CHAPTER VIII
Jack Head presently carried his notorious grievances to Humphrey Baskerville, and waited upon him one evening in summer time. They had not met for many weeks, and Jack, though he found little leisure to mark the ways of other people at this season, could not fail to note a certain unwonted cheerfulness in the master of Hawk House. Humphrey's saturnine spirit was at rest for the moment. To-night he talked upon a personal topic, and found evident pleasure in a circumstance which, from the standpoint of his visitor, appeared exceedingly trivial. The usual relations of these men seemed changed, and Mr. Baskerville showed the more reasonable and contented mind, while Jack displayed an active distrust of everything and everybody.
"I wanted a bit of a tell with you," he began, "and thought I might come over."
"Come in and welcome," answered Humphrey. "I hope I see you pretty middling?"
"Yes, well enough for that matter. And you?"
"Never better. 'Tis wonnerful how the rheumatics be holding off—along of lemons. You might stare, but 'tis a flame-new remedy of doctor's. Lemon juice—pints of it."
"Should have reckoned there was enough lemon in your nature without adding to it."
"Enough and to spare. Yet you needn't rub that home to-day. I've heard a thing that's very much pleased me, I may tell you. Last news such a cranky and uncomfortable man as me might have expected."
"Wish I could hear summat that would please me, I'm sure," said Jack. "But all that ever I hear of nowadays is other people's good luck. And there's nothing more damned uninteresting after a bit. Not that I grudge t'others——"
"Of course you don't—not with your high opinions. You've said to me a score of times that there's no justice in the world, therefore 'tis no use your fretting about not getting any. We must take things as we find them."
"And what's your luck, then? More money rolling in, I suppose?"
"My luck—so to call it—mightn't look over large to another. 'Tis that my nephew Rupert and his wife want for me to be godfather to their babe. The child will be called after me, and I'm to stand godfather; and I'll confess to you, in secret, that I'm a good deal pleased about it."
Jack sniffed and spat into the fire. He took a pipe out of his pocket, stuffed it, and lighted it before he answered.
"I was going to say that little things please little minds, but I won't," he began. "If you can find pleasure in such a trifle—well, you'm fortunate. I should have reckoned with all the misery there is in the world around you, that there'd be more pain than pleasure in——"
He broke off.
"'Tis the thought," explained Mr. Baskerville. "It shows that they young people feel towards me a proper and respectful feeling. It shows that they'd trust me to be a godparent to this newborn child. I know very well that folk are often asked just for the sake of a silver spoon, or a christening mug; but my nephew Rupert and his wife Milly be very different to that. There's no truckling in them. They've thought this out, and reckoned I'm the right man—old as I am. And naturally I feel well satisfied about it."
"Let that be, then. If you're pleased, their object be gained, for naturally they want to please you. Why not? You must die sooner or later, though nobody's better content than me to hear you'm doing so clever just at present. But go you must, and then there's your mighty fortune got to be left to something or somebody."
"Mighty's not the word, Jack."
"Ban't it? Then a little bird tells the people a lot of lies. And, talking of cash, I'm here over that matter myself."
But Humphrey was not interested in cash for the moment.
"They sent me a very well-written letter on the subject," he continued. "On the subject of the child. 'Twas more respectful to me and less familiar to put it in writing—so they thought. And I've written back a long letter, and you shall hear just how I wrote, if you please. There's things in my letter I'd rather like you to hear."
Mr. Head showed impatience, and the other was swift to mark it.
"Another time, if 'tis all the same to you," Jack replied. "Let me get off what's on my chest first. Then I'll be a better listener. I ha'n't got much use for second-hand wisdom for the moment."
Mr. Baskerville had already picked up his letter; but now he flung the pages back upon his desk and his manner changed.
"Speak," he said. "You learn me a lesson. Ban't often I'm wrapped up in my own affairs, I believe. I beg your pardon, Head."
"No need to do that. Only, seen from my point, with all my misfortunes and troubles on my mind, this here twopenny-halfpenny business of naming a newborn babby looks very small. You can't picture it, no doubt—you with your riches and your money breeding like rabbits. But for a man such as me, to see the sweat of his brow swept away all at a stroke—nought else looks of much account."
