Chapter XIII: Joe on Economics

On a June evening Lawrence Maynard fell in with Dinah at Buckland, near the cottage of the old huntsman. Accident was responsible for their meeting, and they had not seen each other since the girl's engagement was at an end. Now the cowman was on his way to spend an evening with Enoch Withycombe, while Dinah intended to visit Falcon Farm and beg Susan and Mr. Stockman to interest themselves on her account and find her work.

"I can't get anything to do that will pleasure foster-father," she said. "He's so hard to please where I'm concerned, and he don't quite see so plain as I do that it's bad for me and everybody else my biding there."

"I dare say it is."

"Where's your black armlet what you wore for your dead master in Somerset?" she asked.

"I've left it off now with these new clothes."

She nodded.

"I'm going to see Cousin Joe and Susan. She's always been terrible kind to me. So has he for that matter. How have they took this? If they're very much against me, perhaps I'd best not go."

"It's interested 'em a lot. They've heard John's side mostly, because he comes up over now and again. But they keep fairly open minds about it."

"They don't know why I done it?"

"Yes. I ventured to say a word or two. No business of mine; but I just went so far as to explain that I'd seen you last bank holiday, and you told me what you thought to do, and why."

"Thank you I'm sure."

"No call for that. Common fairness. Mr. Stockman's very good to me and lets me talk if I've a mind to. He's a far-sighted, fair man, or so I find him."

"They won't jump down my throat, then?"

"Not likely. I'm going in to have a tell with Mr. Withycombe now. He's poorly, and a neighbour cheers him up and makes him forget his pains."

"What did he think about it, Mr. Maynard?"

"He thought you was right, I believe."

"I'm very glad of that. And what did you think?"

"You know what I thought, miss. I thought you was dead right."

She kept silent for a moment. Then she spoke.

"I wish to God Johnny would see it."

"He will--some day. He don't yet. He----"

Maynard stopped. She put her hand on his arm eagerly.

"Is there anything I could do or say to help him, should you think? If there was, I'd do it if it killed me."

"Nothing much to help him I should reckon."

"What was you going to say when you stopped?"

"Nothing worth saying--at least, something better not spoken for the minute."

She considered this.

"Please tell me if it can help him," she begged.

Now it was his turn to weigh his thoughts and the thing he had on his lips. He decided that he ought to tell her.

"It's this, then. They think at Falcon Farm that, if Johnny is patient, things may yet come right."

Dinah was cast down.

"Oh, I'm sorry they talk like that. Why do they?"

"Because they've seen him and not you, perhaps."

"I don't reckon I'll go now," said Dinah, but continued, before he could advise: "Yes, I will. I must. If there's any feeling like that about, it's only right they should know. I'm not the sort to play with a chap, and it's cruel to let Johnny think I am. But does he?"

"I dare say not."

They talked for another ten minutes. Then she prepared to go up the hill.

"You've done me good," she said, "and I'm very glad I met you. And I'd like to meet you again, please. D'you mind that walk I wanted to go? Will you take it now?"

He hesitated.

"Not if you don't want."

"It's like this, Miss Waycott. If there's a ghost of a chance that you go back to Johnny Bamsey, then I'd rather not, because it wouldn't be vitty and might add to trouble. So if you're in doubt--even a hair's breadth--we'd better wait."

"I'm not in doubt. I wouldn't have given myself all the hateful grief of doing it, nor yet him, if I hadn't made up my mind. I kept my mouth shut so long as there was a shadow of doubt--and long after there was no doubt for that matter. And you can tell 'em so at Falcon Farm, or anywhere."

"Then I'll be very pleased to take a walk any Sunday if you've a mind to."

"Sunday week then, if I don't find work before. I'll meet you--where?"

He considered.

"If 'tis fair and offering a fine afternoon, I'll be--but that's too far. If we're going to Hey Tor Rock, it's a long way for you anyhow."

"How if I was to come to dinner at Falcon Farm first?" she asked, and he approved the suggestion.

"A very good thought, then we can start from there."

"Sure you don't mind?"

"Proud."

They parted then and Dinah, cheered by the incident of this meeting, went on her way.

