CHAPTER V
Both the yeoman and gentle families of Devon have undergone a wide and deep disintegration during the recent past. Many are swept away, and the downfall dates back beyond the eighteenth century, when war, dice, and the bottle laid foundations of subsequent ruin; but the descendants of many an ancient stock are still with us, and noble names shall be found at the plough-handle; historical patronymics, on the land.
The race of Baskerville had borne arms and stood for the king in Stuart times. The family was broken in the Parliamentary Wars and languished for certain centuries; then it took heart and lifted head once more. The three brothers who now carried on their line were doubly enriched, for their father had died in good case and left a little fortune behind him; while an uncle, blessed with some tincture of the gipsy blood that had flowed into the native stock a hundred years before, found Devon too small a theatre for his activities and migrated to Australia. He died a bachelor, and left his money to his nephews.
Thus the trio began life under fortunate circumstances; and it appeared that two had prospered and justified existence; while concerning the other little could be affirmed, save a latent and general dislike founded on vague hearsay.
They were different as men well could be, yet each displayed strong individuality and an assertive temperament. All inherited some ancestral strength, but disparities existed between their tastes, their judgments, and their ambitions.
Vivian Baskerville was generous, self-opinionated, and kind-hearted. He loved, before all things, work, yet, in direct opposition to this ruling passion, tolerated and spoiled a lazy eldest son. From the rest of his family he exacted full measure of labour and very perfect obedience. He was a man of crystallised opinions—one who resented change, and built on blind tradition.
Nathan Baskerville had a volatile and swift-minded spirit. He was sympathetic, but not so sympathetic as his manner made him appear. He had a histrionic knack to seem more than he felt; yet this was not all acting, but a mixture of art and instinct. He trusted to tact, to a sense of humour with its accompanying tolerance, and to swift appraisal of human character. Adaptability was his watchword.
Humphrey Baskerville personified doubt. His apparent chill indifference crushed the young and irritated the old. An outward gloominess of manner and a pessimistic attitude to affairs sufficed to turn the folk from him. While he seemed the spirit of negation made alive, he was, nevertheless, a steadfast Christian, and his dark mind, chaotic though it continued to be even into age, enjoyed one precious attribute of chaos and continued plastic and open to impressions. None understood this quality in him. He did not wholly understand it himself. But he was ever seeking for content, and the search had thus far taken him into many fruitless places and landed him in blind alleys not a few.
These adventures, following his wife's death, had served to sour him in some directions; and the late ripening of a costive but keen intelligence did not as yet appear to his neighbours. It remained to be seen whether time would ever achieve a larger wisdom, patience, and understanding in him—whether considerable mental endowments would ultimately lift him nearer peace and content, or plunge him deeper into despondence and incorrigible gloom. He was as interesting as Nathan was attractive and Vivian, obvious.
The attitude of the brothers each to the other may be recorded in a sentence. Vivian immensely admired the innkeeper and depended no little upon his judgment in temporal affairs, but Humphrey he did not understand; Nathan patronised his eldest brother and resented Humphrey's ill-concealed dislike; while the master of Hawk House held Vivian in regard, as an honest and single-minded man, but did not share the world's esteem for Nathan. They always preserved reciprocal amenities and were accounted on friendly terms.
Upon the occasion of the eldest brother's seventieth birthday, both Vivian and Nathan stood at the outer gate of Cadworthy and welcomed Humphrey when he alighted off his semi-blind pony.
Years sat lightly on the farmer. He was a man of huge girth and height above the average. He had a red moon face, with a great fleshy jowl set in white whiskers. His brow was broad and low; his small, pig-like eyes twinkled with kindliness. It was a favourite jest with him that he weighed within a stone or two as much as his brothers put together.
They shook hands and went in, while Mark and Rupert took the ponies. The three brothers all wore Sunday black; and Vivian had a yellow tie on that made disharmony with the crimson of his great cheeks. This mountain of a man walked between the others, and Nathan came to his ear and Humphrey did not reach his shoulder. The last looked a mere shadow beside his brother.
"Seventy year to-day, and have moved two ton of sacks—a hundredweight to the sack—'twixt breaksis and noon. And never felt better than this minute," he told them.
"'Tis folly, all the same—this heavy work that you delight in," declared Nathan. "I'm sure Humphrey's of my mind. You oughtn't to do such a lot of young man's work. 'Tis foolish and quite uncalled for."
"The young men can't do it, maybe," said Humphrey. "Vivian be three men rolled into one—with the strength of three for all his threescore and ten years. But you're in the right. He's too old for these deeds. There's no call for weight-lifting and all this sweating labour, though he is such a mighty man of his hands still."
Mr. Baskerville of Cadworthy laughed.
