's all."

"We must see him," said Nathan. "At least, I must. I make this my affair."

"'Twill be better for me to do so."

"I tried that hard to please the man," sobbed Cora; "but he looked me through—tore me to pieces with his eyes like a savage dog. Nothing was right from my head to my heels. Flouted my clothes—flouted my talk—was angered, seemingly, because I couldn't tell him how to cure a pony of strangles—wanted me to tell the name of every bird on the bough, and weed in the gutter. And not a spark of hope or kindness from first to last. He did say that I'd got my mother's patience, and that's the only pat on the back he gave me. Patient! I could have sclowed his ugly face down with my nails!"

Her mother stroked her shoulder.

"Hush!" she said. "Don't take on about it. We shall hear what Mark has got to tell."

"I don't care what he's got to tell. I'm not going to be scared out of my life, and bullied and trampled on by that old beast!"

"No more you shall be," cried Nathan. "He'll say 'tis no business of mine, but everything to do with Undershaugh is my business. I'll see him. He's always hard on me; now I'll be hard on him and learn him how to treat a woman."

"Don't go in heat," urged Mrs. Lintern after Cora had departed with the sympathetic Phyllis. "There's another side, you know. Cora's not his sort. No doubt her fine clothes—she would go in 'em, though I advised her not—no doubt they made him cranky; and then things went from bad to worse."

"'Tis not a bit of use talking to me, Hester. I'm angered, and naturally angered. In a way this was meant to anger me, I'm afraid. He well knows how much you all at Undershaugh are to me. 'Twas to make me feel small, as much as anything, that he snubbed her so cruel. No—I'll not hear you on the subject—not now. I'll see him to-day."

"I shouldn't—wiser far to wait till you are cool. He'll be more reasonable too, to-morrow, when he's forgotten a little."

"What is there to forget? The prettiest and cleverest girl in Shaugh—or in the county, for that matter. Don't stop me. I'm going this instant."

"It's dangerous, Nat. He'll only tell you to mind your own business."

"No, he won't. Even he can't tax me with not doing that. Everything is my business, if I choose to make it so. Anyway, all at Undershaugh are my business."

He left her; but by the time he arrived at Beatland Corner, on the way to Hawk House, Nathan Baskerville had changed his mind. Another aspect of the case suddenly presented itself to him, and, as he grew calmer, he decided to keep out of this quarrel, though natural instincts drew him into it.

A few moments later, as thought progressed with him, he found himself wishing that Humphrey would die. But the desire neither surprised nor shocked him, for he had often wished it before. Humphrey's life was of no apparent service to Humphrey, while to certain other people it could only be regarded in the light of a hindrance.

CHAPTER XI

Some days later Mark Baskerville spoke with Mrs. Lintern, and she was relieved to find that Cora's fears had been exaggerated.

"He said very little indeed about her, except that he didn't like her clothes and that she had a poor appetite," explained Mark. "Of course, I asked him a thousand questions, but he wouldn't answer them. I don't think he knows in the least how he flustered Cora. He said one queer thing that I couldn't see sense in, though perhaps you may. He said, 'She's told me more about herself than she knows herself—and more than I'll tell again—even to you, though some might think it a reason against her.' Whatever did he mean by that? But it don't much matter, anyway, and my Cora's quite wrong to think she was a failure or anything of that kind. He asked only this morning, as natural as possible, when she was coming over again."

These statements satisfied the girl's mother, but they failed to calm Cora herself. She took the matter much to heart, caused her lover many unquiet and anxious hours, and refused point-blank for the present to see Mr. Baskerville.

Then fell the great first rehearsal of the Christmas play, and Dennis Masterman found that he had been wise to take time by the forelock in this matter. The mummers assembled in the parish room, and the vicar and his sister, with Nathan Baskerville's assistance, strove to lead them through the drama.

"It's not going to be quite like the version that a kind friend has sent me, and from which your parts are written," explained Dennis. "I've arranged for an introduction in the shape of a prologue. I shall do this myself, and appear before the curtain and speak a speech to explain what it is all about. This answers Mr. Waite here, who is going to be the Turkish Knight. He didn't want to begin the piece. Now I shall have broken the ice, and then he will be discovered as the curtain rises."

Mr. Timothy Waite on this occasion, however, began proceedings, as the vicar's prologue was not yet written. He proved letter-perfect but exceedingly nervous.

"Open your doors and let me in,
I hope your favours I shall win.
Whether I rise or whether I fall,
I'll do my best to please you all!"

Mr. Waite spoke jerkily, and his voice proved a little out of control, but everybody congratulated him.

"How he rolls his eyes to be sure," said Vivian Baskerville. "A very daps of a Turk, for sartain."

"You ought to stride about more, Waite," suggested Ned Baskerville, who had cheered up of recent days, and was now standing beside Cora and other girls destined to assist the play. "The great thing is to stride about and look alive—isn't it, Mr. Masterman?"

"We'll talk afterwards," answered Dennis. "We mustn't interfere with the action. You have got your speech off very well, Waite, but you said it much too fast. We must be slow and distinct, so that not a word is missed."

Timothy, who enjoyed the praise of his friends, liked this censure less.

"As for speaking fast," he said, "the man would speak fast. Because he expects St. George will be on his tail in a minute. He says, 'I know he'll pierce my skin.' In fact, he's pretty well sweating with terror from the first moment he comes on the stage, I should reckon."

But Mr. Masterman was unprepared for any such subtle rendering of the Turkish Knight, and he only hoped that the more ancient play-actors would not come armed with equally obstinate opinions.

"We'll talk about it afterwards," he said. "Now you go off to the right, Waite, and Father Christmas comes on at the left. Mr. Baskerville—Father Christmas, please."

Nathan put his part into his pocket, marched on to the imaginary stage and bowed. Everybody cheered.

"You needn't bow," explained Dennis; but the innkeeper differed from him.

"I'm afraid I must, your reverence. When I appear before them, the people will give me a lot of applause in their usual kindly fashion. Why, even these here—just t'other actors do, you see—so you may be sure that the countryside will. Therefore I had better practise the bow at rehearsal, if you've no great argument against it."

"All right, push on," said Dennis.

"We must really be quicker," declared Miss Masterman. "Half an hour has gone, and we've hardly started."

"Off I go then; and I want you chaps—especially you, Vivian, and you, Jack Head, and you, Tom Gollop—to watch me acting. Acting ban't the same as ordinary talking. If I was just talking, I should say all quiet, without flinging my arms about, and walking round, and stopping, and then away again. But in acting you do all these things, and instead of merely saying your speeches, as we would, just man to man, over my bar or in the street, you have to bawl 'em out so that every soul in the audience catches 'em."

Having thus explained his theory of histrionics Mr. Baskerville started, and with immense and original emphasis, and sudden actions and gestures, introduced himself.

"Here come I, the dear old Father Christmas.
Welcome or welcome not,
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
A room—make room here, gallant boys,
And give us room to rhyme——"

Nathan broke off to explain his reading of the part.

"When I say 'make room' I fly all round the stage, as if I was pushing the people back to give me room."

He finished his speech, and panted and mopped his head.

"That's acting, and what d'you think of it?" he asked.

They all applauded vigorously excepting Mr. Gollop, who now prepared to take his part.

Nathan then left the stage and the vicar called him back.

"You don't go off," he explained. "You stop to welcome the King of Egypt."

"Beg pardon," answered the innkeeper. "But of course, so it is. I'll take my stand here."

"You bow to the King of Egypt when he comes on," declared Gollop. "He humbly bows to me, don't he, reverend Masterman?"

"Yes," said Dennis, "he bows, of course. You'll have a train carried by two boys, Gollop; but the boys aren't here to-night, as they're both down with measles—Mrs. Bassett's youngsters."

"I'll bow to you if you bow to me, Tom," said Mr. Baskerville. "That's only right."

"Kings don't bow to common people," declared the parish clerk. "Me and my pretended darter—that's Miss Cora Lintern, who's the Princess—ban't going to bow, I should hope."

"You ought to, then," declared Jack Head. "No reason because you'm King of Egypt why you should think yourself better than other folk. Make him bow, Nathan. Don't you bow to him if he don't bow to you."

"Kings do bow," declared Dennis. "You must bow to Father Christmas, Gollop."

"He must bow first, then," argued the parish clerk.

"Damn the man! turn him out and let somebody else do it!" cried Head.

"Let neither of 'em bow," suggested Mrs. Hacker suddenly. "With all this here bowing and scraping, us shan't be done afore midnight; and I don't come in the play till the end of all things as 'tis."

"You'd better decide, your reverence," suggested Vivian. "Your word's law. I say let 'em bow simultaneous—how would that serve?"

"Excellent!" declared Dennis. "You'll bow together, please. Now, Mr. Gollop."

Thomas marched on with an amazing gait, designed to be regal.

"They'll all laugh if you do it like that, Tom," complained Mr. Voysey.

"Beggar the man! And why for shouldn't they laugh?" asked Jack Head. "Thomas don't want to make 'em cry, do he? Ban't we all to be as funny as ever we can, reverend Masterman?"

"Yes," said Dennis. "In reason—in reason, Jack. But acting is one thing, and playing the fool is another."

"Oh, Lord! I thought they was the same," declared Vivian Baskerville. "Because if I've got to act the giant——"

"Order! order!" cried the clergyman. "We must get on. Don't be annoyed, Mr. Baskerville, I quite see your point; but it will all come right at rehearsal."

"You'll have to tell me how to act then," said Vivian. "How the mischief can a man pretend to be what he isn't? A giant——"

"You're as near being a live giant as you can be," declared Nathan. "You've only got to be yourself and you'll be all right."

"No," argued Jack Head. "If the man's himself, he's not funny, and nobody will laugh. I say——"

"You can show us what you mean when you come to your own part, Jack," said Dennis desperately. "Do get on, Gollop."

"Bow then," said Mr. Gollop to Nathan.

"I'll bow when you do, and not a minute sooner," answered the innkeeper firmly.

The matter of the bow was arranged, and Mr. Gollop, in the familiar voice with which he had led the psalms for a quarter of a century, began his part.

"Here I, the King of Egypt, boldly do appear,
St. Garge! St. Garge! walk in, my only son and heir;
Walk in, St. Garge, my son, and boldly act thy part,
That all the people here may see thy wondrous art!"

"Well done, Tom!" said Mr. Masterman, "that's splendid; but you mustn't sing it."

"I ban't singing it," answered the clerk. "I know what to do."

"All right. Now St. George, St. George, where are you?"

"Along with the girls as usual," snapped Mr. Gollop.

As a matter of fact Ned Baskerville was engaged in deep conversation with Princess Sabra and the Turkish Knight. He left them and hurried forward.

"Give tongue, Ned!" cried his father.

"You walk down to the footlights, and the King of Egypt will be on one side of you and Father Christmas on the other," explained the vicar.

"And you needn't look round for the females, 'cause they don't appear till later on," added Jack Head.

A great laugh followed this jest, whereon Miss Masterman begged her brother to try and keep order.

"If they are not going to be serious, we had better give it up, and waste no more time," she said.

"Don't take it like that, miss, I beg of you," urged Nathan. "All's prospering very well. We shall shape down. Go on, Ned."

Ned looked at his part, then put it behind his back, and then brought it out again.

"This is too bad, Baskerville," complained Dennis. "You told me yesterday that you knew every word."

"So I did yesterday, I'll swear to it. I said it out in the kitchen after supper to mother—didn't I, father?"

"You did," assented Vivian; "but that's no use if you've forgot it now."

"'Tis stage fright," explained Nathan. "You'll get over it."

"Think you'm talking to a maiden," advised Jack Head.

"Do get on!" cried Dennis. Then he prompted the faulty mummer.

"Here come I, St. George——"

Ned struck an attitude and started.

"Here come I, St. George; from Britain did I spring;
I'll fight the Russian Bear, my wonders to begin.
I'll pierce him through, he shall not fly;
I'll cut him—cut him—cut him——"

"How does it go?"

"'I'll cut him down,'" prompted Dennis.

"Right!

"I'll cut him down, or else I'll die."

"Good! Now, come on, Bear!" said Nathan.

"You and Jack Head will have to practise the fight," explained the vicar; "and at this point, or earlier, the ladies will march in to music and take their places, because, of course, 'fair Sabra' has to see St. George conquer his foes."

"That'll suit Ned exactly!" laughed Nathan.

Then he marshalled Cora and several other young women, including May and Polly Baskerville from Cadworthy, and Cora's sister Phyllis.

"There will be a daÏs lifted up at the back, you know—that's a raised platform. But for the present you must pretend these chairs are the throne. You sit by 'fair Sabra,' Thomas, and then the trumpets sound and the Bear comes on."

