CHAPTER I

Humphrey Baskerville continued to stalk the stage of life like a lonely ghost, and still obscured from all men and women the secrets of his nature, and the fierce interest of his heart in matters human. The things that he most wished to display he deliberately concealed, as a shy child who makes a toy, and longs to show it, but dares not, yet grows warm to the roots of his being if the treasure is found and applauded. Behind doubts, suspicions and jealousies he hid himself; his tongue was rough; his utterances at the outrage put upon him before the people by his brother's grave were bitter and even coarse. Nor did it abate his concern to know that the hostile explosion was as much simulated as genuine, as much mischievous as meant. It drove him in upon himself; it poisoned his opinion of human wisdom; and for a time he moved through darkest night.

Yet this transcendent gloom preceded a dawn; the crisis of his unquiet days approached; and, from the death of Nathan onward, life changed gradually for the man, and opened into a way that until now had been concealed from his scrutiny.

There chanced an hour when Humphrey Baskerville rode upon his pony under the high ground above Cornwood. He came by appointment to meet his dead brother's lawyer, and accident had postponed the interview for some weeks. The solicitor desired to see him. There were strange rumours in the air, and it was declared that a very surprising and unexpected condition of things had appeared upon the publican's passing.

Humphrey refused to hear even his own relations upon the matter, for he held Nathan's estate no concern of his; but at the urgent entreaties of Mr. Popham, the master of Hawk House now rode to see him. He had, however, already made it clear that he was to be considered in no way responsible for his brother's obligations, and felt unprepared to offer advice or engage himself in any particular.

He passed across the shoulder of Pen Beacon, through a wild world of dun-coloured hills, streaked with flitting radiance, and clouded in billowy moisture driven before a great wind. The sky was lowering, and a gale from the Atlantic swept with tremendous power along; but the nature of the scene it struck was such that little evidence of the force displayed could appear to the beholder. Stone and steep and sodden waste stared blindly at the pressure and flinched not. It remained for wandering beast or man to bend before it and reveal its might. On the pelt of the sheep and cattle, or against the figure of a wanderer, its buffet was manifest; and, in the sky, the fierce breath of it herded the clouds into flocks, that sped and spread and gathered again too swiftly for the telling. They broke in billows of sudden light; they massed into darkness and hid the earth beneath them; then again they parted, and, like a ragged flag above a broken army, the clean blue unfurled.

Over this majestic desolation suddenly there shot forth a great company of rooks, and the wind drove them before it—whirling and wheeling and tumbling in giddy dives, only to mount again. A joyous spirit clearly dominated the feathered people. They circled and cried aloud in merry exultation of the air. They swooped and soared, rushed this way and that on slanting pinions, played together and revelled in the immense force that drove them like projectiles in a wild throng before it. Even to these aerial things such speed was strange. They seemed to comment in their language upon this new experience. Then the instinct unfathomed that makes vast companies of living creatures wheel and warp together in mysterious and perfect unison, inspired them. They turned simultaneously, ascended and set their course against the wind. But they could make no headway now, and, in a cloud, they were blown together, discomforted, beaten to leeward. Whereupon they descended swiftly to the level of the ground, and, flying low, plodded together back whence they had come. At a yard or two above earth's surface they steadily flapped along, cheated the wind, and for a few moments flashed a reflected light over the Moor with their innumerable shining black bodies and pinions outspread. At a hedge they rose only to dip again, and here Humphrey, who drew up to watch them, marked how they worked in the teeth of the gale, and was near enough to see their great grey bills, their anxious, glittering eyes, and their hurtling feathers blown awry as they breasted the hedge, fought over, and dipped again.

"'Tis the same as life," he reflected. "Go aloft and strive for high opinions, and the wind of doubt blows you before it like a leaf. Up there you can travel with the storm, not against it. If you want to go t'other way, you've got to feel along close to earth seemingly—to earth and the manners of earth and the folk of the earth. And hard work at that; but better than driving along all alone."

He derived some consolation from this inchoate thought, and suspected a moral; but the simile broke down. His mind returned to Mr. Popham presently, and, taking leave of the Moor, he descended and arrived at the lawyer's house upon the appointed hour.

The things that he heard, though he was prepared for some such recital, astounded him by their far-reaching gravity. The fact was of a familiar character; but it came with the acidulated sting of novelty to those involved. An uproar, of which Humphrey in his isolation had heard but the dim echo, already rioted through Shaugh Prior, and far beyond it.

"I'll give you a sketch of the situation," said the man of business. "And I will then submit my own theory of it—not that any theory can alter the exceedingly unpleasant facts. It belongs merely to the moral side of the situation, and may help a little to condone our poor friend's conduct. In a word, I do not believe he was responsible."

"Begin at the other end," answered Humphrey. "Whether he was responsible or not won't help us now. And it won't prevent honest men spurning his grave, I fancy."

Mr. Popham collected his papers and read a long and dismal statement. His client had always kept his affairs closely to himself, and such was the universal trust and confidence that none ever pressed him to do otherwise. He had been given a free hand in the administration of considerable sums; he had invested where he pleased, and for many years had enjoyed the best of good fortune, despite the hazardous character of the securities he affected.

"No man was ever cursed with such an incurable gift of hope," explained the lawyer. "All along the line you'll find the same sanguine and unjustifiable methods exhibited. The rate per cent was all he cared about. His custom was to pay everybody four and a half, and keep the balance. But when companies came to grief nobody heard anything about it; he went on paying the interest, and, no doubt, went on hoping to make good the capital. This, however, he seldom appears to have done. There are about forty small people who deposited their savings with him, and there is nothing for any of them but valueless paper. He was bankrupt a dozen times over, and the thing he'd evidently pinned his last hope to—a big South American silver mine—is going the way of the others. Had it come off, the position might have been retrieved; but it is not coming off. He put five thousand pounds into it—not his own money—and hoped, I suppose, to make thirty thousand. It was his last flutter."

"Where did he get the money?"

"By mortgaging Cadworthy and by using a good deal of his late brother's capital. I mean the estate of Mr. Vivian Baskerville."

"He's a fraudulent trustee, then?"

"He is. He had already mortgaged all his own property. He was in a very tight place about the time of Mr. Vivian's death, and the money he had to handle then carried him on."

"What did he do with his own money? How did he spend that?"

"We shall never know, unless somebody comes forward and tells us. I trace the usual expenditures of a publican and other expenses. He always kept a good horse or two, and he rode to hounds until latterly, and subscribed to several hunts. He was foolishly generous at all times. I see that he gave away large sums anonymously—but unfortunately they were not his own. There is no doubt that his judgment failed completely of late years. He was so accustomed to success that he had no experience of failure, and when inevitable failures came, they found him quite unprepared with any reserves against them. To stem the tide he gambled, and when his speculations miscarried, he waded still more deeply. He was engaged in borrowing a large sum of money just before his final illness. Indeed, he came to me for it, for he kept me quite in the dark concerning existing mortgages on his property. But he forgot I should want the title-deeds. He was a devious man, but I shall always believe that he lacked moral understanding to know the terrible gravity of the things he did."

"How do we stand now?"

"The estate is from six thousand to seven thousand pounds to the bad."

"What is there against that?"

"The assets are practically nil. About forty pounds at the bank, and the furniture at 'The White Thorn' Inn. Of course, his largest creditor will be Mr. Ned Baskerville, of Cadworthy Farm. I want to say, by the way, that this state of things is quite as much of a surprise to me as to anybody. It is true that I have been his solicitor for twenty years, but my work was nominal. I had no knowledge whatever of his affairs. He never consulted me when in difficulties, or invited my opinion on any subject."

"What about the Linterns?"

"They have asked to stop at Undershaugh for the present. I fancy Mrs. Lintern was a close friend of your brother's. However, she is not communicative. The mortgagee in that case, of course, forecloses, and will, I think, be contented to let Mrs. Lintern stop where she is."

"There was no will?"

"I can find none."

"Yet I know very well he made one ten years ago. At least, he came to me once rather full of it."

"It is very likely that he destroyed it."

There was a silence; then Humphrey Baskerville asked a question.

"Well, what d'you want of me?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"I leave that to you. You know how much or how little you regard this disaster as a personal one."

"It has nothing whatever to do with me. I never lent him a penny. He never asked me to do so."

"You don't recognise any obligation?"

"Absolutely not a shadow of any such thing."

"The family of which you are now head——?"

"A sentimental lawyer!"

The other laughed.

"Not much room for sentimentality—at least, plenty of room, no doubt. Of course, if you don't consider——"

He broke off, but his listener did not speak.

"It is to be understood I must not ask you to help me?"

"Not in any practical way—not with money—certainly not. For the rest, if as a man of business I can be of any service——"

"For the sake of the family."

"The family is nothing to me—at least, the one hit hardest is nothing to me. He'll have to work for his living now. That's no hardship. It may be the best thing that's befallen him yet."

"Very true, indeed. Well, let us leave the main question open. The case has no very unusual features. Occasionally the world trusts a man to his grave, and then finds out, too late, that it was mistaken. It is extraordinary what a lot of people will trust a good heart, Mr. Baskerville. Trust, like hope, springs eternal in the human breast."

"Does it? I've never found much come my way. And I'm not strong in trust myself. I felt friendly to Nathan, because he was my own flesh and blood; but trust him—no."

"He didn't confide in you?"

"Never."

Mr. Baskerville rose.

"I shall see my relations no doubt pretty soon. I fancy they'll pay me some visits. Well, why not? I'm lonely, and rolling in money—so they think. And—there's a woman that I rather expect to call upon me. In fact, I've bidden her to do so. Perhaps, if she don't, I'll call on her. For the present we can leave it. If there's no money, nobody can hope to be paid. We'll talk more on that later. Who's got Cadworthy?"

"Westcott of Cann Quarries. He lent the money on it."

"What the devil does he want with it?" asked Mr. Baskerville.

"That I can't tell you. Probably he doesn't want it. He's foreclosed, of course. It was only out of friendship and regard for Mr. Nathan that he lent so much money on the place. He tells me that your brother explained to him that it was for a year or so to help Ned; and out of respect for the family he gladly obliged."

"Didn't know Westcott was so rich."

"You never know who's got the money in these parts. But 'tis safe to bet that it isn't the man who spends most. There's Mr. Timothy Waite, too, he lent Nathan a thousand, six months ago. Some cock-and-bull story your poor brother told him, and of course, for such a man, he gladly obliged. Each that he raised money from thought he was the only one asked, of course."

"He was a rogue, and the worst sort of rogue—a chapel-going, preaching, generous-handed, warm-hearted rogue. Such men are the thieves of virtue. 'Tis an infamous story."

The lawyer stared, and Humphrey continued.

"Such men are robbers, I tell you—robbers of more than money and widows' houses. They are always seeming honest, and never being so. They run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They get the benefit of being rogues, and the credit of honest men. They are imitation good men, and at heart know not the meaning of real goodness. They have the name of being generous and kind—they are neither. Look what this man has left behind him—blessings turned to curses. All a sham, and a lifelong theft of men's admiration and esteem—a theft; for he won it by false pretences and lived a lie."

"He is dead, however."

"Yes, he is dead; and I suppose you are the sort who like to palter with facts and never speak ill of the dead. Why should we not tell the truth about those who are gone? Does it hurt them to say it? No; but it may do the living some good to say it. If living knaves see us condoning and forgiving dead ones, will they turn from their knavery any the quicker? We're a slack-twisted, sentimental generation. Justice is the last thing thought of. It's so easy to be merciful to people who have sinned against somebody else. But mercy's slow poison, if you ask me. It rots the very roots of justice."

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"The first of Christian virtues, Mr. Baskerville, we must remember that. But argument won't alter facts. You don't see your way to do anything definite, so there's an end of it. Of course, there is no shadow of obligation."

"You're right. I'll visit you again presently. Meantime you might let me have a copy of the claims. I'm interested in knowing how many fools trusted my dead brother with their money. I should like to know what manner of man and woman put their savings into another man's pocket without security. It seems contrary to human nature."

"There's no objection at all. They are all clamouring for their money. And if the South American silver mine had done all that was hoped, not only would they have had their cash, but your brother must have saved his own situation, cleared his responsibilities, and died solvent."

"'If.' There's generally a rather big 'if' with a South American anything, I believe."

They parted, and Humphrey Baskerville rode home again. Upon the way he deeply pondered all the things that he had heard, and not until he was back at Hawk House did distraction from these thoughts come. Then he found that a woman waited to see him. It was Priscilla Lintern, who had called at his invitation; and now he remembered that he had asked her, and half regretted the act.

CHAPTER II

Mrs. Lintern arrived by appointment, for while one instinct of his nature pressed Humphrey to evade this problem and take no hand in the solution, another and more instant impulse acted in opposition.

He surveyed the sweep of events as they struck at those involved in Nathan's ruin and death; and acting upon reasons now to be divulged, he sent first for the mistress of Undershaugh; because in his judgment her right to consideration was paramount.

Even in the act of summoning her, he told himself that these claims were no business of his to investigate; and that he was a fool to meddle. He repudiated responsibility at one breath, and deliberately assumed it with the next. His own motives he did not pause to examine.

Introspection irritated him and he turned from his conflicting ideas with impatience. In himself he only saw a very ill-balanced, imprudent, and impertinent person; yet he proceeded.

Now came Mrs. Lintern to know what he would have, and he saw her with an emotion of hearty regret that he had invited her.

In answer to his first question she assured him that she and her children were well.

"I'm afraid putting off the wedding has annoyed your nephew a good bit," she said; "but Cora felt that it was better; and so did I."

"Why did you think so?"

"Well, your brother held it so much to heart; and he was Ned's uncle. We could only have made a very quiet business of it in decency; and Cora felt 'twould be sad to marry under the cloud of death."

"Half the sorrow in the world is wasted on what can't be helped. It's folly to mourn what's beyond altering—just as great folly as to mourn the past. Surely you know that?"

"No doubt; but who can help it that's made on a human pattern?"

"The world would be a cheerful place if none wept for what can't be altered. There was nothing in reason to stand between us and the wedding. 'Twas my brother's last wish, for that matter."

She did not answer and a silence fell between them. He was determined that she should break it, and at length she did so.

"Your brother was very fond of Cora. Of course, we at Undershaugh miss him a very great deal."

"You would—naturally."

"At present the idea is that they get married in spring; and that won't be none too soon, for everything's altered now. They'll have to sell half they bought, and get rid of their fine house and their horses, and much else. This business has entirely altered the future for them, poor things."

"Utterly, of course. 'Twill have to be real love to stand this pinch. Better they wait a bit and see how they feel about it. They may change their minds. Both are pretty good at that."

She sighed.

"They understand each other, I believe. But Ned won't change, whatever Cora does. He's wrapped up heart and soul in her."

"He'll have to seek work now."

"Yes; he is doing so."

"The one thing he's never looked for. Harder to find work than foxes."

"He's not good for much."

"You say that of your future son-in-law?"

"Truth's truth. A harmless and useless man. I can't for the life of me think what he'll find to do."

"Nathan would have given him a job—eh? How wonderful he was at finding work for people. And what does Cora think of it all?":

"She's a very secret girl."

"And Heathman?"

"Heathman be going to make my home for me—somewhere. 'Tisn't decided where we go."

"You leave Undershaugh, then?"

"Yes."

"Nathan wouldn't have wished that, I'm sure."

"We were to have stopped, but the new owner wants to raise the rent to nearly as much again."

"What used you to pay?"

She hesitated. Like many people whose position has forced them into the telling of countless lies, she was still tender of truth in trifles.

"No matter," he said. "I can guess the figure very easily, and nought's the shape of it."

A sinister foreboding flashed through her mind. It seemed impossible to suppose such an innuendo innocent. Miss Gollop had said many offensive things concerning her after Nathan's death; but few had believed them, and still fewer shown the least interest in the subject. It was absurd to suppose that Humphrey Baskerville would trouble his head with such a rumour.

"Your brother was generous to all," she answered.

"Why, he was. And if charity shouldn't begin at home, where should it?"

"He was very generous to all," she repeated.

"I've been seeing Mr. Popham to-day."

"He's a true kind man, and wishful to do what he can. The rent asked now for Undershaugh is too high, even in the good state we've made it. So I've got to leave."

"'Twill be a wrench."

"Yes, indeed."

"But not such a bad one as his death?"

"That's true."

He probed her.

"Never to see him come down your path with his bustling gait; never to hear the laughter of the man. You held his hand when he went out of life. He loved you—'twas the master passion of him."

A flush of colour leapt and spread over her face. She gasped but said nothing.

"A cruel thing that he left you as he did."

"What was I?" she began, alert and ready to fight at once and crush this suspicion. "What are you saying? We were nothing——"

He held up his hand.

"A fool's trick—a lifelong fool's trick to hide it—a cruel, witless thing—a wrong against generations unborn—scandalous—infamous—beyond belief in a sane man."

"I don't understand you. God's my——"

"Hush—hush! I'm not an enemy. You needn't put out your claws; you needn't lie to me. You needn't break oaths to me. It's a secret still; but I know it—only me. You were his mistress, Priscilla Lintern—his mistress and the mother of his children."

"He never told you that."

"Not he."

"Who did tell you?"

"Cora told me."

"She'd rather have——"

"She told me—not in words; but every other way. I knew it the hour she came to see me, after she was engaged to marry my son. She strokes her chin like Nat stroked his beard. Have you marked that? She thinks just like Nat thought in a lot of ways, though she's not got his heart. She's not near so silly as he was. Her voice was the echo to his as soon as I got the clue. Her eyes were his again. She handles her knife and fork just like he was wont to do it; she sets her head o' one side to listen to anybody in the way he did. There's birds do it too—when they gather worms out of the grass. And from that I took to marking t'others. Your second girl be more like you; but Heathman will be nearer his father every day as he gets older. If he growed a beard, he'd be nearer him now. Wait and watch. And he's got his heart. Don't speak till you hear more. From finding out that much, I sounded Nathan himself. Little he guessed it, but what I didn't know, I soon learned from him. Cora was the apple of his eye. She could do no wrong. 'Twas Vivian and Ned over again. He spoke of you very guarded, but I knew what was behind. It came out when he was dying, and he was too far gone to hide it. And let me say this: I'll never forgive him for doing such a wicked thing—never. God may; but I won't. I wouldn't forgive myself if I forgave him. But you—you—dull man as I am, I can see a bit of what your life was."

"A better life—a more precious life than mine no woman ever lived."

He took a deep breath.

Here she tacitly confessed to all that he had declared. She did not even confirm it in words, but granted it and proceeded with the argument. And yet his whole theory had been built upon presumption. If she had denied the truth, he possessed no shadow of power to prove it.

"If ever I pitied anybody, I pity you; and I admire you in a sort of left-handed way. You're a very uncommon creature to have hid it in the face of such a village as Shaugh Prior."

"What I am he made me. He was a man in ten thousand."

"I hope he was. Leave him. Let me say this afore we get on. I don't judge you and, God knows it, I'm alive to this thing from your point of view. You loved him well enough even for that. But there's no will. He had nothing to leave; therefore—unless you've saved money during his lifetime——?"

"I don't want you to have anything to do with my affairs, Mr. Baskerville."

"As you please. But there are your children to be considered. Now it may very much surprise you to know that I have thought a lot about them. Should you say, speaking as an outsider, that I'm under any obligation to serve them?"

The sudden and most unexpected question again startled the blood from Mrs. Lintern's heart.

"What a terrible curious man you are! What a question to ask me!" she said.

"Answer it, however—as if you wasn't interested in it."

"No," she declared presently. "None can say that they are anything to do with you. You wasn't your brother's keeper. They be no kin of yours in law or justice."

"In law—no. In justice they are of my blood. Not that that's anything. You're right. They are nought to me. And you are less than nought. But——" He stopped.

"Why have you told me that you have found this out?" she asked. "What good can come of it? You'll admit at least 'tis a sacred secret, and you've no right whatever to breathe it to a living soul? You won't deny that?"

"There again—there's such a lot of sides to it. You might argue for and against. Justice is terrible difficult. Suppose, for instance, that I held, like Jack Head holds and many such, that 'tis a very improper thing and a treachery to the unborn to let first cousins mate—suppose I held to that? Ought I to sit by and let Cora marry Ned? Now there's a nice question for an honest man.

"You were going to let Cora marry your own son."

"I don't know so much about that. They were engaged to each other before I found it out, and then, as she soon flung him over, there was no need for me to speak. Now, the question is, shall I let these two of the same blood breed and maybe bring feebler things than themselves into the world?"

"This is all too deep for me. One thing I know, and that is you can say nought. You've come to the truth, by the terrible, wonderful brains in your head; but you've no right to make it known."

"You're ashamed of it?"

She looked at him almost with contempt.

"You can ask that and know me, even so little as you do? God's my judge that I'd shout it out from the top of the church tower to-morrow; I'd be proud for the world to know; and so much the louder I'd sing it because he's gone down to his grave unloved and in darkness. It would make life worth living to me, even now, if I could open my mouth and fight for him against the world. Not a good word do I hear now—all curse him—all forget the other side of him—all forget how his heart went out to the sorrowful and sad.... But there—what's the use of talking? He don't want me to fight for him."

"If you feel that, why don't you stand up before the people and tell 'em?"

"There's my children."

"Be they more to you than he was?"

"No; but they are next."

"I hate deceit. Who'll think the worse of them?"

"Who won't?"

"None that are worth considering."

"You know very little about the world, for all that you are deep as the dark and can find out things hidden. What about my darters? No, it wouldn't be a fair thing to let it out."

"I hold it very important."

"It shan't be, I tell you. You can't do it; you never would."

"You're right. I never would. But that's not to say I don't wish it to come out. For them, mind you, I speak. I leave you out now. I put you first and you say you'd like it known. So I go on to them, and I tell you that for their peace of mind and well-being in the future, 'tis better a thousand times they should start open and fair, without the need of this lie between them and the world."

"I don't agree with that. When the truth was told them on his deathbed, 'twas settled it should never go no further."

"Wait and think a moment before you decide. What has it been to you to hide the truth all your life?"

"A necessity. I soon grew used to it. Nobody was hurt by it. And Nathan kept his money."

"Don't fool yourself to think that none was hurt by it. Everybody was hurt by it. A prosperous lie be like a prosperous thistle: it never yet flourished without ripening seed and increasing its own poisonous stock a thousandfold. The world's full of that thistledown. Your children know the truth themselves; therefore I say it should come out. They've no right to stand between you and the thing you want to do. I'll wager Heathman don't care—it's only your daughters."