"You be such brainy blids—the pair of you—that you haven't got no patience with me and my schoolboy fun. But, then, I never had no intellects like you—all ran into muscle and bone. And 'tis my pleasure to show the young generation what strength be. The Reverend Masterman preached from a very onusual text Sunday, 'There were giants in those days,' it was—or some such words, if my memory serves me. And Rupert and May, as were along with me, said as surely I belonged to the giant race!"
He laughed with a loud, simple explosion of ingenuous merriment, and led the way to the parlour.
There his wife, in black silk, welcomed her brothers-in-law and received their congratulations. Humphrey fumbled at a parcel which he produced from his breast. He untied the string, wound it up, and put it into his pocket.
"'Tis a book as I heard well spoken of," he said. "There's only one Book for you and me, I believe, Vivian; but an old man as I know came by this, and he said 'twas light in his darkness; so I went and bought a copy for you by way of something to mark the day. Very like 'tis all rubbish, and if so you can throw it behind the fire."
"Sermons, and good ones without a doubt," answered the farmer. "I'm very fond of sermons, and I'll lay on to 'em without delay and let you know what I think. Not that my opinion of such a thing do count; but I can tell to a hair if they'm within the meaning of Scripture, and that be all that matters. And thank you kindly, I'm sure."
"Tom Gollop's got terrible down-daunted about Mr. Masterman," said Nathan. "He says that your parson is a Radical, and will bring down dreadful things on the parish."
"Old fool," answered Humphrey. "'Tis just what we want, within the meaning of reason, to have a few of the cobwebs swept away."
"But you're a Radical too, and all for sweeping away," argued his eldest brother doubtfully.
"I'm for folly and nonsense being swept away, certainly. I'm for all this cant about humility and our duty to our superiors being swept away. I hate to see chaps pulling their hair to other men no better than themselves, and all that knock-kneed, servile rubbish."
Nathan felt this to be a challenge.
"We take off our hats to the blood in a man's veins, if 'tis blue enough—not to the man."
"And hate the man all the time, maybe—and so act a lie when we cap to him and pretend what isn't true."
"You go too far," declared Nathan.
"I say that we hate anything that's stronger than we are," continued his brother. "We hate brains that's stronger than our own, or pockets that's deeper. The only folk that we smile upon honestly be those we reckon greater fools than ourselves."
Vivian laughed loud at this.
"What a sharp tongue the man hath!" he exclaimed. "But he's wrong, for all that. For if I only smiled at them who had less brains than myself, I should go glum from morn till night."
"Don't say it, father!" cried his wife. "Too humble-minded you be, and always will be."
"'Tis only a very wise man that knows himself for a fool, all the same," declared Nathan. "As for Humphrey here, maybe 'tis because men hate brains bigger than their own, as he says, that he hasn't got a larger circle of friends himself. We all know he's the cleverest man among us."
Humphrey was about to speak again, but restrained the inclination and turned to his nieces who now appeared.
Polly lacked character and existed as the right hand of her mother; but May took physically after Vivian, and represented his first joy and the apple of his eye. She was a girl of great breadth and bulk every way. The beauty of youth still belonged to her clean white and red face, and her yellow hair was magnificent; but it required no prophet to foretell that poor May, when her present colt-like life of physical activity decreased, must swiftly grow too vast for her own comfort or the temptation of the average lover.
The youngest of the family—his Uncle Humphrey's namesake—followed his sisters. He was a brown boy, well set up and shy. Of all men he feared the elder Humphrey most. Now he shook hands evasively.
"Don't stare at the ceiling and the floor, but look me in the eyes. I hate a chap as glances athwart his nose like that," said the master of Hawk House. Whereat the lesser Humphrey scowled and flushed. Then he braced himself for the ordeal and stared steadily into his uncle's eyes.
The duel lasted full two minutes, and the boy's father laughed and applauded him. At last young Humphrey's eyes fell.
"That's better," said Humphrey the elder. "You learn to keep your gaze on the eyes of other people, my lad, if you want to know the truth about 'em. A voice will teach you a lot, but the eyes are the book for me—eh, Nathan?"
"No doubt there's a deal in that."
"And if 'twas followed, perhaps we shouldn't take our hats off to certain people quite so often as we do," added Humphrey, harking back to the old grievance. "What's the good of being respectful to those you don't respect and ought not to respect?"
"The man's hungry!" said Vivian. "'Tis starvation making him so crusty and so clever. Come now, ban't dinner ready?"
Mrs. Baskerville had departed and Polly with her.
"Hurry 'em up," cried Vivian, and his youngest son hastened to do so.
Meantime Nathan, who was also hungry, and who also desired to display agility of mind before his elder brother, resumed the argument with Humphrey and answered his last question.