She liked Maynard, not for himself, but his attitude to life. Yet, had he been other than himself, she had probably not found him interesting. He was always the same--polite and delicate minded. Such qualities in an elderly man had left her indifferent; but, as she once said to him, the young turn to the young. Maynard was still young enough to understand youth, and it seemed to Dinah that he had understood her very well. She was grateful to him for promising to take the walk. He would be sure to say sensible things and help her. And she wanted to tell him more about her own feelings. Life had unsettled her, and she was learning painful rather than pleasant facts about it. She began dimly to fear there must be more painful than pleasant facts to learn. Several desires struggled with her--the first to see Johnny again and be forgiven and resume a friendly relation, if that were possible. His sustained anger she could not comprehend; and if, as she began to hear, her old lover still hoped to make it up, the puzzle became still greater.

She reached Falcon Farm with two determinations: to talk to Johnny and declare that she could never change again; and to ask herself to dinner, for the sake of the walk with Lawrence Maynard. To make any mystery of the walk had not occurred to her, or him. She did not even think that anybody might put any particular interpretation upon it.

When she reached the farm on the hill, Joe Stockman and Thomas Palk had been for an hour in conversation. It was an evening when in good heart and more than usually amiable, Joe had offered his horseman a "spot of whisky" from his own bottle, and Thomas, accepting it, had cautiously entered upon a little matter for some time in his mind.

Susan sat at the table mending her father's socks, while the men were by the hearth, for the kitchen fire never went out at Falcon Farm and Joe always found it agreeable after sun-down, even in high summer.

Mr. Palk crept to his theme with great strategy. He spoke of the price of commodities in general and the difficulties that confronted even a bachelor with a good home and satisfactory work.

"The thought of a new black coat do make you tremble nowadays," he said.

"Then put the thought away from you, Thomas," advised Mr. Stockman. "I'm often wishful for little comforts myself, as is natural at my time of life; but I say to myself, 'The times are hard and these ban't days to set an example of selfishness.' The times are lean, Thomas, and we've got to practise the vartue of going without--high and low alike."

"Everybody knows one thing: that everybody else did ought to be working harder," said Susan. "You hear it all round. Where I go, up or down, I always seem to find men loafing about saying the people did ought to be working harder."

"True for you, Soosie-Toosie. I've marked the like. 'Tis all very well for Thomas here to say the prices be cruel; but the question is, 'Why are they?' And I'll tell you for why. Labour says Capital ought to give more; and Capital says Labour ought to work harder; and so they both stand chattering at each other like magpies and saying the country's going to the devil. Whereas, if they'd take a lesson from us of the land and put their backs into it with good will, the sun would soon come from behind the cloud. If each man would mind his own business and not waste his time judging his neighbour and envying him, we'd get a move on. You don't find the professional people grizzling and whining for more money--doctors and lawyers and such like. Nor farmers neither."

"No," said Thomas, "because their job pays and they fetch in the cash and have enough to put by. I'd be so cheerful as them if I could make so much. I'd work like hell pulling mangel if I could get half as much by it as a dentist do pulling teeth. And the great puzzle to me is why for should pulling teeth be worth a fortune and pulling mangel deny me a new Sunday coat?"

"Never heard you to say such a foolish thing afore, Thomas," answered Joe. "My dear man, you voice the whole silly staple of Labour when you say that. And I always thought you was above the masses in your ideas, as we all are to Buckland--or most of us. A thing is only worth what it will fetch, Thomas, and the root of our trouble at this minute is because Labour is forcing Capital to pay it more than it did ought to fetch."

"Labour's worth what it can get," ventured Susan, and her father rebuked her.

"A very wicked thought and I'm sorry you can sink to it," he said. "It's that opinion and a weak Government that's ruining the kingdom. Look at it, Thomas. Here's a man has three pounds a week for doing what an everyday boy of fifteen could do as well. That's false economy to begin with, because that man can't honestly earn three golden pounds in a week. He haven't got the parts to do it. And if millions of men are getting more than they can earn, what's happening?"

"They must have the money to live," said Thomas.

