"Fancy coming to a dead-alive hole like this! Why, even Jack Head from Trowlesworthy—him as works for Mr. Luscombe—even he laughs at Shaugh."
"He's a rare Radical, is Head. 'Tis the likes of him the upper people don't want to teach to read or to think—for fear of pickling a rod for themselves. But Head will be thinking. He's made so. I like him."
"He laughed at me for one," said Rupert; "and though I laughed back, I smarted under his tongue. He says for a young and strapping chap like me to stop at Cadworthy doing labourer's work for my father, be a poor-spirited and even a shameful thing. He says I ought to blush to follow a plough or move muck, with the learning I've learnt. Of course, 'tis a small, mean life, in a manner of speaking, for a man of energy as loves work like I do."
Mr. Baskerville scratched his head with the mouthpiece of his pipe, and surveyed Rupert for some time without speaking.
Then he rose, sniffed the air, and buttoned up his coat.
"We'll walk a bit and I'll show you something," he said.
They set out over Shaugh Moor and Rupert proceeded.
"I do feel rather down on my luck, somehow—especially about Milly Luscombe. It don't seem right or fair exactly—as if Providence wasn't on my side."
"Don't bleat that nonsensical stuff," said his uncle. "You're the sort that cry out to Providence if you fall into a bed of nettles—instead of getting up quick and looking for a dock-leaf. Time to cry to Providence when you're in a fix you can't get out of single-handed. If you begin at your time of life, and all about nothing too, belike 'twill come to be like the cry of 'Wolf, wolf!' and then, when you really do get into trouble and holloa out, Providence won't heed."
"Milly Luscombe's not a small thing, anyway. How can I go on digging and delving while father withstands me and won't hear a word about her?"