"Because we've everything to gain by being civil, and nought to gain by being otherwise, as things are nowadays. Civility costs nothing and the rich expect it of the poor, and gentle expect it of simple. Why not? You can't mar them by being rude; but you can mar yourself. 'The golden rule for a pushing man is to be well thought upon.' That's what our father used to say. And it's sound sense, if you ask me. Of course, I'm not speaking for us, but for the younger generation, and if they can prosper by tact and civility to their betters, why not? We like the younger and humbler people to be civil to us; then why shouldn't they be civil to parson and squire?"
"How if parson be no good, and squire a drinker or a rascal?"
"That's neither here nor there. 'Tis their calling and rank and the weight behind 'em."
"Trash!" said Humphrey sourly. "Let every man be weighed in his own balance and show himself what he is. That's what I demand. Why should we pretend and give people the credit of what they stand for, if they don't stand for it?"
"For a lot of reasons——" began Nathan; then the boy Humphrey returned to say that dinner was ready.
They sat down, and through the steam that rose from a dish of ducks Humphrey looked at Nathan and spoke.
"What reasons?" he said. "For your credit's sake you can't leave it there."
"If you will have it, you will have it—though this isn't the time or place; but Vivian must blame you, not me. Life's largely a game of make-believe and pretence, and, right or wrong, we've got to suffer it. We should all be no better than lonely monkeys or Red Indians, if we didn't pretend a bit more than we meant and say a bit more than we'd swear to. Monkeys don't pretend, and what's the result? They've all gone under."
They wrangled until the food was on the plates, then Vivian, who had been puffing out his cheeks, rolling his eyes and showing uneasiness in other ways, displayed a sudden irritability.
"God damn it!" he cried. "Let's have no more of this! Be the meal to be sarved with no sauce but all this blasted nonsense? Get the drink, Rupert."
Nathan expressed instant regret and strove to lift the tone of the company. But the cloud did not pass so easily. Vivian himself soon forgot the incident; his children and his wife found it difficult. The young people, indeed, maintained a very dogged taciturnity and only talked among themselves in subdued tones. May and Polly waited upon the rest between the intervals of their own meal. They changed the dishes and went to and from the kitchen. Rupert and his youngest brother helped them, but Ned did not.
Some cheerfulness returned with the beer, and even Humphrey Baskerville strove to assist the general jollity; but he lacked the power. His mind was of the discomfortable sort that cannot suffer opinions, believed erroneous, to pass unchallenged. Sometimes he expressed no more than doubt; sometimes he dissented forcibly to Nathan's generalities. But after Vivian's heat at the beginning of the entertainment, his brother from 'The White Thorn' was cautious, and took care to raise no more dust of controversy.
The talk ran on the new vicar, and the master of Cadworthy spoke well of him.
"An understanding man, and for my part, though I can't pretend to like new things, yet I ban't going to quarrel for nothing. And if he likes to put the boys in surplices and make the maidens sit with the congregation, I don't see no great harm. They can sing praises to God wi' their noses to the east just so easy as they can facing north."
"Well said," declared Humphrey. "I've no patience with such fools as Gollop."
"As one outside and after a different persuasion, I can look on impartial," declared Nathan. "And I think with you both that Masterman is a useful and promising man. As for Gollop, he's the sort that can't see further than the end of the parish, and don't want to do so."
"For why? He'd tell you there's nought beyond," said Humphrey. "He foxes himself to think that the world can go on without change. He fancies that he alone of us all be a solid lighthouse, stuck up to watch the waves roll by. 'Tis a sign of a terrible weak intellect to think that everybody's changeable but ourselves, and that we only be the ones that know no shadow of changing. Yet I've seen many such men—with a cheerful conceit of themselves too."
"There's lots like that—common as blackberries in my bar," declared Nathan. "Old fellows most times, that reckon they are the only steadfast creatures left on earth, while everybody else be like feathers blown about in a gale of change."
"Every mortal man and woman be bound to change," answered his brother. "'Tis the law of nature. I'd give nought for a man of hard and fast opinions. Such stand high and dry behind the times."
But Vivian would not allow this.
"No, no, Humphrey; that won't do. If us wasn't fixed and firm, the world couldn't go on."
"Vivian means we must have a lever of solid opinions to lift our load in the world," explained Nathan. "Of course, no grown man wants to be flying to a new thing every day of his life, like the young people do."
"The lever's the Bible," declared Humphrey. "I've nought to do with any man who goes beyond that; but, outside that, there's a margin for change as the world grows, and 'tis vain to run your life away from the new facts the wise men find out."
"I don't hold with you," declared Vivian. "At such a gait us would never use the same soap or wear the same clothes two years together. If you'm going to run your life by the newspapers, you'm in the same case with the chaps and the donkey in the fable. What father believed and held to, I shall believe and hold to; for he was a better man than me and knowed a lot more."