"Haven't you got over that yet?"
"No, I haven't; and more wouldn't you, if somebody had hit you so hard."
"Say your say then, if 'twill do you any sort of good."
"What I want to know is this. Why for do Lawyer Popham help one man and not help t'other? Why do this person—I dare say you know who 'tis—do what he's doing and pick and choose according to his fancy? It isn't Masterman or I'd have gived him a bit of my mind about it. And if I could find out who it was, I would do so."
"The grievance is that you don't get your bit back? Are you the only one?"
"No, I'm not. There's a lot more going begging the same way. And if you know the man, you can tell him from me that he may think he'm doing a very fine thing, but in my opinion he isn't."
Mr. Baskerville had relapsed into his old mood.
"So much for your sense, then—you that pride yourself such a lot on being the only sane man among us. Have you ever looked into the figures?"
"I've looked into my own figures, and they be all I care about."
"Exactly so! But them that want to right this wrong have looked into all the figures; and so they know a great deal more about 'em than you do. You're not everybody. You're a hale, hearty creature getting good wages. More than one man that put away money with my brother is dead long ago, and there are women and children to be thought upon; and a bedridden widow, and two twin boys, both weak in the head; and a few other such items. Why for shouldn't there be picking and choosing? If you'd been going to lend a hand yourself and do a bit for charity, wouldn't you pick and choose? Ban't all life picking and choosing? Women and childer first is the rule in any shipwreck, I believe—afloat or ashore. And if you was such a born fool as to trust, because others trusted, and follow the rest, like a sheep follows his neighbour sheep, then I should reckon you deserve to whistle for your money. If this chap, who was fond of my brother and be set on clearing his name, will listen to me, you and the likes of you will have to wait a good few years yet for your bit—if you ever get it at all. You ought to know better—you as would shoulder in afore the weak! And now you can go. I don't want to see you no more, till you've got into a larger frame of mind."
"What a cur-dog you be!" said Head, rising and scowling fiercely. "So much for Christian charity and doing to your neighbour as you would have him do to you—so much for all your cant about righteousness. You wait—that's all! Your turn will come to smart some day. And if I find out this precious fool, who's got money to squander, I'll talk a bit of sense to him too. He's no right to do things by halves, and one man's claim on that scamp, your brother, is just as lawful and proper as another man's; and because a person be poor or not poor don't make any difference in the matter of right and wrong."
"That's where you're so blind as any other thick-headed beetle," snarled back Humphrey. "For my part I've looked into the figures myself, and I quite agree with Nathan's friend. None has a shadow of reason to question him or to ask for a penny from him. 'Tis his bounty, not your right."
"Very easy to talk like that. Why don't you put your fingers in your own pocket and lend a hand yourself? Not you—a sneaking old curmudgeon! And then want people to think well of you. Why the devil should they? Close-fisted mully-grubs that you are! And hark to this, Miser Baskerville, don't you pretend your nephew wants you to stand gossip for his bleating baby to pleasure you. 'Tis because he's got his weather-eye lifting on your dross. Who's like to care for you for yourself? Not a dog. Your face be enough to turn milk sour and give the childer fits."
"Get along with you," answered Humphrey. "You—of all men! I could never have believed this—never. And all for thirty-five pounds, fifteen and sevenpence! So much for your wisdom and reason. Be off and get down on your knees, if they'll bend, and ask God to forgive you."
Head snorted and swore. Then he picked up his hat and departed in a towering rage.
Mr. Baskerville's anger lasted a shorter time. He walked to the window, threw it open, listened to Head's explosive departure and then, when silence was restored, Humphrey himself went to his doorstep and looked out upon the fair June night.
Mars and a moon nearly full sailed south together through unclouded skies, and beneath them lay, first, a low horizon, whose contour, smoothed by night's hand into dim darkness, showed neither point nor peak under the stars. Beneath all, valley-born, there shone silver radiance of mist—dense and luminous in the moonlight. Apparently quiescent, this vapour in truth drifted with ghostly proper motion before the night wind, and stole from the water-meadows upward toward the high places of the Moor.