"More than that. Nathan would never have wished it known."

"No argument at all. He was soaked in crookedness and couldn't see straight for years afore he died."

"I won't have it and I won't argue about it."

"Well, your word's law. But you're wrong; and you'll live to know you're wrong. Now what are you going to do? We'll start as though I knew nought of this for the moment."

"I stop at Undershaugh till spring. I've got no money to name. We shall settle between ourselves—me and Heathman."

"I'll——"

He stopped.

"No," he said; "I can't promise anything, come to think of it; and I can't commit myself. 'Tis folly to say, 'let the position be as though I didn't know the truth.' It can't be. I do know it, and I'm influenced by it. I'll do nothing at all for any of you unless this comes out. I say that, not because I don't care for my brother's children, but because I do care for them."

"I don't want you to do anything. I've got my son. I refuse absolutely to speak. Until my children are all of one mind about it, the thing must be hidden up—yes, hidden up for evermore. I won't argue the right or the wrong. 'Tis out of my hands, and so long as one of them says 'no,' I hold it my duty to keep silent. And, of course, 'tis yours also."

"Who knows what my duty would be if Ned was going to marry Cora? I'd sacrifice the unborn to you; but not to your daughter and my nephew. There have been enough tongues to curse that worthless pair already. You don't want their own children to do the same in the time to come? But perhaps I know as much about Cora as you do about Ned. Wait and see if she changes her mind, since he has lost his fortune."

Priscilla rose.

"I will go now," she said. "Of course, you can't guess how this looks to a woman—especially to me of all women. To find that you knew—and no doubt you thought I'd come here and drop dead afore you of shame."

"No, I didn't. If you'd been that sort, I shouldn't have plumped it out so straight. You are a brave creature, and must always have been so. Well, I won't deny you the name of wife in secret—if you like to claim it."

She was moved and thanked him. Satisfaction rather than concern dominated her mind as she returned homeward. She felt glad that Nathan's brother knew, and no shadow of fear dimmed her satisfaction; for she was positive that, despite any declared doubts, he would never make the truth public.

Her own attitude was even as she had described it. She would have joyed to declare her close companionship, if only to stop the tongues of those who hesitated not to vilify the dead before her.

Eliza Gollop had told many stories concerning Mrs. Lintern's attendance in the sick room; but few were interested in them or smelt a scandal. They never identified Priscilla with the vanished innkeeper; they did not scruple to censure Nathan before her and heap obloquy on his fallen head.

Often with heart and soul she longed to fight for him; often she had some ado to hide her impotent anger; but a lifetime of dissimulation had skilled her in the art of self-control. She listened and looked upon the angry man or woman; she even acquiesced in the abuse by silence. Seldom did she defend the dead man, excepting in secret against her daughters.

CHAPTER III

When Cora Lintern returned home she brought with her a resolution. Her intentions were calculated to cause pain, and she carried them so much the quicker to execution, that the thing might be done and the blow struck as swiftly as possible. She revealed her plan to none, and only made it public when he who was chiefly involved had learned it.

Ned Baskerville called to see Cora, who had been stopping with friends; and when she had spoken upon general subjects, she made him come out with her to the wintry side of West Down, and there imparted her wintry news.

"Have you found anything to do?" was Cora's first question, and he answered that he had not.

"People don't understand me," he said. "Here is Rupert talking about labourer's work, as if it was a perfectly decent suggestion to make. My farm's gone, and he seems to think I might offer to stop there under somebody, like he has himself."

"You want something better."

"Why, of course. I might get a clerkship or some such thing, I should think. A man who has lived my life can't go and dig potatoes. But the difficulty is to get work like that away from towns. I can't be expected to live in a town, and I won't."

"Mr. Tim Waite is a friend of the people I've been stopping with," she said. "He's rich and all that. I believe he might find——"

"Thank you for nothing, Cora. I'm hardly likely to trouble him, am I?"

"Not much use talking like that."

"I'll take patronage, if I must, because beggars can't be choosers; but I'll not take it from my inferiors."

"'Inferiors'! That's a funny word for you to use. How is Timothy Waite your inferior? I don't see it."

"Don't you?" he answered, getting red. "Then you ought to see it. Damn it all, Cora, you're so cold-blooded where I'm concerned. And yet you're supposed to love me and want to marry me."

"I'm not a fool, and if 'tis cold-blooded to have a bit of common-sense, then I'm cold-blooded. Though I'm a bit tired of hearing you fling the word in my face. Timothy Waite always was as good a man as you; and why not?"

"I should call him a mean, money-grubbing sort of chap myself—close-fisted too. He's not a sportsman, anyway. You can't deny that."

"Not much good being generous, if you've got nought to be generous with. And mean he is not. He lent money to your uncle, and never pushed the claim half as hard as many smaller men. I know him a long sight better than you do. And, if you've got any sense left, you'll go to him and ask him if he can help you to find a job. I'm only thinking of you—not myself. I can go into a hat shop any day; but you—you can't do anything. What are you good for? For that matter you don't seem to be able to get a chance to show what you are good for. All your swell hunting friends are worth just what I said they were worth. Now you're down on your luck, they look t'other way."

He began to grow angry.

"You're the fair-weather sort too, then? One here and there has hinted to me that you were—your brother always said it. But never, never would I stand it from any of them. And now I see that it is so."

"No need to call names. The case is altered since Nathan Baskerville ruined you, and I'm not the sentimental kind to pretend different. As we're on this now, we'd better go through with it. You want to marry me and I wanted to marry you; but we can't live on air, I believe. I can't, anyway. It's a very simple question. You wish to marry me so soon as I please; but what do you mean to keep me on? I've got nothing—you know that; and you've got less than nothing, for there's the rent of the house we were to have lived in."

"I've let the house and I am looking round. I'm open to any reasonable offer."

"What nonsense you talk! Who are you that people should make you offers? What can you do? I ask you that again."

"By God! And you're supposed to love me!"

"When poverty comes in at the door—you know the rest. I'm not a heroine of a story-book. All very well for you; but what about me? You can't afford to marry, and I can't afford not to; so there it stands. There's only one thing in the world—only one thing—that you can be trusted to earn money at, and that's teaching people to ride horses. And that you won't do. I've thought it out, and you needn't swear and curse; because it's the truth."

"Damn it all——"

"No good raging. You're selfish, and you never think of me working my fingers to the bone and, very likely, not knowing where to look for a meal. You only want me—not my happiness and prosperity. That's not love. If you loved me, you would have come long since and released me from this engagement, and saved me the pain of all this talk. Nobody ever thinks of me and my future and my anxieties. I've only got my face and—and—you say 'damn' and I'll say it too. Damn—damn—damn—that's thrice for your once; and I hate you thrice as much as you hate me, and I've thrice the reason to. I hate you for being so selfish; and 'tis no good ever you saying you care about me again, because you never did—not really. You couldn't—else you wouldn't have put yourself first always."

He started, quite reduced to silence by this assault. She struck him dumb, but his look infuriated her.

"You won't make me draw back, so you needn't think it," she cried. "I'm not ashamed of a word I've said. 'Tis you ought to be ashamed. And I'm not sorry for you neither, for you've never once been sorry for me. After the crash, not one word of trouble for my loss and my disappointment did you utter—'twas only whining about your horses, and the house at Plympton, and all the rest of it. Vain cursing of the man in his grave; when you ought to have cursed yourself for letting him have the power to do what he did. I'd have stuck to you, money or no money, if you'd been a different man—I swear that. I'd have taken you and set to work—as I shall now, single-handed—but how can any decent girl with a proper conceit of herself sink herself to your level and become your drudge? Am I to work for us both? Are you going to live on the money I make out of women's bonnets?"

"No!" he answered. "Don't think that. I'm dull, I know, and slow-witted. Such a fool was I that I never believed anything bad of a woman, or ever thought an unkind thought of anything in petticoats. But you use very straight English always, and you make your meaning perfectly clear. I know it won't be easy for me to get the work I want. I may be poor for a long time—perhaps always. I'll release you, Cora, if that's what you wish. No doubt I ought to have thought of it; but I'll swear I never did. I thought you loved me, and everything else was small by comparison. If anybody had said 'release her,' I'd have told him that he didn't know what love of woman meant—or a woman's love of man. But you can be free and welcome, and put the fault on my shoulders. They can bear it. Go to Timothy. He's always wanted you."

"You needn't be coarse. I'm sick and tired of all you men. You don't know what love means—none of you. And since you say I'm to go, I'll go. And I'll find peace somewhere, somehow; but not with none of you."

He laughed savagely.

"You've ruined me—that's what you've done. Meat and drink to you, I'll wager! Ruined me worse than ever my uncle did. I could have stood up against that. I did. I'd pretty well got over the pinch of it. Though 'twas far more to me than anybody, I took it better than anybody, and my own mother will tell you so. But why? Because I thought I'd got you safe enough and nothing else mattered. I never thought this misfortune meant that you'd give me the slip. If any man had hinted such a thing, I'd have knocked his teeth down his throat. But I was wrong as usual."

"You gave me credit for being a fool as usual."

"Never that, Cora. I always knew very well you were clever, but I thought you were something more. You crafty things—all of you! And now—what? 'Twill be said I've jilted another girl—not that the only woman I ever honestly worshipped with all my heart have jilted me."

"No need to use ugly, silly words about it. All that will be said by sensible people is that we've both seen reason and cut our coats according to our cloth. The people will only say you've got more wits than they thought. Let it be understood we were of the same mind, and so we both get a bit of credit for sense."

"Never!" he burst out passionately. "You're a hard-hearted, cruel devil. You know where the fault is and who's to blame. You think of nought but your own blasted comfort and pleasure, and you never cared no more for me than you cared for my cousin before me. But I'll not hang myself—be sure of that!"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You might do worse, all the same," she said. "For you're only cumbering the earth that I can see."

Thereupon he swore wild oaths and rushed off and left her on the hillside alone.

When he was gone she went her own way, but not to Undershaugh. By deep lanes and field-paths familiar to her she took a long walk, and at the end of it found herself at Coldstone Farm, the abode of Mr. Timothy Waite. He was from home, and she asked for pen and paper that she might leave a note for him. Her communication was short, and when she had written it and sealed it with exceeding care, she set off again for home.

Anon Mr. Waite opened it and was much disappointed at the length. But Cora's matter atoned for this shortcoming.

"Have settled with N.B. Yours, C."

And elsewhere, while she retraced her way from Coldstone, the discarded lover came to a wild conclusion with himself. He steadied his steps, stood at the Moor edge in two minds, then turned and set off for Hawk House.

This blow had staggered him, had even awakened him from the fatuous dream in which he passed his days. He had a vague idea that Humphrey might be glad to know of this broken engagement; that it might even put his uncle into a more amiable temper. Ned had been advised by Rupert to see Mr. Baskerville; but had declined to do so until the present time.

At Hawk House Mrs. Hacker met him and made no effort to hide astonishment.

"Wonders never cease, I'm sure! You, of all men! Master be on the Moor, riding somewheres, but if you want him, you can wait for him. He always comes in at dusk. How's your young woman?"

The man was in no mood for talk with Susan and cut her short.

"I'll wait, then," he said. "I'll wait in the garden."

He walked up and down amid the nut trees for an hour. Then Humphrey returned.

Tea was served for them in the kitchen; Susan went out and the way opened for Ned.

"You might be surprised to see me," he began; "but though I know you don't like me—natural enough too—still, I'm your eldest nephew, and I felt at a time like this you'd not refuse to let me speak to you."

"Speak, and welcome."

"Of course, all our lives are turned upside down by this terrible business."

"Not all. In these cases 'tis the drones, not the workers, that are hit hardest. If you've got wit enough to understand what you see under your eyes, you'll find that your brother Rupert, for instance, can go on with his life much as before; and scores of others—-they've lost a bit of money—cheated out of it by my brother, the late Nathan Baskerville—but it don't wreck them. 'Tis only such as you—accustomed all your life to idle and grow fat on other men's earnings—'tis only such as you that are stranded by a thing like this. I suppose you want to get back into the hive—like t'other drones when the pinch of winter comes—and the world won't let you in?"

This uncompromising speech shook Ned and, under the circumstances, he felt that it was more than he could bear.

"If you knew what had happened to me to-day, you'd not speak so harsh, Uncle Humphrey," he answered. "I may tell you that I've been struck a very cruel blow in the quarter I least expected it. Cora Lintern's thrown me over."

"Cat-hearted little bitch," he said. "And you bleat about a 'cruel blow'! Why, you young fool, escape from her is the best piece of fortune that ever fell to your lot—or is ever likely to. And you ask me to be sorry for you! Fool's luck is always the best luck. You've had better fortune far than ever you deserved if she's quitted you."

"You can't look at it as I do; you can't see what my life must be without her."

"Eat your meat and don't babble that stuff."

Ned shook his head.

"Don't want nothing, thank you."

"Well, hear me," said Humphrey. "You sought me of your own free will, and so you may as well listen. You've come, because you think I can do you a turn—eh?"

"I'm down on my luck, and I thought perhaps that you—anyway, if you can help, or if you can't, you might advise me. I've looked very hard and very far for a bit of work such as I could do; and I've not found it."

"The work you can do won't be easily found. Begin at the beginning. You're Godless—always have been."

"Let God alone and He'll let you alone—that's my experience," said Ned.

"Is it? Well, your experience don't reach far. You've come to the place where God's waiting for you now—waiting, and none too pleased at what you bring afore Him. You're a fool, and though we mourn for a wise man after he's dead, we mourn for a fool all the days of his life. D'you know where that comes from? Of course you don't."

"I can mend, I suppose? Anyway, I've got to be myself. Nobody can be different to their own character."

"Granted—you can't rise above your own character; but you can easily sink below it. That's what you have done, and your father helped you from the first."

"I won't hear you say nothing against him, Uncle Humphrey. Good or bad, he was all goodness to me."

"You think so, but you're wrong. Well, I'll leave him. But 'tis vain to judge you too hard when I remember your up-bringing."

"All the same, I will say this for myself: when you pull me to pieces, you'll find no wickedness in me worth mentioning. Whatever I may be, I've always behaved like a gentleman and a sportsman, and none will deny it," declared Ned.

"The biggest fool can be witty when it comes to excusing his own vices to his conscience," replied the old man. "Fox yourself with that rubbish, if you can, not me. To behave like a gentleman is to be a gentleman, I should think, and I understand the word very different from you. You're a selfish, worthless thing—a man that's reached near to thirty without putting away his childish toys—a man that's grown to man's estate and stature without doing so much good in the world as my blind pony—nay, nor so much good as the worm that pulls the autumn leaves into the wet ground. And you pride yourself on being a gentleman! Better larn to be a man first and a gentleman afterwards."

"I've never had no occasion to work till now. Nobody ever asked me to; nobody ever wanted me to. It was natural that I shouldn't. A man can't help his character, and I can't help mine. I hate work and always shall."

"That's clear, then. And I can't help my character either. I hate idleness and always shall. Never have I given a loafer a helping hand, and never will I. A man ought to be like Providence and only help those who help themselves."

"But I mean to work; I need to work; I must work."

"Laziness is a cancer," said Mr. Baskerville. "'Tis just as much a cancer as the human ill we call by that name. And 'tis a modern thing. There's something rotten with the world where any man can live without earning the right to. When next you find yourself caddling about on the Moor wasting your time, take a look at the roundy-poundies—they circles of stones cast about on the hillsides and by the streams. My son Mark knew all about them. They were set up by men like ourselves who lived on the Moor very long ago. Life was real then. Nought but their own sweat stood between the old men and destruction. The first business of life was to keep life in them days. They hunted to live, not for pleasure. They hunted and were hunted. No time to be lazy then. Did they help beggars? Did they keep paupers? No; all had to toil for the common good; and if a man didn't labour, he didn't eat. They had their work cut out for 'em to wring a bare living out of the earth and the creatures on it. No softness of mind or body then. No holidays and pleasurings and revels then. And I'd have it so again to-morrow, if I could. Work and eat; idle and starve—that's what I'd say to my fellow-creatures."

"I mean to work; I'm ready for work."

"All very well to say that now. You may be ready for work; but what sort of work is ready for you? What can you do? Can you break stones? There's a Cornish proverb hits you this minute: 'Them as can't scheme must lowster.' Your father was very fond of using it—to every lazy body but you. It means that if you haven't the wits to make a living with your brains, you must do it with your hands. It all comes back to work."

"I know it does. I keep on telling you I'm ready for it—any amount of it. But not breaking stones. I've got brains in my head, though I know you don't think so. I came to-day to know if you would give those brains a trial. I'm a free man now. Cora has flung me over, so there's no obligation anywhere. I'm free to stand up and show what I'm good for. I've sold my horses and given up hunting already. That's something."

"Something you couldn't help. How much did you get for that big bright bay?"

"Forty-five guineas."

"And gave?"

"Seventy. But, of course, I've not got enough capital all told to be much practical use in buying into anything. What I really want is five hundred pounds."

"A common want."

"And I thought perhaps that you—I thought of it as I came here to see you."

"And still you try to make out you're not a fool?"

"I can give interest and security."

"Yes—like your Uncle Nathan, perhaps. In a word, I'll not do anything. Not a farthing of money and not a hand of help. But——"

He stopped as the younger man rose.

"I didn't ask for money; I only suggested a loan."

"I'll loan no loans to you or any man. But this I will do, because you are the head of our family now, and I don't want anybody to say I helped to cast you lower when you were down. This I will do: I'll double the money you earn."

"Double it!" exclaimed Ned.

"That's my word; and now the boot's on the other leg, and I'm the fool for my pains, no doubt. But understand me. 'Tis what you earn, not what you get. When you come to me and say, 'I've found a job, and I'm paid so much a week for doing it by an independent man,' then I'll double what he gives you. But let there be no hookemsnivey dealings, for I'll very soon find them out if you try it. Let it be figures, let it be horses, let it be clay, let it be stones by the road—I'll double what you earn for five years. By that time, maybe, you'll know what work means, and thank Heaven, that's taught you what it means. Go and find work—that's what you've got to do; go and find what you're worth in the open market of men. And you needn't thank me for what I offer. 'Twill be little enough, I promise you—as you'll find when you come to hear the money value of your earning powers."

"All the same I do thank you, and I thank you with all my heart," said Ned: "and perhaps you'll be a bit more astonished than you think for, Uncle Humphrey, when you find what I can do."

Then his nephew went away in doubt whether to be elated or cast down.

CHAPTER IV

An elderly man called Abraham Elford became tenant of 'The White Thorn' after Baskerville's death. He lacked the charm of Nathan, and it was rumoured that the quality of his liquor by no means equalled that provided by the vanished master of the inn; but no choice offered of other drinking houses, and the new publican retained all former patronage.

One subject at this season proved rich enough to shut out all lesser matters from conversation, for the wide waves of concern set rolling when Nathan died had as yet by no means subsided. Each day for many days brought news of some fresh disaster to humble folk; and then came another sort of intelligence that gratified the few and angered the many.

Mr. Elford and certain of his customers, not directly interested, found the subject of Nathan's affairs exceedingly wearisome and often sought to turn talk into other channels; but not for long could they be said to succeed. Local politics and weather soon lost their power to hold the people; and those disasters spread by the late publican swiftly cropped up again to the exclusion of less pungent concerns.

A party of men was assembled at 'The White Thorn' near Christmas time, and they wrangled on over this well-trodden ground until Joe Voysey, who had not suffered, turned to the grey-headed host behind the bar and asked a question.

"Did this here fire fail afore you comed, Abraham?" he asked. "'Tis a well-known fact that 'The White Thorn' hearth haven't been cold for a hundred year—peat always smouldering, or else blazing, upon it."

"Yes, and a thousand pities," answered the other. "At the time of Mr. Baskerville's death, of course, there was a terrible deal of running about and confusion. And the fire was forgot. I knowed the old saying and was very sorry to see it black out."

"What do it matter?" asked Jack Head. He was in a quarrelsome mood and bad company on the occasion. "These silly sayings and fancies are better forgot. Who's the wiser for a thing like that? Probably, when all's said, 'tis a lie. I dare say the fire went out scores of times when Nathan was here, and somebody just lit it again and said nought about it."

"That's wrong, Jack," declared Heathman Lintern, who was present. "Mr. Baskerville took a lot of care of the fire and felt very proud of it. A score of times I've heard him tell people about it, and that the fire had never been douted for more than a hundred years."

"One thing I know, that if there was such a place as hell, he'd soon meet with a fire as would last longer still," answered Head. "A fire that never will be douted. And right well he'd deserve it."

Thomas Gollop found himself in agreement with this ferocity.

"You're right there, and there is such a place—have no fear of that, though 'tis your way to scorn it. For my part I say that there couldn't be no justice without it. He devoured widows' houses and stole the bread of the poor—what worse can any man do?"

"A man can backbite the dead, and spit out his poison against them as never hurt him in word or deed," answered Heathman Lintern. "'Tis always your way to blackguard them that be out of earshot and the power to answer; and the further a man be away, the louder you yelp. Faults or no faults, the likes of you wasn't worthy to wipe his shoes."

"You Linterns—well, I'll say nought," began Jack Head; but the subject was too attractive for him and he proceeded.

"If he left your mother any money, it's against the law, and you can tell her so. It wasn't his to leave, and if she got money from him in secret, it's my money—not hers—mine, and many other people's before it's hers. And if she was honest she'd give it back."

"You've lost your wits over this," answered Lintern, "and if you wasn't an old man, Jack, I'd hammer your face for mentioning my mother's name in such a way. She never had a penny by him, and the next man that says she did shall get a flea in his ear—old or young."

"Let it be a lesson to all sorts and conditions not to trust a Dissenter," said Gollop. "I've known pretty well what they're good for from the first moment they began to lift their heads in the land. They never were to be trusted, and never will be. And as for Nathan Baskerville, he was a double serpent, and I shall tell the truth out against him when and where I please; and why for not?"

"You don't know the meaning of truth," began Heathman; "no more don't that old cat, your sister."

"Better leave my sister alone, or 'twill be the worse for you," answered the parish clerk.

"I'll leave her alone when she leaves my mother alone, and not sooner. She a lying, foul-minded old baggage—not to be trusted in a respectable house—and if I was better to do, I'd have the law of her for the things she's said."

