CHAPTER XIV
"Some say they believe the old saying and some say they don't," declared Mr. Abraham Elford to a thin bar at six o'clock on Christmas Eve; "but for my part I know what I've proved to be true with my own eyes, and I will stick to it that apples picked at wane of moon do shrivel and scrump up cruel. In fact, for hoarding they be no use at all."
"And you swear that you've proved that?" asked Mr. Head in his most judicial manner. "You stand there, a man up home sixty years of age, and steadfastly declare that apples gathered when the moon be on the wane do dry up quicker than others that be plucked when it begins to grow?"
"Yes, I do," declared the innkeeper. "Don't I tell you that I've proved it? Pick your apples when the moon be first horning, that's my advice."
They wrangled upon the question, and missed its real interest as an example of the value of evidence and the influence of superstition and individual idiosyncrasy on all human testimony.
Jack scoffed, Abraham Elford grew warm; for who is there that can endure to hear his depositions brushed aside as worthless?
Upon this great topic of the shrinking of apples at wane of moon, some sided with Mr. Head; while others, who held lunar influence as a force reaching into dark mysteries of matter and mind, supported the publican.
The contention was brisk, and not until it began to interfere with the nightly sale of his liquor, did Elford awake to its danger and stop it. He conceded nothing, but declared the argument must cease.
"'Tis Christman Eve," said he, "and no occasion for any short words or sharp sayings. Me and Head both know that we'm right, and mountains wouldn't move either of us from our opinions, so let it be."
He lifted a great earthen pot from the fire in the bar parlour. It contained cider with pieces of toast floating in it.
"Pretty drinking, as I'm certain sure that one and all of you will say," foretold the host.
Apples, however, rose again to be first topic of conversation before this fine wassail, and Jack spoke once more.
"Time was, down to the in country, that on this night—or else Old Christman Eve, I forget which—we gawks should all have marched out solemn to the orchards and sung lucky songs, and poured out cider, and fired our guns into the branches, and made all-round heathen fools of ourselves. And why? Because 'twas thought that to do so improved the next year's crop a thousandfold! And when we remember that 'twas no further back than our fathers that they did such witless things, it did ought to make us feel humble, I'm sure."
"Don't talk no more about cider, drink it," said Heathman Lintern, who was of the company. "Drink it while 'tis hot, and 'twill warm your bones and soften your opinions. You'm so peart to-night and so sharp at the corners, that I reckon you've got your money back at last."
This direct attack reduced Mr. Head to a less energetic and dogmatic frame of mind.
"No," he answered. "I have not, and I happen to know that I never shall. Me and the old chap fell out, and I dressed him down too sharp. I was wrong, and I've since admitted it, for I'm the rare, fearless sort that grant I'm wrong the first minute it can be proved against me. Though when a man's built on that large pattern, you may be sure he ban't wrong very often. 'Tis only the peddling, small creatures that won't admit they're mistaken—out of a natural fear that if they once allow it, they'll never be thought right again. But though he's forgiven me, I've strained the friendship. So we live and learn."
"Coode's had his money again," said the host of 'The White Thorn.'
"He has—the drunken dog? There's only me left," returned Jack.
"It wasn't till after he lost his money that he took to swilling, however," declared the innkeeper. "I know him well. The misfortune ruined his character."
"His daughter's been paid back, all the same," said Lintern. "She keeps his house, and the old boy gave the money to her, to be used or saved according as she thinks best."
"That leaves only me," said Jack.
"Me and Rupert was running over the figures a bit ago," continued Heathman. "We made out that the sporting old blade had dropped upwards of six thousand over this job, and we was wondering how much that is out of all he's got."
"A fleabite, I reckon," answered Head; but the other doubted it.
"Rupert says he thinks 'tis pretty near half of his fortune, if not more. He goes shabbier than ever, and he eats little better than orts for his food."
"That's no new thing," said another man as he held a mug for some more of the hot cider; "'twas always so, as Susan Hacker will tell you. My wife have heard her grumbling off and on these ten years about it. His food's poor and coarse, like his baccy and his cider. His clothes be kept on his back till there ban't enough of the web left to hold 'em together any longer. Susan offered an old coat to a tramp once, thinking to get it away afore Baskerville missed it; and the tramp looked it over—through and through, you might say—and he thanked Susan as saucy as you please, and told her that when he was going to set up for a mommet[[1]] he'd let her know, but 'twouldn't be yet."
[[1]] Mommet—scarecrow.
"A strange old night-hawk, and always have been," said Head. "Not a man—not even me, though I know him best—can measure him altogether. Never was such a mixture. Now he's so good-natured as the best stone, and you'll go gaily driving into him and then, suddenly, you'll strike flint, and get a spark in your eye, and wish to God you'd left the man alone. He's beyond any well-balanced mind to understand, as I've told him more than once."
"Meek as Moses one minute, then all claws and prickles the next—so they tell me," declared Abraham Elford. "But whether 'tis true or not, I can't say from experience," he added, "for the man don't come in here."
