CHAPTER VII
Alice Masterman, the vicar's sister, came in to speak with Dennis after Jack Head had gone. He was composing a sermon, but set it aside at once, for the tone of her voice declared that she could brook no denial.
"It's Voysey," she said. "I'm sorry to trouble you about him again, but he's got bronchitis."
"Well, send him some soup or something. Has that last dozen of parish port all gone yet?"
"I was thinking of another side to it," she confessed. "Don't you think this might be an excellent opportunity to get rid of him?"
"Isn't that rather hitting a man when he's down?"
"Well, it's perfectly certain you'll never hit him when he's up again. If you only realised how the man robs us—indirectly, I mean. He doesn't actually steal, I suppose, but look at the seed and the thousand and one things he's always wanting in the garden, and nothing to show but weeds."
"You must be fair, Alice. There are miles of large, fat cabbages out there."
"Cabbages, yes; and when I almost go down on my knees for one, he says they're not ready and mustn't be touched. He caught the cook getting a sprig of parsley yesterday, and was most insolent. She says that if he opens his mouth to her again she'll give warning; and she means it. And even you know that cooks are a thousand times harder to get than gardeners."
Dennis sighed and looked at his manuscript.
"Funny you should say these things—I'm preaching about the fruits of the earth next Sunday."
"The man's maddening—always ready with an excuse. The garden must be swarming with every blight and horror that was ever known, according to him. And somehow I always feel he's being impertinent all the time he's speaking to me, though there's nothing you can catch hold of. Now it's mice, and now it's birds, and now it's canker in the air, or some nonsense; and now it's the east wind, and now it's the west wind—I'm sick of it; and if you ask for an onion he reminds you, with quite an injured air, that he took three into the house last week. There's a wretched cauliflower we had ages ago, and he's always talking about it still, as if it had been a pineapple at least."
"I know he's tiresome. I tell you what—wait till he's back, and then I'll give him a serious talking to."
"Only two days ago I met him lumbering up with that ridiculous basket he always will carry—a huge thing, large enough to hold a sack of potatoes. And in the bottom were three ridiculous little lettuces from the frame, about as long as your thumb. I remonstrated, and, of course, he was ready. 'I know to a leaf what his reverence eats,' he said; 'and if that woman in the kitchen, miscalled a cook, don't serve 'em up proper, that's not my fault.' He didn't seem to think I ever ate anything out of the garden."
"Old scoundrel! I'll talk to him severely. I've had a rod in pickle ever since last year."
Dennis laughed suddenly, but his sister was in no laughing mood.
"I really can't see the funny side," she declared.
"Of course not. There is none. He's a fraud; but I remembered what Travers said last year—you recollect? The thrips and bug and all sorts of things got into the vines, and we asked Travers what was the matter, and he explained what a shameful muddle Voysey had made. Then, when Joe had gone chattering off, saying the grapes were worth five shillings a pound in open market, and that they'd only lost their bloom because we kept fingering them, Travers said he looked as if he was infested with thrips and mealy bug himself. I shall always laugh when I think of that—it was so jolly true."
"I hate a man who never owns that he is wrong; and I do wish you'd get rid of him. It's only fair to me. I have but few pleasures, and the garden is one of them. He tramples and tears, and if you venture to ask him to tidy—well, you know what happens. The next morning the garden looks as though there had been a plague of locusts in it—everything has gone."
"He ought to retire; but he's saved nothing worth mentioning, poor old fool!"
"That's his affair."
"It ought to be; but you know well enough that improvidence all round is my affair. We are faced with it everywhere. Head has just been in here. There's a rumour about the poor people that the innkeeper swindled. He took their savings, and there's nobody to pay them back now he's gone. But it seems that here and there those hit hardest—mostly women—have had their money again. Not your work, I hope, Alice? But I know what you do with your cash. Voysey was talking about it a little time ago, and I blamed him for not having saved some money himself by this time. He said, 'Better spend what you earn on yourself than give it to somebody else to save for you.' The misfortunes of the people seemed to have pleased him a good deal. 'We'm mostly in the same box now,' he said; 'but I had the rare sense to spend my brass myself. I've had the value of it in beer and tobacco, if no other way.'"
"Detestable old man! And Gollop's no better. Anybody but you would have got rid of them both years and years ago."
"They must retire soon—they simply must. They're the two eldest men in the parish."
"And, of course, you'll pension them, or some such nonsense."
"Indeed, I shall do no such thing. Perhaps this is the end of Voysey. He may see the sense of retiring now."
"Not he. He'll be ill for six weeks, and lie very snug and comfortable drawing his money at home; then, when the weather gets to suit him, he'll crawl out again. And everything that goes wrong all through next year will be owing to his having been laid by."
