"Ned's the only one of 'em knows the world," answered Cora. "He's travelled about a bit and 'tis natural that his father should put him before all the others and see his sense and learning. When parson's voice gave out, Ned read the lessons—that Sunday you was from home—and nobody ever did it better. He's a very clever man, in fact, and his father knows it, and when his father dies, the will is going to show what his father thinks of him."
"He's told you so, I suppose?"
"Ned has, yes. He knows I'm one of the business-like sort. I'd leap the hatch to-morrow if a proper rich man came along and asked me to."
"Remember you're not the first—that's all," said her mother. "If you take him and he changes his mind and serves you like he's served another here and there, you'll have a very unquiet time of it, and look a very big fool."
"'Twas all nonsense and lies," she answered. "He made the truth clear to me. He never took either of them girls. They wasn't nice maidens and they rushed him into it—or thought they had. He's never loved any woman until——"
Cora broke off.
"Shan't tell you no more," she continued. "'Tis no odds to you—you don't care a button—and I shall soon be out of your house, anyhow."
"Perhaps; but I shall be a thought sorry for all them at Cadworthy Farm if you take Ned and set up wife along with his family," answered her mother. "Hard as a cris-hawk[2] you be; and you'll have 'em all by the ears so sure as ever you go there."
[1]Cris-hawk—kestrel.
"You ax Mrs. Hester Baskerville if I be hard," retorted Cora. "She'll tell that I'm gentle as a wood-dove. I don't show my claws without there's a good reason for it. And never, unless there is. Anyway, I'm a girl that's got to fight my own battles, since you take very good care not to do a mother's part and help me."
"You shall have the last word," answered Mrs. Lintern.
Some weeks after Christmas had passed, Mr. Joseph Voysey and others met at 'The White Thorn' and played chorus to affairs according to their custom. The great subject of discussion was still the play. It had been enacted twice to different audiences, and it proved but an indifferent success. Everybody agreed that the entertainment promised better than its ultimate performance. At rehearsal all went well; upon the night of the display a thousand mishaps combined to lessen its effect.
Joe Voysey summed up to Thomas Gollop, who sat and drank with him.
"What with us all being so busy about Christmas, and the weather, and Nathan here getting a cold on his chest and only being able to croak like a frog, and parson losing his temper with Head at the last rehearsal, and other things, it certainly failed. 'Tis a case of least said soonest mended; but I'm keeping this mask of the French Eagle what I wore, for it makes a very pretty ornament hanged over my parlour mantelshelf."
"In my judgment," declared Nathan, "'twas Jack Head that played the mischief with the show. After parson cooled him down at rehearsal, I allow he went a bit lighter on his part and didn't act quite so forcible, but well I knew he was saving it up for the night; and so he was. 'Twas all Jack all the time, and even when he was supposed to be dead, he must still keep growling to make the people laugh. He's had a right down row with Mr. Masterman since."
"A make-strife sort of man; and yet a cheerful man; and yet, again, a very rebellious man against the powers," said Voysey.
"Well, 'tis over and it shows, like everything else do, how much may grow out of little," added Nathan. "Just a bit of fun at Christmas, you'd say, wouldn't leave no very great mark, yet—look at it—how far-reaching."
"It's brought the eyes of the county on us, as I said it would," replied the parish clerk. "The Rural Dean was here afterwards and took his luncheon at the vicarage and came to the church to see the font-cover; but Nancy Mumford—maiden to the vicarage—waits at table, and she told my sister that his reverence said to Mr. Masterman that we'd fallen between two stools and that the performance was a sort of a mongrel between a modern pantomime and the old miracle play, and that the masks and such-like were out of order. And Miss Masterman was a bit acid with the Rural Dean and said, to his face, that if he'd only had to see the thing through, as they had, she was sure that he'd be more charitable like about it."
"Us shan't have no more play-acting, mark me," foretold Joe Voysey; then others entered the bar, among them being Saul Luscombe from Trowlesworthy and Heathman Lintern. The warrener was on his way home and stayed only for a pint and a few friendly words.
"You should hear Jack Head tell about the play," he said.
"And he should hear us tell about him," answered Voysey. "Jack, so near as damn it, spoilt the play. In fact, innkeeper here thinks he did do so."
"He vows that he saved the whole job from being a hugeous failure. And young farmer Waite swears 'twas Miss Lintern as the Princess that saved it; and Mr. Ned, your nephew, Nathan—he swears 'twas himself that saved it."
"And I think 'twas I that saved it," declared Thomas. "However, enough said. 'Tis of the past and will soon be forgot, like a dead man out of mind."
"That's where you're wrong, Tom," said Heathman. "You can't forget a thing so easy. Besides, there's all that hangs to it. There's Polly Baskerville, that was one of Cora's maidens in the play, got engaged to be married on the strength of it—to Nick Bassett—him as waited on the Turkish Knight. And now—bigger news still for me and mine. Cora's taken Ned Baskerville!"
"I knew it was going to happen," admitted Nathan. "'Tis a very delicate thing, for she's only broken with the man's cousin a matter of a few months. Her mother asked me about it a bit ago."
"You've got to remember this," said Heathman. "I should have been the first to make a row—me being Cora's only brother and the only man responsible to look after her. I say I should have been the first to make a row, for I was terrible savage with her and thought it hard for her to throw over Mark, just because his father was an old carmudgeon. But seeing how Mark took it——"
"To the eye, I grant you that; but these quiet chaps as hide their feelings often feel a lot more than they show," said Mr. Luscombe.
"He was hard hit, and well I know it, for his father told me so," continued Nathan Baskerville. "My brother, Humphrey, in a sort of way, blamed me and Mrs. Lintern, and, in fact, everybody but himself. One minute he said that Mark was well out of it, and the next he got to be very jealous for Mark and told me that people were caballing against his son. I go in fear of meeting my brother now, for when he hears that Cora Lintern is going to take Ned Baskerville, he'll think 'twas all a plot and he'll rage on Mark's account."
"'Tis Mark that I fear for," said Heathman; then Gollop suddenly stopped him.
"Hush!" he cried, and held up his hand. After a brief silence, however, he begged young Lintern to proceed.
"Beg your pardon," he said. "I thought I heard something."
"I fear for Mark," continued the other, "because I happen to know that he still secretly hoped a bit. I don't like my sister Cora none too well, and I reckon Mark's worth a million of her, and I told him I was glad to see him so cheerful about it. 'You'm very wise to keep up your pecker, Mark,' I said to the man; 'because she'm not your sort really. I know her better than you do and can testify to it.' But he said I mustn't talk so, and he told me, very private, that he hadn't gived up all hope. Poor chap, I can let it out now, for he knows 'tis all over now. 'While she's free, there's a chance,' he told me. 'I won't never think,' he said, 'that all that's passed between us is to be blown away at a breath of trouble like this.' That's how he put it, and I could see by the hollow, wisht state of his eyes and his nerves all ajolt, that he'd been through a terrible lot."