Against these shifting passages of fog, laid along the skirts of forest and above the murmuring ways of a hidden river, ascended silhouettes of trees, all black and still against the pearly light behind them. The vapour spread in wreaths and filaments of moisture intermingled. Seen afar it was still as standing water; but to one moving beside it, the mist appeared as on a trembling loom where moonlight wove in ebony and silver. The fabric broke, ravelled, fell asunder, and then built itself up once more. Again it dislimned and shivered into separate shades that seemed to live. From staple of streams, from the cold heart of a nightly river were the shadows born; and they writhed and worshipped—poor, heart-stricken spirits of the dew—love-mad for Selene on high. Only when red Mars descended and the moon went down, did these forlorn phantoms of vapour shrink and shudder and lie closer, for comfort, to the water mother that bore them.
Hither, nigh midnight, in a frame of mind much out of tune with the nocturnal peace, passed Jack Head upon his homeward way. His loss had now become a sort of mental obsession, and he found it daily wax into a mightier outrage on humanity. He would have suffered in silence, but for the aggravation of these events whereby, from time to time, one or another of the wounded found his ill fortune healed.
Examination might have showed an impartial mind that much method distinguished the process of this alleviation.
Those responsible for it clearly possessed close knowledge of the circumstances; and they used it to minister in turn to the chief sufferers. The widows and fatherless were first indemnified; then others who least could sustain their losses.
A sane system marked the procedure; but not in the eyes of Mr. Head. First, he disputed the right of any philanthropist to select and single out in such a matter, and next, when defeated in argument on that contention, he fell back upon his own disaster and endeavoured to show how his misfortune was among the hardest and most ill-deserved.
That man after man should be compensated and himself ignored, roused Jack to a pitch of the liveliest indignation. He became a nuisance, and people fled from him and his inevitable topic of speech. And now he had heard Humphrey Baskerville upon the subject, and found him as indifferent as the rest of the world.
The old man's argument still revolved in Jack's head and, too late, came answers to it. He moved along in the very extremity of rage, and Humphrey might have smarted to hear the things that his former friend thought against him. Then, as ill chance willed, another came through the night and spoke to Head.
Timothy Waite went happily upon his homeward way and found himself in a mood as sweet as Jack's was the reverse. For Timothy was love-making, and his lady's ripe experience enabled her to give him many pleasant hours of this amusement.
Neither was sentimental, but Cora, accustomed to the ways and fancies of the courting male, affected a certain amount of femininity, and Timothy appreciated this, and told himself that his future wife possessed a woman's charms combined with a man's practical sense. He was immensely elated at the thing he had done, and he felt gratified to find that Miss Lintern made a most favourable impression amid his friends and relations.
Now, moved thereto by his own cheerful heart, he gave Jack Head 'good night' in a friendly tone of voice and added, "A beautiful evening, sure enough."
The way was overshadowed by trees and neither man recognised the other until Waite spoke. Then Mr. Head, feeling himself within the atmosphere of a happy being, grunted a churlish answer and made himself known.
Thereon Timothy's manner changed and he regretted his amenity.
"Is that Head?" he asked in an altered tone.
"You know my voice, I suppose."
"Yes, I do. I want to speak to you. And I have meant to for some time past. But the chance didn't offer, as you don't go to church, or any respectable place; and I don't frequent publics."
The other bristled instantly.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he shouted.
"Nothing's the matter with me. But there's a lot the matter with you by all accounts, and since you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, it's time your betters took you in hand a bit."
Jack stared speechless at this blunt attack. The moon whitened his face, his lean jaw dropped and his teeth glimmered.
"Well, I'm damned! 'My betters'—eh?"
