"Just what it can do—when it's writing its own bills o' costs," answered Jack. "They'm damn clever at that; but let a rogue rob me of my savings and the law don't care a brass farthing. Why? Because I'm poor."
"Is there to be nought declared in the pound?" inquired an old man beside the fire. "He had eight, ten of mine, and I was hopeful us might get back a little, if 'twas only shillings."
"You'll see nothing of it, gaffer," declared Head. "There wasn't much more than enough to pay for the man's coffin. And the tears shed at his grave! I laugh when I think of all them gulls, and the parsons, with their long faces, thinking they was burying a good man and a burning light."
"A burning light now, if he wasn't afore," said Gollop, returning to his favourite theme.
"You're a mean cur at heart, Jack," burst out the dead man's son to Mr. Head. "With all your noise about justice and liberty and right and wrong, none on God's earth can show his teeth quicker and snarl worse if his own bone be took away. You knowed Nathan Baskerville—no one knowed him better than you. And well you know that with all his faults and foolish, generous way of playing with his money and other people's—well, you know there was a big spirit in the man. He meant terrible kindly always. He didn't feather his own nest. For a hundred that curse him now, there's thousands that have blessed him in past years. But 'tis the curses come home to roost and foul a man's grave; the blessings be forgot."
The young man's eyes shone and his eloquence silenced the bar for a moment.
Jack Head stared.
"'Tis Mark Baskerville speaking," he said. "Even so he was used to talk! But I didn't know you was the soft sort too, Heathman. What was Nat to you, or you to Nat, that you can stand up for him and talk this nonsense in the face of facts? Where's my money? When you tell me that, I'll tell you——"
"Who knows whether you'm forgot after all, Jack?" interrupted Joe Voysey. "Everybody ban't ruined. There's a few here and there—especially the awful poor people—as have had their money made good."
"I know all about that," answered Head; "'tis that fool, the parson. Masterman have no more idea of justice than any other church minister, and he's just picked and chosen according to his own fancy, and made it up to this man and that man out of his own riches."