"For the moment they must," admitted his master, "and they're getting it, but where half their time be wasted is in wrangling over keeping it. The fools won't work, because they're afraid of their lives if they do, their wages will come down; and they don't see, so kitten-blind they are, that the very best thing that could happen to them would be that their wages should come down. For what would that mean? It would mean things was returning to their true values, and that a pound was in sight of being worth twenty bob again."

"That's it," answered Thomas. "If three pound be worth only thirty shilling, they must have three pound."

"Listen to me, my son. Would you rather have three pound, worth thirty shilling, or two pound, worth forty? You'd rather have two worth forty; and when Labour sees that two worth forty be better than three worth thirty, then, very like, Labour will set to work to make two worth forty again. That's what their leading men know so well as me; but they're a damned sight too wicked to rub it into the rank and file, because 'twould ease Capital so well as Labour and they've no wish to do a stroke for Capital or the nation at large. They be out for themselves first and last and always. And while the people be so busy fighting for money that they ain't got time to earn it, so long the English sovereign and the world at large will have to wait to come into its own."

"And meantime three pound be worth less than thirty bob; and that's what interests me most for the minute," said Mr. Palk.

"Don't look at it in a small way, Thomas. Don't darken counsel by thinking of number one," urged Joe. "That's what everybody's doing, God forgive 'em. You preach work, in season and out, for at this gait the younger generation will never know what work means. They be hungering to eat without working, and that means starvation for all. Paper's only paper, Thomas, and gold's always gold, till man ceases to think in the pound sterling. So what we want is to get back on to the sure ground of solid gold and establish ourselves again as the nation with the biggest balance at the bank. But us must take these high questions in a high spirit, and not let little things, like a new black coat, blind the sight."

"You speak for Capital, however," murmured Mr. Palk. "I can't withstand 'e, of course, because I haven't been aggicated; but----"

"I speak for Labour quite so much as for Capital," declared Mr. Stockman. "I began life as a labouring boy and I'm a labouring man still, as you can vouch for. I'm only telling Labour, what it don't know and won't learn, that if it worked harder and jawed less, it would be putting money in its pocket. As things are it's a child yowling for the moon."

"Then I suppose I be," said Thomas, "for I was going to put it to you, man to man, that it would be a Godsend to me if you could lift me five bob, or even three."

Soosie-Toosie cast a frightened glance at Mr. Palk and another at her father; but Joe was smiling.

"More money--eh? Now that's a great thought, Thomas--a very great thought. Fancy! And why for, Thomas, if I may ask without making a hole in my manners?"

"For my dead sister's boy," said Mr. Palk. "There's no money, because his father's out of work and I'm very wishful to lend a hand on his account."

"And very creditable to you, Thomas; and how comes it his lawful father's out of work?"

It was at this moment, to the joy of Susan, that Dinah knocked at the door. She leapt up and thankfully brought the visitor back with her.

Mr. Stockman, too, was pleased.

"Company, Thomas," he said. "We'll take this subject up at another time. Don't think I'll forget it. I never forget anything, for though the body's weak, worse luck, the mind is clear. Dinah, I see--and why not? You'll always find friends here, Orphan Dinah."

Thomas emptied his glass and disappeared, while Dinah plunged into the first object of her visit.

"I'm glad you haven't throwed me over for what I've done," she said.

"Far from it," replied Mr. Stockman. "Is Soosie-Toosie the sort that judges, or be I?"

"We're only terrible sorry for all parties, Dinah," said Susan; "and we hope it will come smooth again."

"So do I," answered the younger; "but not the way you mean, Soosie. For it to come smooth is for John to understand I didn't do a wicked thing, only a mistaken thing. And I had to put the mistaken thing right."

She went over old ground and made it clear that none must expect her to go back.

"I hope I'll live to see John happily wedded," she said. "And I never shan't be happy, I reckon, till he is."

"And what about you?" asked Joe. "What's the truth, Dinah?"

She explained that she was not constituted to love.

"I'm like Soosie," she said. "Us be the sort that's happier single." But Miss Stockman laughed.