"And why?" said Heathman. "That's another queer side of him. I axed him that same question, and he said because to his eyes the place was haunted by my father. 'I should see Nathan's long beard wagging behind the bar,' he said to me, 'and I couldn't abide it.'"
"He's above common men, no doubt," declared another speaker. "We can only leave him at that. He's a riddle none here will ever guess, and that's the last word about him."
Rupert Baskerville came in at this moment and saw Heathman. Both were in Dennis Masterman's carol choir, and it was time that they gathered with the rest at the vicarage, for a long round of singing awaited them.
"A mild night and the roads pretty passable," he announced. "We're away in half an hour wi' books and lanterns; but no musickers be coming with us, like in the good old days. Only voices to carry it off."
He stopped to drink, and the sight of Jack Head reminded him of a commission.
"I want you, Jack," he said. "Come out in the ope-way for half a moment."
They departed together, and in a few moments returned. Rupert was laughing, Mr. Head exhibited the liveliest excitement. In one hand he waved three ten-pound notes; with the other he chinked some gold and silver.
"Money! Money! Money, souls!" he shouted. "If that baggering old hero haven't paid me after all! Give it a name, boys, drinks round!"
They congratulated him and liquor flowed. Head was full of rejoicing. He even exhibited gratitude.
"You might say 'twas no more than justice," he began; "but I tell you he's more than just—he's a very generous old man, and nobody can deny it, and I for one would like to do something to pay him back."
"There's nought you can do," declared Elford, "but be large-minded about it, and overlook the little smart that always touches a big mind when it's asked to accept favours."
"Not a big mind," corrected Rupert. "'Tis only a small mind can't take favours. And the thought of giving that smart would pain my uncle, for he's terrible tender and he's smarted all his life, and knows what 'tis to feel so."
"Smart be damned!" said Mr. Head. "There's no smart about getting back your own. I'm only glad that he felt the call to pay; and, though I was kept to the last, I shan't quarrel about that. If Rupert here, as be his nephew and his right hand by all accounts, could hit on a thing for us to do that would please the man, then I say us might do it without loss of credit. There's nobody has anything serious against him, I believe, nowadays, unless it be Abraham here, because he never comes inside his bar."
The publican shrugged his shoulders.
"I can't quarrel for that," he said, "since he goeth nowhere else either."
They considered the possible ways of bringing any satisfaction to Humphrey Baskerville, but could hit on no happy project. Head, indeed, was fertile of ideas, but Rupert found objections to all of them.
"If us could only do something that meant a lot of different chaps all of one mind," said Heathman. "The old bird always thinks that the people hate him or laugh at him, and if we could somehow work a trick that showed a score of folk all meaning well to him and thinking well of him for once—— But Lord knows what."
Then came an interruption in the shape of Dennis Masterman. He was warm and somewhat annoyed. He turned upon the guilty Rupert and Heathman.
"This is too bad, you fellows!" he said. "Here we're all waiting and waiting, and, despite my express wishes, you turn in to drink. I blame you both."
They expressed the liveliest regret, and Dennis was speedily mollified when he heard the great argument that had made these men forget the business of the night.
"There's no time now," he answered, "but you're in the right to think of such a thing, and, after Christmas, I shall be only too glad to lend a hand. A very admirable idea, and I'm glad you've hit on it."
"Just a thimbleful of my wassail, your honour, for luck," said the host, and Masterman, protesting, took the glass handed to him.
A sudden and violent explosion from Mr. Head made the clergyman nearly choke in the middle of his drinking.
"I've got it!" cried Jack so loudly that the company started. He slapped his leg at the same moment and then danced with exaggerated rejoicing.
"Got what? D.T.'s?" asked Heathman.
"Go up along to Hawk House! I beg and pray your reverence to go there first of all," urged Jack. "Surely 'tis the very thing. 'Tis just what we was trying to light upon—summat that meant the showing of general friendship—summat that meant a bit of trouble and thought taken for him—all your blessed Christmas vartues put together—goodwill and all the rest of it. If you was to steal up through the garden by the greenside and then burst forth like one man—why, there 'tis! Who can deny 'tis a noble idea? And you can go and holler to the quality afterwards."
"Good for you, Jack!" answered Rupert. "And I say ditto with all my heart if Mr. Masterman——"
"Come, then," interrupted Dennis. "The night will be gone before we start. We'll go to Hawk House right away. I can't gainsay such a wish, though it's a mile out of the beat we had planned. Come!"
The clergyman, with Rupert Baskerville and Heathman Lintern, hurried off, and a few of the younger men, accompanied by Jack Head, followed after them.
"I must just pop in my house and lock up this dollop of money," said Jack; "then us'll go up over with the singers to see how the old Hawk takes it. He'll be scared first; and then he'll try to look as if he was going to fling brickbats out of the windows, or set the dogs at us; and all the time we shall very well know that he's bubbling over with surprise to find what a number of respectable people have got to thinking well of him."
The crowd of men and boys moved on ahead of Jack and his friends. The shrill cries and laughter of the youngsters and a bass rumble of adult voices wakened night, and a dozen lanterns flashed among the company as they ascended into the silent darkness of Dartmoor.