"You talk of the law," answered Jack. "You might just so well talk of the prophets. One's as rotten as t'other nowadays. The law's gone that weak that a man's savings can be taken out of his pocket by the first thief that comes along with an honest face; and him powerless. Five-and-thirty pound—that's what he had of mine, and the law looks on and does nought."

"Because there's nought for it to do," suggested Mr. Elford. "The law can't make bricks without straw——"

"Just what it can do—when it's writing its own bills o' costs," answered Jack. "They'm damn clever at that; but let a rogue rob me of my savings and the law don't care a brass farthing. Why? Because I'm poor."

"Is there to be nought declared in the pound?" inquired an old man beside the fire. "He had eight, ten of mine, and I was hopeful us might get back a little, if 'twas only shillings."

"You'll see nothing of it, gaffer," declared Head. "There wasn't much more than enough to pay for the man's coffin. And the tears shed at his grave! I laugh when I think of all them gulls, and the parsons, with their long faces, thinking they was burying a good man and a burning light."

"A burning light now, if he wasn't afore," said Gollop, returning to his favourite theme.

"You're a mean cur at heart, Jack," burst out the dead man's son to Mr. Head. "With all your noise about justice and liberty and right and wrong, none on God's earth can show his teeth quicker and snarl worse if his own bone be took away. You knowed Nathan Baskerville—no one knowed him better than you. And well you know that with all his faults and foolish, generous way of playing with his money and other people's—well, you know there was a big spirit in the man. He meant terrible kindly always. He didn't feather his own nest. For a hundred that curse him now, there's thousands that have blessed him in past years. But 'tis the curses come home to roost and foul a man's grave; the blessings be forgot."

The young man's eyes shone and his eloquence silenced the bar for a moment.

Jack Head stared.

"'Tis Mark Baskerville speaking," he said. "Even so he was used to talk! But I didn't know you was the soft sort too, Heathman. What was Nat to you, or you to Nat, that you can stand up for him and talk this nonsense in the face of facts? Where's my money? When you tell me that, I'll tell you——"

"Who knows whether you'm forgot after all, Jack?" interrupted Joe Voysey. "Everybody ban't ruined. There's a few here and there—especially the awful poor people—as have had their money made good."

"I know all about that," answered Head; "'tis that fool, the parson. Masterman have no more idea of justice than any other church minister, and he's just picked and chosen according to his own fancy, and made it up to this man and that man out of his own riches."

"To no man has he made it up," corrected Gollop. "'Tis only in the case of certain needy females that he've come forward. A widow here and there have been paid back in full. I made so bold as to ask Lawyer Popham about it; but he's not a very civil man, and he fobbed me off with a lawyer's answer that meant nought."

"'Tis well knowed to be Masterman, however," said Voysey.

"Yes; well knowed to us; but not to the general public. Some think it's the lawyer himself; but that's a wild saying. Last thing he'd do. He'll be out of pocket as it is."

At this juncture was presented the unusual spectacle of a woman in the bar of 'The White Thorn,' and Susan Hacker entered.

She was known to several present and men liked her. She understood the sex, and could give as good as she got. She expected little in the way of civility or sense from them, and she was seldom disappointed.

"Hullo!" cried Head. "Be you on the downward path then, Susan? 'Tis your old man driving you to drink without a doubt!"

The abundant woman pushed Jack out of her way and came to the counter.

"Don't you pay no heed to that there sauce-box," she said. "And him old enough and ugly enough to know better, you'd think. A drop of gin hot, please. I be finger-cold and I've got to speed home yet."

"How's 'the Hawk'?" asked Mr. Voysey. "We all thought when poor old Nathan was took off that he'd come forward with his money bags—knowing the man, didn't we, souls?"

This excellent jest awakened laughter till Susan stopped it. She took her drink to the fire, loosed a mangy little fur tippet from her great shoulders and warmed her feet alternately.

"A funny old fool you are, Joe—just funny enough to make other fools laugh. And why should Humphrey Baskerville waste his money on a lot of silly people? Which of you would come forward and help him if he was hard up?"

"I would," said Jack Head. "With my opinions I'd help any thrifty person let in by this dead man—if I could. But I was let in myself. And you're in the truth to call us fools, for so we were."

"It's reason, every way, that your master might think of his brother's good name and right the wrong done by the man who was here afore me," declared Mr. Elford impartially.

"Why?" asked Mrs. Hacker. "Why do you say 'tis reason? If 'tis reason for him, 'tis just as much reason for every other man who can afford to mend it."

"That's what I say," argued Jack Head, but none agreed with him.

"Ban't our business, but 'tis Humphrey Baskerville's," declared the publican. "The dead man was his own brother and his only one. For the credit of the family he ought to come forward, and not leave the parson and other outsiders to do it."

"Because your brother does wrong, 'tis no business of yours to right the wrong," answered Mrs. Hacker. "Besides, 'tis well known that charity begins at home."

"And stops there," suggested Gollop. "No doubt at Hawk House, you and him be as snug as beetles in the tree bark, while other people don't know where to turn for a roof to cover 'em."

"They'd have poor speed if they was to turn to you, anyway," she said. "'Tis like your round-eyed, silly impudence to speak like that of a better man than ever you was or will be, or know how to be. He ban't bound to tell you where he spends his money, I believe; and if you was half as good a man—but there, what can you expect from a Gollop but a grunt? You'm a poor generation, you and your sister—God knows which is the worse."

"Bravo, Susan! Have another drop along o' me," cried Heathman Lintern, and she agreed to do so.

"What do you know and what don't you know?" asked Head presently. "Be your old party going to do anything or nothing?"

"I don't know. But this I do know, that all your wild tales down here about his money be silly lies. We live hard enough, I can promise that, whatever you may think. If every man here spent his money so wise as Humphrey Baskerville, you wouldn't all be boozing in this bar now, but along with your lawful wives and families, helping the poor women to find a bit of pleasure in life. But I know you; you get a shipload of brats and leave their mothers to do all the horrid work of 'em, while you come in here every night like lords, and soak and twaddle and waste your money and put the world right, then go home not fit company for a dog——"

"Steady on—no preaching here—rule of the bar," said Mr. Voysey. "You think we're all blanks because you drew a blank, Susan. Yes, a blank you drew, though you might have had me in the early forties."

"You! I'd make a better man than you with a dozen pea-sticks," retorted Susan. "And I didn't draw a blank, I drawed Hacker, who'd be here now teaching you chaps to drink, if the Lord had spared him. You can't even drink now—so feeble have you growed. Hacker, with all his faults, was a fine man; and so's Humphrey Baskerville in his way."

"Talk on; but talk to the purpose, Susan. What have he done? That's the question. You ain't going to tell me he's done nought," suggested Mr. Head.

"I ain't going to tell you nothing at all, because I don't know nothing at all. He wouldn't ax me how to spend his money—nor you neither."

"Tell us who he's helping—if anybody," persisted the man. "How is it none haven't handed me back my money? You can mention—if you've got the pluck to do it—that I want my bit back so well as t'others; and mine be quite as much to me as Ned Baskerville's thousands was to him."

"Charity begins at home," repeated Susan, "and I'll lay you my hat, though the fog's took the feather out of curl, that if he does anything, 'twill be for his own first. He's that sort, I believe."

"They people at Cadworthy?"

"Yes. Not that I think he'll do aught; but if he does, 'twill be there. Mrs. Baskerville be taking very unkindly to the thought of leaving. She've lived here all her married life and brought all her childer there. But she've got to go. They're all off after Lady Day. Too much rent wanted by the new owner."

"Same with us," said Heathman. "These here men, who have got the places on their hands now, 'pear to think a Dartmoor farm's a gold mine. Me and my mother clear out too."

Mrs. Hacker drank again.

"And after this glass, one of you chaps will have to see me up over," she said.

"We'll all come, if you'll promise another drink at t'other end," declared Heathman; but Susan turned to Jack Head.

"You'd best to come, Jack," she declared.

He exhibited indifference, but she pressed him and he agreed.

"If I've got a man to look after me, there's no hurry," she concluded. "I'm in for a wigging as 'tis."

The easy soul stopped on until closing time, and then Mr. Head fulfilled his promise and walked homeward beside her through a foggy night. She rested repeatedly while climbing the hill to the Moor, and she talked without ceasing. Susan was exhilarated and loquacious as the result of too much to drink. Head, however, bore with her and acquired a most startling and unexpected piece of information.

He mentioned the attitude of Heathman Lintern and his fiery championship of the dead.

"I thought he'd have come across and hit me down, because I told the naked truth about the man. And he denied that his mother was the better by a penny when Nathan died. But how about it when he was alive?"

"Truth's truth," answered Susan. "You might have knocked me down with a feather when—but there, what am I saying?"

He smelt a secret and angled for it.

"Of course, you're like one of the Baskerville family yourself, and I've no right to ask you things; only such a man as me with a credit for sense be different to the talking sort. Truth's truth, as you say, and the truth will out. But Eliza Gollop—of course she knows nothing. She couldn't keep a secret like you or me."

Mrs. Hacker stood still again and breathed hard in the darkness. Her tongue itched to tell a tremendous thing known to her; but her muddled senses fought against this impropriety.

"Two can often keep a secret that pretty well busts one," said Mr. Head with craft. He believed that Humphrey Baskerville was paying some of his brother's debts; and since this procedure might reach to him, he felt the keenest interest in it. Mrs. Lintern did not concern him. He had merely mentioned her. But Priscilla was the subject which filled Susan's mind to the exclusion of all lesser things, and she throbbed to impart her knowledge. No temptation to confide in another had forced itself upon her until the present; yet with wits loosened and honour fogged by drink, she now yearned to speak. At any other moment such a desire must have been silenced, by reason of the confession of personal wrongdoing that it entailed. Now, however, she did not remember that. She was only lusting to tell, and quite forgot how she had learned. Thus, while Head, to gain private ends, endeavoured to find whether Mr. Baskerville was paying his brother's debts, Susan supposed that his mind ran upon quite another matter: the relations between Priscilla Lintern and Humphrey's dead brother.

Mrs. Hacker knew the truth. She had acquired it in the crudest manner, by listening at the door during an interview between Nathan's mistress and her master. This tremendous information had burnt her soul to misery ever since; but a thousand reasons for keeping the secret existed. Her own good name was involved as much as another's. She could not whisper a word for her credit's sake; and a cause that weighed far heavier with her was the credit of Eliza Gollop.

Eliza had guessed darkly at what Susan now knew; but as a result of her subterranean hints, Eliza had suffered in the public esteem, for few believed her.

To confirm Eliza and ratify her implications was quite the last thing that Mrs. Hacker would have desired to do; and yet such was the magic sleight of alcohol to masquerade in the shape of reason, justice, and right—such also its potency to conceal danger—that now this muddled woman fell. She was intelligent enough to make Jack promise on Bible oaths that he would keep her secret; and then she told him the last thing that he expected to hear.

With acute interest he waited to know Humphrey's future intentions respecting his brother's creditors; instead he listened to widely different facts.

"I'll tell you if you'll swear by the Book to keep it to yourself. I'll be the better for telling it. 'Tis too large a thing for one woman—there—all that gin—I know 'tis that have loosed my tongue even while I'm speaking. And yet, why not? You're honest. I'm sure I can't tell what I ought to do. You might say 'twas no business of mine, and I don't wish one of 'em any harm—not for the wide world do I."

"I'll swear to keep quiet enough, my dear woman. And 'tis your sense, not your thimble of liquor, makes you want to talk to me. If not me, who? I'm the sort that knows how to keep a secret, like the grave knows how to keep its dead. I'm a friend to you and Mr. Baskerville both—his greatest friend, you might say."

"In a word, 'tis natural that young Lintern—you swear, Jack—on your Bible you swear that you won't squeak?"[1]

[1] Squeak—break silence.

"I ain't got one; but I'll swear on yours. You can trust me."

"'Twas natural as Lintern got vexed down there then, and you was lucky not to feel the weight of his fist. For why—for why? He's Nathan's son! Gospel truth. They'm all his: Cora, t'other girl, and Heathman. The mother of 'em told my master in so many words; and I heard her tell him. I was just going into the room, but stopped at the door for some reason, and, before I could get out of earshot, I'd catched it. There!"

"Say you was eavesdropping and have done with it," said Mr. Head. He took this startling news very quietly, and advised Susan to do the like.

"The less you think about it, the better. What's done be done. We don't know none of the rights of it, and I'm not the sort to blame anybody—woman or man—for their private actions. 'Tis only Nathan's public actions I jumped on him for, and if Heathman was twice his son, I'd not fear to speak if 'twas a matter of justice."

"I didn't ought to have told you, but my mind's a sieve if there's a drop of gin in my stomach. I had to let it go to-night. If I hadn't told you what I knowed, so like as not I'd have told Mr. Baskerville hisself when I got back; and then 'twould have comed out that I'd listened at the door—for I did, God forgive me."

Susan became lachrymose, but Jack renewed his promises and left her tolerably collected. The confession had eased her mind, calmed its excitement, and silenced her tongue also.

Jack tried to learn more of the thing that interested him personally, but upon that subject she knew nothing. She believed the general report: that Mr. Masterman, by secret understanding with the lawyer, was relieving the poorest of Nathan's creditors; and she inclined to the opinion that her master had no hand in this philanthropy.

They parted at the garden wicket of Susan's home, and Mr. Head left her there; but not before she had made him swear again with all solemnity to keep the secret.

CHAPTER V

As Humphrey Baskerville had pointed out to his nephew Ned, disaster usually hits the weak harder than the strong, and the lazy man suffers more at sudden reverses than his neighbour, who can earn a living, come what trouble may.

Rupert and his wife were prepared to seek a new home, and Milly, at the bottom of her heart, suffered less from these tribulations than any of her husband's relations. The blow had robbed him of nothing, since he possessed nothing. To work to win Cadworthy was no longer possible, but he might do as well and save money as steadily elsewhere; and the change in their lives for Milly meant something worth having. In her heart was a secret wish that her coming child might be born in her own home. As for her husband he now waited his time, and did not immediately seek work, because Humphrey Baskerville directed delay. His reason was not given, nor would he commit himself to any promise; but he offered the advice, and Rupert took it.

Mrs. Baskerville's grief at leaving her home proved excessive. She belonged to the easy sort of people who are glad to trust their affairs in any capable control, and she suffered now at this sudden catastrophe, even as Ned suffered. She had very little money, and was constrained to look to her sons for sustenance. It was proposed that she and May should find a cottage at Shaugh; but to display her poverty daily before eyes that had seen her prosperity was not good to her. She found it hard to decide, and finally hoped to continue life in a more distant hamlet. All was still in abeyance, and the spring had come. Until Ned's future theatre of toil was certain, his mother would not settle anything. She trusted that he might win a respectable post, but employment did not offer. Hester's youngest son Humphrey had been provided for by a friend, and he was now working with Saul Luscombe at Trowlesworthy.

Then came a date within six weeks of the family's departure. The packing was advanced, and still nothing had been quite determined. Ned was anxious and troubled; Rupert waited for his uncle to speak. He knew of good work at Cornwood, and it was decided that his mother and May should also move to a cottage in that churchtown, unless Ned achieved any sort of work within the next few weeks. Then his plans might help to determine their own.

At this juncture, unexpectedly on a March evening, came their kinsman from Hawk House, and Rupert met him at the outer gate.

"Is your mother here?" asked the rider, and when he heard that the family was within—save Ned, who stayed at Tavistock on his quest—he dismounted and came among them.

A litter and disorder marked the house. There were packing-cases in every room; but less than a moiety of Hester's goods would leave her home. She must dwell in a small cottage henceforth, and her furniture, with much of her china and other precious things, was presently destined to be sold. The period of her greatest grief had long passed; she had faced the future with resignation for many months, and returned to her usual placidity. She and her daughter could even plan their little possessions in a new cottage, and smile together again. They had fitted their minds to the changed condition; they had calculated the probable result of the sale, and Mrs. Baskerville, thrown by these large reverses from her former easy and tranquil optimism, had fallen upon the opposite extreme.

She now looked for no amelioration of the future, foresaw no possibility of adequate work for Ned, and was as dumb as a wounded horse or cow, even at the tragical suggestion of her son's enlistment. This he had openly discussed, but finding that none exhibited any horror before the possibility, soon dropped it again.

To these people came Mr. Baskerville—small, grey, saturnine. His eyes were causing him some trouble, and their rims were grown red. They thought in secret that he had never looked uglier, and he declared openly that he had seldom felt worse.

"'Tis the season of the year that always troubles me," he said. "Gout, gravel, rheumatism, lumbagy—all at me together. Nature is a usurer, Hester, as you may live to find out yet, for all you keep so healthy. She bankrupts three parts of the men you meet, long afore they pay back the pinch of dust they have borrowed from her. The rate of interest on life runs too high, and that's a fact, even though you be as thrifty of your powers as you please, and a miser of your vital parts, as I have always been."

"Your eyes are inflamed seemingly," said his sister-in-law. "Vivian's went the same once, but doctor soon cured 'em."

They sat in the kitchen and he spoke to May.

"If you'll hurry tea and brew me a strong cup, I'll thank you. I feel just as if 'twould do me a deal of good."

She obeyed at once, and Humphrey, exhibiting a most unusual garrulity and egotism, continued to discuss himself.

"For all my carcase be under the weather, my mind is pretty clear for me. Things be going well, I'm glad to say, and you might almost think I—— However, no matter for that. Perhaps it ban't the minute to expect you to take pleasure at any other's prosperity. There's nothing like health, after all. You'll find yourself more peaceful now, Hester, now you know the worst of it?"

"Peaceful enough," she said. "I don't blame myself, and 'tis vain to blame the dead. Master trusted his brother Nathan, like you trust spring to bring the leaves. Therefore it was right and proper that I should do the same. 'Twas all put in his hands when Vivian died. Even if I would have, I wasn't allowed to do anything. But, of course, I trusted Nathan too. Who didn't?"

"I didn't, never—Rupert will bear me out in that. I never trusted him, though I envied the whole-hearted respect and regard the world paid him. We envy in another what's denied to ourselves—even faults sometimes. Yet I'm pretty cheerful here and there—for me. Have you heard any more said about his death and my hand in it?"

"A lot," answered Mrs. Baskerville. "And most understanding creatures have quite come round to seeing your side. Only a man here and there holds out that you were wrong."

"I may tell you that the reverend Masterman couldn't find no argument against it. He came to see me not long since. He wouldn't be kept to the case in point, but argued against the principle at large. When I pinned him to Nathan at last, he said, though reluctantly, that he believed he would have done no less for his own brother. That's a pretty good one to me—eh?"

"My Uncle Luscombe thinks you did the proper thing," declared Milly.

Presently May called them to the table and handed Humphrey his tea.

He thanked her.

"No sugar," he said, "and you ought not to take none neither, May. Trouble haven't made you grow no narrower at the waist seemingly."

The girl tried to smile, and her family stared. Jocosity in this man was an exhibition almost unparalleled. If he ever laughed it was bitterly against the order of things; yet now he jested genially. The result was somewhat painful, and none concealed an emotion of discomfort and restraint.

The old man perceived their surprise and returned into himself a little.

"You'll wonder how I come to talk so much about my own affairs, perhaps? 'Tisn't often that I do, I believe. Well, let's drop 'em and come to yours. Have you found work, Rupert?"

"I can, when you give the word. There's Martin at Cornwood wants me, and mother can come there. We've seen two houses, either of which would suit her and May very well. One, near the church, she likes best. There's a cottage that will fit me and Milly not far off."

"Why go and have an expensive move when you can live at Shaugh Prior?"

"I've got my feelings," answered the widow rather warmly. "You can't expect me to go there."

Mr. Baskerville asked another question.

"So much for you all, then. And what of Ned?"

"At Tavistock, wearing out his shoe-leather trying to find work."

"If he's only wearing out shoe-leather, no harm's done."

"He told us what you offered last year, and I'm sure 'twas over and above what many men would have done," declared Ned's mother.

"I was safe to offer it," he answered. "'Tis only to say I'll double nought. He's not worth a box of matches a week to any man."

"They very near took him on at the riding-school when he offered to go there."

"But not quite."

"And that gave him the idea to 'list in the horse soldiers. He knows all about it, along of being in the yeomanry."

"To enlist? Well, soldiering's man's work by all accounts, though I hold 'tis devil's work myself—just the last mischief Satan finds for idle hands to do."

"It would knock sense into Ned, all the same," argued Rupert. "The discipline of it would be good for him, and he might rise."

"But he's not done it, you say?"

"No," answered Mrs. Baskerville. "He's not done it. I've suffered so much, for my part, that when he broke the dreadful thing upon me, I hadn't a tear left to shed. And the calm way I took it rather disappointed him, poor fellow. He had a right to expect to see me and May, if not Rupert, terrible stricken at such a thought; but we've been through such a lot a'ready that we couldn't for the life of us take on about it. I'm sure we both cried rivers—cried ourselves dry, you might say—when Cora Lintern threw him over; but that was the last straw. Anything more happening leaves us dazed and stupid, like a sheep as watches another sheep being killed. We can't suffer no more."

"Even when Ned went out rather vexed because we took it so calm, and said he'd end his life, we didn't do anything—did we, mother?" asked May.

"No," answered Hester. "We was past doing or caring then—even for Ned. Besides, he's offered to make a hole in the water so terrible often, poor dear fellow. 'Twas a case where I felt the Lord would look after His own. Ned may do some useful thing in the world yet. He's been very brave over this business—brave as a lion. 'Tis nought to me. I'm old, and shan't be here much longer. But for him and May 'twas a terrible come-along-of-it."

"Ned's a zany, and ever will be," declared Humphrey. "Rupert, here, is different, and never was afraid of work. Fortune didn't fall to him, and yet 'twas his good fortune to have to face bad fortune, if you understand that. Money, till you have learned the use of it, be a gun in a fool's hand; and success in any shape's the same. If it comes afore you know the value and power of it, 'tis a curse and a danger. It makes you look awry at life, and carry yourself too proud, and cometh to harm and bitterness. I know, none so well."

They did not answer. Then May rose and began to collect the tea things.

Humphrey looked round the dismantled room, and his eyes rested on the naked mantelshelf.

"Where are all the joanies?"[1] he asked. "You used to have two big china figures up there."

[1] Joanies—ornaments of glass or china.

"Some are packed, and some will go into the sale. They two you mean are worth money, I'm told," explained Mrs. Baskerville.

