Of late the idea of a home further from distracting influences had again seemed good to him. More than once he considered the advantages of isolation; more than once he rode upon the Moor and distracted his gloom with visions of imaginary dwellings in regions remote.
The folly of these thoughts often thrust him with a rebound into the life of his fellow-beings, and those who knew him best observed a rhythmic alternation in Humphrey.
After periods of abstention and loneliness would follow some return to a more sociable style of living. From a fierce hectic of mind that sent him sore and savage into the heart of the wilderness, he cooled and grew temperate again as the intermittent fever passed.
And then, when the effort towards his kind had failed by his own ineptitude and the world's mistrust, he retreated once more to suffer, and banished himself behind the clouds of his own restless soul.
Humanity has no leisure to decipher these difficult spirits; the pathos of their attempts must demand a philosophic eye to perceive it; and unless kind chance offers the key, unless opportunity affords an explanation, the lonely but hungry heart passes away unfathomed, sinks to the grave unread and unreconciled.
Inner darkness turned Baskerville to the Moor again, and he rode—where often he had already ridden: to inspect the ruin of an old dwelling upon the side of a great hill above the waters of Plym.
Brilliant summer smiled upon this pilgrimage, and as he went, he fell in with a friend, where Jack Head tramped the high road upon his way to Trowlesworthy. Jack now dwelt at Shaugh, but was head man of Saul Luscombe's farm and rabbit warren.
"A fine day," said Humphrey as he slowed his pony.
"Yes, and a finer coming," answered the other. Mr. Baskerville was quick to note the militant tone.
"Been at your silly books again, I warrant," he said. "There's one book I could wish you'd read along with t'others, Jack. 'Tis the salt to all other books, for all you scorn it."