"He'd built on her coming round, poor fellow—eh? That's why he put such a brave face on it then," murmured Nathan.
Then Voysey spoke again.
"As it happens, I can tell you the latest thing about him," he said. "I was to work two days agone 'pon the edge of our garden, doing nought in particular because the frost was got in the ground and you couldn't put a spade in. But I was busy as a bee according to my wont—tying up pea-sticks I think 'twas, or setting a rat-trap, or some such thing—when who should pass down t'other side of the hedge but Mark Baskerville? Us fell into talk about the play, and I took him down to my house to show him where my grand-darter had stuck the mask what made me into the French Eagle. Then I said there were changes in the air, and he said so too. I remarked as Rupert Baskerville had left Cadworthy and gone to work at the Lee Moor china clay, and he said 'Yes; and I be going too.' 'Never!' I said. 'What'll Mr. Humphrey do without you?' But he didn't know or care. 'Who ever will ring your bell when you're gone?' I asked him, and——"
Thomas Gollop again interrupted.
"'Tis a terrible queer thing you should name the bell, Joe," he said, "for I'll take my oath somebody's ringing it now!"
"Ringing the bell! What be talking of?" asked Heathman. "Why, 'tis hard on ten o'clock."
"Yet I'm right."
At this moment Saul Luscombe, who had set out a minute sooner, returned.
"Who's ago?" he asked. "The bell's tolling."
They crowded to the door, stood under the clear stillness of night, and heard the bell. At intervals of a minute the deep, sonorous note throbbed from aloft where the church tower rose against the stars.
"There's nobody sick to death that I know about," said Nathan. "'Twill be Mark ringing, no doubt. None touches tenor bell but him."
Mr. Luscombe remounted his pony.
"Cold bites shrewd after your bar, Nathan. Good night, souls. Us shall hear who 'tis to-morrow."
The bell tolled thrice more; then it stopped.
"Bide a minute and I'll come back," said Mr. Gollop. "I can't sleep this night without knowing who 'tis. A very terrible sudden seizure, for certain. Eliza may know."
He crossed the road and entered his own house, which stood against the churchyard wall. They waited and he returned in a minute.
"She knows nought," he said. "Mark dropped in a little bit ago and axed for the key. 'What do 'e want in belfry now, Mr. Baskerville?' she axed him. 'Passing bell,' he said; and Eliza was all agog, of course, for 'twas the first she'd heard of it. 'What's the name?' she said; but he answered nought and went down the steps and away. A minute after the bell began."
"'Tis over now, anyway. I'll step across and meet Mark," said Mr. Baskerville.
One or two others accompanied him; but there was no sign of the ringer. Then, led by Gollop, they entered the silent church and shouted.
"Where be you, Mark Baskerville, and who's dead?" cried Gollop.
In the belfry profound silence reigned, and the ropes hanging from their places above, touched the men as they groped in the darkness.
"He's gone, anyway," declared Nathan. Then suddenly a man's boot rubbed against his face. The impact moved it a moment; but it swung back heavily again.
The innkeeper yelled aloud, while Gollop fetched a lantern and lighted it. Then they found that Mark Baskerville had fastened a length of stout cord to the great rope of the tenor bell at twenty feet above the floor. He had mounted a ladder, drawn a tight loop round his neck, jumped into the air, and so destroyed himself.
Certain human dust lay in a place set apart from the main churchyard of St. Edward's. Here newborn babies, that had perished before admission into the Christian faith, were buried, because the ministers of the church felt doubtful as to the salving of these unbaptised ones in another world. The spot was known as 'Chrisomers' Hill,' a name descended from ancient use. By chrisom-cloths were first understood the anointed white garments put upon babes at baptism; and afterwards they came to mean the robes of the newly-baptised. Infants were also shrouded in them if they perished a month after baptism; while a chrisom-child, or chrisomer, signified one who thus untimely died.
Among these fallen buds the late vicar of the parish had also buried a woman who took her own life; and Thomas Gollop, nothing doubting but that here, and only here, the body of Mark Baskerville might decently be laid, took it upon himself to dig the grave on Chrisomers' Hill. But the ground was very hard and Thomas no longer possessed his old-time strength of arm. Therefore a young man helped him, and during the intervals of labour, the elder related incidents connected with past interments. Some belonged to his own recollection; others had been handed down by his father.
"And touching these childer took off afore the holy water saved 'em, my parent held the old story of the Heath Hounds," concluded Thomas. "And there might be more in it than us later-day mortals have a right to deny. For my father solemnly swore that he'd heard 'em in winter gloamings hurrying through the air, for all the world like a flock of night-flying birds, and barking like good-uns in full cry after the Dowl. 'Tis Satan that keeps 'em out of the joys of Paradise; but only for a time, you must know, because these here babbies never done a stroke of wrong, being too young for it; and therefore, in right and reason, they will be catched up into Heaven at the last."
"But no doubt 'tis different if a human takes their own life," said the young man.
"Different altogether," declared Mr. Gollop. "To take your own life be to go to a party afore you'm invited—a very presumpshuss and pushing thing, to say the least. No charity will cover it. For argument's sake, we'll say as I cut my throat, and then I stand afore the Throne of Grace so soon as the life be out of me. 'Who be you?' says the A'mighty. 'Thomas Gollop, your Reverence,' says I. Then they fetch the Books and it all comes out that I've took the law of life into my own hands and upset the record and made a far-reaching mess of everything; because you must know you can't live to yourself alone, and if you lay hands on your body, you be upsetting other lives beside your own, and making trouble in the next world so well as this. So down I go to the bad place—and very well I should deserve it. I can't be sure of Masterman, but he'll hardly have the face to treat this rash corpse like a God-fearing creature, I should hope. The parish will ring with it if he do."
"Crowner's sitting now over to 'The White Thorn,'" said Tom's assistant.
"Yes; and since Jack Head's 'pon the jury, there'll be no paltering with truth. I hate the man and have little good to say of him as a general thing; but there's no nonsense to him, and though he's oftener wrong than any chap I know, he won't be wrong to-day, for he told me nought would shake him. 'Tis the feeble-minded fashion to say that them that kill themselves be daft. They always bring it in so. Why? Because the dust shall cheat justice and get so good Christian burial as the best among us. But Head won't have that. He's all for bringing it in naked suicide without any truckling or hedging. The young man was sane as me, and took his life with malice aforethought; and so he must lie 'pon Chrisomers' Hill with the doubtfuls, not along with the certainties."
As he spoke somebody approached, and Nathan Baskerville, clad in black, stood beside them.
"I want you, Gollop," he said. "Who are you digging for here? 'Tis long since Chrisomers' Hill was opened."
"For Mark Baskerville," answered the sexton stoutly. "'Tis here he's earned his place, and here he'll lie if I'm anybody."
Nathan regarded Thomas with dislike.