Then the visitor said a thing that much astonished her.

"'Twill give you trouble now," he remarked, "but 'twill save trouble in the end. Let me see them put back again."

Milly looked at May in wonder. To argue the matter was her first thought; but May acted.

"They be only in the next room, with other things to be sold," she said. "You can see them again, uncle, if you mind to."

Rupert spoke while she was from the room.

"Why don't you buy 'em, uncle? They'd look fine at your place."

"Put 'em back on the shelf," answered Mr. Baskerville. "And, what's more, you may, or may not, be glad to know they can stop there. 'Tis a matter of no account at all, and I won't have no talk about it, but you can feel yourself free to stay, Hester, if you'd rather not make a change at your time of life. You must settle it with Rupert and your darter. In a word, I've had a tell with the owner of the farm and he's agreeable."

"I know he's agreeable," answered Humphrey's nephew, "but I'm not agreeable to his rent."

"If you'd keep your mouth shut till you'd heard me, 'twould be better. I was going to say that Mr. Westcott of Cann Quarries, who foreclosed on the mortgage of this place when your uncle died—Mr. Westcott is agreeable to let me have Cadworthy; and, in a word, Cadworthy's mine."

May came in at this moment with the old china figures. She entered a profound silence, and returned the puppets to their old places on the mantelpiece. It seemed that this act carried with it support and confirmation of the startling thing that Hester Baskerville had just heard.

Humphrey spoke again.

"Past candle-teening, and snow offering from the north. I must be gone. Fetch up my pony, Rupert, and then you can travel a bit of the way back along with me."

His nephew was glad to be gone. A highly emotional spirit began to charge the air. Hester had spoken to May, and her daughter, grown white and round-eyed, was trying to speak.

"You mean—you mean we can all stop, and Rupert can go on here?" she said at last.

"If he thinks it good enough. He'd bought back a bit of the place a'ready, as he thought, from Ned. I can go into all that with him. And for you women—well, you're used to the rounds of Cadworthy, and I'm used to your being here. You've done nought but trust a weak man. I don't want all the blue[2] to be off the plum for you yet. But I waited till now, because you'll see, looking back, that you'll be none the worse for smarting a few months. I've smarted all my life, and I'm not very much the worse, I suppose. So now I'll be gone, and you can unpack when you please."

[2] Blue—bloom.

They could not instantly grasp this great reversal of fortune.

"Be you sure?" asked his niece. "Oh, uncle, be you sure?"

"Sure and sure, and double sure. A very good investment, with a man like your brother Rupert to work it for me. But let him see the rent's paid on the nail."

He rose, and Mrs. Baskerville tried to rise also, but her legs refused to carry her.

"Get my salts," she said to Milly; then she spoke to her brother-in-law.

"I'm a bit dashed at such news," she began. "It have made my bones go to a jelly. 'Tis almost too much at my age. The old can't stand joy like the young; they'm better tuned to face trouble. But to stop here—to stop here—'tis like coming back after I'd thought I was gone. I can't believe 'tis true. My God, I'd said 'good-bye' to it all. The worst was over."

"No, it wasn't," answered Humphrey. "You think 'twas; but I know better. The worst would have come the day the cart waited, and you got up and drove off. Now cheer yourself and drink a drop of spirits. And don't expect Rupert home till late. I'll take him back with me to supper."

He offered his hand, and the woman kissed it. Whereupon he uttered a sound of irritation, looked wildly at her, and glared at his fingers as though there had been blood upon them instead of tears. Milly stopped with Mrs. Baskerville; May went to the door with her uncle and helped him into his coat.

"I can't say nothing," she whispered. "It won't bear talking about—only—only—— If you knew how I loved mother——"

"Be quiet," he answered. "Don't you play the fool too. I let you fret to get your fat down a bit—that was the main reason, I do believe; and now you'll only get stouter than ever, of course. Go back to her, and let's have no nonsense; and, mind, when I come over again, that my house is tidy. I never see such a jakes of a mess as you've got it in."

He went out and met Rupert at the gate.

"You'd best to come back with me," he said. "I've told them you'll sup at Hawk House. 'Twill give 'em time to calm down. It takes nought to fluster a woman."

"'Nought'! You call this 'nought'!"

Rupert helped Mr. Baskerville on to his pony and walked beside him. It was now nearly dark, and a few flakes of snow already fell.

"Winter have waited for March," said Humphrey; "and I waited for March. You might ask why for I let 'em have all this trouble. 'Twas done for their good. They'll rate what they've got all the higher now that it had slipped from them; and so will you."

Rupert said nothing.

"Yes," repeated his uncle; "winter waited for the new year, and so did I. And now 'tis for you to say whether you'll stop at my farm or no."

"Of course, I'll stop."

"No silly promises, mind. This is business. You needn't be thanking me; and in justice we've got to think of that fool, your elder brother. But be it as it will, 'tis Hester's home for her time."

"I'll stop so long as my mother lives."

"And a bit after, I hope, if you don't want to quarrel with me. But I shall be dead myself, come to think of it. What shall I forget next? So much for that. We'll go into figures after supper."

"I know you don't want no thanks nor nothing of that sort," said Rupert; "but you know me pretty well, and you know what I feel upon it. 'Tis a masterpiece of goodness in you to do such a thing."

"Say no more. I've killed two birds with one stone, as my crafty manner is. That's all. 'Tis a very good farm, and I've got it cheap; and I've got you cheap—thanks to your mother. I benefit most—my usual way in business."

They passed along, and the snow silenced the footfall of horse and man. Near Hawk House came the sudden elfin cry of a screech-owl from the darkness of the woods.

"Hush!" said Humphrey, drawing up. "List to that. I'm glad we heard it. A keeper down along boasted to me a week ago that he'd shot every owl for a mile round; but there's a brave bird there yet, looking round for his supper."

The owl cried again.

"'Tis a sound I'm very much addicted to," explained Mr. Baskerville. "And likewise I'm glad to hear the noise of they kris-hawks sporting, and the bark of a fox. They be brave things that know no fear, and go cheerful through a world of enemies. I respect 'em."

"You never kill a snake, 'tis said."

"Not I—I never kill nought. A snake's to be pitied, not killed. He'll meddle with none as don't meddle with him. I've watched 'em scores an' scores o' times. They be only humble worms that go upon their bellies dirt low, but they gaze upward for ever with their wonnerful eyes. Belike Satan looked thus when they flinged him out of heaven."

"You beat me," said Rupert. "You can always find excuses for varmints, never for men."

His uncle grunted.

"Most men are varmints," he answered.

CHAPTER VI

The effect of his financial tribulation on Jack Head was not good. Whatever might have been of Humphrey Baskerville's theories as to the value worldly misfortune and the tonic property of bad luck upon character, in this man's case the disappearance of his savings deranged his usual common-sense, and indicated that his rational outlook was not based upon sure foundations. From the trumpery standpoint of his personal welfare, it seemed, after all, that he appraised life; and upon his loss a native acerbity and intolerance increased. He grew morose, his quality of humour failed him, and his mind, deprived of this cathartic and salutary sense, grew stagnant. At his best Jack was never famed for a delicate choice of time or place when pushing his opinions. Propriety in this connection he took pleasure in disregarding. He flouted convention, and loved best to burst his bombshells where they were most certain to horrify and anger. Following the manner of foolish propagandists, he seldom selected the psychological moment for his onslaughts; nor did he perceive that half the battle in these cases may depend upon nice choice of opportunity.

There came an evening, some time after he had learnt the secret of the Lintern family, when Head, returning to Shaugh Prior, fell in with Cora, who walked upon the same road. He had never liked her, and now remembered certain aggressive remarks recently cast at him by her brother. The man was going slower than the woman, and had not meant to take any notice of her, but the somewhat supercilious nod she gave him touched his spleen, and he quickened his pace and went along beside her.

"Hold on," he said, "I'll have a tell with you. 'Tisn't often you hear sense, I believe."

Cora, for once in a mood wholly seraphic over private affairs, showed patience.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry, but I've always got time to hear sense," she said.

Thus unexpectedly met, Mr. Head found himself with nothing to say. One familiar complaint at that time running against Cora for the moment he forgot. Therefore he fell back upon her brother.

"You might tell Heathman I was a good bit crossed at the way he spoke to me two nights agone. I've as much right to my opinion as him, and if I say that the late Nathan Baskerville was no better than he should be, and not the straight, God-fearing man he made us think—well, I'm only saying what everybody knows."

"That's true," she said. "Certainly a good many people know that."

"Exactly so. Then why for does he jump down my throat as if I was backbiting the dead? Truth's truth, and it ban't a crime to tell the truth about a man after he's dead, any more than it be while he's alive."

"More it is. Very often you don't know the truth till a man's dead. My brother's a bit soft. All the same, you must speak of people as you find them. And Heathman had no quarrel with Mr. Baskerville, though most sensible people had seemingly. He was a tricky man, and nobody can pretend he was honest or straight. He's left a deal of misery behind him."

The relationship between Cora and Nathan Baskerville suddenly flashed into Jack's memory. Her remark told him another fact: he judged from it that she could not be aware of the truth. It seemed improbable that Cora could utter such a sentiment if she knew that she spoke of her father. Then he remembered how Heathman certainly knew the truth, and he assumed that Cora must also know it. She was, therefore, revealing her true thoughts, secure in the belief that, since her companion would be ignorant of the relationship between her and the dead, she need pretend to no conventional regard before him. At another time Jack Head might have approved her frankness, but to-day he designed to quarrel, and chose to be angered at this unfilial spirit. Upon that subject his mouth was sealed, but there returned to him the recollection of her last achievement. He reminded her of it and rated her bitterly.

"Very well for you to talk of dishonest men and crooked dealings," he retorted. "You, that don't know the meaning of a straight deed—you that flung over one chap and made him hang himself, and now have flung over another. You may flounce and flirt and walk quick, but I'll walk quick too, and I tell you you're no better than a giglet wench—heartless, greedy, good for nought. You chuck Ned Baskerville after keeping him on the hooks for years. And why? Because he came down in the world with a run, and you knew that you'd have to work if you took him, and couldn't wear fine feathers and ape the beastly people who drive about in carriages."

Her lips tightened and she flashed at him.

"You stupid fool!" she said. "You, of all others, to blame me—you, who were never tired of bawling out what a worthless thing the man was. You ought to be the first to say he's properly punished, and the first to say I'm doing the right thing; and so you would, but just because you've lost a few dirty pounds, you go yelping and snarling at everybody. You're so mighty clever that perhaps you'll tell me why I should marry a pauper, who can't find work far or near, because he's never learnt how to work. Why must I keep in with a man like that, and get children for him, and kill myself for him, and go on the parish at the end? You're so fond of putting everybody right, perhaps you'll put me right."

The other was not prepared for this vigorous counter-attack.

"Very well for you to storm," he said; "but you only do it to hide your own cowardly nature. You pretended you was in love with him, and took his gifts, and made him think you meant to marry him, and stick up for him for better, for worse; but far from it. You was only in love with his cash, and hadn't got no use for the man. I'm not saying you would do well to marry him for the minute; but to chuck him when he's down——"

"You're a one-sided idiot—like most other men," she answered. "'Tis so easy for you frosty creatures, with no more feeling than a frog, to talk about 'love' and 'waiting.' There, you make a sane woman wild! Waiting, waiting—and what becomes of me while I'm waiting? I'm a lovely woman, you old fool, don't you understand what that means? Waiting—waiting—and will time wait? Look at the crows'-feet coming. Look at the line betwixt my eyebrows and the lines from my nose, each side, to the corners of my mouth. Will they wait? No, curse 'em, they get deeper and deeper, and no rubbing will rub 'em out, and no waiting will make them lighter. So easy to bleat about 'faithfulness' and 'patience' if you're ugly as a gorilla and flat as a pancake. I'm lovely, and I'm a pauper, and I've got nought but loveliness to stand between me and a rotten life and a rotten death in the workhouse. So there it is. Don't preach no more of your cant to me, for I won't have it."

She was furious; the good things in her mind had slipped for the moment away. While uttering this tirade she stood still, and Mr. Head did the like. He saw her argument perfectly well. He perceived that she had reason on her side, but her impatience and scorn angered him. Her main position he could not shake, but he turned upon a minor issue and made feeble retort.

His answer failed dismally in every way. Of its smallness and weakness she took instant advantage; and, further, it reminded her of the satisfactory event that Mr. Head had for the moment banished from her mind.

"Hard words won't make the case better for you," he began. "And to be well-looking outside is nought if you're damned ugly inside; and that's what you be; and that's what everybody very well knows by now."

She sneered at him.

"Parson's talk—and poor at that. If you want to snuffle that sort of trash you'd better ask Mr. Masterman to teach you how. You, of all folk—so wise and such a book-reader! What's the good of telling that to me? 'Tis the outside we see, and the outside we judge by; and, for the rest, you'll do well to mind your own business, and not presume to lecture your betters."

"Very grand! Very high and mighty, to be sure. That's how you talked to Humphrey Baskerville, I suppose, and got a flea in your ear for your pains. And I'll give you another. 'Tis the inside that matters, and not the out, though your empty mind thinks different. And mark this: you'll go begging now till you're an old woman; and 'twon't be long before you'll have your age dashed in your face by every female you anger. Yes, you'll go begging now—none will have you—none will take you with your record behind you. An old maid you'll be, and an old maid you'll deserve to be. You just chew the end of that."

"What a beast you are!" she retorted. "What a low-minded, cowardly creature to strike a woman so. But you spoke too soon as usual. The likes of you to dare to say that! You, that don't know so much about women as you do about rabbits!"

"I know enough about men, anyhow, and I know no man will ever look at you again."

"Liar! A man asked me to marry him months ago! But little did I think you'd be the first to know it when we decided that it should be known. He asked, and he was a man worth calling one, and I took him, so you may just swallow your own lies again and choke yourself with 'em. You're terrible fond of saying everybody's a fool—well, 'twill take you all your time to find a bigger one than yourself after to-day. And don't you never speak to me again, because I won't have it. Like your cheek—a common labouring man!—ever to have spoke to me at all. And if you do again, I'll tell Mr. Timothy Waite to put his whip round your shoulders, so now then!"

"Him!"

"Yes, 'him'; and now you can go further off, and keep further off in future."

She hastened forward to carry her news to other ears, and Jack Head stood still until she was out of sight. He felt exceedingly angry, but his anger swiftly diminished, and he even found it possible to laugh at himself before he reached Shaugh Prior. He knew right well that he must look a fool, but the knowledge did not increase his liking for Cora Lintern. He reflected on what he had heard, and saw her making fun of him in many quarters. He even debated a revenge, but no way offered. Once he speculated as to what her betrothed would say if he knew the truth of Cora's paternity; but, to do him justice, not the faintest thought of revealing the secret tempted Jack.

"Leave it, and she'll most likely wreck herself with him," he thought. "Waite's a sharp chap, and not easily hoodwinked. So like as not, when he's seen a bit of her mean soul he'll think twice while there's time."

Mr. Head began to reflect again upon his own affairs, and, finding himself at the vicarage gate, went in and asked for Dennis Masterman. The rumour persisted, and even grew, that Dennis was paying back certain losses incurred at Nathan Baskerville's death among the poorest of the community. The fact had wounded Mr. Head's sense of justice, and he was determined to throw some light on Masterman's foggy philanthropy. The vicar happened to be in, and soon Mr. Head appeared before him. Their interview lasted exactly five minutes, and Jack was in the street again. He explained his theory at some length, and gave it as his opinion that to pick and choose the cases was not defensible. He then explained his own loss, and invited Mr. Masterman to say whether a more deserving and unfortunate man might be found within the quarters of the parish. The clergyman listened patiently and answered with brevity.

"I hear some of the people are being helped, but personally the donor is not known to me. I have nothing to do with it. He, or she—probably a lady, for they do that sort of thing oftenest—is not responsible to anybody; but, as far as I have heard, a very good choice has been made among the worst sufferers. As to your case, Jack, it isn't such a very hard one. You are strong and hale still, and you've got nobody to think of but yourself. We know, at any rate, that Mr. Nathan Baskerville did a lot of good with other people's money. Isn't that what you Socialists are all wanting to do? But I dare say this misfortune has modified your views a little here and there. I've never yet met a man with fifty pounds in the bank who was what I call a Socialist. Good-evening to you, Jack."

CHAPTER VII

Alice Masterman, the vicar's sister, came in to speak with Dennis after Jack Head had gone. He was composing a sermon, but set it aside at once, for the tone of her voice declared that she could brook no denial.

"It's Voysey," she said. "I'm sorry to trouble you about him again, but he's got bronchitis."

"Well, send him some soup or something. Has that last dozen of parish port all gone yet?"

"I was thinking of another side to it," she confessed. "Don't you think this might be an excellent opportunity to get rid of him?"

"Isn't that rather hitting a man when he's down?"

"Well, it's perfectly certain you'll never hit him when he's up again. If you only realised how the man robs us—indirectly, I mean. He doesn't actually steal, I suppose, but look at the seed and the thousand and one things he's always wanting in the garden, and nothing to show but weeds."

"You must be fair, Alice. There are miles of large, fat cabbages out there."

"Cabbages, yes; and when I almost go down on my knees for one, he says they're not ready and mustn't be touched. He caught the cook getting a sprig of parsley yesterday, and was most insolent. She says that if he opens his mouth to her again she'll give warning; and she means it. And even you know that cooks are a thousand times harder to get than gardeners."

Dennis sighed and looked at his manuscript.

"Funny you should say these things—I'm preaching about the fruits of the earth next Sunday."

"The man's maddening—always ready with an excuse. The garden must be swarming with every blight and horror that was ever known, according to him. And somehow I always feel he's being impertinent all the time he's speaking to me, though there's nothing you can catch hold of. Now it's mice, and now it's birds, and now it's canker in the air, or some nonsense; and now it's the east wind, and now it's the west wind—I'm sick of it; and if you ask for an onion he reminds you, with quite an injured air, that he took three into the house last week. There's a wretched cauliflower we had ages ago, and he's always talking about it still, as if it had been a pineapple at least."

"I know he's tiresome. I tell you what—wait till he's back, and then I'll give him a serious talking to."

"Only two days ago I met him lumbering up with that ridiculous basket he always will carry—a huge thing, large enough to hold a sack of potatoes. And in the bottom were three ridiculous little lettuces from the frame, about as long as your thumb. I remonstrated, and, of course, he was ready. 'I know to a leaf what his reverence eats,' he said; 'and if that woman in the kitchen, miscalled a cook, don't serve 'em up proper, that's not my fault.' He didn't seem to think I ever ate anything out of the garden."

"Old scoundrel! I'll talk to him severely. I've had a rod in pickle ever since last year."

Dennis laughed suddenly, but his sister was in no laughing mood.

"I really can't see the funny side," she declared.

"Of course not. There is none. He's a fraud; but I remembered what Travers said last year—you recollect? The thrips and bug and all sorts of things got into the vines, and we asked Travers what was the matter, and he explained what a shameful muddle Voysey had made. Then, when Joe had gone chattering off, saying the grapes were worth five shillings a pound in open market, and that they'd only lost their bloom because we kept fingering them, Travers said he looked as if he was infested with thrips and mealy bug himself. I shall always laugh when I think of that—it was so jolly true."

"I hate a man who never owns that he is wrong; and I do wish you'd get rid of him. It's only fair to me. I have but few pleasures, and the garden is one of them. He tramples and tears, and if you venture to ask him to tidy—well, you know what happens. The next morning the garden looks as though there had been a plague of locusts in it—everything has gone."

"He ought to retire; but he's saved nothing worth mentioning, poor old fool!"

"That's his affair."

"It ought to be; but you know well enough that improvidence all round is my affair. We are faced with it everywhere. Head has just been in here. There's a rumour about the poor people that the innkeeper swindled. He took their savings, and there's nobody to pay them back now he's gone. But it seems that here and there those hit hardest—mostly women—have had their money again. Not your work, I hope, Alice? But I know what you do with your cash. Voysey was talking about it a little time ago, and I blamed him for not having saved some money himself by this time. He said, 'Better spend what you earn on yourself than give it to somebody else to save for you.' The misfortunes of the people seemed to have pleased him a good deal. 'We'm mostly in the same box now,' he said; 'but I had the rare sense to spend my brass myself. I've had the value of it in beer and tobacco, if no other way.'"

"Detestable old man! And Gollop's no better. Anybody but you would have got rid of them both years and years ago."

"They must retire soon—they simply must. They're the two eldest men in the parish."

"And, of course, you'll pension them, or some such nonsense."

"Indeed, I shall do no such thing. Perhaps this is the end of Voysey. He may see the sense of retiring now."

"Not he. He'll be ill for six weeks, and lie very snug and comfortable drawing his money at home; then, when the weather gets to suit him, he'll crawl out again. And everything that goes wrong all through next year will be owing to his having been laid by."

"I'll talk to him," repeated her brother. "I'll talk to him and Gollop together. Gollop has pretty well exhausted my patience, I assure you."

Miss Masterman left him with little hope, and he resumed his sermon on the fruits of the earth.

But next Sunday the unexpected happened, and Thomas Gollop, even in the clergyman's opinion, exceeded the bounds of decency by a scandalous omission.

It happened thus. The sexton, going his rounds before morning service, was confronted with an unfamiliar object in the churchyard. A tombstone had sprung up above the dust of Nathan Baskerville. He rubbed his eyes with astonishment, because the time for a memorial was not yet, and Thomas must first have heard of it and made ready before its erection. Here, however, stood what appeared to be a square slate, similar in design to those about it; but investigation proved that an imitation stone had been set up, and upon the boards, painted to resemble slate, was inscribed a ribald obituary notice of the dead. It scoffed at his pretensions, stated the worst that could be said against him, and concluded with a scurrility in verse that consigned him to the devil.

Now, by virtue of his office, apart from the fact of being a responsible man enlisted on the side of all that was seemly and decorous, Mr. Gollop should have removed this offence as quickly as possible before any eye could mark it. Thus he would have disappointed those of the baser sort who had placed it there by night, and arrested an outrage before any harm was done by it. But, instead, he studied the inscription with the liveliest interest, and found himself much in sympathy therewith.

Here was the world's frank opinion on Nathan Baskerville. The innkeeper deserved such a censure, and Thomas saw no particular reason why he should interfere. He was alone, and none had observed him. Therefore he shuffled off and, rather than fetch his spade and barrow to dig up this calumny and remove it, left the board for others to discover.