"Who'll play the brass music?" asked Head, "because I've got a very clever friend at Sheepstor——"

"Leave all that to me. The music is arranged. Now, come on!"

"Shall you come on and play it like a four-footed thing, or get up on your hind-legs, Jack?" asked St. George.

"I be going to come in growling and yowling on all fours," declared Mr. Head grimly. "Then I be going to do a sort of a comic bear dance; then I be going to have a bit of fun eating a plum pudding; then I thought that me and Mr. Nathan might have a bit of comic work; and then I should get up on my hind-legs and go for St. George."

"You can't do all that," declared Dennis. "Not that I want to interfere with you, or anybody, Head; but if each one is going to work out his part and put such a lot into it, we shall never get done."

"The thing is to make 'em laugh, reverend Masterman," answered Jack with firmness. "If I just come on and just say my speech, and fight and die, there's nought in it; but if——"

"Go on, then—go on. We'll talk afterwards."

"Right. Now you try not to laugh, souls, and I wager I'll make you giggle like a lot of zanies," promised Jack.

Then he licked his hands, went down upon them, and scrambled along upon all fours.

"Good for you, Jack! Well done! You'm funnier than anything that's gone afore!" cried Joe Voysey.

"So you be, for certain," added Mrs. Hacker.

"For all the world like my bob-tailed sheep-dog," declared Mr. Waite.

"Now I be going to sit up on my hams and scratch myself," explained Mr. Head; "then off I go again and have a sniff at Father Christmas. Then you ought to give me a plum pudding, Mr. Baskerville, and I balance it 'pon my nose."

"Well thought on!" declared Nathan. "So I will. 'Twill make the folk die of laughing to see you."

"Come on to the battle," said Dennis.

"Must be a sort of wraslin' fight," continued Head, "because the Bear's got nought but his paws. Then, I thought, when I'd throwed St. George a fair back heel, he'd get up and draw his shining sword and stab me in the guts. Then I'd roar and roar, till the place fairly echoed round, and then I'd die in frightful agony."

"You ban't the whole play, Jack," said Mr. Gollop with much discontent. "You forget yourself, surely. You can't have the King of Egypt and these here other high characters all standing on the stage doing nought while you'm going through these here vagaries."

But Mr. Head stuck to his text.

"We'm here to make 'em laugh," he repeated with bull-dog determination. "And I'll do it if mortal man can do it. Then, when I've took the doctor's stuff, up I gets again and goes on funnier than ever."

"I wouldn't miss it for money, Jack," declared Vivian Baskerville. "Such a clever chap as you be, and none of us ever knowed it. You ought to go for Tom Fool to the riders.[3] I lay you'd make tons more money than ever you will to Trowlesworthy Warren."

[3] The Riders—a circus.

"By the way, who is to be the Doctor?" asked Ned Baskerville. "'Twasn't settled, Mr. Masterman."

Dennis collapsed blankly.

"By Jove, no! More it was," he admitted, "and I've forgotten all about it. The Doctor's very important, too. We must have him before the next rehearsal. For the present you can read it out of the book, Mark."

Mark Baskerville was prompting, and now, after St. George and the Bear had made a pretence of wrestling, and the Bear had perished with much noise and to the accompaniment of loud laughter, Mark read the Doctor's somewhat arrogant pretensions.

"All sorts of diseases—
Whatever you pleases:
The phthisic, the palsy, the gout,
If the Devil's in, I blow him out.

* * * * * *

"I carry a bottle of alicampane,
Here, Russian Bear, take a little of my flip-flap,
Pour it down thy tip-tap;
Rise up and fight again!"

"Well said, Mark! 'Twas splendidly given. Why for shouldn't Mark be Doctor?" asked Nathan.

"An excellent idea," declared Dennis. "I'm sure now, if the fair Queen Sabra will only put in a word——"

Mark's engagement was known. The people clapped their hands heartily and Cora blushed.

"I wish he would," said Cora.

"Your wish ought to be his law," declared Ned. "I'm sure if 'twas me——"

But Mark shook his head.

"I couldn't do it," he answered. "I would if I could; but when the time came, and the people, and the excitement of it all, I should break down, I'm sure I should."

"It's past ten o'clock," murmured Miss Masterman to her brother.

The rehearsal proceeded: Jack Head, as the Bear, was restored to life and slain again with much detail. Then Ned proceeded—

"I fought the Russian Bear
And brought him to the slaughter;
By that I won fair Sabra,
The King of Egypt's daughter.
Where is the man that now will me defy?
I'll cut his giblets full of holes and make his buttons fly."

"And when I've got my sword, of course 'twill be much finer," concluded Ned.

Mr. Gollop here raised an objection.

"I don't think the man ought to tell about cutting anybody's giblets full of holes," he said; "no, nor yet making their buttons fly. 'Tis very coarse, and the gentlefolks wouldn't like it."

"Nonsense, Tom," answered the vicar, "it's all in keeping with the play. There's no harm in it at all."

"Evil be to them as evil think," said Jack Head. "Now comes the song, reverend Masterman, and I was going to propose that the Bear, though he's dead as a nit, rises up on his front paws and sings with the rest, then drops down again—eh, souls?"

"They'll die of laughing if you do that, Jack," declared Vivian. "I vote for it."

But Dennis firmly refused permission and addressed his chorus.

"Now, girls, the song—everybody joins. The other songs are not written yet, so we need not bother about them till next time."

The girls, glad of something to do, sang vigorously, and the song went well. Then the Turkish Knight was duly slain, restored and slain again.

"We can't finish to-night," declared Dennis, looking at his watch, "so I'm sorry to have troubled you to come, Mrs. Hacker, and you, Voysey."

"They haven't wasted their time, however, because Head and I have showed them what acting means," said Nathan. "And when you do come on, Susan Hacker, you've got to quarrel and pull my beard, remember; then we make it up afterwards."

"We'll finish for to-night with the Giant," decreed Dennis. "Now speak your long speech, St. George, and then Mr. Baskerville can do the Giant."

Ned, who declared that he had as yet learned no more, read his next speech, and Vivian began behind the scenes—

"Fee—fi—fo—fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Let him be living, or let him be dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

"You ought to throw a bit more roughness in your voice, farmer," suggested Mr. Gollop. "If you could bring it up from the innards, 'twould sound more awful, wouldn't it, reverend Masterman?"

"And when you come on, farmer, you might pass me by where I lie dead," said Jack, "and I'll up and give you a nip in the calf of the leg, and you'll jump round, and the people will roar again."

"No," declared the vicar. "No more of you, Head, till the end. Then you come to life and dance with the French Eagle—that's Voysey. But you mustn't act any more till then."

"A pity," answered Jack. "I was full of contrivances; however, if you say so——"

"Be I to dance?" asked Mr. Voysey. "This is the first I've heard tell o' that. How can I dance, and the rheumatism eating into my knees for the last twenty year?"

"I'll dance," said Head. "You can just turn round and round slowly."

"Now, Mr. Baskerville!"

Vivian strode on to the stage.

"Make your voice big, my dear," pleaded Gollop.

"Here come I, the Giant; bold Turpin is my name,
And all the nations round do tremble at my fame,
Where'er I go, they tremble at my sight:
No lord or champion long with me will dare to fight."

"People will cheer you like thunder, Vivian," said his brother, "because they know that the nations really did tremble at your fame when you was champion wrestler of the west."

"But you mustn't stand like that, farmer," said Jack Head. "You'm too spraddlesome. For the Lord's sake, man, try and keep your feet in the same parish!"

Mr. Baskerville bellowed with laughter and slapped his immense thigh.

"Dammy! that's funnier than anything in the play," he said. "'Keep my feet in the same parish!' Was ever a better joke heard?"

"Now, St. George, kill the Giant," commanded Dennis. "The Giant will have a club, and he'll try to smash you; then you run him through the body."

"Take care you don't hit Ned in real earnest, however, else you'd settle him and spoil the play," said Mr. Voysey. "'Twould be a terrible tantarra for certain if the Giant went and whipped St. George."

"'Twouldn't be the first time, however," said Mr. Baskerville. "Would it, Ned?"

Nathan and Ned's sisters appreciated this family joke. Then Mr. Gollop advanced a sentimental objection.

"I may be wrong," he admitted, "but I can't help thinking it might be a bit ondecent for Ned Baskerville here to kill his father, even in play. You see, though everybody will know 'tis Ned and his parent, and that they'm only pretending, yet it might shock a serious-minded person here and there to see the son kill the father. I don't say I mind, as 'tis all make-believe and the frolic of a night; but—well, there 'tis."

"You'm a silly old grandmother, and never no King of Egypt was such a fool afore," said Jack. "Pay no heed to him, reverend Masterman."

Gollop snarled at Head, and they began to wrangle fiercely.

Then Dennis closed the rehearsal.

"That'll do for the present," he announced. "We've made a splendid start, and the thing to remember is that we meet here again this day week, at seven o'clock. And mind you know your part, Ned. Another of the songs will be ready by then; and the new harmonium will have come that my sister is going to play. And do look about, all of you, to find somebody who will take the Doctor."

"We shall have the nation's eyes on us—not for the first time," declared Mr. Gollop as he tied a white wool muffler round his throat; "and I'm sure I hope one and all will do the best that's in 'em."

The actors departed; the oil lamps were extinguished, and the vicar and his sister returned home. She said little by the way, and her severe silence made him rather nervous.

"Well," he broke out at length, "jolly good, I think, for a first attempt—eh, Alice?"

"I'm glad you were satisfied, dear. Everything depends upon us—that seems quite clear, at any rate. They'll all get terribly self-conscious and silly, I'm afraid, long before the time comes. However, we must hope for the best. But I shouldn't be in a hurry to ask anybody who really matters."

CHAPTER XII

In a triangle the wild land of the Rut sloped down from Hawk House to the valley beneath, and its solitary time of splendour belonged to Spring, when the great furzes were blooming and the white thorns filled the valley with light. Hither came Mark to keep tryst with Cora beside the stream. He walked not loverly but languid, for his mind was in trouble, and his gait reflected it.

To water's brink he came, sat on a familiar stump above Torry Brook, and watched sunshine play over the ripples and a dance of flies upon the sunshine.

Looked at in a mass, the insects seemed no more than a glimmering, like a heat haze, over the water and against the background of the woods; but noted closer the plan and pattern of these myriads showed method: the little storm of flies gyrated in a circle, and while the whole cluster swept this way and that with the proper motion of the mass, yet each individual, like planets round the sun, revolved about a definite but shifting centre. The insects whirled round and round, rose and sank again, each atom describing repeated circles; and though the united motion of this company suspended here in air appeared inconceivably rapid and dazzling, yet the progress of each single gnat was not fast.

Mark observed this little galaxy of glittering lives, and, knowing some natural history, he considered intelligently the thing he saw. For a moment it distracted him. A warm noon had wakened innumerable brief existences that a cold night would still again. All this immense energy must soon cease and the ephemeral atoms perish at the chill touch of evening; but to Nature it mattered neither more nor less if a dance of nebulÆ or a dance of gnats should make an end that night. Countless successions of both were a part of her work. From awful marriages of ancient suns new suns would certainly be born; and out of this midge dance here above the water, potential dances for another day were ensured, before the little system sank to rest, the aureole of living light became extinguished.

He turned from the whirl and wail of the gnats to his own thoughts, and found them also revolving restlessly. But their sun and centre was Cora. He had asked her to meet him here, in a favourite and secret place, that he might speak harsh things to her. There was no love-making toward just now. She had angered him once and again. He considered his grievances, strove to palliate them, and see all with due allowance; but his habit of mind, if vague, was not unjust. He loved her passionately, but that she should put deliberate indignities upon him argued a faulty reciprocity of love. Time had revealed that Cora did not care for Mark as well as he cared for her; and that would not have mattered—he held it reasonable. But he desired a larger measure of affection and respect than he had received. Then to his quick senses even the existing affection diminished, and respect appeared to die.

These dire shadows had risen out of the rehearsals for the play. Cora's attitude towards other young men first astonished Mark and then annoyed him. He kept his annoyance to himself, however, for fear of being laughed at. Then, thanks to his cousin, Ned Baskerville, and the young farmer, Timothy Waite, he was laughed at, for Cora found these youths better company than Mark himself, and Jack Head and others did not hesitate to rally him about his indifferent lady.

"She's more gracious with either of them than with me," he reflected. "Why, actually, when I offered as usual to walk home with her last week, she said yonder man had promised to do so and she need not trouble me!"

As he spoke he lifted his eyes where a farm showed on the hills westerly through the trees. Coldstone was a prosperous place, and the freehold of a prosperous man, young Waite, the Turkish Knight of the play.