"Yes; no need for any silly pretence with me. You know what I think of your blackguard opinions and all that rot about equality and the rest. I'm not here to preach to you; but I am here to tell you to behave yourself where ladies are concerned. Miss Lintern has told me what you said to her, and she complained sharply about it. You may think it was very clever; but I'd have you to know it was very impertinent, coming from you to her. Why, if I'd been by, I'd have horsewhipped you. And if it happens again, I will. You're a lot too familiar with people, and seem to think you've a right to talk to everybody and anybody in a free and easy way—from parson downwards. But let me tell you, you forget yourself. I'd not have said these things if you'd been rude to any less person than the young lady I'm going to marry. But that I won't stand, and I order you not to speak to Miss Lintern again. Learn manners—that's what you've got to do."
Having uttered this admonition, Mr. Waite was proceeding but Jack stopped him.
"I listened to you very patient," he said. "Now you've got to listen to me, and listen you shall. Why, God stiffen it, you bumbling fool! who d'you think you are, and who d'you think any man is? You be china to my cloam, I suppose? And who was your grandfather? Come now, speak up; who was he?"
"I'm not going to argue—I've told you what I wish you to do. It doesn't matter who my grandfather was. You know who I am, and that's enough."
"It is enough," said Jack; "it's enough to make a toad laugh; but I don't laugh—no laughing matter to me to be told by a vain, puffed-up booby, like you, that I'm not good enough to have speech with people. And that tousled bitch—there—and coming on what I've just heard! If it don't make me sick with human nature and all the breed!"
"Be sick with yourself," answered Timothy. "I don't want to be too hard on an uneducated and self-sufficient man; but when it comes to insulting women, somebody must intervene."
By way of answer the older man turned, walked swiftly to Waite and struck him on the breast. The blow was a hard one and served its purpose. Timothy hit back and Head closed.
"You blackguard anarchist," shouted the farmer. "You will have it, will you? Then take it!"
Jack found himself no match for a strong and angry man full twenty-five years his junior, and he reaped a very unpleasant harvest of blows, for the master of Coldstone carried an ash sapling and when he had thrown Mr. Head to the ground he put his foot on him and flogged him heartily without heeding where his strokes might fall. Head yelled and cursed and tried to reach the other's legs and bring him down. A column of dust rose into the moonlight and Timothy's breath panted steaming upon the air. Then, with a last cruel cut across the defeated labourer's shoulders, he released him and went his way. But Head was soon up again and, with a bleeding face, a torn hand and a dusty jacket, he followed his enemy.
Rage is shrewd of inspiration. He remembered the one blow that he could deal this man; and he struck it, hoping that it might sink far deeper than the smarting surface-wounds that now made his own body ache.
"Devil—coward—garotter!" he screamed out. "You that hit old men in the dark—listen to me!"
Waite stopped.
"If you want any more, you can have it," he answered. "But don't go telling lies around the country and saying I did anything you didn't well deserve. You struck me first, and if you are mad enough to strike your betters, then you'll find they will strike back."
"I'll strike—yes, I'll strike—don't fear that. I'll strike—a harder blow than your evil hand knows how. I'll strike with truth—and that's a weapon goes deeper than your bully's stick. Hear me, and hear a bit about your young lady—'young lady'! A woman without a father—a child got—ax her mother where and how—and then go to blazing hell—you and your nameless female both. I know—I know—and I'll tell you if you want to know. She's Nathan Baskerville's bastard—that's what your 'young lady' is! There's gall for yours. There's stroke for stroke! And see which of us smarts longest now!"
Jack took his bruises homeward and the other, dazed at such a storm, also went his way. He scoffed at such malice and put this evil thing behind him. He hastened forward, as one hastens from sudden incidence of a foul smell.
But the wounded man had sped a poison more pestilential far than any born of physical cause. The germ thus despatched grew while Waite slept; and with morning light its dimensions were increased.
Under the moon, he had laughed at this furious assault, and scorned it as the vile imagining of a beaten creature; but with daylight he laughed no longer. The barb was fast; other rumours set floating after the innkeeper's death now hurtled like lesser arrows into his bosom; and Mr. Waite felt that until a drastic operation was performed and these wounds cleansed, his peace of mind would not return.
He debated between the propriety of speaking to Cora about her father, or to Mrs. Lintern on the subject of her husband; and he decided that the latter course would be more proper.