This they did before the bells began to ring, and when Dennis Masterman entered the churchyard, on his way to the vestry, he was arrested by the sight of a considerable crowd collected about the Baskerville graves. The people were trampling over the mounds, and standing up on the monuments to get a better view. On the outskirt of the gathering was Ben North in a state of great excitement; but single-handed the policeman found himself unable to cope with the crowd. A violent quarrel was proceeding at the centre of this human ring, and Masterman heard Gollop's voice and that of Heathman Lintern. Dennis ordered some yelling choir-boys down off a flat tomb, then pushed his way through his congregation. Parties had been divided as to the propriety of the new monument, and the scene rather resembled that in the past, when Nathan Baskerville was buried.

As the vicar arrived, Heathman Lintern, who had lost his self-control, was just knocking Mr. Gollop backwards into the arms of his sister. The man and woman fell together, and, with cries and hisses, others turned on Heathman. Then a force rallied to the rescue. Sunday hats were hurled off and trampled into the grass; Sunday coats were torn; Sunday collars were fouled. Not until half a dozen men, still fighting, had been thrust out of the churchyard, was Dennis able to learn the truth. Then he examined the cause of the riot and listened to Lintern.

The young man was bloody and breathless, but he gasped out his tale. A dozen people were already inspecting the new gravestone when Heathman passed the church on his way to chapel with his mother and sisters. He left them to see the cause of interest, and, discovering it, ordered Gollop instantly to remove it. This the sexton declined to do on the ground that it was Sunday. Thereupon, fetching tools, Heathman himself prepared to dig up the monument. But he was prevented. Many of the people approved of the joke and decreed that the board must stand. They arrested Heathman in his efforts to remove it. Then others took his side and endeavoured to drag down the monument.

Having heard both Lintern and Gollop, the clergyman read the mock inscription.

"D'you mean to say that you refuse to remove this outrageous thing?" he asked the sexton; but Thomas was in no mood for further reprimand. He had suffered a good deal in credit and temper. Now he mopped a bleeding nose and was insolent.

"Yes, I do; and I won't break the Fourth Commandment for you or fifty parsons. Who the mischief be you to tell me to labour on the Lord's Day, I should like to know? You'll bid me covet my neighbour's ass and take my neighbour's wife next, perhaps? And, when all's said, this writing be true and a lesson to the parish. Let 'em have the truth for once, though it do turn their tender stomachs."

"Get out of the churchyard, you old blackguard!" cried Heathman. "You're a disgrace to any persuasion, and you did ought to be hounded out of a decent village."

"Leave Gollop to me, Lintern. Now lend a hand here, a few of you; get this infamous thing away and destroyed before anybody else sees it. And the rest go into church at once. Put on your surplices quick, you boys; and you, Jenkins, tell Miss Masterman to play another voluntary."

Dennis issued his orders and then helped to dig up this outrage among the tombs. Thomas Gollop and his sister departed together. Ben North, Lintern, and another assisted Mr. Masterman.

Then came Humphrey Baskerville upon his way to church, and, despite the entreaty of the young clergyman that he would not read the thing set up over Nathan's grave, insisted on doing so.

"I hear in the street there's been a row about a tombstone to my brother. Who put it there? 'Tis too soon by half. I shall lift a stone to the man when the proper time comes," he said.

"It isn't a stone, it's an unseemly insult—an outrage. Not the work of Shaugh men, I hope. I shall investigate the thing to the bottom," answered Dennis.

"Let me see. Stay your hand, Lintern."

The old man put on his glasses deliberately, and read the evil words.

"Tear it down," he said. "That ban't all the truth about the man, and half the truth is none. Quick, away with it! There's my sister-in-law from Cadworthy coming into the gate."

The burlesque tombstone was hurried away, and Masterman went into the vestry. Others entered church, and Heathman at last found himself alone. The bells stopped, the organ ceased to grunt, and the service proceeded; but young Lintern was only concerned with his own labours. He ransacked Mr. Gollop's tool-shed adjoining the vestry. It was locked, but he broke it open, and, finding a hatchet there, proceeded to make splinters of the offending inscription. He chopped and chopped until his usual equitable humour returned to him. Then, the work completed, he returned to his father's grave and repaired the broken mound. He was engaged upon this task to the murmur of the psalms, when Jack Head approached and bade him 'good-morning.'

"A pretty up-store, I hear. And you in the midst of it—eh?"

"I was, and I'd do the same for any chap that did such a beastly thing. If I thought you had any hand in it, Jack——"

The other remembered that the son of the dead was speaking to him.

"Not me," he answered. "I have a pretty big grudge against Nathan Baskerville that was, and I won't deny it; but this here—insults on his tomb—'tis no better than to kick the dead. Besides, what's the use? It won't right the wrong, or put my money back in my pocket. How did it go—the words, I mean?"

"I've forgot 'em," answered Heathman. "Least said, soonest mended, and if it don't do one thing, and that is get Gollop the sack, I shall be a bit astonished."

He laughed.

"You should 'a' seen the old monkey just now! He was the first to mark this job, and he let it stand for all to see, and was glad they should see it—shame to him."

"Wrote it himself so like as not."

"Hadn't the wit to. But he left it, and he was well pleased at it. And then, when I ordered him as sexton to take it down, he wouldn't, and so I lost my head and gave him a tap on the ribs, and over he went into his sister's arms, as was standing screeching like a poll-parrot just behind him. Both dropped; then Tom Sparkes hit me in the mouth; and so we went on very lively till Mr. Masterman came."

"Wouldn't have missed it for money," said Jack. "But just my luck to be t'other side the village at such a moment."

He sat down on a sepulchre and filled his pipe. He knew well why Heathman had thrown himself so fiercely into this quarrel, and he admired him for it. The sight of the young man reminded him of his sister.

"So your Cora is trying a third, she tells me?"

"Yes; 'tis Tim Waite this time," answered Cora's brother. "I shouldn't envy him much—or any man who had to live his life along with her."

"You're right there: no heart—that's what was left out when she was a-making. She told me the news a bit ago, just when I was giving her a rap over the knuckles on account of that other fool, Ned Baskerville. And she got the best of the argument—I'll allow that. In fact, you might say she scored off me proper, for I told her that no decent chap would ever look at her again, and what does she answer? Why, that Tim Waite's took her."

"Yes, 'tis so. He and me was talking a bit ago. He'll rule her."

"But I got it back on Cora," continued Mr. Head. "I'm not the sort to be beat in argument and forget it. Not I! I'll wait, if need be, for a month of Sundays afore I make my answer; but I always laugh last, and none don't ever get the whip-hand of me for long. And last week I caught up with her again, as we was travelling by the same road, and I gave her hell's delights, and told her the ugly truth about herself till she could have strangled me if she'd been strong enough."

"I know you did. She came home in a pretty tantara—blue with temper; and she's going to tell Waite about it. But don't you sing small, Jack; don't you let Timothy bully you."

"No man bullies me," said Head; "least and last of all a young man. Waite have too much sense, I should hope, to fall foul of me. But if it comes to that, I can give him better than he'll give me—a long sight better, too."

"The Cadworthy people have been a bit off us since Cora dropped Ned," declared Heathman. "No wonder, neither, but my mother's cruel galled about it. 'Twasn't her fault, however. Still, that's how it lies."

Mr. Head was examining this situation when the people began to come out of church.

He rose, therefore, and went his way, while Heathman also departed. Many returned to the outraged grave, but all was restored to order, and nothing remained to see.

CHAPTER VIII

Jack Head presently carried his notorious grievances to Humphrey Baskerville, and waited upon him one evening in summer time. They had not met for many weeks, and Jack, though he found little leisure to mark the ways of other people at this season, could not fail to note a certain unwonted cheerfulness in the master of Hawk House. Humphrey's saturnine spirit was at rest for the moment. To-night he talked upon a personal topic, and found evident pleasure in a circumstance which, from the standpoint of his visitor, appeared exceedingly trivial. The usual relations of these men seemed changed, and Mr. Baskerville showed the more reasonable and contented mind, while Jack displayed an active distrust of everything and everybody.

"I wanted a bit of a tell with you," he began, "and thought I might come over."

"Come in and welcome," answered Humphrey. "I hope I see you pretty middling?"

"Yes, well enough for that matter. And you?"

"Never better. 'Tis wonnerful how the rheumatics be holding off—along of lemons. You might stare, but 'tis a flame-new remedy of doctor's. Lemon juice—pints of it."

"Should have reckoned there was enough lemon in your nature without adding to it."

"Enough and to spare. Yet you needn't rub that home to-day. I've heard a thing that's very much pleased me, I may tell you. Last news such a cranky and uncomfortable man as me might have expected."

"Wish I could hear summat that would please me, I'm sure," said Jack. "But all that ever I hear of nowadays is other people's good luck. And there's nothing more damned uninteresting after a bit. Not that I grudge t'others——"

"Of course you don't—not with your high opinions. You've said to me a score of times that there's no justice in the world, therefore 'tis no use your fretting about not getting any. We must take things as we find them."

"And what's your luck, then? More money rolling in, I suppose?"

"My luck—so to call it—mightn't look over large to another. 'Tis that my nephew Rupert and his wife want for me to be godfather to their babe. The child will be called after me, and I'm to stand godfather; and I'll confess to you, in secret, that I'm a good deal pleased about it."

Jack sniffed and spat into the fire. He took a pipe out of his pocket, stuffed it, and lighted it before he answered.

"I was going to say that little things please little minds, but I won't," he began. "If you can find pleasure in such a trifle—well, you'm fortunate. I should have reckoned with all the misery there is in the world around you, that there'd be more pain than pleasure in——"

He broke off.

"'Tis the thought," explained Mr. Baskerville. "It shows that they young people feel towards me a proper and respectful feeling. It shows that they'd trust me to be a godparent to this newborn child. I know very well that folk are often asked just for the sake of a silver spoon, or a christening mug; but my nephew Rupert and his wife Milly be very different to that. There's no truckling in them. They've thought this out, and reckoned I'm the right man—old as I am. And naturally I feel well satisfied about it."

"Let that be, then. If you're pleased, their object be gained, for naturally they want to please you. Why not? You must die sooner or later, though nobody's better content than me to hear you'm doing so clever just at present. But go you must, and then there's your mighty fortune got to be left to something or somebody."

"Mighty's not the word, Jack."

"Ban't it? Then a little bird tells the people a lot of lies. And, talking of cash, I'm here over that matter myself."

But Humphrey was not interested in cash for the moment.

"They sent me a very well-written letter on the subject," he continued. "On the subject of the child. 'Twas more respectful to me and less familiar to put it in writing—so they thought. And I've written back a long letter, and you shall hear just how I wrote, if you please. There's things in my letter I'd rather like you to hear."

Mr. Head showed impatience, and the other was swift to mark it.

"Another time, if 'tis all the same to you," Jack replied. "Let me get off what's on my chest first. Then I'll be a better listener. I ha'n't got much use for second-hand wisdom for the moment."

Mr. Baskerville had already picked up his letter; but now he flung the pages back upon his desk and his manner changed.

"Speak," he said. "You learn me a lesson. Ban't often I'm wrapped up in my own affairs, I believe. I beg your pardon, Head."

"No need to do that. Only, seen from my point, with all my misfortunes and troubles on my mind, this here twopenny-halfpenny business of naming a newborn babby looks very small. You can't picture it, no doubt—you with your riches and your money breeding like rabbits. But for a man such as me, to see the sweat of his brow swept away all at a stroke—nought else looks of much account."

"Haven't you got over that yet?"

"No, I haven't; and more wouldn't you, if somebody had hit you so hard."

"Say your say then, if 'twill do you any sort of good."

"What I want to know is this. Why for do Lawyer Popham help one man and not help t'other? Why do this person—I dare say you know who 'tis—do what he's doing and pick and choose according to his fancy? It isn't Masterman or I'd have gived him a bit of my mind about it. And if I could find out who it was, I would do so."

"The grievance is that you don't get your bit back? Are you the only one?"

"No, I'm not. There's a lot more going begging the same way. And if you know the man, you can tell him from me that he may think he'm doing a very fine thing, but in my opinion he isn't."

Mr. Baskerville had relapsed into his old mood.

"So much for your sense, then—you that pride yourself such a lot on being the only sane man among us. Have you ever looked into the figures?"

"I've looked into my own figures, and they be all I care about."

"Exactly so! But them that want to right this wrong have looked into all the figures; and so they know a great deal more about 'em than you do. You're not everybody. You're a hale, hearty creature getting good wages. More than one man that put away money with my brother is dead long ago, and there are women and children to be thought upon; and a bedridden widow, and two twin boys, both weak in the head; and a few other such items. Why for shouldn't there be picking and choosing? If you'd been going to lend a hand yourself and do a bit for charity, wouldn't you pick and choose? Ban't all life picking and choosing? Women and childer first is the rule in any shipwreck, I believe—afloat or ashore. And if you was such a born fool as to trust, because others trusted, and follow the rest, like a sheep follows his neighbour sheep, then I should reckon you deserve to whistle for your money. If this chap, who was fond of my brother and be set on clearing his name, will listen to me, you and the likes of you will have to wait a good few years yet for your bit—if you ever get it at all. You ought to know better—you as would shoulder in afore the weak! And now you can go. I don't want to see you no more, till you've got into a larger frame of mind."

"What a cur-dog you be!" said Head, rising and scowling fiercely. "So much for Christian charity and doing to your neighbour as you would have him do to you—so much for all your cant about righteousness. You wait—that's all! Your turn will come to smart some day. And if I find out this precious fool, who's got money to squander, I'll talk a bit of sense to him too. He's no right to do things by halves, and one man's claim on that scamp, your brother, is just as lawful and proper as another man's; and because a person be poor or not poor don't make any difference in the matter of right and wrong."

"That's where you're so blind as any other thick-headed beetle," snarled back Humphrey. "For my part I've looked into the figures myself, and I quite agree with Nathan's friend. None has a shadow of reason to question him or to ask for a penny from him. 'Tis his bounty, not your right."

"Very easy to talk like that. Why don't you put your fingers in your own pocket and lend a hand yourself? Not you—a sneaking old curmudgeon! And then want people to think well of you. Why the devil should they? Close-fisted mully-grubs that you are! And hark to this, Miser Baskerville, don't you pretend your nephew wants you to stand gossip for his bleating baby to pleasure you. 'Tis because he's got his weather-eye lifting on your dross. Who's like to care for you for yourself? Not a dog. Your face be enough to turn milk sour and give the childer fits."

"Get along with you," answered Humphrey. "You—of all men! I could never have believed this—never. And all for thirty-five pounds, fifteen and sevenpence! So much for your wisdom and reason. Be off and get down on your knees, if they'll bend, and ask God to forgive you."

Head snorted and swore. Then he picked up his hat and departed in a towering rage.

Mr. Baskerville's anger lasted a shorter time. He walked to the window, threw it open, listened to Head's explosive departure and then, when silence was restored, Humphrey himself went to his doorstep and looked out upon the fair June night.

Mars and a moon nearly full sailed south together through unclouded skies, and beneath them lay, first, a low horizon, whose contour, smoothed by night's hand into dim darkness, showed neither point nor peak under the stars. Beneath all, valley-born, there shone silver radiance of mist—dense and luminous in the moonlight. Apparently quiescent, this vapour in truth drifted with ghostly proper motion before the night wind, and stole from the water-meadows upward toward the high places of the Moor.

Against these shifting passages of fog, laid along the skirts of forest and above the murmuring ways of a hidden river, ascended silhouettes of trees, all black and still against the pearly light behind them. The vapour spread in wreaths and filaments of moisture intermingled. Seen afar it was still as standing water; but to one moving beside it, the mist appeared as on a trembling loom where moonlight wove in ebony and silver. The fabric broke, ravelled, fell asunder, and then built itself up once more. Again it dislimned and shivered into separate shades that seemed to live. From staple of streams, from the cold heart of a nightly river were the shadows born; and they writhed and worshipped—poor, heart-stricken spirits of the dew—love-mad for Selene on high. Only when red Mars descended and the moon went down, did these forlorn phantoms of vapour shrink and shudder and lie closer, for comfort, to the water mother that bore them.

Hither, nigh midnight, in a frame of mind much out of tune with the nocturnal peace, passed Jack Head upon his homeward way. His loss had now become a sort of mental obsession, and he found it daily wax into a mightier outrage on humanity. He would have suffered in silence, but for the aggravation of these events whereby, from time to time, one or another of the wounded found his ill fortune healed.

Examination might have showed an impartial mind that much method distinguished the process of this alleviation.

Those responsible for it clearly possessed close knowledge of the circumstances; and they used it to minister in turn to the chief sufferers. The widows and fatherless were first indemnified; then others who least could sustain their losses.

A sane system marked the procedure; but not in the eyes of Mr. Head. First, he disputed the right of any philanthropist to select and single out in such a matter, and next, when defeated in argument on that contention, he fell back upon his own disaster and endeavoured to show how his misfortune was among the hardest and most ill-deserved.

That man after man should be compensated and himself ignored, roused Jack to a pitch of the liveliest indignation. He became a nuisance, and people fled from him and his inevitable topic of speech. And now he had heard Humphrey Baskerville upon the subject, and found him as indifferent as the rest of the world.

The old man's argument still revolved in Jack's head and, too late, came answers to it. He moved along in the very extremity of rage, and Humphrey might have smarted to hear the things that his former friend thought against him. Then, as ill chance willed, another came through the night and spoke to Head.

Timothy Waite went happily upon his homeward way and found himself in a mood as sweet as Jack's was the reverse. For Timothy was love-making, and his lady's ripe experience enabled her to give him many pleasant hours of this amusement.

Neither was sentimental, but Cora, accustomed to the ways and fancies of the courting male, affected a certain amount of femininity, and Timothy appreciated this, and told himself that his future wife possessed a woman's charms combined with a man's practical sense. He was immensely elated at the thing he had done, and he felt gratified to find that Miss Lintern made a most favourable impression amid his friends and relations.

Now, moved thereto by his own cheerful heart, he gave Jack Head 'good night' in a friendly tone of voice and added, "A beautiful evening, sure enough."

The way was overshadowed by trees and neither man recognised the other until Waite spoke. Then Mr. Head, feeling himself within the atmosphere of a happy being, grunted a churlish answer and made himself known.

Thereon Timothy's manner changed and he regretted his amenity.

"Is that Head?" he asked in an altered tone.

"You know my voice, I suppose."

"Yes, I do. I want to speak to you. And I have meant to for some time past. But the chance didn't offer, as you don't go to church, or any respectable place; and I don't frequent publics."

The other bristled instantly.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he shouted.

"Nothing's the matter with me. But there's a lot the matter with you by all accounts, and since you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, it's time your betters took you in hand a bit."

Jack stared speechless at this blunt attack. The moon whitened his face, his lean jaw dropped and his teeth glimmered.

"Well, I'm damned! 'My betters'—eh?"

"Yes; no need for any silly pretence with me. You know what I think of your blackguard opinions and all that rot about equality and the rest. I'm not here to preach to you; but I am here to tell you to behave yourself where ladies are concerned. Miss Lintern has told me what you said to her, and she complained sharply about it. You may think it was very clever; but I'd have you to know it was very impertinent, coming from you to her. Why, if I'd been by, I'd have horsewhipped you. And if it happens again, I will. You're a lot too familiar with people, and seem to think you've a right to talk to everybody and anybody in a free and easy way—from parson downwards. But let me tell you, you forget yourself. I'd not have said these things if you'd been rude to any less person than the young lady I'm going to marry. But that I won't stand, and I order you not to speak to Miss Lintern again. Learn manners—that's what you've got to do."

Having uttered this admonition, Mr. Waite was proceeding but Jack stopped him.

"I listened to you very patient," he said. "Now you've got to listen to me, and listen you shall. Why, God stiffen it, you bumbling fool! who d'you think you are, and who d'you think any man is? You be china to my cloam, I suppose? And who was your grandfather? Come now, speak up; who was he?"

"I'm not going to argue—I've told you what I wish you to do. It doesn't matter who my grandfather was. You know who I am, and that's enough."

"It is enough," said Jack; "it's enough to make a toad laugh; but I don't laugh—no laughing matter to me to be told by a vain, puffed-up booby, like you, that I'm not good enough to have speech with people. And that tousled bitch—there—and coming on what I've just heard! If it don't make me sick with human nature and all the breed!"

"Be sick with yourself," answered Timothy. "I don't want to be too hard on an uneducated and self-sufficient man; but when it comes to insulting women, somebody must intervene."

By way of answer the older man turned, walked swiftly to Waite and struck him on the breast. The blow was a hard one and served its purpose. Timothy hit back and Head closed.

"You blackguard anarchist," shouted the farmer. "You will have it, will you? Then take it!"

Jack found himself no match for a strong and angry man full twenty-five years his junior, and he reaped a very unpleasant harvest of blows, for the master of Coldstone carried an ash sapling and when he had thrown Mr. Head to the ground he put his foot on him and flogged him heartily without heeding where his strokes might fall. Head yelled and cursed and tried to reach the other's legs and bring him down. A column of dust rose into the moonlight and Timothy's breath panted steaming upon the air. Then, with a last cruel cut across the defeated labourer's shoulders, he released him and went his way. But Head was soon up again and, with a bleeding face, a torn hand and a dusty jacket, he followed his enemy.

Rage is shrewd of inspiration. He remembered the one blow that he could deal this man; and he struck it, hoping that it might sink far deeper than the smarting surface-wounds that now made his own body ache.

"Devil—coward—garotter!" he screamed out. "You that hit old men in the dark—listen to me!"

Waite stopped.

"If you want any more, you can have it," he answered. "But don't go telling lies around the country and saying I did anything you didn't well deserve. You struck me first, and if you are mad enough to strike your betters, then you'll find they will strike back."

"I'll strike—yes, I'll strike—don't fear that. I'll strike—a harder blow than your evil hand knows how. I'll strike with truth—and that's a weapon goes deeper than your bully's stick. Hear me, and hear a bit about your young lady—'young lady'! A woman without a father—a child got—ax her mother where and how—and then go to blazing hell—you and your nameless female both. I know—I know—and I'll tell you if you want to know. She's Nathan Baskerville's bastard—that's what your 'young lady' is! There's gall for yours. There's stroke for stroke! And see which of us smarts longest now!"