He had seen Cora home according to her wish, and Mark had kept his temper and afterwards made the present appointment by letter. Now Cora came to him, late from another interview—but concerning it she said nothing.

On her way from Undershaugh it happened that she had fallen in with Mark's father. The old man rode his pony, and Cora was passing him hastily when he stopped and called her to him. They had not met since the occasion of the girl's first and last visit to Hawk House.

"Come hither," he said. "I've fretted you, it seems, and set you against me. I'm sorry for that. You should be made of stouter stuff. Shake hands with me, Cora, please."

He held out his hand and she took it silently.

"I'll turn and go a bit of your road. If you intend to marry my son, you must make shift to be my daughter, you see. What was it made you so cross that you ran away? But I know—I spoke against your clothes."

"You spoke against everything. I felt in every drop of blood in my body that you didn't like me. That's why I had to run."

He was silent a moment. Suddenly he pointed to one faint gold torch above their heads, where a single bough of an elm was autumn-painted, and began to glow on the bosom of a tree still green. It stood out shining against the deep summer darkness of the foliage.

"What d'you make of that?" he asked.

She looked up.

"'Tis winter coming again, I suppose."

"Yes—winter for us, death for the leaves. I'm like that—I'm frost-bitten here and there—in places. 'Twas a frosty day with me when you came to dinner. I'm sorry I hurt you. But you must be sensible. It's a lot harder to be a good wife than a popular maiden. My son Mark will need a strong-minded woman, not a silly one. The question is, are you going to rise to it? However, we'll leave that. How did you know in every drop of your blood, as you say, that you'd failed to please me?"

"I knew it by—oh, by everything. By your eyes and by the tone of your voice. You said you wanted to talk to me."

"Well, I did."

"You never asked me nothing."

"There was no need, you told me everything."

"I said nought, I'm sure."

"You said all I wanted to hear and told me a lot more than I wanted, or expected, to hear for that matter."

"I'm sure I don't understand you, Mr. Baskerville."

"No need—no need. That's only to say you're like the rest. They wonder how 'tis they don't understand me—fools that they are!—and yet how many understand themselves? I'll tell you this: you're not the right wife for Mark."

"Then I won't marry him. There's quite as good as him, and better, for that matter."

"Plenty. Take young Waite from Coldstone Farm, for instance. A strong man he is. My son Mark is a weak man—a gentle character he hath. 'Tis the strong men—they that want things—that alter the face of the world, and make history, and help the breed—not such as Mark. He'd spoil you and bring out all the very worst of you. Such a man as Waite would do different. He'd not stand your airs and graces, and little silly whims and fancies. He'd break you in; he'd tame you; and you'd look back afterwards and thank God you fell to a strong man and not a weak one."

"Women marry for love, not for taming," she said.

"Some, perhaps, but not you. You ban't built to love, if you want to know the whole truth," he answered calmly. "You belong to a sort of woman who takes all and gives nought. I wish I could ope your eyes to yourself, but I suppose that's beyond human power. But this I'll say: I wish you nothing but good; and the best good of all for such a one as you is to get a glimpse of yourself through a sensible and not unkindly pair of eyes. If you are going to marry Mark, and want to be a happy woman and wish him to be a happy man, you must think of a lot of things beside your wedding frock."

"For two pins I wouldn't marry him at all after this," she said. "You'd break any girl's heart, speaking so straight and coarse to her. I ban't accustomed to be talked to so cruel, and I won't stand it."

"I do beg you to think again," he said, stopping his pony. "I'm only telling you what I've often told myself. I'm always open to hear sense from any man, save now and again when I find myself in a black mood and won't hear anything. But you—a green girl as haven't seen one glimpse of the grey side yet—why, 'tis frank foolishness to refuse good advice from an old man."

"You don't want to give me good advice," she answered, and her face was red and her voice high; "you only want to make me think small things of myself, and despise myself, and to choke me off Mark."

"To choke you off Mark might be the best advice anybody could give you, for that matter, my dear; and as to your thinking small things of yourself—no such luck I see. You'll go on thinking a lot of your little, empty self till you stop thinking for good and all. Life ban't going to teach you anything worth knowing, because you've stuffed up your ears with self-conceit and vanity. So go your way; but if you get a grain of sense come back to me, and I shall be very glad to hear about it."

He left her standing still in a mighty temper. She felt inclined to fling a stone after him. And yet she rejoiced at the bottom of her heart, because this scene made her future actions easier. Only one thing still held her to Mark Baskerville, and that was his money. The sickly ghost of regard for him, which she was pleased to call love, existed merely as the answer to her own appeal to her conscience. She had never loved him, but when the opportunity came, she could not refuse his worldly wealth and the future of successful comfort it promised.

Now, however, were appearing others who attracted her far more. Two men had entered into her life since the rehearsals, and both pleased her better than Mark. One she liked for his person and for his charms of manner and of speech; the other for his masterful character and large prosperity. One was better looking than Mark, and knew far better how to worship a woman; the other was perhaps as rich as Mark would be, and he appealed to her much more by virtue of his masculinity and vigour. Mr. Baskerville had actually mentioned this individual during the recent conversation; and it was of him, too, that Mark considered where he sat and waited for Cora by the stream.

But though she felt Timothy Waite's value, yet a thing even stronger drew her to the other man. Ned Baskerville was the handsomest, gallantest, most fascinating creature that Cora had ever known. Chance threw them little together until the rehearsals, but since then they had met often, and advanced far along a road of mutual admiration. Like clove to like, and the emptiness of each heart struck a kindred echo from the other; but neither appreciated the hollowness of the sound.

Under these circumstances Humphrey Baskerville's strictures, though exceedingly painful to her self-love, were not unwelcome, for they made the thing that she designed to do reasonable and proper. It would be simple to quote his father to her betrothed when she threw him over.

In this temper Cora now appeared to Mark. Had he been aware of it he might have hesitated before adding further fuel to the flames. But he began in a friendly fashion, rose and kissed her.

"You're late, Cora. Look here. Sit down and get cool and watch these flies. The merry dancers, they are called, and well they may be. 'Tis a regular old country measure they seem to tread in the air—figure in and cross over and all—just like you do when you go through the old dance in the play."

But she was in no mood of softness.

"A tidy lot of dancing I'll get when I'm married to you! You know you hate it, and hate everything else with any joy and happiness to it. You're only your father over again, when all's said, and God defend me from him! I can't stand no more of him, and I won't."

"You've met him?" said Mark. "I was afraid you might. I'm sorry for that."

"Not so sorry as I am. If I was dirt by the road he couldn't have treated me worse. And I'm not going to suffer it—never once more—not if he was ten times your father!"

"What did he say?"

"What didn't he say? Not a kind word, anyway. And 'tis vain your sticking up for him, because he don't think any better of you than he do of me seemingly. 'Twas to that man he pointed." She raised her arm towards the farm through the trees. "He thinks a lot more of Timothy Waite than he does of you, I can tell you."

"I'll talk to father. This can't go on."

"No, it can't go on. Life's too short for this sort of thing. I won't be bullied by anybody. People seem to forget who I am."

"You mustn't talk so, Cora. I'm terrible sorry about it; but father's father, and he'll go his own rough way, and you ought to know what way that is by now. Don't take it to heart—he means well."

"'Heart!' I've got no heart according to him—no heart, no sense, no nothing. Just a dummy to show off pretty clothes."

"He never said that!"

"Yes, he did; and worse, and I'm tired of it. You're not the only man in the world."

"Nothing is gained by my quarrelling with father."

"I suppose not; but I've got my self-respect, and I can't marry the son of a man that despises me openly like he does. I won't be bullied by him, I promise you—a cruel hunks he is, and would gore me to pieces if he dared! No better than a mad bull, I call him."

"'Tis no good your blackguarding my father, Cora," said Mark.

"Perhaps not; and 'tis no good his blackguarding me. Very different to your Uncle Vivian, I'm sure. Always a kind word and a pat on the cheek he've got; and so have your Uncle Nathan."

"Uncle Vivian can be hard enough too—as my cousin Rupert that means to marry Milly Luscombe will tell you. In fact, Rupert's going away because he won't stand his father."

"Why don't you go away then? If you were worth your salt, you'd turn your back on any man living who has treated me so badly as your father has."

"We're in for a row, it seems," answered Mark, "and I'd better begin and get a painful job over. When you've heard me, I'll hear you. In the matter of my father I'll do what a son can do—that I promise you; but there's something on my side too."

"Say it out then—the sooner the better."

She found herself heartily hating Mark and was anxious to break with him while angry; because anger would make an unpleasant task more easy.

"In a word, it's Ned Baskerville and that man over there—Waite. These rehearsals of the play—you know very well how you carry on, Cora; and you know very well 'tisn't right or seemly. You've promised to marry me, and you are my life and soul; but I can't share you with no other man. You can't flirt with Ned while you're engaged to me; you can't ask Waite to see you home of a night while you're engaged to me. You don't know what you're doing."

"Why ban't you more dashing then?" she asked. "You slink about so mean and humble. Why don't you take a part in the play, and do as other men, and talk louder and look people in the face, as if you wasn't feared to death of 'em? If you grumble, then I'll grumble too. You haven't got enough pluck for me. Ned's different, and so's t'other man, for that matter. I see how much they admire me; I know how they would go through fire and water for me."

"Not they! Master Ned—why—he can roll his eyes and roll his voice; but—there—go on! Finish what you've got to say."

"I've only got to say that there's a deal about Ned you might very well copy in my opinion. He's a man, anyway, and a handsome man for that matter. And if you're going to fall out with your father, then you'll lose your money, and——"

"I'm not going to fall out with him. You needn't fear that."

"Then more shame to you, for keeping friendly with a man that hates me. Call that love! Ned——"

"Have done about Ned!" he cried out. "Ned's a lazy, caddling good-for-nought—the laughing-stock of every decent man and sane woman in Shaugh. A wastrel—worthless. You think he's fond of you, I suppose?"

"I know he is. And you know it."

"Yes, just as fond of you as he is of every other girl that will let him be. Anything that wears a petticoat can get to his empty heart—poor fool. Love! What does he know of that—a great, bleating baby! His love isn't worth the wind he takes to utter it; and you'll very soon find that out—like other girls have—if you listen to him."

"He knows what pleases a woman, anyway."

"Cora! Cora! What are you saying? D'you want to drive me mad?"

He started up and stared at her.

"'Twouldn't be driving you far. Better sit down again and listen to me now."

"I'll listen to nothing. I'm choking—I'm stifling! To think that you—oh, Cora—good God Almighty—and for such a man as that——"

He rushed away frantically and she saw him no more. He had not given her time to strike the definite blow. But she supposed that it was as good as struck. After such a departure and such words, they could not meet again even as friends. The engagement was definitely at an end in her mind, for by no stretch of imagination might this be described as a lovers' quarrel.

All was over; she rejoiced at her renewal of liberty and resolved not to see Mark any more, no matter how much he desired it.

She flung away the luncheon that she had brought and set off for home, trusting that she might meet Humphrey Baskerville upon the way. She longed to see him again now and repay him for a little of the indignity that he had put upon her.

But she did not meet Mark's father.

On the evening of the same day a congenial spirit won slight concessions from her. Ned Baskerville arrived on some pretext concerning the play. He knew very well by this time that, in the matter of her engagement, Cora was a victim, and he felt, as he had often felt before in other cases, that she was the only woman on earth to make him a happy man. He despised Mark and experienced little compunction with respect to him.

Upon this night Mrs. Lintern was out, and Cora made no objection to putting on her hat and going to the high ground above Shaugh Prior to look at the moon.

"'Twon't take above ten minutes, and then I'll see you back," said Ned.

They went together, and he flattered her and paid her many compliments and humbled himself before her. She purred and was pleased. They moved along together and he told her that she was like the princess in the play.

"You say nought, but, my God, you look every inch a princess! If 'twas real life, I'd slay fifty giants and a hundred bears for you, Cora."

"Don't you begin that silliness. I'm sure you don't mean a word of it, Ned."

"If you could see my heart, Cora, you'd see only one name there—I swear it."

"What about t'other names—all rubbed out, I suppose?"

"They never were there. All the other girls were ghosts beside you. Not one of them——"

Suddenly near at hand the church bells began to throb and tremble upon the peace of moonlit night.

"Mark's out of the way then," said Ned. "Not that I'm afraid of him, or any other man. You're too good for Mark, Cora—a million times too good for him. I'm bound to tell you so."

"I'm sick of him and his bell-ringing," she said violently.

"Hullo! That's strong," he exclaimed.

