"No, he didn't. They was tokened when he was forty, and kept company for five years."
"That ban't loving," she said.
"Of course it ban't! And yet father isn't what you might call a hard man. Far from it, to all but me. A big-hearted, kindly creature and a good father, if he could only understand more. Like a boy in some things. I'm sure I feel a lot older than him sometimes. If 'twas Ned now, he'd be friendly and easy as you please."
"What does Mrs. Baskerville say?"
"She's on our side, and so's my sisters. Polly and May think the world of you. 'Tisn't as if I was like my brother Ned—a lazy chap that hates the sight of work. I stand to work same as father himself, and he knows that; and when there's anything calling to be done, 'tis always, 'Where be Rupert to?" But lazy as Ned is, he'd let him marry to-morrow."
"Mr. Baskerville's frighted of losing you from Cadworthy, Rupert."
The young man looked out where a wood rose south of the bridge, and his father's farm lifted its black chimneys above the trees.
"He tells me I'm his right hand; and yet refuses, though this is the first thing that ever I've asked him," he said.
"Wouldn't he suffer it if you promised him to do as he done, and not marry for five years?"
"I'll promise no such thing. Father seems to think 'tis all moonshine, but I shall have another go at him when he comes home next week. Till then I shan't see you no more, for I've promised myself to get through a mighty pile of work—just to astonish him."