"So old and so crooked-hearted still!" he said. "I'm glad you've had your trouble for your pains, for you deserve it. Poor Mark is to be buried with his mother. You'd better see about it, and pretty quick too. The funeral's the day after to-morrow."
"I'll discourse with the reverend Masterman," answered Thomas; "and I'll also hear what the coroner have got to say."
"You're a nasty old man sometimes, Gollop, and never nastier than to-day. As to Mr. Masterman, you ought to know what stuff he's made of by this time; and as for the inquest, 'tis ended. The verdict could only be one thing, and we decided right away."
"What about Jack Head?"
"Jack's not a cross-grained old fool, whatever else he may be," answered the innkeeper. "I convinced him in exactly two minutes that my nephew couldn't have been responsible for what he did. And everybody but a sour and bitter man, like you, must have known it. Poor Mark is thrown over by a girl—not to blame her, either, for she had to be true to herself. But still he won't believe that she's not for him, though she's put it plain as you please in writing; and he goes on hoping and dreaming and building castles in the air. Always dreamy and queer at all times he was—remember that. Then comes the crashing news for him that all is over and the maiden has taken another man. Wasn't it enough to upset such a frail, fanciful creature? Enough, and more than enough. He hides his trouble and his brain fails and his heart breaks—all unseen by any eye. And then what happens? He rings his own passing-bell! Was that the work of a sane man? Poor chap—poor chap! And you'd deny him Christian burial and cast him here, like a dog, with the poor unnamed children down under. I blush for you. See to his mother's grave and try and be larger-hearted. 'Tis only charity to suppose the bitter cold weather be curdling your blood. Now I'm off to my brother Humphrey, to tell him what there is to tell."
Then Mr. Nathan buttoned up his coat and turned to the grinning labourer.
"Don't laugh at him," he said. "Be sorry for him. 'Tis no laughing matter. Fill up that hole and take down yonder slate at the far end of the Baskerville row, and put everything in order. Our graves be all brick."
He departed and Mr. Gollop walked off to the vicarage.
A difficult task awaited Nathan, but he courted it in hope of future advantage. He was terribly concerned for his brother and now designed to visit him. As yet Humphrey had seen nobody.
Vivian had called at Hawk House the day after Mark's death, but Mrs. Hacker had told him that her master was out. On inquiries as to his state, she had merely replied that he was not ill. He had directed that his son's body should remain at the church, and he had not visited Shaugh again or seen the dead since the night that Mark perished.
Now Nathan, secretly hoping that some better understanding between him and Humphrey might arise from this shattering grief, and himself suffering more than any man knew from the shock of it, hastened to visit his bereaved brother and acquaint him with the circumstances of the inquest.
Humphrey Baskerville was from home and Nathan, knowing his familiar haunt, proceeded to it. But first he asked Mrs. Hacker how her master fared.
The woman's eyes were stained with tears and her nerves unstrung.
"He bears it as only he can bear," she said. "You'd think he was a stone if you didn't know. Grinds on with his life—the Lord knows at what cost to himself. He lighted his pipe this morning. It went out again, I grant you; still it shows the nature of him, that he could light it. Not a word will he say about our dear blessed boy—done to death—that's what I call it—by that picture-faced bitch to Undershaugh."
"You mustn't talk like that, Susan. 'Twas not the girl's fault, but her cruel misfortune. Be honest, there's a good creature. She's suffered more than any but her mother knows. No, no, no—not Cora. The terrible truth is that Humphrey's self is responsible for all. If he'd met Mrs. Lintern's daughter in a kinder spirit, she'd never have feared to come into the family and never have thrown over poor Mark. But he terrified her to death nearly, and she felt a marriage with such a man's son could never come to good."
Mrs. Hacker was not following the argument. Her mind had suffered a deep excitation and shock, and she wandered from the present to the past.
"The ups and downs of it—the riddle of it—the indecency of it—life in general, I mean! To think that me and you not above a week agone were dancing afore the public eye—Father Christmas and Mother Dorothy. How the people laughed! And now——"
She stared stupidly before her and suddenly began repeating her part in the play.
"Here come I, old Mother Dorothy,Fat, fair, plump and commodity.My head is big, my body is bigger:Don't you think I be a handsome old figure?"
"And the quality said I might have been made for the part!"
"You're light-headed along of all this cruel grief," answered Nathan. "Go in out of this cold wind, Susan, and drink a stiff drop of spirits. I suppose my brother is up on the tor?"
"Yes, he's up there; you can see him from the back garden. Looks like an image—a stone among the stones, or a crow among the crows. But the fire's within. He was terrible fond of Mark really, though he'd rather have had red-hot pincers nip him than show it."
"I'll go up," declared the innkeeper.
He climbed where his brother appeared against the skyline and found Humphrey bleakly poised, standing on a stone and looking into the eye of the east wind. His coat was flapping behind him; his hat was drawn over his eyes; his nose was red and a drop hung from it. He looked like some great, forlorn fowl perched desolate and starving here.
"Forgive me for coming, brother, but I hadn't the heart to keep away. You wouldn't see me before; but you must now. Get down to the lew side of these stones. I must speak to you."
"I'm trying to understand," answered the other calmly. "And the east wind's more like to talk sense to me than ever you will."
"Don't say that. We often court physical trouble ourselves when we are driven frantic with mental trouble. I know that. I've suffered too in my time; though maybe none of the living—but one—will ever know how much. But 'tis senseless to risk your own life here and fling open your lungs to the east wind because your dear son has gone. Remember 'tis no great ill to die, Humphrey."
"Then why do you ask me to be thoughtful to live?"
"I mean we mustn't mourn over Mark for himself—only his loss for ourselves. He's out of it. No more east wind for him. 'Tis our grief that's left. His grief's done; his carking cares be vanished for ever. You mustn't despair, Humphrey."
"And you pass for an understanding man, I suppose? And tell me not to despair. Despair's childish. Only children despair when they break their toys. And grown-up children too. But not me. I never despair, because I never hope. I made him. I created him. He was a good son to me."
"And a good man every way. Gentle and kind—too gentle and kind, for that matter. Thank God we're all Christians. Blessed are the meek. His cup of joy is full, and where he is now, Humphrey, his only grief is to see ours."
"That's the sort of stuff that's got you a great name for a sympathetic and feeling man, I suppose? D'you mean it, or is it just the natural flow of words, as the rain falls and the water rolls down-hill? I tell you that he was a good man, and a man to make others happy in his mild, humble way. Feeble you might call him here and there. And his feebleness ended him. Too feeble to face life without that heartless baggage!"
"Leave her alone. You don't understand that side, and this isn't the time to try and make you. She's hit hard enough."
Humphrey regarded his brother with a blazing glance of rage. Then his features relaxed and he smiled strangely at his own heart, but not at Nathan.
"I was forgetting," he said. Then he relapsed into silence.
Presently he spoke again.