"So would any maiden be. He puts tenor bell afore me. 'Tis more to him than ever I was. In a word, I've done with the man!"

"You splendid, plucky creature! 'Twas bound to come. Such a spirit as yours never could have brooked a worm like him! You're free then?"

"Yes, I am."

Elsewhere in the belfry Mark rang himself into better humour. The labour physicked his grief and soothed his soul. He told himself that all the fault was his, and when the chimes were still, he put on his coat and went to Undershaugh to beg forgiveness.

Phyllis met him.

"Cora's out walking," she said.

"Out walking! Who with?" he asked.

But Phyllis was nothing if not cautious. She had more heart, but not more conscience than her sister.

"I don't know—alone, I think," she answered.

CHAPTER XIII

A day of storm buffeted the Moor. Fitful streaks of light roamed through a wild and silver welter of low cloud; and now they rested on a pool or river, and the water flashed; and now they fired the crests of the high lands or made the ruddy brake-fern flame. Behind Shaugh Moor was storm-cloud, and beneath it, oozing out into the valleys, extended the sullen green of water-logged fields hemmed in with autumnal hedges.

Hither came Mark Baskerville on his way to Shaugh, and then a man stopped him and changed his plan. For some time he had neither seen nor heard from Cora, and unable longer to live with this cloud between them, Mark was now on his way to visit her.

Consideration had convinced him that he was much in fault, and that she did well to keep aloof until he came penitent back again; but he had already striven more than once to do so, and she had refused to see him. He told himself that it was natural she should feel angered at the past, and natural that she should be in no haste to make up so serious a quarrel.

But the catastrophe had now shrunk somewhat in his estimation, and he doubted not that Cora, during the passage of many days, also began to see it in its proper perspective. He did not wholly regret their difference, and certain words that she had spoken still stung painfully when he considered them; but the dominant hunger in his mind was to get back to her, kiss her lips and hear her voice again. He would be very circumspect henceforth, and doubtless so would she. He felt sure that Cora regretted their difference now, and that the time was over-ripe for reconciliation.

The next rehearsal would take place upon the following day, and Mark felt that friendly relations must be re-established before that event. He was on his road to see Cora and take no further denial, when her brother met him and stopped him.

"Lucky I ran against you," said Heathman; "I've got a letter for you from my sister, and meant to leave it on my way out over to Lee Moor. Coarse weather coming by the look of it."

"Thank you," answered Mark. "You've saved me a journey then. I was bound for Undershaugh."

Heathman, who knew that he bore evil news, departed quickly, while the other, with true instinct of sybarite, held the precious letter a moment before opening it.

It happened that Cora seldom wrote to him, for they met very often; but now, having a difficult thing to say, she sought this medium, and Mark, knowing not the truth, was glad.

"Like me—couldn't keep it up no more," he thought. "I almost wish she'd let me say I was sorry first; but she might have heard me say so a week ago, if she'd liked. Thank Heaven we shall be happy again before dark. I'll promise everything in the world she wants to-night—even to the ring with the blue stone she hungered after at Plymouth."

He looked round, then the wind hustled him and the rain broke in a tattered veil along the edge of the hill.

"I'll get up to Hawk Tor, and lie snug there, and read her letter in the lew place I filled with fern for her," he thought.

There was a natural cavern facing west upon this height, and here, in a nook sacred to Cora, he sat presently and lighted his pipe and so came to the pleasant task. He determined that having read her plea for forgiveness, it would be impossible to wait until nightfall without seeing her.

"I'll go down and take dinner with them," he decided: then he read the letter:—

"DEAR MARK,

"After what happened a little while ago you cannot be surprised if I say I will not marry you. There is nothing to be said about it except that I have quite made up my mind. I have thought about it ever since, and not done nothing in a hurry. We would not suit one another, and the older we grew, the worse we should quarrel. So it will be better to part before any harm is done. You will easily find a quieter sort of girl, without so much spirit as me. And she will suit you better than what I do. I have told my mother that I am not going to marry you. And Mr. Nathan Baskerville, your own uncle, though he is very sorry indeed about it, is our family friend and adviser, and he says it is better we understand and part at once. I hope you won't make any fuss, as nothing will change me. And you will have the pleasure of knowing your father will be thankful. No doubt you will soon find a better-looking and nicer girl than me, and somebody that your father won't treat the same as he treated

"Yours truly,
"CORA LINTERN."

Through the man's stunned grief and above the chaos of his thoughts, one paramount and irrevocable conviction reigned. Cora meant what she wrote, and nothing that he had power to say or to do would win her back again. She would never change; she had seen him in anger and the sight had determined her; she had met his father and had felt that such antagonism must ruin her life.

He possessed imagination and was able swiftly to feel what life must mean without her. He believed that his days would be impossible henceforth. He read the letter again and marked how she began with restraint and gradually wrote herself into anger.

She smarted when she reflected on his father; and he soon convinced himself that it was his father who had driven her to these conclusions. He told himself that he did not blame her. The pipe in his mouth had been given to him by Cora. He emptied it now, put it into its case, rose up and went home. He planned the things to say to his father and determined to show him the letter. Mark desired to make his father suffer, and did not doubt but that he would suffer when this catastrophe came to his ears.

Then his father appeared before him, far off, driven by the wind; and Mark, out of his tortured mind, marvelled to think that a thing so small as this dim spot, hastening like a dead leaf along, should have been powerful enough, and cruel enough, deliberately to ruin his life. For he was now obsessed by the belief that his father alone must be thanked for the misfortune.

They came together, and Humphrey shouted to be heard against the riot of the wind. His hat was pressed over his ears; the tails of his coat and the hair on his head leapt and danced; his eyes were watering.

"A brave wind! Might blow sense into a man, if anything could. What are you doing up here?"

"Read that," said the other, and his father stopped and stared at him. Despite the rough air and the wild music of heath and stone, Mark's passion was not hidden and his face as well as his voice proclaimed it. "See what you have done for your only son," he cried.

Humphrey held out his hand for the letter, took it and turned his back to the wind. He read it slowly, then returned it to Mark.

"She means that," he answered. "This isn't the time to speak to you. I know all that's moving in you, and I guess how hard life looks. But I warn you: be just. I'm used to be misread by the people and care nought; but I'd not like for you to misread me. You think that I've done this."

"I know you have—and done it with malice aforethought too. The only thing I've ever loved in life—the only thing that ever comed into my days to make 'em worth living—and you go to work behind my back to take it away from me. And me as good a son to you as my nature would allow—always—always."

"As good a son as need be hoped for—I grant that. But show a little more sense in this. Use your brains, of which you've got too many for your happiness, and see the truth. Can a father choke a girl off a man if she loves the man? Was it ever heard that mother or father stopped son or daughter from loving? 'Tis against nature, and nought I could have said, and nought I could have done would have come between her and you—never, if she'd loved you worth a curse. But she didn't. She loved the promise of your money. She loved the thought of being the grey mare and playing with a weak man's purse. She loved to think on the future, when I was underground and her way clear. And that hope would have held with her just as strong after knowing me, as before knowing me. The passing trouble of me, and my straight, sour speeches, and my eyes looking through her into her dirty little heart, wouldn't have turned the girl away from you, if she'd loved you honestly. Why, even lust of money would have been too strong to break down under that—let alone love of man. 'Tis not I but somebody else has sloked[1] her away from thee. And the time will come when you may live to thank your God that it's happened so. But enough of that. I can bear your hard words, Mark; and bitter though 'twill sound upon your ear, I'll tell you this: I'm thankful above measure she's flung you over. 'Tis the greatest escape of your life, and a blessing in disguise—for more reasons than you know, or ever will. And as for him that's done it, nought that you can wish him be likely to turn out much worse than what he'll get if he marries that woman."

[1] Sloked—enticed and tempted.

"Shouldn't I know if 'twas another man? She was friendly and frank with all. She hadn't a secret from me. 'Twas only my own blind jealousy made me think twice about it when she talked with other men."

"But she did talk with 'em and you did think twice? And you didn't like it? And you quarrelled -eh? And that was the sense in you—the sense trying to lift you above the blind instinct you'd got for her. Would you have quarrelled for nothing? Are you that sort? Too fond of taking affronts and offering the other cheek, you are—like I was once. You can't blind me. You've suffered at her hands already, and spoken, and this is her slap back at you. No need to drag me in at all then; though I did give her raw sense for her dinner when she came to see me. Look further on than your father for the meaning of this letter. Look to yourself first, and if that don't throw light, look afield."

"There's none—none more than another—I'll swear it."

"Seek a man with money and with a face like a barber's image and not over-much sense. That's the sort will win her; and that's the sort will suit her. And now I've done."

They walked together and said the same things over and over again, as people are prone to do in argument. Then they separated in heat, for the father lost patience and again declared his pleasure at this accident.

Whereon Mark cried out against him for a callous and brutal spirit, and so left him, and turned blindly homeward. He did not know what to do or how to fight this great tribulation. He could not believe it. He came back to Hawk House at last and found himself in an angle of the dwelling, out of the wind.

Here reigned artificial silence and peace. The great gale roared overhead; but beneath, in this nook, not a straw stirred. He stood and stared at his fallen hopes and ruined plans; while from a dry spot beside the wall, there came to him the sweet, sleepy chirruping of chickens that cuddled together under their mother's wings.

CHAPTER XIV

While the desolation of Mark Baskerville came to be learnt, and some sympathised with him and some held that Cora Lintern had showed a very proper spirit to refuse a man cursed with such a father, lesser trouble haunted Cadworthy Farm, for the parent of Rupert Baskerville declared himself to be suffering from a great grievance.

Vivian was an obstinate man and would not yield to his son's demand; but the situation rapidly reached a climax, for Rupert would not yield either.

Night was the farmer's time for long discussions with his wife; and there came a moment when he faced the present crisis with her and strove for some solution of the difficulty.

"Unray yourself and turn out the light and come to bed," he said to Mrs. Baskerville. He already lay in their great four-poster, and, solid though the monster was, it creaked when Vivian's immense bulk turned upon it.

His wife soon joined him and then he began to talk. He prided himself especially on his reasonableness, after the fashion of unreasonable men.

"It can't go on and it shan't," he said. "Never was heard such a thing as a son defying his father this way. If he'd only given the girl up, then I should have been the first to relax authority and tell him he might have her in due season if she liked to wait. But for him to cleave to her against my express order—'tis a very improper and undutiful thing—specially when you take into account what a father I've been to the man."

"And he've been a good son, too."

"And why not? I was a good son—better than ever Rupert was. And would I have done this? I never thought of marriage till my parents were gone."

"Work was enough for you."

"And so it should be for every young man. But, nowadays, they think of nought but revels and outings and the girls. A poor, slack-twisted generation. My arm would make a leg for any youth I come across nowadays."

"You must remember you'm a wonder, my dear. We can't all be like you."

"My own sons ought to be, anyway. And I've a right to demand it of 'em."

"Rupert works as hard as a man can work—harder a thousand times than Ned."

"I won't have you name 'em together," he answered. "A man's firstborn is always a bit different to the rest. Ned is more given to reading and brain work."

She laughed fearlessly and he snorted like a bull beside her.

"What are you laughing at?" he said.

"At your silliness. Such a sharp chap and so wise as you are; and yet our handsome eldest—why, he can't do wrong! And Lord knows he can't do wrong in my eyes neither. Still, when it comes to work——"

"We'll leave Ned," answered the father. "He can work all right, and when you've seed him play St. George and marked his intellects and power of speech, you'll be the first to say what a 'mazing deal of cleverness be hid in him. His mind's above the land, and why not? We can't all be farmers. But Rupert's a born farmer, and seeing as he be going to follow my calling, he ought to follow my example and bide a bachelor for a good ten years more."

"She's a nice girl, however."

"She may be, or she may not be. Anyway, she's been advising him to go away from home, and that's not much to her credit."

"She loves him and hates for him to be here so miserable."

"He'll find himself a mighty sight more miserable away. Don't I pay him good money? Ban't he saving and prospering? What the deuce do he want to put a wife and children round his neck for till he's learned to keep his own head above water?"

"'Twas Mr. Luscombe's man that's determined him, I do think," declared Hester Baskerville. "Jack Head is just the sort to unsettle the young, with his mischievous ideas. All the same, I wish to God you could meet Rupert. He's a dear good son, and there's lots of room, and for my part I'd love to see him here with Milly. 'Tis high time you was a grandfather."