Humphrey shook his head.
"If we all thought so, the world would stand still," he replied. "'Tis the very argument pushed in the papers to-day about teaching the young people. 'Tis said they must be taught just what their parents want for 'm to be taught. And who knows best, I should like to know—the parents and guardians, as have finished their learning years ago and be miles behind-hand in their knowledge, or the schoolmasters and mistresses as be up to date in their larning and full of the latest things put into books? There's no standing still with the world any more than there's standing still with the sun. It can't be. Law's against it."
"We must have change," admitted Nathan.
"For sure we must. 'Tis the only way to keep sweet—like water running forward. If you block it in a pond, it goes stagnant; and if you block your brains, they rot."
"Then let us leave it at that," said Vivian's wife. "And now, if you men have done your drink, you can go off and smoke while we tidy up."
But there was yet a duty to perform, and Nathan rose and whispered in Humphrey's ear.
"I think the time's come for drinking his health. It must be done. Will you propose it?"
His brother answered aloud.
"Nathan wants for me to propose your good health, Vivian. But I ban't going to. That sort of thing isn't in my line. I wish you nought but well, and there's an end on't."
"Then I'll say a word," declared the innkeeper, returning to his place. "Fill your glasses—just a drop more, Hester, you must drink—isn't it to your own husband? And I say here, in this family party, that 'tis a proud and a happy thing to have for the head of the family such a man as our brother—your husband, Hester; and your father, you boys and girls. Long may he be spared to stand up among us and set us a good example of what's brave and comely in man; long may he be spared, I say, and from my heart I bless him for a good brother and husband and father, and wish him many happy returns of his birthday. My love and honour to you, Vivian!"
They all rose and spoke after the custom of the clan.
"My love and honour to you, brother," said Humphrey.
"My love and honour to you, Vivian Baskerville," said his wife.
"Love and honour to you, father," murmured the boys and girls.
And Mark said, "Love and honour to you, uncle."
There was a gulching of liquor in the silence that followed, and Mr. Baskerville's little eyes twinkled.
"You silly folk!" he said. "God knows there's small need of this. But thank you all—wife, children, brothers, and nephew. I be getting up home to my tether's end now, and can't look with certainty for over and above another ten birthdays or thereabouts; but such as come we'll keep together, if it pleases you. And if you be drinking, then here's to you all at a breath—to you all, not forgetting my son Nathan that's sailing on the sea."
"I'll write to Nat and tell him every blessed word of it, and what we've had for dinner and all," said May.
The company grew hilarious and Nathan, leaving them, went to the trap that had brought him from Shaugh Prior and returned with a bottle.
"'Tis a pretty cordial," he said, "and a thimbleful all round will steady what's gone and warm our hearts. Not but what they'm warm enough already."
The liquor was broached and all drank but Humphrey.
"Enough's as good as a feast. And you can saddle my pony, Mark. I'm going home now. I'm glad to have been here to-day; but I'm going now."
They pressed him to remain, but he judged the invitation to be half-hearted. However, he was tranquil and amiable at leave-taking. To Rupert he even extended an invitation.
Rupert was the only one of his brother's family for whom he even pretended regard.
"You can come and see me when you've got the time," he said. "I'll go for a walk along with you and hear what you have to say."
Then he rode off, but Mark stopped and finished the day with his cousins.
He talked to Rupert and, with secret excitement, heard the opinions of May and Polly on the subject of Cora Lintern.
A very glowing and genial atmosphere settled over Cadworthy after the departure of Humphrey Baskerville. Even the nervous Mark consented to sing a song or two. The musical traditions of the Baskervilles had reawakened in him, and on rare occasions he favoured his friends with old ballads. But in church he never sang, and often only went there to ring the tenor bell.
Mr. Nathan also rendered certain comic songs, and May played the aged piano. Then there was dancing and dust and noise, and presently the meal called 'high tea.' Hester Baskerville protested at last against her brother-in-law's absurdities, for everybody began to roll about and ache with laughter; but he challenged her criticism.
"Clever though you all are," he said, "no woman that ever I met was clever enough to play the fool. 'Tis only the male creature can accomplish that."
"No woman ever wanted to, I should hope," she answered; and he retorted triumphantly—
"There you are! There's my argument in a nutshell!"
She was puzzled.
"What d'you mean by that?" she asked, and, from the standpoint of his nimble wit, he roared.
"There you are again!" he said. "I can't explain; but the lack in you be summed in the question."
"You'm a hopeless case," she said. "We all laugh at you, and yet couldn't for the life of us tell what on earth 'tis we be laughing at."
"That's the very highest art and practice of playing the fool!" he told them.