"I won't say that, Abel; but I don't know why 'tis that he's got no use for me."
"No loss, however," asserted Thomas. "A cranky and heartless creature. The likes of him couldn't neighbour with the likes of us—not enough human kindness in him."
"Like our father afore him, and yet harder," explained the publican. "I can see my parent now—dark and grim, and awful old to my young eyes. Well I remember the first time I felt the sting of him. A terrible small boy I was—hadn't cast my short frocks, I believe—but I'd sinned in some little matter, and he give me my first flogging. And the picture I've got of father be a man with a hard, set face, with a bit of a grim smile on it, and his right hand hidden behind him. But I knowed what was in it! A great believer in the rod. He beat us often—all three of us—till we'd wriggle and twine like a worm on a hook; but our uncle, the musicker, he was as different as you please—soft and gentle, like my nephew Mark, and all for spoiling childer with sweeties and toys."
Mr. Gollop rose to depart, and others entered. Then Nathan called a pot-man and left the bar.
"I promised Mrs. Lintern as I'd go down to hear what Cora had to say," he explained. "I'm very hopeful that she's had the art to win Humphrey, for 'twill smooth the future a good bit for the people at Undershaugh if my brother takes to the wench. You'd think nobody could help it—such a lovely face as she has. However, we shall know how it fell out inside an hour or so."
Meanwhile Cora, clad in her new muslin, had faced Humphrey Baskerville, and faced him alone. For her future father-in-law expressly wished this, and Mark was from home on the occasion of his sweetheart's visit. Cora arrived twenty minutes before dinner, and watched Susan Hacker dish it up. She had even offered to assist, but Susan would not permit it.
"Better you go into the parlour and keep cool, my dear," she said. "You'll need to be. Master's not in the best of tempers to-day. And your young man left a message. He be gone to Plympton, and will be back by four o'clock; so, when you take your leave, you are to go down the Rut and meet him at Torry Brook stepping-stones, if you please."
"Where's Mr. Baskerville?"
"Taking the air up 'pon top the tor. He bides there most mornings till the dinner hour, and he'd forget his meal altogether so often as not, but I go to the hedge and ring the dinner bell. Then he comes down."
"How can I best please him, Susan?"