"You foolish women! Let him bide his turn then. The eldest first, I say. 'Tis quite in reason that Ned, with his fashion of mind, should take a wife. I've nought against that——"

"You silly men!" she said. "Ned! Why, what sensible girl will look at such a Jack-o'-lantern as him—bless him! He's too fond of all the girls ever to take one. And if he don't throw them over, after a bit of keeping company, they throw him over. If you could but see yourself and him! 'Tis as good as play-acting! 'There's only one lazy man in the world that your husband forgives for being lazy,' said Jack Head to me but yesterday. 'And who might that be?' said I, well knowing. 'Why, Ned, of course,' he answers back."

"I must talk to Jack's master. A lot too free of speech he's getting—just because they be going to let him perform the Bear at Christmas. But, when all's said, the wise man makes up his own mind; and that have been my habit from my youth up."

"You think so," she answered.

"I know so. And Rupert may go. He'll soon come back."

"Never, master."

"He'll come back, I tell you. He'll find the outer world very different from Cadworthy."

"I wish you'd let that poor boy, Mark, be a lesson to you. Your love story ran suent, so you can't think what 'tis for a young thing to be crossed where the heart is set. It looks a small matter to us, as have forgotten the fret and fever, if we ever felt it, but to them 'tis life or death."

"That's all moonshine and story-books. And my story ran suent along of my own patience and good sense—no other reason. And I may tell you that Mark have took the blow in a very sensible spirit. I saw my brother a bit ago—Nathan I mean. He was terrible cut up for both of 'em, being as soft as a woman where young people are concerned. But he'd had a long talk with Mark and found him perfectly patient and resigned about it."

"The belving[1] cow soonest forgets her calf. 'Tis the quiet sort that don't make a row and call out their misfortunes in every ear, that feel the most. It's cut him to the heart and gone far to ruin his life—that's what it's done. You don't want to have your son in the same case?"

[1] Belving—bellowing.

"Rupert's very different to that. 'Tis his will against mine, and if he disobeys, he must stand the brunt and see what life be like without me behind him. When Nathan went for a sailor, I said nothing. They couldn't all bide here, and 'twas a manly calling. But Rupert was brought up to take my place, owing to Ned's superior brain power; and now if he's going to fling off about a girl and defy me—well, he may go; but they laugh best who laugh last. He'll suffer for it."

"I'm much feared nought we can do will change him. That girl be everything to him. A terrible pity, too, for after you, I never knowed a man so greedy of work. 'Sundays! There are too many Sundays,' he said to Ned in my hearing not long since. 'What do a healthy man want to waste every seventh day for?' It might have been you talking."

"Not at all," answered her husband. "Very far from it. That's Jack Head's impious opinion. Who be we to question the Lord's ordaining? The seventh's the Lord's, and I don't think no better of Rupert for saying that, hard though it may sometimes be to keep your hands in your pockets, especially at hay harvest."

"Well, if you ban't going to budge, he'll go."

"Then let him go—and he can tell the people that he haven't got no father no more, for that's how 'twill be if he does go."

"Don't you say that, master."

"Why for not? Truth's truth. And now us will go to sleep, if you please."

Soon his mighty snore thundered through the darkness; but Mrs. Baskerville was well seasoned to the sound; and thoughts of her son, not the noisy repose of her husband, banished sleep.

Others had debated these vexed questions of late, and the dark, short days were made darker for certain sympathetic people by the troubles of Mark and the anxieties of his cousin, Rupert.

Nathan Baskerville discussed the situation with Mrs. Lintern a week before the great production of 'St. George.' Matters had now advanced and the situation was developed.

"That old fool, Gollop!" he said. "He goeth now as if the eye of the world was on him. You'd think Shaugh Prior was the hub of the universe, as the Yankees say, and that Thomas was the lynch-pin of the wheel!"

"He's found time to see which way the cat's jumping, all the same," answered Mrs. Lintern. "Full of Ned Baskerville and our Cora now! Says that 'tis a case and everybody knows it."

Nathan shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes—well, these things can't be arranged for them. The young must go their own road. A splendid couple they make without a doubt. They'll look magnificent in their finery at the revel. But I wish nephew Ned wasn't quite so vain of his good parts."

Cora herself entered at this moment, and had that to say which awoke no small interest in her mother.

"I've fallen in with Mark," she said; "and I was passing, but he spoke and 'tis all well, I believe. He was very quiet and you might almost say cheerful."

"Thank the Lord he's got over it then," answered Nathan; but Mrs. Lintern doubted.

"Don't feel too sure of that. He ban't one to wear his heart on his sleeve, anyway."

"He's took it surprising well, everybody says," said Cora, in a voice that made the innkeeper laugh.

"Poor Mark!—but I see Cora here isn't too pleased that he's weathered the storm so easily. She'd have liked him to be a bit more down in the mouth."

"I'm very pleased indeed," she answered. "You never gave better advice than when you bade me write to him. The truth is that he's not made to marry. Tenor bell be enough wife for him."

"I wonder who'll ring it when you're wedded," mused Nathan. "No man have touched that bell since my nephew took it up."

"Time enough. Not that he'd mind ringing for me, I believe. Such a bloodless thing as he is really—no fight in him at all seemingly."

"If you talk like that we shall begin to think you're sorry he took you at your word," said Mr. Baskerville; but Cora protested; and when he had gone, she spoke more openly to her mother.

"'Tis a very merciful escape for me, and perhaps for him. I didn't understand my own mind; and since he's took it so wonderful cool, I guess he didn't know his mind either."

"You haven't heard the last of him. I've met the like. For my part I'd rather hear he was daft and frantic than so calm and reasonable. 'Tis the sort that keep their trouble out of sight suffer most."

"I'd have forgiven him everything but being a coward," declared Cora fiercely. "What's the use of a man that goes under the thumb of his father? If he'd said 'I hate my father, and I'll never see him again, and we'll run away and be married and teach him a lesson,' then I'd have respected him. But not a bit of it. And to take what I wrote like that! Not even to try and make me think better of it. A very poor-spirited chap."

Mrs. Lintern smiled, not at the picture of Mark's sorrows, but at her daughter's suggestion, that she would have run away with the young man and married him and defied consequences.

"How we fool ourselves," she said. "You think you would have run with him. You wouldn't have run a yard, Cora. The moment you found things was contrary with his father, you was off him—why? Because your first thought always is, and always has been, the main chance. You meant to marry him for his money—you and me know that very well, if none else does."

The daughter showed no concern at this attack.

"I shan't marry a pauper, certainly. My face is all the fortune you seem like to give me, and I'm not going to fling it away for nought. I do set store by money, and I do long to have some; and so do every other woman in her senses. The only difference between me and others is that they pretend money ban't everything, and I say it is, and don't pretend different."

"Milly Luscombe be going to stick to Rupert Baskerville, however, though 'tis said his father will cut him off with a shilling if he leaves Cadworthy."

Cora sniffed.

"There'll be so much the more for the others then. They Baskerville fathers always seem to stand in the way of their sons when it comes to marrying. Mr. Nathan would have been different if he'd had a family. He understands the young generation. Not that Vivian Baskerville will object to Ned marrying, for Ned told me so."

"No doubt he'll be glad for Ned to be prevented from making a fool of himself any more."

Mrs. Lintern's daughter flushed.

"He's long ways off a fool," she said. "He ban't the man who comes all through the wood and brings out a crooked stick after all. He knows what women are very well."

"Yes; and I suppose Mr. Waite knows too?"

"He's different to Ned Baskerville. More cautious like and prouder. I'd sooner have Ned's vanity than t'other's pride. What did he want to be up here talking with you for?—Timothy Waite I mean."

"No matter."

"'Twasn't farming, anyway?"

"Might have been, or might not. But, mark this, he's a very shrewd, sensible young man and knows his business, and how to work, and the value of money, and what it takes to save money. He'll wear well—for all you toss your head."

"He's a very good chap. I've got nothing against him; but——"

"But t'other suits you better? Well, have a care. Don't be in no hurry. Get to know a bit more about him; and be decent, Cora. 'Twouldn't be decent by no means to pick up with him while everybody knows you've just jilted his cousin."

"Didn't do no such thing. I've got my side and 'tisn't over-kind in you to use such a word as that," answered her daughter sharply. "However, you never did have no sympathy with me, and I can't look for it. I'll go my way all the same, and if some fine day I'm up in the world, I'll treat you better than you've treated me."

But Mrs. Lintern was not impressed by these sentiments. She knew her daughter's heart sufficiently well.

"'Twill be a pair of you if you take Ned Baskerville," she said. "And you needn't pretend to be angered with me. You can't help being what you are. I'm not chiding you; I'm only reminding you that you must be seemly and give t'other matter time to be forgot. You owe the other man something, if 'tis only respect—Mark, I mean."

"He'll be comforted mighty quick," answered Cora. "Perhaps he'll let his father choose the next for him; then 'twill work easier and everybody will be pleased. As for me, I'm in no hurry; and you needn't drag in Ned's name, for he haven't axed me yet and very like he'd get 'no' for his answer if he did."

Mrs. Lintern prepared to depart and Cora spoke again.

"And as for Mark, he's all right and up for anything. He chatted free and friendly about the play and the dresses we're going to wear. He's to be prompter on the night and 'tis settled that the schoolmaster from Bickleigh be going to be Doctor, because there's none in this parish will do it. And Mark says that after the play's over, he shall very like do the same as Rupert and leave home."

"He said that?"

"Yes; and I said, 'None can ring tenor bell like you, I'm sure.' Then he looked at me as if he could have said a lot, but he didn't."

"I hope he will go and see a bit of the world. 'Twill help him to forget you," said her mother.

"Ned's the only one of 'em knows the world," answered Cora. "He's travelled about a bit and 'tis natural that his father should put him before all the others and see his sense and learning. When parson's voice gave out, Ned read the lessons—that Sunday you was from home—and nobody ever did it better. He's a very clever man, in fact, and his father knows it, and when his father dies, the will is going to show what his father thinks of him."

"He's told you so, I suppose?"

"Ned has, yes. He knows I'm one of the business-like sort. I'd leap the hatch to-morrow if a proper rich man came along and asked me to."

"Remember you're not the first—that's all," said her mother. "If you take him and he changes his mind and serves you like he's served another here and there, you'll have a very unquiet time of it, and look a very big fool."

"'Twas all nonsense and lies," she answered. "He made the truth clear to me. He never took either of them girls. They wasn't nice maidens and they rushed him into it—or thought they had. He's never loved any woman until——"

Cora broke off.

"Shan't tell you no more," she continued. "'Tis no odds to you—you don't care a button—and I shall soon be out of your house, anyhow."

"Perhaps; but I shall be a thought sorry for all them at Cadworthy Farm if you take Ned and set up wife along with his family," answered her mother. "Hard as a cris-hawk[2] you be; and you'll have 'em all by the ears so sure as ever you go there."

[1] Cris-hawk—kestrel.

"You ax Mrs. Hester Baskerville if I be hard," retorted Cora. "She'll tell that I'm gentle as a wood-dove. I don't show my claws without there's a good reason for it. And never, unless there is. Anyway, I'm a girl that's got to fight my own battles, since you take very good care not to do a mother's part and help me."

"You shall have the last word," answered Mrs. Lintern.

CHAPTER XV

Some weeks after Christmas had passed, Mr. Joseph Voysey and others met at 'The White Thorn' and played chorus to affairs according to their custom. The great subject of discussion was still the play. It had been enacted twice to different audiences, and it proved but an indifferent success. Everybody agreed that the entertainment promised better than its ultimate performance. At rehearsal all went well; upon the night of the display a thousand mishaps combined to lessen its effect.

Joe Voysey summed up to Thomas Gollop, who sat and drank with him.

"What with us all being so busy about Christmas, and the weather, and Nathan here getting a cold on his chest and only being able to croak like a frog, and parson losing his temper with Head at the last rehearsal, and other things, it certainly failed. 'Tis a case of least said soonest mended; but I'm keeping this mask of the French Eagle what I wore, for it makes a very pretty ornament hanged over my parlour mantelshelf."

"In my judgment," declared Nathan, "'twas Jack Head that played the mischief with the show. After parson cooled him down at rehearsal, I allow he went a bit lighter on his part and didn't act quite so forcible, but well I knew he was saving it up for the night; and so he was. 'Twas all Jack all the time, and even when he was supposed to be dead, he must still keep growling to make the people laugh. He's had a right down row with Mr. Masterman since."

"A make-strife sort of man; and yet a cheerful man; and yet, again, a very rebellious man against the powers," said Voysey.

"Well, 'tis over and it shows, like everything else do, how much may grow out of little," added Nathan. "Just a bit of fun at Christmas, you'd say, wouldn't leave no very great mark, yet—look at it—how far-reaching."