Jack took his bruises homeward and the other, dazed at such a storm, also went his way. He scoffed at such malice and put this evil thing behind him. He hastened forward, as one hastens from sudden incidence of a foul smell.

But the wounded man had sped a poison more pestilential far than any born of physical cause. The germ thus despatched grew while Waite slept; and with morning light its dimensions were increased.

Under the moon, he had laughed at this furious assault, and scorned it as the vile imagining of a beaten creature; but with daylight he laughed no longer. The barb was fast; other rumours set floating after the innkeeper's death now hurtled like lesser arrows into his bosom; and Mr. Waite felt that until a drastic operation was performed and these wounds cleansed, his peace of mind would not return.

He debated between the propriety of speaking to Cora about her father, or to Mrs. Lintern on the subject of her husband; and he decided that the latter course would be more proper.

CHAPTER IX

Susan Hacker and her master sat together in the kitchen. He had lighted his pipe; she was clearing away the remains of a somewhat scanty meal, and she was grumbling loudly as she did so.

"Leave it," he cried at length, "or I won't show you the christening mug for Milly's baby. It have come from Plymouth, and a rare, fine, glittering thing it is."

"I won't leave it," she answered. "You can't see the end of this, but I can. People know you've got plenty of money, but they don't know the way you're fooling it about, and presently, when you go and get ill, and your bones begin to stick through your skin, 'tis I shall be blamed."

"Not a bit of it. They all think I'm a miser, don't they? Let 'em go on thinking it. 'Tis the way of a miser's bones to stick out through his skin. Everybody knows that I live cheap from choice and always have. I hate the time given to eating and drinking."

"You've always lived like a labouring man," she admitted. "But of late, here and there, people be more friendly towards you, because you let your folk bide at Cadworthy; and I'm sick and tired of hearing Hester Baskerville tell me you don't eat enough, and Rupert and Milly too. Then there's that Gollop woman and a few other females have said things against me about the way I run this house. And 'tis bad to suffer it, for the Lord knows I've got enough on my mind without their lies."

"Get 'em off your mind, then," he answered. "You're a changed woman of late, and I'll tell you what's done it. I only found out myself a bit ago and said nought; but now I will speak. I've wondered these many weeks what had come over you, and three days since I discovered. And who was it, d'you think, told me?"

Her guilty heart thumped at Susan's ribs.

"Not Jack Head?" she asked.

"Jack? No. What does he know about you? Jack's another changed creature. He was pretty good company once, but his losses have soured him. 'Twasn't Jack. 'Twas the reverend Masterman. You've signed the pledge, I hear."

"He'd no business to tell," declared Susan. "Yes, I have signed it. I'm a wicked woman, and never another drop shall pass my lips."

"'Tis that that's made you cranky, all the same," he declared. "You was accustomed to your tipple and you miss it. However, I'm the last to say you did wrong in signing. When your organs get used to going without, you'll find yourself better company again. And don't worry about the table I keep. I live low from choice, not need. It suits me to starve a bit. I'm the better and cheerfuller for it."

But then she took up the analysis and explained to him whence his good health and spirits had sprung.

"Ban't that at all. 'Tis what you be doing have got into your blood. I know—I know. You've hid it from all of 'em, but you haven't hid it from me. I don't clean up all the rubbish you make and sift your waste-paper basket for nought. I itch to let it out! But God forgive me, I've let out enough in my time."

He turned on her angrily; then fearlessly she met his frown and he subsided.

"You're a dangerous, prying woman," he said, "and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm all that," she admitted; "and shame isn't the word. I'm ashamed enough, and more than ashamed."

"If you let out a breath of my little games, I'll pack you off into the street that very day, Susan."

She sat down by the fire and took her knitting off the peat box where it was usually to be found.

"You needn't fear me," she answered. "I've had my lesson. If ever I tell again what I should not, you may kick me into the gutter."

He mused over the thoughts that she had awakened.

"I know a mazing deal more about the weaknesses of my brother Nathan now than ever I did while the man was in life," he began. "He was always giving—always giving, whether he had it to give or whether he hadn't. I'm not defending him, but I know what it felt like a bit now. Giving be like drink: it grows on a man the same as liquor does. Nathan ought to have taken the pledge against giving. And yet 'tis just another example of how the Bible word never errs. On the face of it you'd think 'twas better fun to receive than to give. But that isn't so. Once break down the natural inclination, shared by the dog with his bone, to stick to what you've got—once make yourself hand over a bit to somebody else—and you'll find a wonderful interest arise out of it."

"Some might. Some would break their hearts if they had to fork out like you've been doing of late."

"They be the real misers. To them their stuff is more than food and life and the welfare of the nation. And even them, if we could tear their gold away from them, might thank us after they'd got over the operation, and found themselves better instead of worse without it."

"All that's too deep for me," she answered. "The thing that's most difficult to me be this: How do you get any good out of helping these poor folk all underhand and unknown? Surely if a man or woman does good to others, he's a right to the only payment the poor can make him. And that's gratitude. Why won't you out with it and let them thank you?"

"You're wrong," he said. "I've lived too many years in the world to want that. I'm a fool here and there, Susan; but I'm not the sort of fool that asks from men and women what's harder to give than any other thing. To put a fellow-creature under an obligation is to have a faith in human nature that I never have had, and never shall have. No, I don't want that payment; I'm getting better value for my money than that."

"So long as you're satisfied——"

Silence followed and each pursued a private line of thought. Humphrey puffed his pipe; Susan knitted, and her wooden needles tapped and rattled a regular tune. She was wondering whether the confession that she desired to make might be uttered at this auspicious moment. Her conscience tortured her; and it was the weight of a great misery on her mind, not the fact of giving up liquor, that had of late soured her temper. She had nearly strung herself to tell him of her sins when he, from the depths of his being, spoke again. But he was scarcely conscious of a listener.

"To think that a man like me—so dark and distrustful—to think that even such a man—I, that thought my heart was cracked for ever when my son died—I, that said to myself 'no more, no more can any earthly thing fret you now.' And yet all the time, like a withered pippin—brown, dry as dust—there was that within that only wanted something—some heat to the pulp of me—to plump me out again. To think that the like of me must have some other thing to—to cherish and foster! To think my shrivelled heart-strings could ever stretch and seek for aught to twine around again! Who'd believe it of such a man as me? God A'mighty! I didn't believe it of myself!"

"But I knowed it," said Susan. "You always went hunger-starved for people to think a bit kindly of you; you always fretted when decent folk didn't like you."

"Not that—not that now. I wanted their good-will; but I've found something a lot higher than that. To see a poor soul happy is better far than to see 'em grateful. What does that matter? To mark their downward eye uplifted again; to note their fear for the future gone; to see hope creep back to 'em; to watch 'em walk cheerful and work cheerful; to know they laugh in their going once more; that they lie themselves down with a sigh of happiness and not of grief—ban't all that grander than their gratitude? Gratitude must fade sooner or late, for the largest-hearted can't feel it for ever, try as he may. Benefits forgot are dust and ashes to the giver—if he remembers. But none can take from me the good I've won from others' good; and none can make that memory dim."

"'Tis a fairy story," murmured Mrs. Hacker.

"No," he said, "'tis a little child's story—the thing they learn at a mother's knees; and because I was a growed-up man, I missed it. 'Tis a riddle a generous child could have guessed in a minute; but it took one stiff-necked fool from his adult days into old age afore he did."

Susan's mind moved to her purpose, and she knew that never again might fall so timely a moment. She put down her knitting, flung a peat on the fire, and spoke.

"You be full of wonderful tales to-night, but now I'll please ask you to listen to me," she began. "And mark this: you can't well be too hard upon me. I've got a pack of sins to confess, and if, when you've heard 'em, you won't do with me no more, then do without me, and send me through that door. I deserve it. There's nought that's bad I don't deserve."

He started up.

"What's this?" he said. "You haven't told anybody?"

"No, no, no. Ban't nothing about your affairs. In a word, I overheard a secret. I listened. I did it out of woman's cursed curiosity. And, as if that weren't enough, I got drunk as a fly down to 'The White Thorn' a while back and let out the truth. And nought's too bad for me—nought in nature, I'm sure."

Mr. Baskerville put down his pipe and turned to her.

"Don't get excited. Begin at the beginning. What did you hear?"

"I heard Mrs. Lintern tell you she was your brother's mistress. I heard her tell you her children was also his."

"And you're scourged for knowing it. Let that be a lesson to you, woman."

"That's only the beginning. I ban't scourged for that. I'm scourged because I've let it out again."

"I'm shocked at you," he answered. "Yes, I'm very much shocked at you; but I'm not at all surprised. I knew as sure as I knew anything that 'twould out. The Lord chooses His own time and His own tool. But that don't make your sin smaller. You're a wicked woman."

"I've signed the pledge, however, and not another drop——"

"How many of 'em did you tell?"

"But one. Of course, I chose the man with the longest tongue. Jack Head saw me up the hill after closing time and—there 'twas—I had to squeak. But I made him swear as solemn as he knowed how that he wouldn't."

"He's not what he was. We had a proper row a month ago. I doubt if he'll ever speak to me again. And until he makes a humble apology for what he spoke, I won't hear him."

"He swore he wouldn't tell."

"Be that as it may, it will be known. It's started and it won't stop."

They talked for two hours upon the problems involved in these facts. Then there came a knock at the door and Susan went to answer it.

Mr. Baskerville heard a protracted mumble and finally, after some argument, Mrs. Hacker shut the door and returned into the kitchen with a man.

It was Jack himself.

He explained the reason for his unduly late visit. He was anxious and troubled. He spoke without his usual fluency.

"I didn't come to see you," he said. "I waited till 'twas past your hour for going to bed. But knowing that Mrs. Hacker was always later, I thought to speak to her. However, nothing would do but I came in, and here I be."

"I'll have nought to say to you, Head—not a single word—until you make a solemn apology for your infernal impudence last time you stood here afore me," said the master of Hawk House, surveying his visitor.

"So Susan tells me, and so I will then," replied Jack. "So solemn as ever you like. You was right and I was wrong, and I did ought to have been kicked from here to Cosdon Beacon and back for what I said to you. We'm always punished for losing of our tempers. And I was damn soon punished for losing mine, as you shall hear. But first I confess that I was wrong and ax you, man to man, to forgive me."

"Which I will do, and here's my hand on it," said the other.

The old men shook hands and Susan wept. Her emotion was audible and Humphrey told her to go to bed. She refused.

"I'm in this," she said. "'Tis all my wicked fault from beginning to end, and I'm going to hear it out. I shall weep my eyes blistered afore morning."

"Don't begin now, then. If you're going to stop here, be silent," said Humphrey.

She sniffed, wiped her face, and then fetched a black bottle, some drinking water, and two glasses.

"Light your pipe and say what you feel called upon to say," concluded Humphrey to Mr. Head.

"'Tis like this," answered the other. "Every man wants to boss somebody in this world. That's a failing of human nature, and if we ain't strong enough to lord it over a fellow-creature, we try to reign over a hoss or even a dog. Something we have to be master of. Well, long since I marked that, and then, thanks to my understanding and sense, I comed to see—or I may have read it—that 'twas greater far to lord it over yourself than any other created thing."

"And harder far," said Humphrey.

"Without doubt you'm right. And I set about it, and I had myself in hand something wonderful; and very proud I felt of it, as I had the right to feel."

"Then the Lord, seeing you puffed up, sent a hard stroke to try whether you was as clever as you thought you was—and He found you were not," suggested Mr. Baskerville.

"I don't care nothing about that nonsense," answered Jack; "and, knowing my opinions, there ain't no call to drag the Lord in. All I do know is that my hard-earned savings went, and—and—well, I got my monkey up about it, and I got out of hand. Yes, I got out of hand. The awful shock of losing my thirty-five pounds odd took me off my balance. For a bit I couldn't stand square against it, and I did some vain things, and just sank to be a common, everyday fool, like most other people."

"'Tis a good thing you can see it, for 'twill end by righting your opinion of yourself."

"My opinion of myself was a thought too high. I admit it," answered Jack. "For the moment I was adrift—but only for the moment. Now I've come back to my common-sense and my high ideas, I can assure you. But the mischief is that just while I was dancing with rage and out of hand altogether, I did some mistaken things. Enough I had on my mind to make me do 'em, too. But I won't excuse 'em. I'll say, out and out, that they were very wrong. You've agreed to overlook one of those things, and you say you'll forgive me for talking a lot of rubbish against you, for which I'm terrible sorry. So that's all right, and no lasting harm there. But t'other job's worse."

Jack stopped for breath, and Susan sighed from the bottom of her immense bosom. Humphrey poured out some gin and water for his guest. Then he helped himself more sparingly.

"Here's to you," said Jack. "To drink under this roof is to be forgiven. Now I'll go on with my tale, and tell you about the second piece of work."

He related how he had left Hawk House in wrath, how he had met with Timothy Waite; how he had been reproved and how he had hit back both with his fists and his tongue.

"He knocked me down and gave me the truth of music with his heavy stick. I hit him first, and I'm not saying anything about what he did, though there may be thirty years between us; but anyway he roused Cain in me and I told him, in a word, that the woman he was going to marry was the natural child of Nathan Baskerville. 'Twas a double offence against right-doing, because I'd promised Susan here not to let it out, and because to tell Waite, of all men, was a cowardly deed against the girl, seeing he meant to marry her. But I'd quarrelled with her already, and tell him I did; and now I tell you."

He drank and stared into the fire. For some time Humphrey did not reply; but at last he expressed his opinion.

"It all depends on the sort of chap that Waite may prove to be. He'll either believe you, or he won't. If he don't, no harm's done. If he do, then 'tis his character and opinions will decide him. For his own sake we'll trust he'll throw her off, for woe betide the man that marries her; but if he loves her better than her havage, he'll go his way and care nothing. If he looks at it different, and thinks the matter can't rest there, he'll go further. For my part I can't say I care much about it. All I know is that Priscilla Lintern has rare virtues, though she weren't virtuous, and she've lived on no bed of roses, for all the brave way in which she stands up for my late brother. She won't be sorry the murder's out. When she told me—or when I told her—I made it plain that in my opinion this ought to be known. She stood for the children, not herself, and said it never must be known for their sakes. Well, now we shall see who hears it next. As for you two, you've got your consciences, and it ban't for me to come between you and them."

"Well, I've told my story, and admitted my failings like a man," said Jack, "and, having done so, I can do no more. My conscience is cleared, and I defy it to trouble me again; and I may add that I'll take mighty good care not to give it the chance. So there you are. And come what may, I can stand to that."

"How if they deny it and have you up for libel?" asked Mr. Baskerville; but Jack flouted the idea.

"Not them," he said. "Have no fear on that score. I've got this woman for witness, and I've got you. For that matter, even if 'twas known, nobody wouldn't die of astonishment. Since the things Eliza Gollop said after Nathan died, 'twould come as a very gentle surprise, I believe. And, when all's said, who's the worse, except what be called public morals?"

Mr. Baskerville nodded.

"There's some sense in what you say, Jack. And I'm glad we're friends again. And now I'm going to bed, so I'll ax you to be gone."

Head rose, finished his refreshment, and shook Mr. Baskerville's hand.

"And I'm the better for knowing as you've been large-minded enough to forgive me," he said. "And as you can, I suppose Susan here can. I know I'm very much in her black books, and I deserve that too, and I'd make it up to her in any way I can—except to marry her. That I never will do for any woman as long as I live."

"No, and never will get the chance to," replied Susan; "and I only trust to God 'twill all die out, and we hear no more of it."

Head turned at the door and spoke a final word.

"It may interest you to know that everybody have had their money now—everybody but me and Thomas Coode, the drunken farmer at Meavy. 'Tis strange I should be put in the same class with Coode; but so it is. However, I've larned my lesson. I shall say no more about that. Think of it I must, being but mortal, but speak I won't."

"You'll do well to forget it," answered Mr. Baskerville. "The man, or woman if 'twas one, be probably settled in their mind not to pay you or Coode back—since you're so little deserving."

Jack shrugged his shoulders, but kept his recent promise and went out silently.

CHAPTER X

A jay, with flash of azure and rose, fluttered screaming along from point to point of a coppice hard by Hawk House, and Cora Lintern saw it. She frowned, for this bird was associated in her mind with a recent and an unpleasant incident. Her brother Heathman, whose disparate nature striking against her own produced many explosions, had recently told her that the jay was her bird—showy, tuneless, hard-hearted. She remembered the occasion of this attack, but for the moment had no energy at leisure with which to hate him; for difficulties were rampant in her own path, and chance began to treat her much as she had treated other people in the past.

In a word, her lover grew colder. As yet she had no knowledge of the reason, but the fact could not be denied, and her uneasiness increased. He saw somewhat less of her, and he made no effort to determine the time of the wedding. Neither did he invite her to do so. He had come twice to see Mrs. Lintern when Cora was not by, and an account of these visits was reported by her mother.

"I don't exactly know why he dropped in either time," said Mrs. Lintern. "He kept talking on everyday matters, and never named your name. 'Twas curious, in fact, the way he kept it out. All business, but nothing about the business of marrying you. Yet there was plenty on his mind, I do believe. I should reckon as he'd come for a special purpose, but finding himself here, it stuck in his throat. He's strong with men, but weak with women. Have he told you of aught that's fretting him?"

Her daughter could remember nothing of the sort. Neither did she confess what she did know—that Waite was unquestionably cooler than of old.

"'Tis time the day was named," declared Priscilla. "And you'd better suggest it when next you meet with him."

But Cora did not do so, because there was much in Timothy's manner that told her he desired no expedition. Some time had now elapsed since last she saw him, and to-day she was going, in obedience to a note brought by a labourer, to meet him at the Rut, half a mile from Coldstone Farm. That he should have thus invited her to come to him was typical of the change in his sentiments. Formerly he would have walked or ridden to her. The tone of his brief note chilled her, but she obeyed it, and was now approaching their tryst at evening time in early September.

In a little field nigh Hawk House she heard the purr of a corn-cutting machine. It was clinking round and round, shearing at each revolution a slice from the island of oats that still stood in the midst of a sea of fallen grain. A boy drove the machine, and behind it followed Humphrey Baskerville and Rupert. The younger man had come over to help garner the crop. Together they worked, gathered up the oats, and set them in little sheaves. The waning sunlight gilded the standing oats. Now and then a dog barked and darted round the vanishing island in the midst, for there—separated from safety by half an acre of stubble—certain rabbits squatted together, and waited for the moment when they must bolt and make their final run to death.

Cora, unseen, watched this spectacle; then Mrs. Hacker appeared with a tray, on which were three mugs and a jug of cider.

The girl was early for her appointment, but she sauntered forward presently and marked Timothy Waite in the lower part of the valley.

It was the Rut's tamest hour of late summer, for the brightness of the flowers had ceased to shine; the scanty heath made little display, and autumn had as yet lighted no beacon fire. Stunted thorn trees ripened their harvest, but the round masses of the greater furze were dim; a prevalent and heavy green spread over the Rut, and the only colour contrast was that presented by long stretches of dead brake fern. The litter had been cut several weeks before and allowed to dry and ripen. It had now taken upon itself a dark colour, widely different from the richer, more lustrous, and gold-sprinkled splendour of auburn that follows natural death. The dull brown stuff was being raked together ready for the cart; and Cora, from behind a furze clump, watched her sweetheart carry immense trusses of the bracken and heave them up to the growing pile upon a wain that waited for the load. All she could see was a pair of straight legs in black gaiters moving under a little stack of the fern; then the litter was lifted, to reveal Timothy Waite.

Presently he looked at his watch and marked that the time of meeting was nearly come. Whereupon he donned his coat, made tidy his neckcloth, handed his fork to a labourer, and left the working party. He strolled slowly up the coomb along the way that she must approach, while she left her hiding-place and set out to meet him. He shook hands, but he did not kiss her, and he did not look into her eyes. Instead, he evaded her own glance, spoke quickly, and walked quickly in unconscious obedience to his own mental turmoil.

"I can't run," she said. "If you want me to hear what you're saying, Timothy, you must go slower, or else sit down in the hedge."

"It's terrible," he answered. "It's terrible, and it's made an old man of me. But some things you seem to know from the first are true, and some you seem to know are not. And when first I heard it I said to myself, t 'Tis a damned lie of a wicked and venomous man'; but then, with time and thought, and God knows how many sleepless nights, I got to see 'twas true enough. And why wasn't I told? I ask you that. Why wasn't I told?"

Her heart sank and her head grew giddy. She translated this speech with lightning intuition, and knew too well all that it must mean. It explained his increasing coolness, his absences and evasions. It signified that he had changed his mind upon learning the secret of the Linterns.

A natural feminine, histrionic instinct made her pretend utmost astonishment, though she doubted whether it would deceive him.

"What you're talking about I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "But if you have a grievance, so have I—and more than one. You wasn't used to order me here and there six weeks ago. 'Twas you that would come and see me then; now I've got to weary my legs to tramp to do your bidding."

He paid no heed to her protest.

"If you don't understand, then you must, and before we part, too. I can't go on like this. No living man could do it. I called twice to see your mother about it, for it seemed to me that 'twas more seemly I should speak to her than to you; but when I faced her I couldn't open my mouth, much as I wanted to do so. She shook me almost, and I'd have been thankful to be shook; but 'tis the craft and cunning of the thing that's too much for me. I've been hoodwinked in this, and no doubt laughed at behind my back. That's what's made me feel as I do now. I waited and hoped on, and loved you for years, and saw you chuck two other men, and found I'd got you at last, and reckoned I was well rewarded for all my patience; and—then—then—this——"

"What? This what? Are you mad? What didn't you dare to speak to my mother, and yet you can speak to me? What have I done that's set you against me? What sin have I committed? Don't think I'm blind. I've seen you cooling off clear enough, and for the life of me I couldn't guess the reason, try as I would and sorrow about it as I would. But since you've ordered me here for this, perhaps you'll go straight on and tell me what's all the matter."

"I want you to answer me one question. The answer you must know, and I ask you to swear afore your Maker that you'll tell me the truth. Mind this, I know the truth. It's scorched into me like a burn this many a day. But I must hear it from you too, Cora."