"I'll talk to him," repeated her brother. "I'll talk to him and Gollop together. Gollop has pretty well exhausted my patience, I assure you."
Miss Masterman left him with little hope, and he resumed his sermon on the fruits of the earth.
But next Sunday the unexpected happened, and Thomas Gollop, even in the clergyman's opinion, exceeded the bounds of decency by a scandalous omission.
It happened thus. The sexton, going his rounds before morning service, was confronted with an unfamiliar object in the churchyard. A tombstone had sprung up above the dust of Nathan Baskerville. He rubbed his eyes with astonishment, because the time for a memorial was not yet, and Thomas must first have heard of it and made ready before its erection. Here, however, stood what appeared to be a square slate, similar in design to those about it; but investigation proved that an imitation stone had been set up, and upon the boards, painted to resemble slate, was inscribed a ribald obituary notice of the dead. It scoffed at his pretensions, stated the worst that could be said against him, and concluded with a scurrility in verse that consigned him to the devil.
Now, by virtue of his office, apart from the fact of being a responsible man enlisted on the side of all that was seemly and decorous, Mr. Gollop should have removed this offence as quickly as possible before any eye could mark it. Thus he would have disappointed those of the baser sort who had placed it there by night, and arrested an outrage before any harm was done by it. But, instead, he studied the inscription with the liveliest interest, and found himself much in sympathy therewith.
Here was the world's frank opinion on Nathan Baskerville. The innkeeper deserved such a censure, and Thomas saw no particular reason why he should interfere. He was alone, and none had observed him. Therefore he shuffled off and, rather than fetch his spade and barrow to dig up this calumny and remove it, left the board for others to discover.
This they did before the bells began to ring, and when Dennis Masterman entered the churchyard, on his way to the vestry, he was arrested by the sight of a considerable crowd collected about the Baskerville graves. The people were trampling over the mounds, and standing up on the monuments to get a better view. On the outskirt of the gathering was Ben North in a state of great excitement; but single-handed the policeman found himself unable to cope with the crowd. A violent quarrel was proceeding at the centre of this human ring, and Masterman heard Gollop's voice and that of Heathman Lintern. Dennis ordered some yelling choir-boys down off a flat tomb, then pushed his way through his congregation. Parties had been divided as to the propriety of the new monument, and the scene rather resembled that in the past, when Nathan Baskerville was buried.
As the vicar arrived, Heathman Lintern, who had lost his self-control, was just knocking Mr. Gollop backwards into the arms of his sister. The man and woman fell together, and, with cries and hisses, others turned on Heathman. Then a force rallied to the rescue. Sunday hats were hurled off and trampled into the grass; Sunday coats were torn; Sunday collars were fouled. Not until half a dozen men, still fighting, had been thrust out of the churchyard, was Dennis able to learn the truth. Then he examined the cause of the riot and listened to Lintern.
The young man was bloody and breathless, but he gasped out his tale. A dozen people were already inspecting the new gravestone when Heathman passed the church on his way to chapel with his mother and sisters. He left them to see the cause of interest, and, discovering it, ordered Gollop instantly to remove it. This the sexton declined to do on the ground that it was Sunday. Thereupon, fetching tools, Heathman himself prepared to dig up the monument. But he was prevented. Many of the people approved of the joke and decreed that the board must stand. They arrested Heathman in his efforts to remove it. Then others took his side and endeavoured to drag down the monument.
Having heard both Lintern and Gollop, the clergyman read the mock inscription.
"D'you mean to say that you refuse to remove this outrageous thing?" he asked the sexton; but Thomas was in no mood for further reprimand. He had suffered a good deal in credit and temper. Now he mopped a bleeding nose and was insolent.
"Yes, I do; and I won't break the Fourth Commandment for you or fifty parsons. Who the mischief be you to tell me to labour on the Lord's Day, I should like to know? You'll bid me covet my neighbour's ass and take my neighbour's wife next, perhaps? And, when all's said, this writing be true and a lesson to the parish. Let 'em have the truth for once, though it do turn their tender stomachs."
"Get out of the churchyard, you old blackguard!" cried Heathman. "You're a disgrace to any persuasion, and you did ought to be hounded out of a decent village."
"Leave Gollop to me, Lintern. Now lend a hand here, a few of you; get this infamous thing away and destroyed before anybody else sees it. And the rest go into church at once. Put on your surplices quick, you boys; and you, Jenkins, tell Miss Masterman to play another voluntary."
Dennis issued his orders and then helped to dig up this outrage among the tombs. Thomas Gollop and his sister departed together. Ben North, Lintern, and another assisted Mr. Masterman.