"My Mark wasn't much more than a picture hung on a wall to some people. Perhaps he wasn't much more to me. But you miss the picture if 'tis taken down. I never thought of such a thing happening. I didn't know or guess all that was hidden bottled up in him. I thought he was getting over it; but, lover-like, he couldn't think she'd really gone. Then something—the woman herself, I suppose—rubbed it into him that there was no more hope; and then he took himself off like this. For such a worthless rag—to think! And I suppose she'll hear his bell next Sunday without turning a hair."
"Don't say that. She's terribly cut up and distressed. And I'm sure none—none will ever listen to his bell like we used to. 'Twill always have a sad message for everybody that knew Mark."
"Humbug and trash! You'll be the first to laugh and crack your jokes and all the rest of it, the day that girl marries. And the bell clashing overhead, and the ashes of him in the ground under. Let me choose the man—let me choose the man when she takes a husband!"
Nathan perceived that his brother did not know the truth. It was no moment to speak of Cora and Ned Baskerville, however.
"I've just come from the inquest," he said. "Of course 'twas brought in 'unsound mind.'"
"Of course—instead of seeing and owning that the only flash of sanity in many a life be the resolve and deed to leave it. He was sane enough. No Baskerville was ever otherwise. 'Tis only us old fools, that stop here fumbling at the knot, that be mad. The big spirits can't wait to be troubled for threescore years and ten with a cargo of stinking flesh. They drop it overboard and——"
His foot slipped and interrupted the sentence.
"Take my arm," said the innkeeper. "I've told Gollop that Mark will lie with his mother."
The other seemed suddenly moved by this news.
"If I've misjudged you, Nathan, I'm sorry for it," he said. "You know in your heart whether you're as good as the folk think; and as wise; and as worthy. But you catch me short of sleep to-day; and when I'm short of sleep, I'm short of sense, perhaps. To lie with his mother—eh? No new thing if he does. He lay many a night under her bosom afore he was born, and many a night on it afterwards. She was wonderful wrapped up in him—the only thing she fretted to leave. How she would nuzzle him, for pure animal love, when he was a babby—like a cat and her kitten."
"He promised her when he was ten years old—the year she died—that he would be buried with her," said Nathan. "I happen to know that, Humphrey."
"Few keep their promises to the dead; but he's dead himself now. Burrow down—burrow down to her and put him there beside her—dust to dust. I take no stock in dust of any sort—not being a farmer. But his mother earned heaven, and if he didn't, her tears may float him in. To have bred an immortal soul, mark you, is something, even if it gets itself damned. The parent of a human creature be like God, for he's had a hand in the making of an angel or a devil."
"Shall we bring Mark back to-night, or shall the funeral start from the church?" asked Nathan.
They had now descended the hill and stood at Humphrey's gate.
"Don't worry his bones. Let him stop where he is till his bed's ready. I'm not coming to the funeral."
"Not coming!"
"No. I didn't go to my wife's, did I?"
"Yes, indeed you did, Humphrey."
"You're wrong there. A black hat with a weeper on it, and a coat, and a mourning hankercher was there—not me. Bury him, and toll his own bell for him, but for God's sake don't let any useful person catch their death of cold for him. Me and his mother—we'll mourn after our own fashion. Yes, her too: there are spirits moving here for the minute. In his empty room she was the night he finished it. Feeling about she was, as if she'd lost a threepenny piece in the bed-tick. I heard her. 'Let be!' I shouted from my chamber. 'The man's not there: he's dead—hanged hisself for love in the belfry. Go back where you come from. Belike he'll be there afore you, and, if not, they'll tell you where to seek him.'"
He turned abruptly and went in; then as his brother, dazed and bewildered, was about to hurry homeward, the elder again emerged and called to him.
"A word for your ear alone," he said as Nathan returned. "There's not much love lost between us, and never can be; but I thank you for coming to me to-day. I know you meant to do a kindly thing. My trouble hasn't blinded me. Trouble ban't meant to do that. Tears have washed many eyes into clear seeing, as never saw straight afore they shed 'em. I'm obliged to you. You've come to me in trouble, though well you know I don't like you. 'Twas a Christian thing and I shan't forget it of you. If ever you fall into trouble yourself, come to me, innkeeper."
"'Twas worth my pains to hear that. God support you always, brother."
But Humphrey had departed.
Nathan drifted back and turned instinctively to Undershaugh rather than his own house. Darkness and concern homed there also; Cora had gone away to friends far from the village, and the Linterns all wore mourning for Mark.
Priscilla met her landlord and he came into the kitchen and flung his hat on the table and sat down to warm himself by the fire.
"God knows what's going to happen," he said. "The man's mind is tottering. Never such sense and nonsense was jumbled in a breath."
After a pause he spoke again.
"And poor old Susan's half mad too. An awful house of it. Nothing Humphrey may do will surprise me. But one blessed word he said, poor chap, though whether he knew what he was talking about I can't guess. He thanked me for coming to him in trouble—thanked me even gratefully and said he'd never forget it. That was a blessed thing for me to hear, at such a time."
The emotional man shed tears and Priscilla Lintern ministered to him.
Humphrey Baskerville had sought for peace by many roads, and when the final large catastrophe of his life fell upon him, it found him treading a familiar path.
He had conceived, that only by limiting the ties of the flesh and trampling love of man from his heart, might one approximate to contentment, fearlessness, and rest. He had supposed that the fewer we love, the less life has power to torment us, and he had envied the passionless, sunless serenity of recorded philosophers and saints. He was glad that, at a time when nature has a large voice in the affairs of the individual and sways him through sense, he had not incurred the customary responsibilities.
Chance threw him but a single child; and when the mother of the child was taken from him, he felt a sort of dreary satisfaction that fate could only strike one more vital blow. He had dwarfed his affections obstinately; he had estimated the power of life to inflict further master sorrows, and imagined that by the death of one human creature alone could added suffering come. So at least he believed before the event. And now that creature was actually dead. Out of the ranks of man, the bullet had found and slain his son.
Yet, when Mark sank to the grave and the first storm of his passing was stilled in the father's heart, great new facts and information, until then denied, fell upon Humphrey Baskerville's darkness and showed him that even this stroke could not sever his spirit from its kind.
The looked-for deliverance did not descend upon him; the universal indifference did not come. Instead his unrest persisted and he found the fabric of his former dream as baseless as all dreaming. Because the alleged saint and the detached philosopher are forms that mask reality; they are poses only possible where the soul suffers from constitutional atrophy or incurred frost-bite.
They who stand by the wayside and watch, are freezing to death instead of burning healthily away. Faulty sentience is not sublime; to be gelded of some natural human instinct is not to stand upon the heights. He who lifts a barrier between himself and life, shall be found no more than an unfinished thing. His ambition for detachment is the craving of disease; his content is the content of unconsciousness; his peace is the peace of the mentally infirm.