She guessed his question, and also guessed that in truth lay her last hope. He spoke positively, and she doubted not that he knew. His fear before her mother was natural. She perceived how easily a man might have gone to a woman with this momentous question on his mind, and how naturally the presence of the woman might strike him dumb at the actual meeting. None knew better than Cora how different is the reality of a conversation with a fellow-creature from the imaginary interview formulated before the event. There was but one problem in her mind now—the advantage or disadvantage of truth. She judged that the case was desperate, but that her only hope lay in honesty.

"Speak," she said. "And I swear I'll answer nought but the truth—if I know the truth."

He hesitated, and considered her answer. He was fond of her still, but the circumstance of this deception, to which he supposed her a party, had gone far to shake his affection. The grievance was that the facts should have been hidden from him after his proposal. He held that then was the time when Cora's paternity should have been divulged. He believed that had he known it then, it would have made small difference to his love. It was not so much the fact as the hiding of the fact that had troubled him.

"Who was your father?" he asked at length, and the words burst out of him in a heap, like an explosion.

"I know who he was," she answered.

"Name him, then."

"You see, Timothy, you never asked. I often thought whether there was any reason to tell you, and often and often I felt you ought to know; but you're a wise and far-seeing man, and I wasn't the only one to be thought on. I'd have told you from the first, even at the risk of angering you, but there was mother. I couldn't do it—knowing what she'd feel. I was a daughter afore I was a sweetheart. Would you have done it when you came to think on your mother?"

"Name him."

"Nathan Baskerville was my father, and my sister's and brother's father. My mother was his wife all but in name, and they only didn't marry because it meant losing money. You understand why I didn't tell you—because of my poor mother. Now you can do as you please. I'm myself anyway, and I'm not going to suffer for another's sins more than I can help. There's no stain on me, and well you know it."

"Nathan was your father?"

"He was. I suppose Heathman told you. He's threatened to oft enough."

"No matter for that. 'Tis so, and 'twas deliberately hidden from me."

"'Twas hidden from all the world. And why not? I did no wrong by hiding it, feel as I might. There was four to think of."

"'Twasn't hidden from all the world, and 'tisn't hidden. I didn't learn it from Heathman. You've brought this on yourself in a way. If you hadn't quarrelled with a certain man I shouldn't have done so either. Jack Head told me after I'd thrashed him for insulting you; and I suppose if he hadn't I might have gone to church with you, and very likely gone to my grave at last, and never known what you was."

"I should have told you when my mother died."

"D'you swear that?"

"I tell you it is so. I'm going to swear no more at your bidding. 'Tis for me to speak now. You've cut me to the quick to-day, and I doubt if I shall ever get over it. 'Tisn't a very manly way to treat an innocent girl, I should think. However, I forgive everything and always shall, for I love the ground you walk on, and you know it, and 'twasn't from any wish to treat you without proper respect that I hid away this cruel thing. I said to myself, 'It can't hurt dear Tim not to know it, and it would hurt my mother and my sister terribly if 'twas known.' So, right or wrong, I did what I did; and now you're in judgment over me, and I can't—I can't live another moment, dear Timothy, till I know how you feel about it."

She had begun in a spirit rather dictatorial, but changed swiftly into this milder appeal when she marked the expression of his face. He was prepared to stand little. From the first she felt almost hopeless that she would have power to move him.

"Who told Jack Head?" asked Timothy.

"God knows. My brother, I should think. There's none else in the world but mother and Phyllis that knew it."

"Others were told, but not me. I was deceived by all of you."

"That's not true," she answered as her fighting instinct got the better of tact. "'Twasn't to deceive you not to tell you. All families have got secrets—yours too."

"You did wrong to me. 'Tisn't even like as if I was nobody. I come of pretty good havage on my mother's side, and I think a lot of such things."

"Well, the Baskervilles——"

"Don't be foolish, woman! D'you think I'm ——? There, 'tisn't a case for talk that I can see. The thing be done and can't be undone. I'd have overlooked it, so like as not, if you'd made a clean breast of the truth when I offered for you; but to let me go on blind—I can't forgive that."

Perceiving what had hurt him, Cora set herself to lessen the sting as much as possible; but she failed. They talked to no purpose for an hour, while she used every argument that occurred to her, and he opposed to her swift mind and subtle reasoning a blank, impassive wall of sulky anger and wounded pride. It began to grow dark before the conclusion came, and they had walked half-way back to Shaugh. At the top of the hill he left her, and the battle ended in wrath on both sides and a parting irrevocable.

Her failure it was that made Cora lose her temper, and when she did so, he, thankful for the excuse, spoke harshly, and absolved his own uneasy spirit for so doing.

The final scene was brief, and the woman, wearied in mind and body with her efforts to propitiate him, drew it down upon them.

"Why don't you speak out like a man, then?" she said at last. "Why d'you keep growling in your throat, like a brute, and not answering my questions? 'Tis because you can't answer them in right and justice. But one word you've got to find a tongue to, though well you may be shamed to do it. It shan't be said I've thrown you over, if that's the cowardly thing you're playing up for. I promised to marry you, and I would marry you; but you don't want to marry me, it seems, and you've pitched on this paltry thing to get out of it."

"'Paltry thing'! You're shameless."

"Yes, it is paltry; and everybody would say so; and you'll hear what decent people think of you pretty soon if you throw me over, I can tell you. How can a child help its own father, or see whether its parents be properly married? You're cruel and mad both."

"We'll see, then," he answered. "Since you're bent on hearing me speak, I will. And don't pretend as I'm growling and you're not hearing. I'll tell you what I mean, and my words shall be as clear as my mind is about it. I won't marry you now, and I wouldn't if you was all you ought to be. I've had a taste of your tongue this evening that's opened my mind a good bit to what you are. You've shown me a lot more about yourself than you think for. And if I did growl, like a brute, my ears was open and my wits was wide awake, like a man. And I won't marry you, and I've a perfect right not to do so after this."

"You dirty coward! No, you shan't marry me, and you shouldn't if you crawled to me across the whole world on your knees, and prayed to me to forgive you. And if you're well out of it, what am I? And don't you think you've heard the last of this, because you have not. I've got good friends and strong friends in the world, though you'd like to fancy as I was friendless and outcast, for men like you to spit on. But I can fight my own battles very well, come to that, as you shall find; and I'll have you up for breach, God's my judge; and if decent men don't bring in proper, terrifying damages against you, I'll ask you to forgive me. Yes, I'll make your name laughed at from one end of the Moor to t'other, as you shall find afore you'm many days older."

He stood still before this threat, and, finding that he did not answer, she left him and hastened home.

There she blazed her startling news. Cora's own attitude towards the truth was now one of indifference. She raged against her fate, and for the time being could not look forward. Phyllis alone displayed grief. She was engaged to a young baker at Cornwood, and feared for her own romance: therefore she wept and revealed the liveliest concern. But Heathman, perceiving Priscilla's indifference, exhibited the like. It appeared that mother and son were glad rather than regretful at this escape of truth.

Mrs. Lintern, however, exhibited exceeding wonder, if little dismay. She was sorry for Cora, but not for herself.

"I had a feeling, strong as death in me, that 'twould come to light," she said. "Somehow I always knew that the thing must struggle out sometime. Many and many actually knew it in their hearts, by a sort of understanding—like a dog's reason. And I knew they knew it. But the truth was never openly thrust in my face till he died, and Eliza Gollop spoke it. And, she being what she is, none believed her; and 'twas enough that she should whisper scandal for the better sort to flout her and turn a deaf ear. And now it's out, and the great wonder in me ban't that 'tis out, but who let it out. For the moment it looks as if 'twas a miracle; yet, no doubt, time will clear that too."

"I suppose you'll go now," said Cora. "Anyway, if you don't, I shall. There's been nought but trouble and misery for me in this hole from my childhood upward."

CHAPTER XI

There visited Cadworthy Farm, on a Sunday afternoon, Priscilla Lintern with her son and her younger daughter.

They came unexpectedly, though Rupert had told Heathman they would not be unwelcome. May was from home, and the business of preparing tea fell upon Milly Baskerville. Phyllis helped Rupert's wife in this operation, and while they were absent in the kitchen and the men went to the farm, Hester and Priscilla spoke together. The one discussed her son, the other her daughter and herself.

"I've been coming over to see you this longful time," said Mrs. Baskerville, "but what with the weather and—and——"

"The things that are being said, perhaps?"

"No, not them. I'm an old woman now, and if I've not got patience at my age, when shall I get it? Good things have happed to me—better than I deserved—and I'm only sorry for them as have had less fortune. I never pay no heed to stories at any time. My master taught me that."

"I merely want to tell you that 'tis all true. For my children's sake I should never have told it, but since it had to come I'm right glad."

"I'd rather you spared yourself," said Mrs. Baskerville. "You've had enough to bear, I should reckon. Leave it. I've always felt a very great respect for you, and always shall do so; and I've no wish to hear anything about it. Well I know what men are, and what life is. He was lucky—lucky in you and lucky in his brothers. What he took away from me, Humphrey has given back. Now we'll go on as before. Mr. Waite have thrown your maiden over, I hear. What's she going to do?"

"Thank you for being kind," answered Mrs. Lintern. "I've been a good deal astonished to find how easily the people have took this thing. The world's a larger-minded place than I, for one, had any idea of. The neighbours, save here and there, seem to be like you, and reckon that 'tis no business of theirs. My son's terrible pleased that it have got out; and the young man who is going to marry Phyllis don't mean to alter his plans. And your brother is glad also, I suppose, for he wished it. But to Cora, this business of being flung over hit her very hard, and she wanted to bring an action for breach of promise against Timothy. She went to see Mr. Popham about it; only he didn't seem to think she'd get much, and advised her to do no such thing."

"Why ban't she along with you to-day?"

"She won't go nowhere. She'll be off pretty soon to a milliner's to Plymouth. She wants to clear away from everything so quick as may be."

"Natural enough. Let her go in a shop somewhere and begin again. My Ned, I may tell you, have found——

"Work, I hope?"

"No. Another girl to marry him. It looks as if it might go through this time, though I can't see him really married after all his adventures with the maidens. 'Tis the daughter of the livery-stable keeper at Tavistock. And she's the only one—and King—that's her father's name—worships the ground she goes on. It's like to happen after Christmas. And Ned's been straight about it, and he've broke in a young horse or two very clever for Mr. King, so I suppose he'll let them wed for the girl's sake. He's there to-day."

Mrs. Lintern nodded.

"Where's May?" she asked. "Away too?"

"Only till evening. She's drinking tea along with her Uncle Humphrey at Hawk House."

"A strange man he is."

"'Tis strange for any man to be so good."

"He first found out about me and his brother. And how d'you reckon? From Cora. His sharp eyes saw her father in her long before Nathan died. I've been to Hawk House since it came out. He was content that Cora had suffered so sharp, and said so."

"He thinks a great deal of you and Heathman, however."

Milly brought the tea at this moment and called Heathman and Rupert, who were smoking in the farmyard. They appeared, and Milly's baby was carried to join the company. Rupert showed the cup that his godfather had given to the child.

The Baskervilles made it clear that they designed no change in their relations with Mrs. Lintern. A sharp estrangement had followed Ned's jilting, but that belonged to the past. Amity reigned, and Milly expressed regret at Mrs. Lintern's determination to leave Shaugh Prior in the following spring.

"They'll both be gone—both girls," she explained, "and Heathman here haven't got no need of a wife yet, he says, so he and I shall find a smaller and a cheaper place than Undershaugh."

"Cora will marry yet," foretold Rupert. "Third time's lucky, they say."

"'Twill be the fourth time," corrected Milly.

They ate and drank, and spoke on general subjects; then the Linterns prepared to start, and Priscilla uttered a final word to Hester before the younger people.

"I thank you for letting the past go. There was but few mattered to me, and you were the first of them."

They departed, and the Baskervilles talked about them.

Behind her back, they spoke gently of Priscilla, and old Mrs. Baskerville revealed even a measure of imagination in her speech.

"The worst was surely after he sank into his grave and the storm broke," said Hester. "To think she was standing there, his unknown, unlawful wife, yet a wife in spirit, with all a wife's love and all a wife's belief in him. To think that her ear had to hear, and her heart had to break, and her mouth had to be dumb. Gall and vinegar that woman have had for her portion these many days—yet she goes unsoured."

"She's got a rare good son to stand by her," declared Rupert.

"And so have I," murmured Milly, squeezing the baby who was sucking her breast.

"And I've got four," answered Mrs. Baskerville. "Four brave boys—one on sea and three on land. Things be divided curious; but our part is to thank God for what we've got, and not worry because them that deserve more have so much less. That's His work, and the balance will swing true again in His own good time."

Elsewhere, upon their journey home, the Linterns fell in with May. She was excited, and turned back and walked beside them for half a mile.

"I'm just bursting with news," she said, "and I hope you haven't heard it."

"The world be full of news," answered Heathman. "There's a bit down to Shaugh as I meant to tell Rupert just now and forgot, owing to press of other matters. It proves as I'm a prophet too, for I've said this three year that it was bound to happen. And that disgrace in the churchyard over my father's grave have brought it to a climax. I mean Tommy Gollop and that other old rip, Joe Voysey. Both have got the sack! The reverend Masterman have hit out right and left and floored the pair of 'em. Mind you tell Rupert that. 'Twill make him die of laughing. The old boys be showing their teeth too, I promise you."

"I'll tell him."

"And what was your news?" asked Mrs. Lintern.

"Very good; yet perhaps no news neither to many folk who understand things better than me. Yet I'd often thought in my mind that 'twas my uncle Humphrey clearing off Uncle Nathan's——"

She stopped, brought to silence by the recollection of their relationship.

"Say it," said Priscilla. "I know what's on your lips. Don't fear to say it."

"That 'twas Uncle Humphrey made all right," continued May. "And paid back what had been lost. We can't say how it might have gone if Uncle Nathan had lived. No doubt, sooner or late, he'd have done the same, for never would he let man or woman suffer if he could help it. Anyway, all be in the fair way to have their money again. And I asked Lawyer Popham long ago, when he came to Cadworthy, who 'twas, and he wouldn't say; but had no doubt we could guess. And then I asked Susan Hacker, and she wouldn't say, but yet came so near saying that there was little left to know. And to-day I tackled Uncle Humphrey and gave him no peace till 'twas out. 'To please himself' he's done it."

She panted for breath, and then continued—

"And there's more yet. 'Twas him paid up my married sister's legacy, and even Ned's not forgot—for justice. And when Uncle Humphrey dies—and far be it off—my brother Rupert's to have Cadworthy! I got that out of him too. But I've solemnly promised not to tell Rupert. He's going to tell him himself."

"A useful old fairy, and no mistake," laughed Heathman. "He'll beggar himself afore he's finished, and then you'll all have to set to work to keep him out of the workhouse!"

"He said that very thing," answered May, "and Susan said the same. Not that it makes any difference to him, for he hasn't got any comforts round him, and gets savage if you ask him so much as to take a hot brick to bed with him to warm himself in winter."

"All these things," said Mrs. Lintern, "have been done for honour of the name. Your folk go back along far—far into the past, and there's never been a cloud between them and honest dealing. But, when Heathman's father was cut off with his work unfinished, it happed that he left no money, and the many things that he had planned all fell short, without his mastermind to pick up the threads and bring them through. Then came Humphrey Baskerville, and for love of his brother and for love of the name, did these good deeds. And to beggar himself in money be nought in the eyes of that man, if he leaves his family rich in credit afore the eyes of the world. Such another was your own father, May; and such another is your brother Rupert; and such another was your cousin Mark. They had their own sight and looked at the world their own way and all saw it different, maybe; but they never saw justice different."

"And such be I," declared Heathman. "I can't call myself a Baskerville, and shan't get no thinner for that; but I'm the son of my mother, and she's worth a shipload of any other sort—better than the whole flight of you Baskervilles, May—good though you be. And I'm very well pleased to be kin to you all, if you like, and if you don't like, you can leave it."

They parted then, and May returned home. Heathman showed himself highly gratified at what he had heard, and his sister shared his satisfaction. But their mother was sunk deep in the hidden places of her own heart, and they left her alone while they spoke together.

CHAPTER XII

Joe Voysey walked over one evening to talk with his lifelong friend Thomas Gollop. The gardener felt choked to the throat with injustice, and regarded his dismissal from the vicarage as an outrage upon society; while Mr. Gollop laboured under similar emotions.

Both declared that the ingratitude of Dennis Masterman was what principally stung them. To retire into private life caused them no pain; but to have been invited to do so was a bitter grievance.

Miss Eliza Gollop chanced to be out, and Thomas sat by the fire alone. His Bible stood on the table, but he was not reading it. Only when Voysey's knock sounded at the cottage door did Thomas wheel round from the fire, open the book and appear to be buried in its pages.

He had rather expected a visit from Mr. Masterman, hence these preparations; but when Voysey entered, Thomas modified his devout attitude and shut the Bible again.

"I half thought as that wretched man from the vicarage might call this evening," he said.

"He won't, then," replied Joe, "for he've got together all they fools who have fallen in with his wish about yowling carols at Christmas. Him and her be down at the schoolroom; and there's row enough rising up to fright the moon."

"Carol-singing! I wish the time was come for him to sing to his God for mercy," said Thomas.

Then he went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of spirits.

"Have he said anything to you about a pension?" asked Voysey.

"No, not yet. I thought he might be coming in about that to-night. My father afore me got a pension—a shilling a day for life—and I ought to have twice as much, in my opinion, though I don't expect it. And when I've got all I can, I'm going to shake the dust off my boots against the man and his church too. Never again, till I'm carried in to my grave, will I go across the threshold—not so long as he be there. I'm going to take up with the Dissenters, and I advise you to do the same."

"That woman have told me about my pension," answered Joe—"Alice Masterman, I mean. I won't call her 'Miss' no more, for 'tis too respectful. She've worked on her brother—so she says—to give me three half-crowns a week. But I doubt she had anything to do with it—such a beastly stinge as her. However, that's the money; and who d'you think they've took on? That anointed fool the policeman's brother! He've been learning a lot of silliness down to a nurseryman at Plymouth, and he'm coming here, so bold as brass, and so noisy as a drum, to show what can be done with that garden. And if I don't look over the wall sometimes and have a laugh at him, 'tis pity!"

Gollop nodded moodily, but he did not answer. Then Joe proceeded with malevolent glee.

"I clear out on the last day of the year," he said; "and if I haven't picked the eyes out of his garden and got 'em settled in my patch afore that day——! She met me taking over a lot of mint plants a bit ago. 'Where be you taking they mint plants?' she said. 'To a neighbour,' I said. 'He wants 'em, and we can spare 'em.' 'You'll ask me, please, before you give things away, Voysey,' she said. And now I ax, humble as a maggot, if I may take this or that to a neighbour afore I move a leaf. And she always says, 'Yes, if we can spare it.' Had her there—eh?"

"As for me," said Gollop, "I shall be the last regular right down parish clerk we ever have—unless the good old times come back later. A sexton he must use, since people have got to be buried, but who 'twill be I neither know nor care."

"Mind you take the tools," said Joe. "They be fairly your property, and you can sell 'em again if you don't want 'em yourself. I've made a good few shillings that way during the last forty years. But as for leaving the church, I shouldn't do that, because of the Christmas boxes. 'Tis well knowed in Shaugh that your Christmas boxes run into a tidy figure, and some people go so far as to say that what you take at the door, when the bettermost come out after Christmas morning prayer, is pretty near so good as what be dropped in the bags for the offerings."

"Lies," declared Thomas. "All envious lies. I never got near what the people thought. Still, I hadn't remembered. That's yet another thing where he'll have robbed me."

When Miss Eliza Gollop appeared half an hour later, she was cold and dispirited.

"What be you doing in here?" she said to Mr. Voysey.

"Having a tell with Thomas. We be both wishing to God we could strike them hateful people to the vicarage. Harm be bound to come to 'em, for their unchristian ways; but me and your brother would like to be in it."

"You'll be in it alone, then," she answered; "for this place have gone daft where they're concerned. They can't do no wrong seemingly—except to us. The people babble about him, and even her, as if they was angels that had lost their wings."

"'Tis all lax and lawless and going to the dogs," said Thomas. "There's no truth and honesty and manliness left in Shaugh. The man found a human thigh-bone kicking about up under the top hedge of the churchyard yesterday. Lord knows where it had come from. I never seed it nowhere; but he turned on me and said 'twas sacrilege, and I know not what else. 'Where there's churchyards, there'll also be bones,' I said to the fool; 'and if one here and there works to the top, along of the natural heaving of the earth, how can a sexton or any other man help it?' A feeble creature, and making the young men feeble too. Carol-singing! Who wants carols? However, I've done with him. I've stood between him and his folly time and again; but never no more. Let him go."

"'Tis a knock-kneed generation," declared Mr. Voysey. "All for comfort and luxury. Tea, with sugar in it, have took the place of the good, honest, sour cider like what every man had in harvest days of old. But now, these here young youths, they say sharp cider turns their innards! It never used to turn ours. 'Tis all of a piece, and the nation's on the downward road, along of too much cosseting."

"For my part, I think 'tis more the weakness of mind than the weakness of body that be ruining us," observed Miss Gollop. "As a nurse I see more than you men can, and, as a female, I hear more than you do. And I will say that the way the people have taken these here doings of that scarlet woman to Undershaugh is a sin and a scandal. At first they wouldn't believe it, though I blew the trumpet of truth in their ears from the moment that Dissenter died; but, afterwards, when 'twas known as a fact and the parties couldn't deny it, and Mr. Waite throwed over Cora Lintern, as any respecting man would when he heard the shameful truth—then who came to me and said, 'Ah, you was right, Eliza, and I was wrong'? Not one of 'em! And what's worse is the spirit they've taken it in. Nobody cares, though everybody ought to care!"

"Every person says 'tis none of their business," explained Voysey.

"More shame to 'em!" declared Thomas. "As if it wasn't the business of all decent men and women. Time was when such an incontinent terror of a woman would have been stoned out of the village in the name of law and righteousness. Yet now, mention the thing where I will, 'tis taken with a heathen calmness that makes my blood boil. And Masterman worst of all, mind! If it wasn't a case for a scorching sermon, when was there one? Yet not a word. And not a word from the Dissenters neither—not in the meeting-house—though 'tis a subject they'm very great against most times. However, I've inquired and I find it has been passed over."

"No godly anger anywhere," admitted Eliza, "and not one word of sorrow to me for the hard things what were spoken when I stood up single-handed and told the truth."