Then came Humphrey Baskerville upon his way to church, and, despite the entreaty of the young clergyman that he would not read the thing set up over Nathan's grave, insisted on doing so.
"I hear in the street there's been a row about a tombstone to my brother. Who put it there? 'Tis too soon by half. I shall lift a stone to the man when the proper time comes," he said.
"It isn't a stone, it's an unseemly insult—an outrage. Not the work of Shaugh men, I hope. I shall investigate the thing to the bottom," answered Dennis.
"Let me see. Stay your hand, Lintern."
The old man put on his glasses deliberately, and read the evil words.
"Tear it down," he said. "That ban't all the truth about the man, and half the truth is none. Quick, away with it! There's my sister-in-law from Cadworthy coming into the gate."
The burlesque tombstone was hurried away, and Masterman went into the vestry. Others entered church, and Heathman at last found himself alone. The bells stopped, the organ ceased to grunt, and the service proceeded; but young Lintern was only concerned with his own labours. He ransacked Mr. Gollop's tool-shed adjoining the vestry. It was locked, but he broke it open, and, finding a hatchet there, proceeded to make splinters of the offending inscription. He chopped and chopped until his usual equitable humour returned to him. Then, the work completed, he returned to his father's grave and repaired the broken mound. He was engaged upon this task to the murmur of the psalms, when Jack Head approached and bade him 'good-morning.'
"A pretty up-store, I hear. And you in the midst of it—eh?"
"I was, and I'd do the same for any chap that did such a beastly thing. If I thought you had any hand in it, Jack——"
The other remembered that the son of the dead was speaking to him.
"Not me," he answered. "I have a pretty big grudge against Nathan Baskerville that was, and I won't deny it; but this here—insults on his tomb—'tis no better than to kick the dead. Besides, what's the use? It won't right the wrong, or put my money back in my pocket. How did it go—the words, I mean?"
"I've forgot 'em," answered Heathman. "Least said, soonest mended, and if it don't do one thing, and that is get Gollop the sack, I shall be a bit astonished."
He laughed.
"You should 'a' seen the old monkey just now! He was the first to mark this job, and he let it stand for all to see, and was glad they should see it—shame to him."
"Wrote it himself so like as not."
"Hadn't the wit to. But he left it, and he was well pleased at it. And then, when I ordered him as sexton to take it down, he wouldn't, and so I lost my head and gave him a tap on the ribs, and over he went into his sister's arms, as was standing screeching like a poll-parrot just behind him. Both dropped; then Tom Sparkes hit me in the mouth; and so we went on very lively till Mr. Masterman came."
"Wouldn't have missed it for money," said Jack. "But just my luck to be t'other side the village at such a moment."
He sat down on a sepulchre and filled his pipe. He knew well why Heathman had thrown himself so fiercely into this quarrel, and he admired him for it. The sight of the young man reminded him of his sister.
"So your Cora is trying a third, she tells me?"
"Yes; 'tis Tim Waite this time," answered Cora's brother. "I shouldn't envy him much—or any man who had to live his life along with her."
"You're right there: no heart—that's what was left out when she was a-making. She told me the news a bit ago, just when I was giving her a rap over the knuckles on account of that other fool, Ned Baskerville. And she got the best of the argument—I'll allow that. In fact, you might say she scored off me proper, for I told her that no decent chap would ever look at her again, and what does she answer? Why, that Tim Waite's took her."
"Yes, 'tis so. He and me was talking a bit ago. He'll rule her."
"But I got it back on Cora," continued Mr. Head. "I'm not the sort to be beat in argument and forget it. Not I! I'll wait, if need be, for a month of Sundays afore I make my answer; but I always laugh last, and none don't ever get the whip-hand of me for long. And last week I caught up with her again, as we was travelling by the same road, and I gave her hell's delights, and told her the ugly truth about herself till she could have strangled me if she'd been strong enough."
"I know you did. She came home in a pretty tantara—blue with temper; and she's going to tell Waite about it. But don't you sing small, Jack; don't you let Timothy bully you."
"No man bullies me," said Head; "least and last of all a young man. Waite have too much sense, I should hope, to fall foul of me. But if it comes to that, I can give him better than he'll give me—a long sight better, too."
"The Cadworthy people have been a bit off us since Cora dropped Ned," declared Heathman. "No wonder, neither, but my mother's cruel galled about it. 'Twasn't her fault, however. Still, that's how it lies."
Mr. Head was examining this situation when the people began to come out of church.
He rose, therefore, and went his way, while Heathman also departed. Many returned to the outraged grave, but all was restored to order, and nothing remained to see.