"It's brought the eyes of the county on us, as I said it would," replied the parish clerk. "The Rural Dean was here afterwards and took his luncheon at the vicarage and came to the church to see the font-cover; but Nancy Mumford—maiden to the vicarage—waits at table, and she told my sister that his reverence said to Mr. Masterman that we'd fallen between two stools and that the performance was a sort of a mongrel between a modern pantomime and the old miracle play, and that the masks and such-like were out of order. And Miss Masterman was a bit acid with the Rural Dean and said, to his face, that if he'd only had to see the thing through, as they had, she was sure that he'd be more charitable like about it."

"Us shan't have no more play-acting, mark me," foretold Joe Voysey; then others entered the bar, among them being Saul Luscombe from Trowlesworthy and Heathman Lintern. The warrener was on his way home and stayed only for a pint and a few friendly words.

"You should hear Jack Head tell about the play," he said.

"And he should hear us tell about him," answered Voysey. "Jack, so near as damn it, spoilt the play. In fact, innkeeper here thinks he did do so."

"He vows that he saved the whole job from being a hugeous failure. And young farmer Waite swears 'twas Miss Lintern as the Princess that saved it; and Mr. Ned, your nephew, Nathan—he swears 'twas himself that saved it."

"And I think 'twas I that saved it," declared Thomas. "However, enough said. 'Tis of the past and will soon be forgot, like a dead man out of mind."

"That's where you're wrong, Tom," said Heathman. "You can't forget a thing so easy. Besides, there's all that hangs to it. There's Polly Baskerville, that was one of Cora's maidens in the play, got engaged to be married on the strength of it—to Nick Bassett—him as waited on the Turkish Knight. And now—bigger news still for me and mine. Cora's taken Ned Baskerville!"

"I knew it was going to happen," admitted Nathan. "'Tis a very delicate thing, for she's only broken with the man's cousin a matter of a few months. Her mother asked me about it a bit ago."

"You've got to remember this," said Heathman. "I should have been the first to make a row—me being Cora's only brother and the only man responsible to look after her. I say I should have been the first to make a row, for I was terrible savage with her and thought it hard for her to throw over Mark, just because his father was an old carmudgeon. But seeing how Mark took it——"

"To the eye, I grant you that; but these quiet chaps as hide their feelings often feel a lot more than they show," said Mr. Luscombe.

"He was hard hit, and well I know it, for his father told me so," continued Nathan Baskerville. "My brother, Humphrey, in a sort of way, blamed me and Mrs. Lintern, and, in fact, everybody but himself. One minute he said that Mark was well out of it, and the next he got to be very jealous for Mark and told me that people were caballing against his son. I go in fear of meeting my brother now, for when he hears that Cora Lintern is going to take Ned Baskerville, he'll think 'twas all a plot and he'll rage on Mark's account."

"'Tis Mark that I fear for," said Heathman; then Gollop suddenly stopped him.

"Hush!" he cried, and held up his hand. After a brief silence, however, he begged young Lintern to proceed.

"Beg your pardon," he said. "I thought I heard something."

"I fear for Mark," continued the other, "because I happen to know that he still secretly hoped a bit. I don't like my sister Cora none too well, and I reckon Mark's worth a million of her, and I told him I was glad to see him so cheerful about it. 'You'm very wise to keep up your pecker, Mark,' I said to the man; 'because she'm not your sort really. I know her better than you do and can testify to it.' But he said I mustn't talk so, and he told me, very private, that he hadn't gived up all hope. Poor chap, I can let it out now, for he knows 'tis all over now. 'While she's free, there's a chance,' he told me. 'I won't never think,' he said, 'that all that's passed between us is to be blown away at a breath of trouble like this.' That's how he put it, and I could see by the hollow, wisht state of his eyes and his nerves all ajolt, that he'd been through a terrible lot."

"He'd built on her coming round, poor fellow—eh? That's why he put such a brave face on it then," murmured Nathan.

Then Voysey spoke again.

"As it happens, I can tell you the latest thing about him," he said. "I was to work two days agone 'pon the edge of our garden, doing nought in particular because the frost was got in the ground and you couldn't put a spade in. But I was busy as a bee according to my wont—tying up pea-sticks I think 'twas, or setting a rat-trap, or some such thing—when who should pass down t'other side of the hedge but Mark Baskerville? Us fell into talk about the play, and I took him down to my house to show him where my grand-darter had stuck the mask what made me into the French Eagle. Then I said there were changes in the air, and he said so too. I remarked as Rupert Baskerville had left Cadworthy and gone to work at the Lee Moor china clay, and he said 'Yes; and I be going too.' 'Never!' I said. 'What'll Mr. Humphrey do without you?' But he didn't know or care. 'Who ever will ring your bell when you're gone?' I asked him, and——"

Thomas Gollop again interrupted.

"'Tis a terrible queer thing you should name the bell, Joe," he said, "for I'll take my oath somebody's ringing it now!"

"Ringing the bell! What be talking of?" asked Heathman. "Why, 'tis hard on ten o'clock."

"Yet I'm right."

At this moment Saul Luscombe, who had set out a minute sooner, returned.

"Who's ago?" he asked. "The bell's tolling."

They crowded to the door, stood under the clear stillness of night, and heard the bell. At intervals of a minute the deep, sonorous note throbbed from aloft where the church tower rose against the stars.

"There's nobody sick to death that I know about," said Nathan. "'Twill be Mark ringing, no doubt. None touches tenor bell but him."

Mr. Luscombe remounted his pony.

"Cold bites shrewd after your bar, Nathan. Good night, souls. Us shall hear who 'tis to-morrow."

The bell tolled thrice more; then it stopped.

"Bide a minute and I'll come back," said Mr. Gollop. "I can't sleep this night without knowing who 'tis. A very terrible sudden seizure, for certain. Eliza may know."

He crossed the road and entered his own house, which stood against the churchyard wall. They waited and he returned in a minute.

"She knows nought," he said. "Mark dropped in a little bit ago and axed for the key. 'What do 'e want in belfry now, Mr. Baskerville?' she axed him. 'Passing bell,' he said; and Eliza was all agog, of course, for 'twas the first she'd heard of it. 'What's the name?' she said; but he answered nought and went down the steps and away. A minute after the bell began."

"'Tis over now, anyway. I'll step across and meet Mark," said Mr. Baskerville.

One or two others accompanied him; but there was no sign of the ringer. Then, led by Gollop, they entered the silent church and shouted.

"Where be you, Mark Baskerville, and who's dead?" cried Gollop.

In the belfry profound silence reigned, and the ropes hanging from their places above, touched the men as they groped in the darkness.

"He's gone, anyway," declared Nathan. Then suddenly a man's boot rubbed against his face. The impact moved it a moment; but it swung back heavily again.

The innkeeper yelled aloud, while Gollop fetched a lantern and lighted it. Then they found that Mark Baskerville had fastened a length of stout cord to the great rope of the tenor bell at twenty feet above the floor. He had mounted a ladder, drawn a tight loop round his neck, jumped into the air, and so destroyed himself.

CHAPTER XVI

Certain human dust lay in a place set apart from the main churchyard of St. Edward's. Here newborn babies, that had perished before admission into the Christian faith, were buried, because the ministers of the church felt doubtful as to the salving of these unbaptised ones in another world. The spot was known as 'Chrisomers' Hill,' a name descended from ancient use. By chrisom-cloths were first understood the anointed white garments put upon babes at baptism; and afterwards they came to mean the robes of the newly-baptised. Infants were also shrouded in them if they perished a month after baptism; while a chrisom-child, or chrisomer, signified one who thus untimely died.

Among these fallen buds the late vicar of the parish had also buried a woman who took her own life; and Thomas Gollop, nothing doubting but that here, and only here, the body of Mark Baskerville might decently be laid, took it upon himself to dig the grave on Chrisomers' Hill. But the ground was very hard and Thomas no longer possessed his old-time strength of arm. Therefore a young man helped him, and during the intervals of labour, the elder related incidents connected with past interments. Some belonged to his own recollection; others had been handed down by his father.

"And touching these childer took off afore the holy water saved 'em, my parent held the old story of the Heath Hounds," concluded Thomas. "And there might be more in it than us later-day mortals have a right to deny. For my father solemnly swore that he'd heard 'em in winter gloamings hurrying through the air, for all the world like a flock of night-flying birds, and barking like good-uns in full cry after the Dowl. 'Tis Satan that keeps 'em out of the joys of Paradise; but only for a time, you must know, because these here babbies never done a stroke of wrong, being too young for it; and therefore, in right and reason, they will be catched up into Heaven at the last."

"But no doubt 'tis different if a human takes their own life," said the young man.

"Different altogether," declared Mr. Gollop. "To take your own life be to go to a party afore you'm invited—a very presumpshuss and pushing thing, to say the least. No charity will cover it. For argument's sake, we'll say as I cut my throat, and then I stand afore the Throne of Grace so soon as the life be out of me. 'Who be you?' says the A'mighty. 'Thomas Gollop, your Reverence,' says I. Then they fetch the Books and it all comes out that I've took the law of life into my own hands and upset the record and made a far-reaching mess of everything; because you must know you can't live to yourself alone, and if you lay hands on your body, you be upsetting other lives beside your own, and making trouble in the next world so well as this. So down I go to the bad place—and very well I should deserve it. I can't be sure of Masterman, but he'll hardly have the face to treat this rash corpse like a God-fearing creature, I should hope. The parish will ring with it if he do."

"Crowner's sitting now over to 'The White Thorn,'" said Tom's assistant.

"Yes; and since Jack Head's 'pon the jury, there'll be no paltering with truth. I hate the man and have little good to say of him as a general thing; but there's no nonsense to him, and though he's oftener wrong than any chap I know, he won't be wrong to-day, for he told me nought would shake him. 'Tis the feeble-minded fashion to say that them that kill themselves be daft. They always bring it in so. Why? Because the dust shall cheat justice and get so good Christian burial as the best among us. But Head won't have that. He's all for bringing it in naked suicide without any truckling or hedging. The young man was sane as me, and took his life with malice aforethought; and so he must lie 'pon Chrisomers' Hill with the doubtfuls, not along with the certainties."

As he spoke somebody approached, and Nathan Baskerville, clad in black, stood beside them.

"I want you, Gollop," he said. "Who are you digging for here? 'Tis long since Chrisomers' Hill was opened."

"For Mark Baskerville," answered the sexton stoutly. "'Tis here he's earned his place, and here he'll lie if I'm anybody."

Nathan regarded Thomas with dislike.

"So old and so crooked-hearted still!" he said. "I'm glad you've had your trouble for your pains, for you deserve it. Poor Mark is to be buried with his mother. You'd better see about it, and pretty quick too. The funeral's the day after to-morrow."

"I'll discourse with the reverend Masterman," answered Thomas; "and I'll also hear what the coroner have got to say."

"You're a nasty old man sometimes, Gollop, and never nastier than to-day. As to Mr. Masterman, you ought to know what stuff he's made of by this time; and as for the inquest, 'tis ended. The verdict could only be one thing, and we decided right away."

"What about Jack Head?"

"Jack's not a cross-grained old fool, whatever else he may be," answered the innkeeper. "I convinced him in exactly two minutes that my nephew couldn't have been responsible for what he did. And everybody but a sour and bitter man, like you, must have known it. Poor Mark is thrown over by a girl—not to blame her, either, for she had to be true to herself. But still he won't believe that she's not for him, though she's put it plain as you please in writing; and he goes on hoping and dreaming and building castles in the air. Always dreamy and queer at all times he was—remember that. Then comes the crashing news for him that all is over and the maiden has taken another man. Wasn't it enough to upset such a frail, fanciful creature? Enough, and more than enough. He hides his trouble and his brain fails and his heart breaks—all unseen by any eye. And then what happens? He rings his own passing-bell! Was that the work of a sane man? Poor chap—poor chap! And you'd deny him Christian burial and cast him here, like a dog, with the poor unnamed children down under. I blush for you. See to his mother's grave and try and be larger-hearted. 'Tis only charity to suppose the bitter cold weather be curdling your blood. Now I'm off to my brother Humphrey, to tell him what there is to tell."

Then Mr. Nathan buttoned up his coat and turned to the grinning labourer.

"Don't laugh at him," he said. "Be sorry for him. 'Tis no laughing matter. Fill up that hole and take down yonder slate at the far end of the Baskerville row, and put everything in order. Our graves be all brick."

He departed and Mr. Gollop walked off to the vicarage.

A difficult task awaited Nathan, but he courted it in hope of future advantage. He was terribly concerned for his brother and now designed to visit him. As yet Humphrey had seen nobody.

Vivian had called at Hawk House the day after Mark's death, but Mrs. Hacker had told him that her master was out. On inquiries as to his state, she had merely replied that he was not ill. He had directed that his son's body should remain at the church, and he had not visited Shaugh again or seen the dead since the night that Mark perished.