"Religion be dying out of the nation," summed up Thomas. "My father always said that me and Eliza would live to see antichrist ascend his throne; and it begins to look as if the times were very near ripe for the man. And 'twill be harder than ever now—now I'm driven out from being parish clerk. For I shall have to look on and yet be powerless to strike a blow."

They drank in gloomy silence; but Mr. Voysey was not similarly oppressed by the moral breakdown of the times. He strove to bring conversation back to the vicarage, and failing to do so, soon took his leave.

After he had gone the brother and sister debated long, and Thomas gave it as his opinion that it would be well for them to leave Shaugh and end their days in a more Christian and congenial atmosphere.

"There's nought to keep us now," he said; "all have gone down afore that Masterman, and 'tis something of a question whether such as we ought to bide here, simply as common folk with no more voice in the parish. If we go, the blame lies on his shoulders; but once I make up my mind, I won't stop—not though the people come before me and beg on their bended knees for me to do so."

"'Twould be like Adam and Eve being driven out of the Garden if we'm forced to go," declared Eliza.

"With this difference, however, that the blame ban't with us, though the punishment may be. There's nobody can say we've ever done wrong here, or gone outside our duty to God or man by a hair. If we go, 'tis them that drive us out will have to pay for their wickedness."

"They'll certainly smart, if 'tis only in the long run," confessed Eliza. "'Twill be brought home against them at the appointed time."

Thomas nodded drearily.

"Cold comfort," he said, "but the only satisfaction there is to be got out of it by us. Yes, I shall go; I shall shake off the dust for a witness. I wish I thought as 'twould choke a party here and there; but, thank God, I know my place. I never offered to do His almighty work, and I never will. I never wanted to call down thunder from heaven on the evil-doer. But 'tis always a tower of faith to a righteous man when he sees the Lord strike. And to them as be weak in faith, 'tis often a puzzle and a temptation to see how long the Lord holds off, when justice cries aloud to Him to rise up and do His worst."

CHAPTER XIII

At the approach of another Christmas, Humphrey Baskerville stood in the churchyard of St. Edward's and watched two masons lodge the stone that he had raised to his brother Nathan. It conformed to the usual pattern of the Baskerville memorials, and was of slate. The lettering had been cut deep and plain without addition of any ornament. The accidental severity and simplicity of the stone contrasted to advantage with Vivian's ornate and tasteless marble beside it.

Dennis Masterman walked across the churchyard presently and, seeing Humphrey, turned and approached.

"Good morning," he said. "Glad you've put a slate here. I like them better than these garish things. They are more suited to this grey Moor world of ours."

"'Tis a foolish waste to spend money on the dead," answered Mr. Baskerville. "When all the living be clothed and fed, then we can fling away our money over graves. 'Tis only done to please ourselves, not to please them."

"You've a right to speak," said the clergyman. "To praise you would be an impertinence; but as the priest of Him we both worship, I rejoice to think of what you have done to clear the clouded memory of this man."

Humphrey took no verbal notice of these remarks. He shrugged his shoulders and spoke of the gravestone.

"I'll thank you to read what I've put over him, and say whether 'tis not right and just."

The other obeyed. After particulars of Nathan's age and the date of his death, there followed only the first verse of the forty-first Psalm—

"Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord
will deliver him in time of trouble."

"You see," explained Mr. Baskerville, "my brother did consider the poor—and none else. That he made a botch of it, along of bad judgment and too much hope and too much trust in himself, is neither here nor there; for I hold his point of view was well-meaning though mistaken. If we see a man's point of view, it often leads—I won't say to mercy, for that's no business of ours in my opinion—but to the higher justice. To judge by results is worldly sense, but I'm doubtful if 'tis heavenly sense. Anyway, that's how I feel about my brother now, though 'twas only brought home to me after a year of thinking; and as for the end of the text, certainly that happened, because none can doubt the Lord delivered him in the time of trouble. His death was a deliverance, as every death must be, but none more than Nathan's afore the tempest broke."

Masterman—knowing as little as the other what Nathan's death had brought to Nathan of mental agony before the end—conceded these points freely. They walked together in the churchyard and spoke of moral topics and religious instruction. At a point in the enclosure, the younger stopped and indicated a space remote from the lodges of the silent people.

"You design to lie here—is it not so? Gollop, I remember, told me, a long time ago now."

The old man regarded the spot indifferently and shook his head.

"I meant it once—not now. We change our most fixed purposes under the battering of the world; and small enough our old thoughts often look, when seen again, after things have happened and years have passed. I'll creep to join my own, if you please. They won't mind, I reckon, if I sink into the pit beside 'em. I'll go by my wife and my son and my brothers. We'll all rise and brave the Trump together, as well as erring man may."

The stone was set in its place presently and Mr. Baskerville, well pleased with the result, set off homeward. His tethered pony stood at the gate, and he mounted and went slowly up the hill.

CHAPTER XIV

"Some say they believe the old saying and some say they don't," declared Mr. Abraham Elford to a thin bar at six o'clock on Christmas Eve; "but for my part I know what I've proved to be true with my own eyes, and I will stick to it that apples picked at wane of moon do shrivel and scrump up cruel. In fact, for hoarding they be no use at all."

"And you swear that you've proved that?" asked Mr. Head in his most judicial manner. "You stand there, a man up home sixty years of age, and steadfastly declare that apples gathered when the moon be on the wane do dry up quicker than others that be plucked when it begins to grow?"

"Yes, I do," declared the innkeeper. "Don't I tell you that I've proved it? Pick your apples when the moon be first horning, that's my advice."

They wrangled upon the question, and missed its real interest as an example of the value of evidence and the influence of superstition and individual idiosyncrasy on all human testimony.

Jack scoffed, Abraham Elford grew warm; for who is there that can endure to hear his depositions brushed aside as worthless?

Upon this great topic of the shrinking of apples at wane of moon, some sided with Mr. Head; while others, who held lunar influence as a force reaching into dark mysteries of matter and mind, supported the publican.

The contention was brisk, and not until it began to interfere with the nightly sale of his liquor, did Elford awake to its danger and stop it. He conceded nothing, but declared the argument must cease.

"'Tis Christman Eve," said he, "and no occasion for any short words or sharp sayings. Me and Head both know that we'm right, and mountains wouldn't move either of us from our opinions, so let it be."

He lifted a great earthen pot from the fire in the bar parlour. It contained cider with pieces of toast floating in it.

"Pretty drinking, as I'm certain sure that one and all of you will say," foretold the host.

Apples, however, rose again to be first topic of conversation before this fine wassail, and Jack spoke once more.

"Time was, down to the in country, that on this night—or else Old Christman Eve, I forget which—we gawks should all have marched out solemn to the orchards and sung lucky songs, and poured out cider, and fired our guns into the branches, and made all-round heathen fools of ourselves. And why? Because 'twas thought that to do so improved the next year's crop a thousandfold! And when we remember that 'twas no further back than our fathers that they did such witless things, it did ought to make us feel humble, I'm sure."

"Don't talk no more about cider, drink it," said Heathman Lintern, who was of the company. "Drink it while 'tis hot, and 'twill warm your bones and soften your opinions. You'm so peart to-night and so sharp at the corners, that I reckon you've got your money back at last."

This direct attack reduced Mr. Head to a less energetic and dogmatic frame of mind.

"No," he answered. "I have not, and I happen to know that I never shall. Me and the old chap fell out, and I dressed him down too sharp. I was wrong, and I've since admitted it, for I'm the rare, fearless sort that grant I'm wrong the first minute it can be proved against me. Though when a man's built on that large pattern, you may be sure he ban't wrong very often. 'Tis only the peddling, small creatures that won't admit they're mistaken—out of a natural fear that if they once allow it, they'll never be thought right again. But though he's forgiven me, I've strained the friendship. So we live and learn."

"Coode's had his money again," said the host of 'The White Thorn.'

"He has—the drunken dog? There's only me left," returned Jack.

"It wasn't till after he lost his money that he took to swilling, however," declared the innkeeper. "I know him well. The misfortune ruined his character."

"His daughter's been paid back, all the same," said Lintern. "She keeps his house, and the old boy gave the money to her, to be used or saved according as she thinks best."

"That leaves only me," said Jack.

"Me and Rupert was running over the figures a bit ago," continued Heathman. "We made out that the sporting old blade had dropped upwards of six thousand over this job, and we was wondering how much that is out of all he's got."

"A fleabite, I reckon," answered Head; but the other doubted it.

"Rupert says he thinks 'tis pretty near half of his fortune, if not more. He goes shabbier than ever, and he eats little better than orts for his food."

"That's no new thing," said another man as he held a mug for some more of the hot cider; "'twas always so, as Susan Hacker will tell you. My wife have heard her grumbling off and on these ten years about it. His food's poor and coarse, like his baccy and his cider. His clothes be kept on his back till there ban't enough of the web left to hold 'em together any longer. Susan offered an old coat to a tramp once, thinking to get it away afore Baskerville missed it; and the tramp looked it over—through and through, you might say—and he thanked Susan as saucy as you please, and told her that when he was going to set up for a mommet[1] he'd let her know, but 'twouldn't be yet."

[1] Mommet—scarecrow.

"A strange old night-hawk, and always have been," said Head. "Not a man—not even me, though I know him best—can measure him altogether. Never was such a mixture. Now he's so good-natured as the best stone, and you'll go gaily driving into him and then, suddenly, you'll strike flint, and get a spark in your eye, and wish to God you'd left the man alone. He's beyond any well-balanced mind to understand, as I've told him more than once."

"Meek as Moses one minute, then all claws and prickles the next—so they tell me," declared Abraham Elford. "But whether 'tis true or not, I can't say from experience," he added, "for the man don't come in here."

"And why?" said Heathman. "That's another queer side of him. I axed him that same question, and he said because to his eyes the place was haunted by my father. 'I should see Nathan's long beard wagging behind the bar,' he said to me, 'and I couldn't abide it.'"

"He's above common men, no doubt," declared another speaker. "We can only leave him at that. He's a riddle none here will ever guess, and that's the last word about him."

Rupert Baskerville came in at this moment and saw Heathman. Both were in Dennis Masterman's carol choir, and it was time that they gathered with the rest at the vicarage, for a long round of singing awaited them.

"A mild night and the roads pretty passable," he announced. "We're away in half an hour wi' books and lanterns; but no musickers be coming with us, like in the good old days. Only voices to carry it off."

He stopped to drink, and the sight of Jack Head reminded him of a commission.

"I want you, Jack," he said. "Come out in the ope-way for half a moment."

They departed together, and in a few moments returned. Rupert was laughing, Mr. Head exhibited the liveliest excitement. In one hand he waved three ten-pound notes; with the other he chinked some gold and silver.

"Money! Money! Money, souls!" he shouted. "If that baggering old hero haven't paid me after all! Give it a name, boys, drinks round!"

They congratulated him and liquor flowed. Head was full of rejoicing. He even exhibited gratitude.

"You might say 'twas no more than justice," he began; "but I tell you he's more than just—he's a very generous old man, and nobody can deny it, and I for one would like to do something to pay him back."

"There's nought you can do," declared Elford, "but be large-minded about it, and overlook the little smart that always touches a big mind when it's asked to accept favours."

"Not a big mind," corrected Rupert. "'Tis only a small mind can't take favours. And the thought of giving that smart would pain my uncle, for he's terrible tender and he's smarted all his life, and knows what 'tis to feel so."

"Smart be damned!" said Mr. Head. "There's no smart about getting back your own. I'm only glad that he felt the call to pay; and, though I was kept to the last, I shan't quarrel about that. If Rupert here, as be his nephew and his right hand by all accounts, could hit on a thing for us to do that would please the man, then I say us might do it without loss of credit. There's nobody has anything serious against him, I believe, nowadays, unless it be Abraham here, because he never comes inside his bar."

The publican shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't quarrel for that," he said, "since he goeth nowhere else either."

They considered the possible ways of bringing any satisfaction to Humphrey Baskerville, but could hit on no happy project. Head, indeed, was fertile of ideas, but Rupert found objections to all of them.

"If us could only do something that meant a lot of different chaps all of one mind," said Heathman. "The old bird always thinks that the people hate him or laugh at him, and if we could somehow work a trick that showed a score of folk all meaning well to him and thinking well of him for once—— But Lord knows what."

Then came an interruption in the shape of Dennis Masterman. He was warm and somewhat annoyed. He turned upon the guilty Rupert and Heathman.

"This is too bad, you fellows!" he said. "Here we're all waiting and waiting, and, despite my express wishes, you turn in to drink. I blame you both."

They expressed the liveliest regret, and Dennis was speedily mollified when he heard the great argument that had made these men forget the business of the night.

"There's no time now," he answered, "but you're in the right to think of such a thing, and, after Christmas, I shall be only too glad to lend a hand. A very admirable idea, and I'm glad you've hit on it."

"Just a thimbleful of my wassail, your honour, for luck," said the host, and Masterman, protesting, took the glass handed to him.

A sudden and violent explosion from Mr. Head made the clergyman nearly choke in the middle of his drinking.

"I've got it!" cried Jack so loudly that the company started. He slapped his leg at the same moment and then danced with exaggerated rejoicing.

"Got what? D.T.'s?" asked Heathman.

"Go up along to Hawk House! I beg and pray your reverence to go there first of all," urged Jack. "Surely 'tis the very thing. 'Tis just what we was trying to light upon—summat that meant the showing of general friendship—summat that meant a bit of trouble and thought taken for him—all your blessed Christmas vartues put together—goodwill and all the rest of it. If you was to steal up through the garden by the greenside and then burst forth like one man—why, there 'tis! Who can deny 'tis a noble idea? And you can go and holler to the quality afterwards."

"Good for you, Jack!" answered Rupert. "And I say ditto with all my heart if Mr. Masterman——"

"Come, then," interrupted Dennis. "The night will be gone before we start. We'll go to Hawk House right away. I can't gainsay such a wish, though it's a mile out of the beat we had planned. Come!"

The clergyman, with Rupert Baskerville and Heathman Lintern, hurried off, and a few of the younger men, accompanied by Jack Head, followed after them.

"I must just pop in my house and lock up this dollop of money," said Jack; "then us'll go up over with the singers to see how the old Hawk takes it. He'll be scared first; and then he'll try to look as if he was going to fling brickbats out of the windows, or set the dogs at us; and all the time we shall very well know that he's bubbling over with surprise to find what a number of respectable people have got to thinking well of him."

The crowd of men and boys moved on ahead of Jack and his friends. The shrill cries and laughter of the youngsters and a bass rumble of adult voices wakened night, and a dozen lanterns flashed among the company as they ascended into the silent darkness of Dartmoor.

CHAPTER XV

Humphrey Baskerville had hoped that his nephew might visit him on Christmas Eve; but he learned that it was impossible, because Rupert had joined the carol-singers, and would be occupied with them on a wide circle of song.

After dark he sat alone until near seven o'clock; then Mrs. Hacker returned home and they took their supper together.

The meal ended, she cleared it away and settled to her knitting. Talk passed between them not unmarked by sentiment, for it concerned the past and related to those changes the year had brought. On the following day Humphrey was to eat his Christmas dinner at Cadworthy, and Susan hoped to spend the festival with friends in Shaugh.

"I've got Heathman and his mother to be of the company," said Mr. Baskerville. "The daughters are both about their own business, and one goes to her sweetheart, and Cora's down to Plymouth, so we shall escape from them and no harm done. But Heathman and his mother will be there. They are rather a puzzle to me, Susan."

"No doubt," she replied. "You'll go on puzzling yourself over this party or that till you've puzzled yourself into the workhouse. Haven't you paid all the creditors to the last penny?"

"Not so," he answered. "That's where it lies. A man's children and their mother are his first creditors, I should reckon. They've got first call in justice, if not in law. I judge that there's a fine bit of duty there, and the way they look at life—so much my own way 'tis—makes me feel—— I wrote to that bad Cora yesterday. She's working hard, I'm told."

Susan sniffed.

"So does the Devil," she said. "'Tis all very well for you, I suppose; because when you wake up some morning and discover as you've got nought left in the world but your night-shirt, you'll go about to them you've befriended to seek for your own again—and lucky you'll be if you find it, or half of it; but what of me?"

"You'll never want," he declared. "You're the sort always to fall on your feet."

"So's young Lintern for that matter. No need to worry about him. He's a lesson, if you like. The man to be contented whatever haps."

"I know it. I've marked it. I've learnt no little from him. A big heart and a mighty power of taking life as it comes without fuss. There's a bad side to it, however, as well as a good. I've worked that out. It's good for a man to be contented, but no good for the place he lives in. Contented people never stir up things, or throw light into dark corners, or let air into stuffy places. Content means stagnation so oft as not."

"They mind their own business, however."

"They mostly do; and that's selfish wisdom so oft as not. Now Jack Head's never content, and never will be."

"Don't name that man on Christmas Eve!" said Mrs. Hacker testily. "I hate to think of him any day of the week, for that matter."

"Yet him and the east wind both be useful, little as you like 'em. For my part, I've been a neighbour to the east wind all my life and shared its quality in the eyes of most folk—till now. But the wind of God be turning out of the east for me, Susan."

"So long as you be pleased with yourself—— And as for content, 'tisn't a vartue, 'tis an accident, like red hair or bow legs. You can't get it, nor yet get away from it, by taking thought."

He nodded.

"You're in the right there. One man will make more noise if he scratches his finger than another if he breaks his leg. 'Tis part of the build of the mind, and don't depend on chance. Same with misery—that's a matter of character, not condition, I know men that won't be wretched while they can draw their breath; and some won't be happy, though they've got thrice their share of good fortune. No doubt that's how Providence levels up, and gives the one what he can't enjoy, to balance him with the other, who's got nought, but who's also got the blessed power of making happiness out of nought."

"You've found the middle way, I suppose," she said; "and, like others who think they're on the sure road to happiness, you be pushing along too fast."

"Running myself out of breath—eh? But you're wrong. I'm too cautious for that. If I'm a miser, as the people still think here and there, then 'tis for peace I'm a miser. 'Twas always peace of mind that I hungered and hankered for, yet went in doubt if such a thing there was. And even now, though I seem three-parts along the road to it, I feel a cold fear often enough whether my way will stand all weathers. It may break down yet."

"Not while your money lasts," she answered with a short laugh.

He followed his own thoughts in silence, and then spoke aloud again.

"Restless as the fox, and hungrier than ever he was. Every man's hand against me, as I thought, and mine held out to every man; but they wouldn't see it. None to come to my hearth willingly, though 'twas always hot for 'em; none to look into my meaning, though that meaning was always meant for kindness. But who shall blame any living creature that they thought me an enemy and not a friend? How should they know? Didn't I hide the scant good that was in me, more careful than the bird her nest?"

"They be up to your tricks now, anyway; and I've helped to show 'em better, though you may not believe it," declared Susan. "What a long-tongued, well-meaning female could do I've done for you; and I always shall say so."

"I know that," he said. "There's no good thing on earth than can't be made better, but one thing. And that's the thing in all Christian minds this night—I mean the thing called love. You know it—you deal in it. Out of your kind soul you've always felt friendly to me, and you saw what I had the wish but not the power to show to others; and you've done your share of the work to make the people like me better. Maybe 'tis mostly your doing, if we could but read into the truth of it."

This work-a-day world must for ever fall far short of the humblest ethical ideal, and doubtless even those who fell prostrate at the shout of their Thunder Spirit, or worshipped the sun and the sea in the morning of days, guessed dimly how their kind lacked much of perfection. To them the brooding soul of humanity revealed the road, though little knew those early men the length of it; little they understood that the goal of any faultless standard must remain a shifting ideal within reach of mind alone.

At certain points Baskerville darkly suspected weak places in this new armour of light. While his days had, indeed, achieved a consummation and orbicular completeness beyond all hope; while, looking backward, he could not fail to contrast noontide gloom with sunset light, the fierce equinox of autumn with this unfolding period of a gracious Indian summer now following upon it; yet, even here, there fell a narrow shadow of cloud; there wakened a wind not unedged. In deep and secret thought he had drifted upon that negation of justice involved by the Golden Rule. He saw, what every intellect worthy a name must see: that to do as you would be done by, to withhold the scourge from the guilty shoulder, to suffer the weed to flourish in the garden, to shield our fellow-men from the consequence of their evil or folly, is to put the individual higher than society, and to follow a precept that ethics in evolution has long rejected.

But he shirked his dilemma: he believed it not necessary to pursue the paradox to its bitter end. The Golden Rule he hypostatised into a living and an omnipresent creed; henceforth it was destined to be his criterion of every action; and to his doubting spirit he replied, that if not practicable in youth, if not convenient for middle age, this principle might most justly direct the performance and stimulate the thought of the old. Thus he was, and knew himself, untrue to the clearer, colder conviction of his reasoning past; but in practice this defection brought a peace so exalted, a content so steady, a recognition so precious, that he rested his spirit upon it in faith and sought no further.

Now he retraced his time, and made a brief and pregnant summary thereof for Susan's ear.

"'Tis to be spoken in a score of words," he said. "My life has been a storm in a teacup; but none the less a terrible storm for me until I won the grace to still it. Port to the sailor-man be a blessed thing according to the voyage that's gone afore. The worse that, the better the peace of the haven when he comes to it."

She was going to speak, but a sound on the stillness of night stopped her.

"Hark!" was all she said.

Together they rose and went to his outer door.

The gibbous moon sailed through a sky of thin cloud, and light fell dimly upon the open spaces, but sparkled in the great darkness of evergreen things about the garden. Earth rolled night-hidden to the southern hills, and its breast was touched with sparks of flame, where glimmered those few habitations visible from this place. A lattice of naked boughs meshed the moonlight under the slope of the hill, and from beneath their shadows ascended a moving thread of men and boys. They broke the stillness with speech and laughter, and their red lantern-light struck to right and left and killed the wan moonshine as they came.

"What's toward now?" asked Mr. Baskerville, staring blankly before him.

"Why," cried Susan, "'tis the carol-singers without a doubt! They'll want an ocean of beer presently, and where shall us get it from?"

"Coming to me—coming to sing to me!" he mumbled. "Good God, a thing far beyond my utmost thought is this!"

The crowd rolled clattering up, and the woman stayed to welcome them; but the man ran back into his house, sat down in his chair, bent forward to listen and clasped his hands tightly between his knees.

Acute emotion marked his countenance; but this painful tension passed when out of the night there rolled the melodious thunder of an ancient tune.

"Singing for me!" he murmured many times while the old song throbbed.