A complete man feels; a complete man suffers with all his tingling senses; a complete man smarts to see the world's negligences, ignorances, brutalities; he endures them as wrongs to himself; and, because he is a complete man, he too blunders and adds his errors to the sum of human tribulation, even while he fights with all his power for the increase of human happiness.
The world's welfare is his own; its griefs are also his. He errs and makes atonement; he achieves and helps others to achieve; he loathes the cloister and loves the hearth. He suffers when society is stricken; he mourns when the tide of evolution seems to rest from its eternal task 'of pure ablution round earth's human shores'; he is troubled when transitory victories fall to evil or ignorance; in fine, he lives. And his watch-tower and beacon is not content, not peace, but truth.
He stands as high above the cowardly serenity of any anchorite or chambered thinker, as the star above glimmering and rotten wood in a forest hidden; and he knows that no great heart is ever passionless, or serene, or emparadised beyond the cry of little hearts, until it has begun to grow cold. To be holy to yourself alone is to be nought; a piece of marble makes a better saint; and he who quits the arena to look on, though he may be as wise as the watching gods, is also as useless.
Dimly, out of the cloud of misery that fell upon him when his son perished, Baskerville began to perceive and to feel these facts. He had consoled himself by thinking that the only two beings he loved in the whole world were gone out of it, and now waited together in eternity for his own arrival thither.
Their battle was ended; and since they were at rest, nothing further remained for him to trouble about. But the anticipated peace did not appear; no anodyne poured into his soul; and he discovered, that for his nature, the isolated mental standpoint did not exist.
There could arise no healing epiphany of mental indifference for him. He might be estranged, but to exile himself was impossible. He must always actively hate what he conceived to be evil; he must always suspect human motives; he must always feel the flow and ebb of the human tide. Though his own rocky heart might be lifted above them, the waves of that sea would tune its substance to throb in sympathy, or fret it to beat with antagonism, so long as it pulsed at all.
This discovery surprised the man; for he had believed that a radical neutrality to human affairs belonged to him.
He attributed the sustained restlessness of his spirit to recent griefs and supposed that the storm would presently disappear; and meantime he plunged into a minor whirlwind by falling into the bitterest quarrel with his elder brother.
Nathan indeed he had suffered to depart in peace; but as soon as the bereaved father learned that Vivian's son, Ned, was engaged to Cora, and perceived how it was this fact that had finally killed hope in Mark and induced the unhappy weakling to destroy himself, his rage burst forth against the master of Cadworthy; and when Vivian called upon the evening of the funeral to condole with Humphrey, an enduring strife sprang up between them.
"I'm come as the head of the family, Humphrey," began the veteran, "and it ban't seemly that this here terrible day should pass over your head without any of your kith and kin speaking to you and comforting you. We laid the poor young man along with his mother in the second row of the Baskerville stones. My word! as Gollop said after the funeral, 'even in death the Baskervilles be a pushing family!' Our slates stretch pretty near from the church to the churchyard wall now."
"Thank you for being there," answered his brother. "I couldn't have gone, because of the people. There was no maiming of the rite—eh?"
"Not a word left out—all as it should be. Eight young men carried him, including a farmer or two, and my son Ned, and Heathman Lintern, and also my son Rupert—though where he came from and where he went to after 'twas ended, I don't know, and don't care. He's left me—to better himself—so he thinks, poor fool! A nice way to treat a good father."
"You've lost a son, too, then—lost him to find him again, doing man's work. You'll live to know that he was right and you were wrong. But my son—my mind is turned rather rotten of late. After dark I can't get his dead face out of my eyes. Nought terrible, neither—just, in a word, 'dead.' He broke his neck—he didn't strangle himself. He knew what he was about. But there, I see it. Gone—and none knows what he was to me. He never knew himself; and for that matter I never knew myself, neither—till he was gone."
"We never do know all other folk mean to us—not until they be snatched off. If anybody had told me how my son Rupert's going would have made such a difference, I'd not have believed it."
"Then think of this house. You feel that—you with your store of children and Rupert, after all, but gone a few miles away to go on with his work and marry the proper wife you deny him. But me—nought left—nought but emptiness—no 'Good morning, father'; no 'Good night, father'; no ear to listen; no voice to ask for my advice. And I'd plotted and planned for him, Vivian; I'd made half a hundred little secret plans for him. I knew well the gentle fashion of man he was—not likely ever to make a fighter—and so I'd cast his life in a mould where it could be easy. He'd have come to know in time. But he never did know. He went out of it in a hurry, and never hinted a whisper of what he was going to do. If he'd but given me the chance to argue it out with him!"
"We've acted alike, me and you," answered his brother; "and it ban't for any man to dare to say that either of us was wrong. When the young fall into error, 'tis our bounden duty to speak and save 'em if we've got the power. I don't hold with Rupert——"
"No need to drag in your affairs. That case is very different. I did not treat my son like a child; I did not forbid him to marry and turn him out of doors."
"Stay!" cried Vivian, growing red, "you mustn't speak so to me."
"What did you do if it wasn't that? No proud man can stay under the roof where he's treated like a child. But Mark—did I forbid? No. I only made it clear that I despised the woman he'd set his heart on. I only told him the bitter truth of her. If she'd clung to him through all, would I have turned him away or refused him? Never. 'Twould have made no difference. 'Twas not me kept 'em apart—as you are trying to keep apart your son and Saul Luscombe's niece—trying and failing. 'Twas the proud, empty, heartless female herself that left him."
"I'll hear nought against her," answered Vivian stoutly. "She's not proud and she's not empty. She's a very sensible woman, and this cruel piece of work has been a sad trouble to her. She left Mark because she felt that you hated her, and would torment her and make her married life a scourge to her back. Any woman with proper sense and self-respect would have done the like. 'Twas you and only you choked her off your son, and 'tis vain—'tis wicked to the girl—to say now that 'twas her fault. But I've not come to speak these things—only I won't hear lies told."
"You've heard 'em already, it seems. Who's been telling you this trash? Nathan Baskerville belike?"
"As a matter of fact 'tis my son Ned," answered Vivian. "You must surely know how things have fallen out? It happened long afore poor Mark died. Didn't he tell you?"
"He told me nought. What should he tell me? Ned he certainly wouldn't name, for he knew of all your brood I like your eldest son least—a lazy, worthless man, as all the world well knows but you."
"You shan't anger me, try as you will, Humphrey. I'm here, as your elder brother and the head of the family, to offer sympathy to you in your trouble; and I'll ax you to leave my family alone. Young men will be young men, and as for Ned, if I be the only one that feels as I should feel to him, 'tis because I'm the only one that understands his nature and his gifts. He'll astonish you yet, and all of us. The books he reads! You wait. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He's taking his time, and if he wants a wife, 'tis only in reason that the future head of the family should have a wife; and why not? He shan't have to work as I have worked."
"A fool's word! What made you all you are? Work and the love of it. Yet you let him go to the devil in idleness."
