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.