Now Nathan, secretly hoping that some better understanding between him and Humphrey might arise from this shattering grief, and himself suffering more than any man knew from the shock of it, hastened to visit his bereaved brother and acquaint him with the circumstances of the inquest.

Humphrey Baskerville was from home and Nathan, knowing his familiar haunt, proceeded to it. But first he asked Mrs. Hacker how her master fared.

The woman's eyes were stained with tears and her nerves unstrung.

"He bears it as only he can bear," she said. "You'd think he was a stone if you didn't know. Grinds on with his life—the Lord knows at what cost to himself. He lighted his pipe this morning. It went out again, I grant you; still it shows the nature of him, that he could light it. Not a word will he say about our dear blessed boy—done to death—that's what I call it—by that picture-faced bitch to Undershaugh."

"You mustn't talk like that, Susan. 'Twas not the girl's fault, but her cruel misfortune. Be honest, there's a good creature. She's suffered more than any but her mother knows. No, no, no—not Cora. The terrible truth is that Humphrey's self is responsible for all. If he'd met Mrs. Lintern's daughter in a kinder spirit, she'd never have feared to come into the family and never have thrown over poor Mark. But he terrified her to death nearly, and she felt a marriage with such a man's son could never come to good."

Mrs. Hacker was not following the argument. Her mind had suffered a deep excitation and shock, and she wandered from the present to the past.

"The ups and downs of it—the riddle of it—the indecency of it—life in general, I mean! To think that me and you not above a week agone were dancing afore the public eye—Father Christmas and Mother Dorothy. How the people laughed! And now——"

She stared stupidly before her and suddenly began repeating her part in the play.

"Here come I, old Mother Dorothy,
Fat, fair, plump and commodity.
My head is big, my body is bigger:
Don't you think I be a handsome old figure?"

"And the quality said I might have been made for the part!"

"You're light-headed along of all this cruel grief," answered Nathan. "Go in out of this cold wind, Susan, and drink a stiff drop of spirits. I suppose my brother is up on the tor?"

"Yes, he's up there; you can see him from the back garden. Looks like an image—a stone among the stones, or a crow among the crows. But the fire's within. He was terrible fond of Mark really, though he'd rather have had red-hot pincers nip him than show it."

"I'll go up," declared the innkeeper.

He climbed where his brother appeared against the skyline and found Humphrey bleakly poised, standing on a stone and looking into the eye of the east wind. His coat was flapping behind him; his hat was drawn over his eyes; his nose was red and a drop hung from it. He looked like some great, forlorn fowl perched desolate and starving here.

"Forgive me for coming, brother, but I hadn't the heart to keep away. You wouldn't see me before; but you must now. Get down to the lew side of these stones. I must speak to you."

"I'm trying to understand," answered the other calmly. "And the east wind's more like to talk sense to me than ever you will."

"Don't say that. We often court physical trouble ourselves when we are driven frantic with mental trouble. I know that. I've suffered too in my time; though maybe none of the living—but one—will ever know how much. But 'tis senseless to risk your own life here and fling open your lungs to the east wind because your dear son has gone. Remember 'tis no great ill to die, Humphrey."

"Then why do you ask me to be thoughtful to live?"

"I mean we mustn't mourn over Mark for himself—only his loss for ourselves. He's out of it. No more east wind for him. 'Tis our grief that's left. His grief's done; his carking cares be vanished for ever. You mustn't despair, Humphrey."

"And you pass for an understanding man, I suppose? And tell me not to despair. Despair's childish. Only children despair when they break their toys. And grown-up children too. But not me. I never despair, because I never hope. I made him. I created him. He was a good son to me."

"And a good man every way. Gentle and kind—too gentle and kind, for that matter. Thank God we're all Christians. Blessed are the meek. His cup of joy is full, and where he is now, Humphrey, his only grief is to see ours."

"That's the sort of stuff that's got you a great name for a sympathetic and feeling man, I suppose? D'you mean it, or is it just the natural flow of words, as the rain falls and the water rolls down-hill? I tell you that he was a good man, and a man to make others happy in his mild, humble way. Feeble you might call him here and there. And his feebleness ended him. Too feeble to face life without that heartless baggage!"

"Leave her alone. You don't understand that side, and this isn't the time to try and make you. She's hit hard enough."

Humphrey regarded his brother with a blazing glance of rage. Then his features relaxed and he smiled strangely at his own heart, but not at Nathan.

"I was forgetting," he said. Then he relapsed into silence.

Presently he spoke again.

"My Mark wasn't much more than a picture hung on a wall to some people. Perhaps he wasn't much more to me. But you miss the picture if 'tis taken down. I never thought of such a thing happening. I didn't know or guess all that was hidden bottled up in him. I thought he was getting over it; but, lover-like, he couldn't think she'd really gone. Then something—the woman herself, I suppose—rubbed it into him that there was no more hope; and then he took himself off like this. For such a worthless rag—to think! And I suppose she'll hear his bell next Sunday without turning a hair."

"Don't say that. She's terribly cut up and distressed. And I'm sure none—none will ever listen to his bell like we used to. 'Twill always have a sad message for everybody that knew Mark."

"Humbug and trash! You'll be the first to laugh and crack your jokes and all the rest of it, the day that girl marries. And the bell clashing overhead, and the ashes of him in the ground under. Let me choose the man—let me choose the man when she takes a husband!"

Nathan perceived that his brother did not know the truth. It was no moment to speak of Cora and Ned Baskerville, however.

"I've just come from the inquest," he said. "Of course 'twas brought in 'unsound mind.'"

"Of course—instead of seeing and owning that the only flash of sanity in many a life be the resolve and deed to leave it. He was sane enough. No Baskerville was ever otherwise. 'Tis only us old fools, that stop here fumbling at the knot, that be mad. The big spirits can't wait to be troubled for threescore years and ten with a cargo of stinking flesh. They drop it overboard and——"

His foot slipped and interrupted the sentence.

"Take my arm," said the innkeeper. "I've told Gollop that Mark will lie with his mother."

The other seemed suddenly moved by this news.

"If I've misjudged you, Nathan, I'm sorry for it," he said. "You know in your heart whether you're as good as the folk think; and as wise; and as worthy. But you catch me short of sleep to-day; and when I'm short of sleep, I'm short of sense, perhaps. To lie with his mother—eh? No new thing if he does. He lay many a night under her bosom afore he was born, and many a night on it afterwards. She was wonderful wrapped up in him—the only thing she fretted to leave. How she would nuzzle him, for pure animal love, when he was a babby—like a cat and her kitten."

"He promised her when he was ten years old—the year she died—that he would be buried with her," said Nathan. "I happen to know that, Humphrey."

"Few keep their promises to the dead; but he's dead himself now. Burrow down—burrow down to her and put him there beside her—dust to dust. I take no stock in dust of any sort—not being a farmer. But his mother earned heaven, and if he didn't, her tears may float him in. To have bred an immortal soul, mark you, is something, even if it gets itself damned. The parent of a human creature be like God, for he's had a hand in the making of an angel or a devil."

"Shall we bring Mark back to-night, or shall the funeral start from the church?" asked Nathan.

They had now descended the hill and stood at Humphrey's gate.

"Don't worry his bones. Let him stop where he is till his bed's ready. I'm not coming to the funeral."

"Not coming!"

"No. I didn't go to my wife's, did I?"

"Yes, indeed you did, Humphrey."

"You're wrong there. A black hat with a weeper on it, and a coat, and a mourning hankercher was there—not me. Bury him, and toll his own bell for him, but for God's sake don't let any useful person catch their death of cold for him. Me and his mother—we'll mourn after our own fashion. Yes, her too: there are spirits moving here for the minute. In his empty room she was the night he finished it. Feeling about she was, as if she'd lost a threepenny piece in the bed-tick. I heard her. 'Let be!' I shouted from my chamber. 'The man's not there: he's dead—hanged hisself for love in the belfry. Go back where you come from. Belike he'll be there afore you, and, if not, they'll tell you where to seek him.'"

He turned abruptly and went in; then as his brother, dazed and bewildered, was about to hurry homeward, the elder again emerged and called to him.

"A word for your ear alone," he said as Nathan returned. "There's not much love lost between us, and never can be; but I thank you for coming to me to-day. I know you meant to do a kindly thing. My trouble hasn't blinded me. Trouble ban't meant to do that. Tears have washed many eyes into clear seeing, as never saw straight afore they shed 'em. I'm obliged to you. You've come to me in trouble, though well you know I don't like you. 'Twas a Christian thing and I shan't forget it of you. If ever you fall into trouble yourself, come to me, innkeeper."

"'Twas worth my pains to hear that. God support you always, brother."

But Humphrey had departed.

Nathan drifted back and turned instinctively to Undershaugh rather than his own house. Darkness and concern homed there also; Cora had gone away to friends far from the village, and the Linterns all wore mourning for Mark.

Priscilla met her landlord and he came into the kitchen and flung his hat on the table and sat down to warm himself by the fire.

"God knows what's going to happen," he said. "The man's mind is tottering. Never such sense and nonsense was jumbled in a breath."

After a pause he spoke again.

"And poor old Susan's half mad too. An awful house of it. Nothing Humphrey may do will surprise me. But one blessed word he said, poor chap, though whether he knew what he was talking about I can't guess. He thanked me for coming to him in trouble—thanked me even gratefully and said he'd never forget it. That was a blessed thing for me to hear, at such a time."

The emotional man shed tears and Priscilla Lintern ministered to him.

CHAPTER XVII

Humphrey Baskerville had sought for peace by many roads, and when the final large catastrophe of his life fell upon him, it found him treading a familiar path.

He had conceived, that only by limiting the ties of the flesh and trampling love of man from his heart, might one approximate to contentment, fearlessness, and rest. He had supposed that the fewer we love, the less life has power to torment us, and he had envied the passionless, sunless serenity of recorded philosophers and saints. He was glad that, at a time when nature has a large voice in the affairs of the individual and sways him through sense, he had not incurred the customary responsibilities.

Chance threw him but a single child; and when the mother of the child was taken from him, he felt a sort of dreary satisfaction that fate could only strike one more vital blow. He had dwarfed his affections obstinately; he had estimated the power of life to inflict further master sorrows, and imagined that by the death of one human creature alone could added suffering come. So at least he believed before the event. And now that creature was actually dead. Out of the ranks of man, the bullet had found and slain his son.

Yet, when Mark sank to the grave and the first storm of his passing was stilled in the father's heart, great new facts and information, until then denied, fell upon Humphrey Baskerville's darkness and showed him that even this stroke could not sever his spirit from its kind.

The looked-for deliverance did not descend upon him; the universal indifference did not come. Instead his unrest persisted and he found the fabric of his former dream as baseless as all dreaming. Because the alleged saint and the detached philosopher are forms that mask reality; they are poses only possible where the soul suffers from constitutional atrophy or incurred frost-bite.

They who stand by the wayside and watch, are freezing to death instead of burning healthily away. Faulty sentience is not sublime; to be gelded of some natural human instinct is not to stand upon the heights. He who lifts a barrier between himself and life, shall be found no more than an unfinished thing. His ambition for detachment is the craving of disease; his content is the content of unconsciousness; his peace is the peace of the mentally infirm.

A complete man feels; a complete man suffers with all his tingling senses; a complete man smarts to see the world's negligences, ignorances, brutalities; he endures them as wrongs to himself; and, because he is a complete man, he too blunders and adds his errors to the sum of human tribulation, even while he fights with all his power for the increase of human happiness.

The world's welfare is his own; its griefs are also his. He errs and makes atonement; he achieves and helps others to achieve; he loathes the cloister and loves the hearth. He suffers when society is stricken; he mourns when the tide of evolution seems to rest from its eternal task 'of pure ablution round earth's human shores'; he is troubled when transitory victories fall to evil or ignorance; in fine, he lives. And his watch-tower and beacon is not content, not peace, but truth.

He stands as high above the cowardly serenity of any anchorite or chambered thinker, as the star above glimmering and rotten wood in a forest hidden; and he knows that no great heart is ever passionless, or serene, or emparadised beyond the cry of little hearts, until it has begun to grow cold. To be holy to yourself alone is to be nought; a piece of marble makes a better saint; and he who quits the arena to look on, though he may be as wise as the watching gods, is also as useless.

Dimly, out of the cloud of misery that fell upon him when his son perished, Baskerville began to perceive and to feel these facts. He had consoled himself by thinking that the only two beings he loved in the whole world were gone out of it, and now waited together in eternity for his own arrival thither.