"If you'd but suffer me to finish my speech—I say that Ned won't work as I have worked—with my limbs and muscles. He's got a brain, and the time be coming when he'll use it."
"Never."
"Anyway a settled life is the first thing, and the mind free to follow its proper bent. And I don't say 'no' to his marrying, because the case is different from Rupert's, and 'tis fitting that he should do so."
"But Rupert must not. And you pass for a just and sensible man!"
"'Tis strange—something in the Baskerville character that draws her—but so it is," continued the master of Cadworthy, ignoring his brother's last remark. "In a word, when he found she was free, my Ned took up with Cora Lintern, and she's going to marry him. But 'tis to be a full year from this sad Christmas—I bargained for that and will have it so."
"'Going to take him'? Going to take your son!" cried the other.
"She is; and I sanction it; for I found her a very different maiden to what you did."
"Going to marry Ned! Going from my Mark to your Ned!"
"'Twas settled some time ago. Mark knew it, for I myself let it out to him when I met him one day in North Wood. 'Twas but two days afore his last breath, poor fellow. Of course, I thought that he knew all about it, and as it was understood that he had got over his loss very bravely and was cheerful and happy as usual again, I made nothing of the matter, thinking that was the best way to take it."
Humphrey stared at him.
"Go on—you're letting in the light," he said.
"That's all—all save this. When I told Mark that Cora was going to wed his cousin, I saw by his face 'twas news for him. His colour faded away. Then I knew that he hadn't heard about it. Accident had kept it from him till the matter was a week old."
"And he said——?"
"He just said something stammering like. He was a bit of a kick-hammer in his speech sometimes—nothing to name; but it would overtake him now and again if he was very much excited. I didn't catch just what the words were—something about one of the family having her, I think 'twas."
"Then he went and killed himself, and not till then. So 'twas your son after all as settled him—don't roar me down, for I'll be heard. Your son—all his work! He plotted and planned it. And lazy I thought him! And I might have known there's no such thing as laziness of mind and body both. Busy as a bee damning himself—damning himself, I tell you! A shifty traitor, a man to stab other men in the back, a knave and the vilest thing that ever bore our name. And you know it—you know it as well as I do."
"By God! this is too much," shouted out Vivian, rising to his feet and towering over the crouching figure opposite him. "What are you made of to say such vile things of an innocent man? You see life all awry; you see——
"I see a hard-hearted, blind old fool," answered the other. "You let your wretched son rob you of justice and reason and sense and everything. Get hence! I'll have no more of you. But your time will come; you'll suffer yet; and this godless, useless brute—this murderer—will murder you yourself, maybe, or murder your love of living at the least. Wait and watch him a little longer. He'll bring your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave afore he's done with you—take my word for that. And as for me, I'll curse him to his dying day, and curse you for breeding him! Wait and watch what you've done and the fashion of man you've let loose on the world; and let them marry—the sooner the better—then his punishment's brewed and there's no escape from the drinking. Yes, let him eat and drink of her, for man's hate can't wish him a worse meal than that."
He ceased because he was alone. Vivian had felt a terrible danger threatening him, and had fled from it.
"My anger heaved up like seven devils in me," he told his wife afterwards. "If I'd bided a moment longer I must have struck the man. So I just turned tail and bolted afore the harm was done. Not but what harm enough be done. Mad—mad he was by the froth on his lip and the light in his eye, and them awful eyebrows twitching like an angry ape's. 'Twas more a wild beast in a tantrum than a human. 'Tis all over, and no fault of mine. I'll never speak to thicky horrible creature no more so long as I live—never. And I'll not willingly so much as set eyes upon him again."
"A very Pharaoh of a man, no doubt," declared Mrs. Baskerville. "The Lord has hardened his heart against us; but He'll soften it in His own good time. Though for that matter 'tis difficult to see how he can be struck again. His all be took from him."
Vivian considered this saying, but it did not shake his intention.
"He's growed dangerous and desperate, and 'twill be wiser that I see him no more," he answered. "He's flung my sympathy back in my face, and that's a sort of blow leaves a bruise that a long life's self can't medicine."
"'Twill come right. Time will heal it," she told him.
But he was doubtful.
"There may not be time," he said. "The man won't live long at the gait he's going—burning away with misery, he is. And calls himself a Christian! Little enough comfort the poor soul sucks out of Christ."
Within a week of this incident Humphrey Baskerville was seeking his brother's society again—a thing of all others least likely to have happened. It fell out that he was walking as usual on the waste above Hawk House, when he saw his nephew Rupert proceeding hastily along the distant road to Cadworthy Farm. The young man noted him, left his way and approached.
"'Tis well I met you, uncle," he said. "Young Humphrey's just ridden over to you with a message from mother. Then he came on to me. There's terrible trouble at home—father, I mean. You know what he is for doing heavy work—work beyond his years, of course. He was shifting grain from the loft, and they found him fallen and insensible with a sack on top of him. I hope to God it ban't very bad. Mother sent off for me, for fear it might be a fatal thing. And Humphrey says my name was on father's lips when they laid him to bed after doctor had gone. He said, 'This be Rupert's fault. I be driven to this heavy work along of him leaving me, and now he's killed me.' I'm sure I hope he'll call that back, for 'tis a terrible thing for me to live under if he died."
"I'll come along with you," said Mr. Baskerville; "and as to what your father may have spoken in his anger at being stricken down, pay no heed to it. He's like a silly boy over these feats of strength, and he'd have shifted the sacks just the same if you'd been there. The thing he said isn't true, and there's an end on it. He'll be sorry he uttered the word when he's better."
They hurried forward and presently stood at the door of Cadworthy.
"You'd best knock afore you enter," said the elder. "We're both in disgrace here, and come as strangers. I had a difference with your father last time we met. Ned Baskerville is tokened to that woman that killed Mark. I could not hear and keep dumb. I cursed my brother in my rage, and I owe him an apology."
Rupert knocked at the door, and his sister May answered it. Her eyelids were red with tears and her manner agitated.
"How's your father?" asked Humphrey.
"Very bad, uncle. 'Tis a great doubt if he'll get better, doctor says."
"Then be sure he will. I've come to see him."
Mrs. Baskerville appeared behind May. She was very pale, but appeared collected.
"I'm sorry—terrible sorry," she said. "I've told dear master that I'd sent for Rupert and for you, Humphrey, but he won't see neither of you. 'Tis no good arguing about it in his state; but I pray God he'll change his mind to-morrow."
Rupert kissed his mother.
"Bear up," he said. "With his strength and great courage he'll weather it, please God. You know where I am—not five mile away. I'll come running the moment he'll see me."
"And ask him to forgive his brother. I'm sorry I said the things I did," declared Humphrey Baskerville.
A pony cart drove up at this moment and Eliza Gollop alighted from it.
She carried a large brown-paper parcel, and a corded box was lifted out after her.
