"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at the 'Trusty Man'?"
"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with great rapidity.
"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go, Prue."
Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there to remain patiently till closing time.
CHAPTER VII
The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man" went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full. Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation, was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of "father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery" was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover, that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over, he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the better he should be pleased.
"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to 'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin' 'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,—I keerz nawt aboot it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o' fields,—an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an' makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed, the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine, thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best way,—brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"
With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally. Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however, as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His round red face expressed nothing,—his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no intelligence,—he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large, heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.