"You're a good few years too young to tell like that, Dinah. You wait till all this here storm be blowed over and 'tis calm weather in your mind again. You'm born to be married to the right one. If he don't come along, then, with your experience of making a mistake, you never will be married I dare say; but 'tis any odds he will come along I expect."

Dinah, however, shook her head.

"A mistake like what I've made be a very shattering thing," she said. "I wouldn't have the nerve to go into it no more. There's a lot of unmarried women wanted to carry on the work of the world nowadays."

"And always was," declared Joe. "There's plenty of the sensible sort about, like Soosie-Toosie, who know where they stand and be helping on the world very nice indeed. And though some, here and there, may cast a side glance at marriage, it's often because they don't know when they be well off. However, education's opening their eyes a good deal. The deepest minded sort, such as Susan, don't marry; and even them that do wed put it off a good bit because they see in their wisdom it's better to have a certainty to go to than a hope; and better to be the mother of two than ten. I understand these things, I may tell you, and the moment the world gets wise and puts war away for ever, then us won't hear no more from the parsons about breeding, and the populations will go down and prosperity will go up. A time is coming when a man with ten children will be a disgrace and a quiverful a proper laughing-sport."

"I dare say it will," agreed Dinah.

"Yes--the women will see to that. There was a time when a labouring man bred like a rabbit, in hopes that his dutiful childer would keep him out of the workhouse at the end; but that time's past. The poor women begin to see, like the better-most females, that child-bearing ain't the only use for 'em and not the best fun in the world anyhow."

They promised her to remember her need for work, and Joe undertook to see a friend or two at Ashburton who might be able to find it. Then, thanking them very heartily, she asked a question.

"May I come to dinner Sunday week?"

They approved, and Joe hoped by that time he might be able to report progress.

"I've got another reason," she explained. "Mr. Maynard is a very understanding man and he's promised to go for a walk and show me a stone on the moor I'm wishful to see."

Susan was interested.

"Lor, Dinah!" she said.

Mr. Stockman appeared to be buried in thought for a moment.

"Did he ask you, or did you ask him to go for a walk, Orphan Dinah?" he inquired.

"I asked him. I asked him a long time back and he wouldn't go, because he reckoned Johnny wouldn't like it. But I wanted to see the stone, and I wanted to hear Mr. Maynard talk, because he's a very sensible chap and has said several things that did me good. And so I asked him again, and he's got no objection--not now."

"He's a very sensible man as you say," declared Joe, "a more sensible man for his years I haven't met. In fact he's old for his years--for various reasons."

"Would you have any objection, Cousin Joe?" asked Dinah.

He considered.

"No," he decided. "I wish John could have been of the party, I'm sure; but since that's off for all time, then there's nothing wrong in your taking a walk with Maynard. Nor would there be any harm in any case. I know all about Maynard. He's all right; and, of course, if you asked him to go for a walk, Dinah, he couldn't very well refuse to do so."

"He's a very seeing man," said Dinah, "and he thinks a lot of you, Cousin Joe."

"And why not?"

"He might marry himself," said Susan.

"He's not the sort to hurry it," answered the girl. "He don't care for women overmuch seemingly."

Dinah drank a cup of milk and presently set out to walk home. Susan admired her courage.

"Nothing daunts you," she said. "I wouldn't go down through the woods in the night by myself for the world."

"Night's got no more to it than day," declared the other. "I like it--specially when you have such a lot of trouble on your mind."

She met Maynard returning home, but did not stop more than a moment.

"I'm coming Sunday week," she said, "and Cousin Joe's got no objection to us going out walking."

"Good night, miss. I hope we'll have a fine day for it. Can't go else," he answered.

"How's Mr. Withycombe?"

"Suffering a good bit I'm sorry to say."

"I'm sorry, too."

Lawrence had forgotten the question of the walk while with the old huntsman. Now he considered it and was glad that Dinah had spoken about it in her open fashion. He apprehended pleasure from it, yet doubted a little. There hung a shadow over his reflections--something to which he could not have set a word. In so much that the shade should hover over his own thoughts it amused him, and assured that it could not cloud Dinah's, he dismissed the futility from his mind.