Their battle was ended; and since they were at rest, nothing further remained for him to trouble about. But the anticipated peace did not appear; no anodyne poured into his soul; and he discovered, that for his nature, the isolated mental standpoint did not exist.

There could arise no healing epiphany of mental indifference for him. He might be estranged, but to exile himself was impossible. He must always actively hate what he conceived to be evil; he must always suspect human motives; he must always feel the flow and ebb of the human tide. Though his own rocky heart might be lifted above them, the waves of that sea would tune its substance to throb in sympathy, or fret it to beat with antagonism, so long as it pulsed at all.

This discovery surprised the man; for he had believed that a radical neutrality to human affairs belonged to him.

He attributed the sustained restlessness of his spirit to recent griefs and supposed that the storm would presently disappear; and meantime he plunged into a minor whirlwind by falling into the bitterest quarrel with his elder brother.

Nathan indeed he had suffered to depart in peace; but as soon as the bereaved father learned that Vivian's son, Ned, was engaged to Cora, and perceived how it was this fact that had finally killed hope in Mark and induced the unhappy weakling to destroy himself, his rage burst forth against the master of Cadworthy; and when Vivian called upon the evening of the funeral to condole with Humphrey, an enduring strife sprang up between them.

"I'm come as the head of the family, Humphrey," began the veteran, "and it ban't seemly that this here terrible day should pass over your head without any of your kith and kin speaking to you and comforting you. We laid the poor young man along with his mother in the second row of the Baskerville stones. My word! as Gollop said after the funeral, 'even in death the Baskervilles be a pushing family!' Our slates stretch pretty near from the church to the churchyard wall now."

"Thank you for being there," answered his brother. "I couldn't have gone, because of the people. There was no maiming of the rite—eh?"

"Not a word left out—all as it should be. Eight young men carried him, including a farmer or two, and my son Ned, and Heathman Lintern, and also my son Rupert—though where he came from and where he went to after 'twas ended, I don't know, and don't care. He's left me—to better himself—so he thinks, poor fool! A nice way to treat a good father."

"You've lost a son, too, then—lost him to find him again, doing man's work. You'll live to know that he was right and you were wrong. But my son—my mind is turned rather rotten of late. After dark I can't get his dead face out of my eyes. Nought terrible, neither—just, in a word, 'dead.' He broke his neck—he didn't strangle himself. He knew what he was about. But there, I see it. Gone—and none knows what he was to me. He never knew himself; and for that matter I never knew myself, neither—till he was gone."

"We never do know all other folk mean to us—not until they be snatched off. If anybody had told me how my son Rupert's going would have made such a difference, I'd not have believed it."

"Then think of this house. You feel that—you with your store of children and Rupert, after all, but gone a few miles away to go on with his work and marry the proper wife you deny him. But me—nought left—nought but emptiness—no 'Good morning, father'; no 'Good night, father'; no ear to listen; no voice to ask for my advice. And I'd plotted and planned for him, Vivian; I'd made half a hundred little secret plans for him. I knew well the gentle fashion of man he was—not likely ever to make a fighter—and so I'd cast his life in a mould where it could be easy. He'd have come to know in time. But he never did know. He went out of it in a hurry, and never hinted a whisper of what he was going to do. If he'd but given me the chance to argue it out with him!"

"We've acted alike, me and you," answered his brother; "and it ban't for any man to dare to say that either of us was wrong. When the young fall into error, 'tis our bounden duty to speak and save 'em if we've got the power. I don't hold with Rupert——"

"No need to drag in your affairs. That case is very different. I did not treat my son like a child; I did not forbid him to marry and turn him out of doors."

"Stay!" cried Vivian, growing red, "you mustn't speak so to me."

"What did you do if it wasn't that? No proud man can stay under the roof where he's treated like a child. But Mark—did I forbid? No. I only made it clear that I despised the woman he'd set his heart on. I only told him the bitter truth of her. If she'd clung to him through all, would I have turned him away or refused him? Never. 'Twould have made no difference. 'Twas not me kept 'em apart—as you are trying to keep apart your son and Saul Luscombe's niece—trying and failing. 'Twas the proud, empty, heartless female herself that left him."

"I'll hear nought against her," answered Vivian stoutly. "She's not proud and she's not empty. She's a very sensible woman, and this cruel piece of work has been a sad trouble to her. She left Mark because she felt that you hated her, and would torment her and make her married life a scourge to her back. Any woman with proper sense and self-respect would have done the like. 'Twas you and only you choked her off your son, and 'tis vain—'tis wicked to the girl—to say now that 'twas her fault. But I've not come to speak these things—only I won't hear lies told."

"You've heard 'em already, it seems. Who's been telling you this trash? Nathan Baskerville belike?"

"As a matter of fact 'tis my son Ned," answered Vivian. "You must surely know how things have fallen out? It happened long afore poor Mark died. Didn't he tell you?"

"He told me nought. What should he tell me? Ned he certainly wouldn't name, for he knew of all your brood I like your eldest son least—a lazy, worthless man, as all the world well knows but you."

"You shan't anger me, try as you will, Humphrey. I'm here, as your elder brother and the head of the family, to offer sympathy to you in your trouble; and I'll ax you to leave my family alone. Young men will be young men, and as for Ned, if I be the only one that feels as I should feel to him, 'tis because I'm the only one that understands his nature and his gifts. He'll astonish you yet, and all of us. The books he reads! You wait. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He's taking his time, and if he wants a wife, 'tis only in reason that the future head of the family should have a wife; and why not? He shan't have to work as I have worked."

"A fool's word! What made you all you are? Work and the love of it. Yet you let him go to the devil in idleness."

"If you'd but suffer me to finish my speech—I say that Ned won't work as I have worked—with my limbs and muscles. He's got a brain, and the time be coming when he'll use it."

"Never."

"Anyway a settled life is the first thing, and the mind free to follow its proper bent. And I don't say 'no' to his marrying, because the case is different from Rupert's, and 'tis fitting that he should do so."

"But Rupert must not. And you pass for a just and sensible man!"

"'Tis strange—something in the Baskerville character that draws her—but so it is," continued the master of Cadworthy, ignoring his brother's last remark. "In a word, when he found she was free, my Ned took up with Cora Lintern, and she's going to marry him. But 'tis to be a full year from this sad Christmas—I bargained for that and will have it so."

"'Going to take him'? Going to take your son!" cried the other.

"She is; and I sanction it; for I found her a very different maiden to what you did."

"Going to marry Ned! Going from my Mark to your Ned!"

"'Twas settled some time ago. Mark knew it, for I myself let it out to him when I met him one day in North Wood. 'Twas but two days afore his last breath, poor fellow. Of course, I thought that he knew all about it, and as it was understood that he had got over his loss very bravely and was cheerful and happy as usual again, I made nothing of the matter, thinking that was the best way to take it."

Humphrey stared at him.

"Go on—you're letting in the light," he said.

"That's all—all save this. When I told Mark that Cora was going to wed his cousin, I saw by his face 'twas news for him. His colour faded away. Then I knew that he hadn't heard about it. Accident had kept it from him till the matter was a week old."

"And he said——?"

"He just said something stammering like. He was a bit of a kick-hammer in his speech sometimes—nothing to name; but it would overtake him now and again if he was very much excited. I didn't catch just what the words were—something about one of the family having her, I think 'twas."

"Then he went and killed himself, and not till then. So 'twas your son after all as settled him—don't roar me down, for I'll be heard. Your son—all his work! He plotted and planned it. And lazy I thought him! And I might have known there's no such thing as laziness of mind and body both. Busy as a bee damning himself—damning himself, I tell you! A shifty traitor, a man to stab other men in the back, a knave and the vilest thing that ever bore our name. And you know it—you know it as well as I do."

"By God! this is too much," shouted out Vivian, rising to his feet and towering over the crouching figure opposite him. "What are you made of to say such vile things of an innocent man? You see life all awry; you see——

"I see a hard-hearted, blind old fool," answered the other. "You let your wretched son rob you of justice and reason and sense and everything. Get hence! I'll have no more of you. But your time will come; you'll suffer yet; and this godless, useless brute—this murderer—will murder you yourself, maybe, or murder your love of living at the least. Wait and watch him a little longer. He'll bring your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave afore he's done with you—take my word for that. And as for me, I'll curse him to his dying day, and curse you for breeding him! Wait and watch what you've done and the fashion of man you've let loose on the world; and let them marry—the sooner the better—then his punishment's brewed and there's no escape from the drinking. Yes, let him eat and drink of her, for man's hate can't wish him a worse meal than that."

He ceased because he was alone. Vivian had felt a terrible danger threatening him, and had fled from it.

"My anger heaved up like seven devils in me," he told his wife afterwards. "If I'd bided a moment longer I must have struck the man. So I just turned tail and bolted afore the harm was done. Not but what harm enough be done. Mad—mad he was by the froth on his lip and the light in his eye, and them awful eyebrows twitching like an angry ape's. 'Twas more a wild beast in a tantrum than a human. 'Tis all over, and no fault of mine. I'll never speak to thicky horrible creature no more so long as I live—never. And I'll not willingly so much as set eyes upon him again."

"A very Pharaoh of a man, no doubt," declared Mrs. Baskerville. "The Lord has hardened his heart against us; but He'll soften it in His own good time. Though for that matter 'tis difficult to see how he can be struck again. His all be took from him."

Vivian considered this saying, but it did not shake his intention.

"He's growed dangerous and desperate, and 'twill be wiser that I see him no more," he answered. "He's flung my sympathy back in my face, and that's a sort of blow leaves a bruise that a long life's self can't medicine."

"'Twill come right. Time will heal it," she told him.

But he was doubtful.

"There may not be time," he said. "The man won't live long at the gait he's going—burning away with misery, he is. And calls himself a Christian! Little enough comfort the poor soul sucks out of Christ."

Within a week of this incident Humphrey Baskerville was seeking his brother's society again—a thing of all others least likely to have happened. It fell out that he was walking as usual on the waste above Hawk House, when he saw his nephew Rupert proceeding hastily along the distant road to Cadworthy Farm. The young man noted him, left his way and approached.

"'Tis well I met you, uncle," he said. "Young Humphrey's just ridden over to you with a message from mother. Then he came on to me. There's terrible trouble at home—father, I mean. You know what he is for doing heavy work—work beyond his years, of course. He was shifting grain from the loft, and they found him fallen and insensible with a sack on top of him. I hope to God it ban't very bad. Mother sent off for me, for fear it might be a fatal thing. And Humphrey says my name was on father's lips when they laid him to bed after doctor had gone. He said, 'This be Rupert's fault. I be driven to this heavy work along of him leaving me, and now he's killed me.' I'm sure I hope he'll call that back, for 'tis a terrible thing for me to live under if he died."

"I'll come along with you," said Mr. Baskerville; "and as to what your father may have spoken in his anger at being stricken down, pay no heed to it. He's like a silly boy over these feats of strength, and he'd have shifted the sacks just the same if you'd been there. The thing he said isn't true, and there's an end on it. He'll be sorry he uttered the word when he's better."

They hurried forward and presently stood at the door of Cadworthy.

"You'd best knock afore you enter," said the elder. "We're both in disgrace here, and come as strangers. I had a difference with your father last time we met. Ned Baskerville is tokened to that woman that killed Mark. I could not hear and keep dumb. I cursed my brother in my rage, and I owe him an apology."

Rupert knocked at the door, and his sister May answered it. Her eyelids were red with tears and her manner agitated.

"How's your father?" asked Humphrey.

"Very bad, uncle. 'Tis a great doubt if he'll get better, doctor says."

"Then be sure he will. I've come to see him."

Mrs. Baskerville appeared behind May. She was very pale, but appeared collected.

"I'm sorry—terrible sorry," she said. "I've told dear master that I'd sent for Rupert and for you, Humphrey, but he won't see neither of you. 'Tis no good arguing about it in his state; but I pray God he'll change his mind to-morrow."

Rupert kissed his mother.

"Bear up," he said. "With his strength and great courage he'll weather it, please God. You know where I am—not five mile away. I'll come running the moment he'll see me."

"And ask him to forgive his brother. I'm sorry I said the things I did," declared Humphrey Baskerville.

A pony cart drove up at this moment and Eliza Gollop alighted from it.

She carried a large brown-paper parcel, and a corded box was lifted out after her.

"I've come," she said. "Doctor left a message for me as he went back along, and I was ready as usual. How's the poor man going on? I'm afraid you must not be very hopeful—so doctor said on his way back; but where there's life and me there's always hope, as my brother Thomas will have it."

Humphrey and his nephew walked slowly away together. At the confines of the farmyard Rupert turned out of the road a little and pointed upwards to a window that faced the east. A white blind was drawn down over it.

"That's father's room," he said.

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