"I've come," she said. "Doctor left a message for me as he went back along, and I was ready as usual. How's the poor man going on? I'm afraid you must not be very hopeful—so doctor said on his way back; but where there's life and me there's always hope, as my brother Thomas will have it."
Humphrey and his nephew walked slowly away together. At the confines of the farmyard Rupert turned out of the road a little and pointed upwards to a window that faced the east. A white blind was drawn down over it.
"That's father's room," he said.
Jack Head entered the bar of 'The White Thorn,' and was glad to find Nathan Baskerville at home.
"I don't want to drink, I want to talk," he said.
"Then come into my room, Jack," answered the innkeeper, and Mr. Head followed him into a little chamber known as 'Mr. Nathan's office.'
"I've got together another five pounds," explained the labourer, "and I know you'll do for me what you do for all—put it by with the rest. We come to you, Mr. Baskerville, and we trust you with our savings, for why? Because you ban't a lawyer. You're the poor man's bank, as I always say, and I only hope you get your fair share of good for all the money you put away to goody for us."
"That's all right, Jack."
Mr. Nathan produced a ledger and turned over the pages.
"This makes twenty to you, and interest three-ten."
He wrote a receipt and handed it to the other.
"Wish I'd got your 'mazing head for figures; and so I should if I'd been properly eggicated."
"I shall have some pretty big money on my hands before long, I'm afraid," said Nathan gloomily. "Doctor called coming back from Cadworthy. 'Tis all over with my poor brother, I'm afraid."
"My stars—that mighty man to drop amongst us! Well, he's had a good life and full share of fortune."
"His own folly has finished him too—that's the worst of it. Would be doing the young men's work, and did it once too often."
"A fall, so they say. But none appear to know the rights seemingly."
"Simple enough. Vivian was carrying oats, and slipped his foot on a frosty place. Down he came with the sack on his back. He went insensible; but by the time young Humphrey, who was along with him, had fetched help, Vivian had come to again. He crept in the house and up to his bed. ''Tis nought,' he told 'em, 'just a shake up; I'll be right in the morning.' But he wasn't. He couldn't rise, and felt a lot of pain to the inwards. Doctor won't be sure what's gone, but he reckons that the poor man's ruptured spleen or liver. Anyway, he's going. Fading out fast—and suffering, too."
"Such a mountain as him. I suppose they can't reach the evil. And will all his affairs come down on your shoulders?"
"That is so. Everything will have to be done by me. The boys know nought of business. He's a rich man—I know that."
"A great responsibility, but no doubt you're up to it."
"Not that it will be so difficult either," added Nathan, "because all his money was invested pretty much as I advised. His wife is joint executor with me; but she knows nothing. I could have wished he'd drawn my brother Humphrey in and made him responsible; but he never was sure of Humphrey, I'm sorry to say; and, as bad luck would have it, just before Vivian met with this trouble, he had a terrible quarrel with Humphrey—so terrible, in fact, that when Humphrey called, after the accident, farmer wouldn't see him."
"Nor his son neither. I took hope from that, for if a man's well enough to keep up such a hatred against his own kin, it looks as if he was likely to get better."
"I'm afraid not. I'm going over this afternoon to see him and hear about his will. Please God he'll prove softer. 'Twould be a cruel thing if he clouded his great name for justice at the end by striking from the grave."
"Where should he strike?"
"Rupert, I mean. He took Rupert's going terrible to heart, and when Rupert wrote very properly last Christmas and offered his father his respects, and said as he meant to marry Saul Luscombe's niece next spring, Hester tells me that my brother pretty well threw the doors out of windows. He went to Tavistock next day, and there's an ugly fear in his wife's mind that he had his will out and tinkered it. I shall ax him this evening, and try to get him to see sense."
Elsewhere Hester Baskerville spoke with her husband, and found that he already knew what the doctor had advised her to tell him.
"You can spare speech," he said, "I saw it in the man's eyes; and I knew it afore he came, for that matter. I'm not going to get better. I'm going to die."
"There's hope still, but not enough to——"
"I'm going to die. Where's Eliza Gollop?"
"I'll call her."
"You'd best to hot up the milk he ordered. I'll try to let it down if I can. And give Eliza pen, ink, and paper."
"Don't be writing. Lie still and let her read to you."
"You needn't be afraid. My writing was done to Tavistock afore I came to grief. You're all right, and all that have treated me as a father should be treated are all right. There's tons of money. Where's Ned to?"
"He's going to ride in to the surgery for the medicine to stop that cruel pain."
"Let Humphrey get it. And send Ned to me instead of Eliza Gollop. 'Tis him I want—not her."
She pressed his hand and kissed him, and went out. The huge form lay still, breathing slowly. A fly, wakened out of hibernation by the heat of the fire, buzzed about his face. He swore, and his scarlet nightcap bobbed as he moved painfully.
Ned came in, little liking to be there. He lacked the spirit and mental courage for such a time.
"Kill this blasted fly, will 'e? Then get pen and ink. 'Tis a very old custom in our race, Ned, to write our own epitaphs when we can. I've put mine off and off, along of a silly fancy about doing it; but the time be ripe, and my head's clear."
"Don't say things like that, father. You may get better yet. He's going to fetch another doctor to-morrow."
"Let him fetch twenty—they can do nought. 'Tis the last back-heel that none ever stand against. I don't grumble. I'm only sorry that 'twas my own son has struck his father. Death don't matter, but 'tis a bitter death to know the fruit of your loins—— His work I was doing: let him know that—his work. An old man doing a young man's work. If Rupert had been here, he'd have been shifting they sacks. Let none deny it. 'Tis solemn truth."
Ned knew the extreme falsity of this impression, but he made no effort to contradict his father.
"What I done to Tavistock a month agone, I might have undone afore I went," continued the sick man. "But not now—not when I remember 'twas his wickedness has hurried me into my grave. Where be my son Nathan's ship to now?"
"Don't know, father."
"You ought to know, then. Him that I would see I can't see; and him that would see me I won't see."
"You might see him, father, for his peace."
"'Peace'! Damn his peace! What peace shall he have that killed his own father? He don't deserve to look upon me again, and he shan't—living nor dead—mark that. Tell your mother that when I'm dead, Rupert ban't to see me. Only the coffin lid shall he see."
The old man snorted and groaned. Then he spoke again.
"Have you got pen and ink ready?"
"Yes, father."
"Turn to the first leaf of the Bible, then, and see my date."
Ned opened the family register and read the time of his father's birth.
"Born June, died January—and just over the allotted span. Let me see, how shall the stone read? There's good things on the Baskerville stones. 'Sacred to the memory of Vivian Baskerville, of Cadworthy Farm, in this parish, yeoman.' You can begin like that."
"Shall you say anything about being champion of the west country at wrestling?" asked Ned.
"No. That ban't a thing for the grave—at least, perhaps it might be. Your uncle, the great musicker, had a fiddle cut 'pon his stone very clever. If 'twas thought that the silver belt could be copied upon my slate—— But no, let that pass, 'tis but a small matter."
