[[1]] Belving—bellowing.
"Rupert's very different to that. 'Tis his will against mine, and if he disobeys, he must stand the brunt and see what life be like without me behind him. When Nathan went for a sailor, I said nothing. They couldn't all bide here, and 'twas a manly calling. But Rupert was brought up to take my place, owing to Ned's superior brain power; and now if he's going to fling off about a girl and defy me—well, he may go; but they laugh best who laugh last. He'll suffer for it."
"I'm much feared nought we can do will change him. That girl be everything to him. A terrible pity, too, for after you, I never knowed a man so greedy of work. 'Sundays! There are too many Sundays,' he said to Ned in my hearing not long since. 'What do a healthy man want to waste every seventh day for?' It might have been you talking."
"Not at all," answered her husband. "Very far from it. That's Jack Head's impious opinion. Who be we to question the Lord's ordaining? The seventh's the Lord's, and I don't think no better of Rupert for saying that, hard though it may sometimes be to keep your hands in your pockets, especially at hay harvest."
"Well, if you ban't going to budge, he'll go."
"Then let him go—and he can tell the people that he haven't got no father no more, for that's how 'twill be if he does go."
"Don't you say that, master."
"Why for not? Truth's truth. And now us will go to sleep, if you please."
Soon his mighty snore thundered through the darkness; but Mrs. Baskerville was well seasoned to the sound; and thoughts of her son, not the noisy repose of her husband, banished sleep.
Others had debated these vexed questions of late, and the dark, short days were made darker for certain sympathetic people by the troubles of Mark and the anxieties of his cousin, Rupert.