Nathan expressed instant regret and strove to lift the tone of the company. But the cloud did not pass so easily. Vivian himself soon forgot the incident; his children and his wife found it difficult. The young people, indeed, maintained a very dogged taciturnity and only talked among themselves in subdued tones. May and Polly waited upon the rest between the intervals of their own meal. They changed the dishes and went to and from the kitchen. Rupert and his youngest brother helped them, but Ned did not.
Some cheerfulness returned with the beer, and even Humphrey Baskerville strove to assist the general jollity; but he lacked the power. His mind was of the discomfortable sort that cannot suffer opinions, believed erroneous, to pass unchallenged. Sometimes he expressed no more than doubt; sometimes he dissented forcibly to Nathan's generalities. But after Vivian's heat at the beginning of the entertainment, his brother from 'The White Thorn' was cautious, and took care to raise no more dust of controversy.
The talk ran on the new vicar, and the master of Cadworthy spoke well of him.
"An understanding man, and for my part, though I can't pretend to like new things, yet I ban't going to quarrel for nothing. And if he likes to put the boys in surplices and make the maidens sit with the congregation, I don't see no great harm. They can sing praises to God wi' their noses to the east just so easy as they can facing north."
"Well said," declared Humphrey. "I've no patience with such fools as Gollop."
"As one outside and after a different persuasion, I can look on impartial," declared Nathan. "And I think with you both that Masterman is a useful and promising man. As for Gollop, he's the sort that can't see further than the end of the parish, and don't want to do so."
"For why? He'd tell you there's nought beyond," said Humphrey. "He foxes himself to think that the world can go on without change. He fancies that he alone of us all be a solid lighthouse, stuck up to watch the waves roll by. 'Tis a sign of a terrible weak intellect to think that everybody's changeable but ourselves, and that we only be the ones that know no shadow of changing. Yet I've seen many such men—with a cheerful conceit of themselves too."
"There's lots like that—common as blackberries in my bar," declared Nathan. "Old fellows most times, that reckon they are the only steadfast creatures left on earth, while everybody else be like feathers blown about in a gale of change."
"Every mortal man and woman be bound to change," answered his brother. "'Tis the law of nature. I'd give nought for a man of hard and fast opinions. Such stand high and dry behind the times."
But Vivian would not allow this.