"Better leave it to us to think about. Uncle Nathan will know best."
"So he will, then. And we must work in a rhyme, for certain; but first, I've got a fine thought to put down."
Ned waited, pen in hand; then his father continued to dictate:—
"'What it pleased the great I AM'—capital letters for I AM—'what it pleased the great I AM to give me in shape of a body in eighteen hundred and eighteen, it likewise pleased Him to call home again in eighteen hundred and eighty-nine.' How does that sound?"
"Splendid, father."
"Now there's the rhyme to follow. I want to work in 'breath' and 'death' if it can be done. You ought to be able to do it, seeing all the learning you've had and what it cost."
Ned frowned and puzzled. Then, while Vivian groaned, he had an inspiration, and wrote rapidly.
"How's this, father?" he asked. "It just flashed in my mind." Then he read:—
"Three score years and ten I kept my breath;So long I felt no fear of Death."
"It goes very well, but I haven't got no more fear of death now than ever I had. You must alter that."
Silence fell again and Ned mended his rhyme.
"How would this answer?" he asked:—
"Three score years and ten I kept my breathAnd stood up like a man and feared not Death."
"Yes, that's very good indeed. Now us must make two more lines to finish—that is, if we can be clever enough to think of 'em."
Ned's pen squeaked and stopped, squeaked and stopped again. He scratched out and wrote for several minutes.
"Listen to this, father," he said at length, "'tis better even than the first." He read once more:—
"Yet now I'm gone, my thread is spun,And I know my God will say, 'Well done!'"
"The cleverness of it! And didn't I always say you were crammed up with cleverness? But the last line won't do."
"'Tis the best of all, father."
"Won't do, I tell you. Who be I to know my God will pat me on the back? Little enough to be pleased with—little enough. Put, 'I hope my God will say, "Well done!"'"
"You may only hope, but all else know that He will," declared Ned stoutly.
As he finished writing Nathan Baskerville entered with the wife of the sufferer. Hester brought a cup of hot milk, but Vivian in his excitement would not taste until the epitaph had been rehearsed.
"Ned's thought," he said. "And I helped him. And I shall be proud to lie under it—any man might. Give me the paper."
His son handed it to him, and he read the rhyme aloud with great satisfaction.
"Three score years and ten I kept my breath,And stood up like a man and feared not Death;Yet now I'm gone, my thread is spun,And I hope my God will say, 'Well done!'"
How's that, Nat? So good as the musicker's own in my judgment."
"Splendid! Splendid!" declared Nathan. He was much moved. He blew his nose and went to the window awhile. Then, Vivian being relieved and fed, the innkeeper returned to him and sat beside him. Hester Baskerville and her son went out and left the brothers together.
"Us'll talk business, Nat," said the sick man presently.
"And first I want you to know that you'll have more than your trouble for your pains. 'Tis a common thing with dying people to leave a lot of work behind 'em for somebody to do, and never a penny piece of payment for doing it. But not me. There's fifty pound for you, Nat. I've scrimped in reason all my life. I've——"
He was stopped by pain.
"Ban't far off, I reckon. Can't talk much more. You'll do all right and proper. I trust my widow and childer to you. My boy Ned be no good at figures, so I look to you."
"To the very best of my power I'll do by them all. Leave that now. You're the sort who isn't taken unprepared. I want to say a word about Rupert, if you'll let me."
"Not a word—not a breath! That book is closed, not to be opened no more. You don't want to add another pang to my end, do you? Let me forget him. I've forgiven him—that's enough."
"'Tisn't to forgive him, my dear Vivian, if you have cut him off with nought."
"I'll hear no more!" cried the other. "I'll think no more of him, nor yet of Humphrey. 'Tis they have cruelly and wickedly wronged me. 'Tis Rupert have brought me here, and hastened me into my grave ten years afore the time, and he'll have to answer to his God for it."
"Leave it then—leave it and talk of other things. You'll like Ned to take Cora Lintern? You'll like that? And I shall do something for Cora. I'm very fond of her."
They talked for half an hour. Then Vivian cried out for his wife and Nathan left him.
That evening Dennis Masterman came to see the farmer, and on the following day he called again. None knew what passed between them, but it seemed that by some happy inspiration the clergyman achieved what Vivian Baskerville's wife and brother had failed to do. Dennis had heard, from the master of 'The White Thorn,' that the sick man was passing at enmity with his brother and with his son; but he strove successfully against this determination and, before he left Cadworthy, Vivian agreed to see his relations. The day was already waning when Ned Baskerville himself rode to fetch Rupert, and the lad Humphrey hastened to Hawk House.
Eliza Gollop told the sequel to her brother afterwards.
"It got to be a race towards the end, for the poor man fell away all of a sudden after three o'clock. Nature gived out, as it will sometimes, like a douted candle. He'd forgot all about everything afore he died. Only his grave stuck in his mind, and I read over the epitaph till I was weary of it. Then he went frightened all of a sudden. 'To think o' me lying there alone among dead folk of evenings, wi' nought but the leather-birds[1] squeaking over the graves,' he said. 'You won't be there, my dear,' I told him. 'You'll be up where there's no sun nor yet moon, bathing for evermore in the light of righteousness.' Then he flickered and he flickered, and wandered in his speech, and the last words I could catch was, 'What's all this pucker about? I shall be my own man again in a day or two.' He was hollow-eyed and his nose growed so sharp as a cobbler's awl, poor dear, and I knowed he'd soon be out of his misery. His wife was along with him when he died, her and the two daughters; and poor Hester—Hester I call her, for she let me use the Christian name without a murmur—she was cut in half listening to his death-rattle o' one side and hoping to hear her son Rupert gallop up 'pon the other. 'Twas a race, as I say; but Rupert had been long ways off to work, and Ned had to find him, and what with one thing and another, his father had been out of the world twenty good minutes afore he came. He runned up the stairs white from the clay-works. But there was only more clay on the bed to welcome him. I left 'em at that sacred moment, as my custom is, and went down house, and was just in time to see Humphrey Baskerville ride up in hot haste on his one-eyed pony. 'How is it with him?' he said, getting off very spry. 'I hope, as he could send for me, that he finds hisself better.' 'Not at all,' I answered him. 'The poor man sent because he was worse, and felt himself slipping away.' 'Then I'd best be quick,' he replied to me; and I broke it to him that 'twas too late. 'He's gone, sir,' I said. 'Like the dew upon the fleece he be gone. Half an hour ago he died, and suffered very little at the end, so far as a mortal but experienced woman can tell you.' He stared slap through me, in that awful way he has, then he turned his back and got up on his beast and rode off without a word or a sign. Lord, He knows what that old pony must have thought of it all. 'Twas sweating and staggering, and, no doubt, full of wonder and rage at being pushed along so fast."
[1]Leather-birds—bats.
END OF FIRST BOOK