They chattered on and set the world right according to their outlook, instinct, and understanding. Then the conversation turned into personal channels, and Mr. Baskerville, while admitting the justice of much that Jack asserted, yet blamed him for a certain impatience and bitterness.
"If evolution is going to set all right and the unborn will come into a better world, why get so hot?" he asked.
"Because I'm a thinking, feeling man," answered the other. "Because I hate to see wrong done in the name of right. And you're the same—only you haven't got as much sense as me seemingly. I'm useful—you only want to be useful and don't see how."
"I want to do my part in the world; but just the right way is difficult to choose out among the many roads that offer, Jack. You are positive, and that saves a deal of trouble, no doubt. The positive people go the furthest—for good or evil. But I'm not so certain. I see deeper than you because I've been better educated, though I'm not so clever by nature. Then there's another thing—sympathy. People don't like me, and to be disliked limits a man's usefulness a lot."
"That's stuff," answered Jack; "no more than a maggot got in your head. If they don't like you, there's a reason. They'm feared of your sharp tongue, and think 'tis the key to a hard heart. Then 'tis for you to show 'em what they can't see. I'll tell you what you are: you'm a man sitting hungry in a wheat-field, because you don't know and won't larn how to turn corn into bread. That's you in a word."
Trowlesworthy was reached and Jack went his way.
"You might come and drink a dish of tea some Sunday," said Mr. Baskerville, and the other promised to do so. Then Humphrey proceeded beside the river, and presently ascended a rough slope to his destination. The ruin that alternately drew and repelled him lay below; but for the moment he did not seek it. He climbed to the high ground, dismounted, turned his pony loose, and took his pipe out of his pocket.
The great cone of granite known as Hen Tor lies high upon the eastern bank of Plym, between that streamlet and the bog-foundered table-land of Shavercombe beyond. From its crown the visitor marked Cornwall's coastline far-spreading into the west, and Whitsand Bay reflecting silver morning light along the darker boundaries of earth.
Spaces of grass and fern extended about the tor, and far below a midget that was a man moved along the edge of the ripe bracken and mowed it down with a scythe.
Half a dozen carrion crows took wing and flapped with loud croaking away as Humphrey ascended the tor and sat upon its summit. Again he traversed the familiar scene in his mind, again perceived the difficulties of transit to this place. Occasionally, before these problems, he had set to work obstinately and sought solutions.