Chapter XXVI: Mr. Palk Seeks Advice

An observer of life has remarked that it is pleasanter to meet such men as owe us benefits, than those to whom we owe them. When, therefore, Thomas Palk appeared one Saturday afternoon in the workshop of Arthur Chaffe at Lower Town, the carpenter, guessing he came for gratitude, was pleased to see him. It was a half holiday, but Mr. Chaffe ignored such human weaknesses. He held that the increased demand for shorter working hours was among the most evil signs of the times, failing to appreciate the difference between working for yourself and other people in this regard.

Thomas plunged into an expression of gratitude immediately while the carpenter proceeded with his business.

"We've got our rise, master, and Mr. Stockman named your name and said we had to thank you for the size of the lift--me and Maynard, that is. And hearing that, I felt it was duty to do it."

"And thank you also, Thomas. Few remember such things. Joe's a wonderful man and, like yourself, ain't above giving credit to them who earn it."

"He wouldn't have gone so far single-handed."

"Don't say that. I only pushed him along the road he was taking. The employer be always reluctant to see things are worth what they'll fetch, except when he's selling his own stuff. But the Trades Unions be bent on showing them. A world of changes, as poor Enoch used to say. Not that he had much use for Trades Unions. He'd read about the Guilds of the old days and held they was powerfuller and better for some things. And they thought of the workmanship: Trades Unions only think of the worker. What I call workmanship, such as you see in this shop, I hope, be a thing of the past, save among old men like me. But the joy of making be gone."

"There's some things have got to be done right and not scamped, however."

"True; the work on the land must be done right, or the face of the earth will show it. There's only one right way to drive a furrow, or milk a cow. You can't scamp and 'ca'canny' when you'm milking a cow, Thomas. But the joy of the workmanship be gone out of work in the young men. Wages come between them and the work of their hands, and while the bricklayer jaws to the hodman, the bricks go in anyhow. Patience be the first thing. Human nature's human nature, and 'tis no use wanting better bread than's made of wheat."

"If everybody was patient," said Mr. Palk, "then the hosses, and even the donkeys, would come into their own no doubt. But patience be too often mistook for contentment; and when the masters think you'm content, they be only too pleased to leave it at that."

"Yet impatience is the first uprooter of happiness," argued Mr. Chaffe. "Take a little thing like habits. Only yesterday a particular nice, clean old woman was grumbling to me because her husband's simple custom was to spit in the fire when he was smoking; and sometimes he'd miss the fire. A nasty vexation for her no doubt; but not a thing as ought to cast a shadow over a home. Our habits are so much a part of ourselves, that it never strikes us we can worry our friends with 'em; but if you consider how the habits of even them you care about often fret you, then you'll see how often your little ways fret them."

"No doubt 'tis well to be patient with your neighbour's habits, so long as they'm honest," admitted Mr. Palk.

"Certainly; because if you don't, you'll set him thinking and find you'll get as good as you give. Patience all round be the watchword, Tom, and it would save a power of friction if it was practised. Nobody knows where his own skeleton pinches but himself, and to rate folk harshly may be doing a terrible cruel thing and touching a raw the sufferer can't help."

"Like Ben Bamsey," said the horseman. "'Tis whispered he've grown tootlish since his famous illness. That'll call for patience at Green Hayes."

"True love's always patient, my dear. Yes, the poor old man be sinking into the cloud, and the only bright thought is that he won't know it, or suffer himself. But them with brains will suffer to see him back in childhood. Yet he was always a childlike man and none the worse for it. The light's growing dim, and doctor says he'll fade gradual till he don't know one from another. And then, such is human nature, his family will change gradual too, and forget what he was, and come slow and sure to think of him as a thing like the kettle, or washing day--just a part of life and a duty and not much more."

"Better he'd died."

"You mustn't say that. He may very like have a stroke and go soon, doctor says; but he'll live so long as he's useful here to his Maker. He'll be a reminder and a lesson and a test of character. His wife will see he don't come to be just a shadow, like a picture on the wall--so will I, so far as I can. He's been a very great friend of mine and always will be, wits or no wits."

Mr. Palk, impressed with these opinions, was inspired to ask a question that had long troubled him. He had never made a very close confident of Maynard, feeling the man too young, and also doubting his ideas on various topics; but here was a Christian of general esteem and one older than himself. He debated the point while a silence fell, save for the noise of Arthur's plane.

"Tell me this," he said suddenly. "By and large would you reckon that if a man sees a wrong thing being done--or what seems a wrong thing in his eyes--did he ought to seek to right it? It ain't his business in a manner of speaking; and yet, again, wrong be everybody's business; and yet, again, others might say it weren't a wrong at all and the man's judgment in fault to say it was wrong."

Arthur cast down his plane and pondered this somewhat vague proposition. But his quick mind, even while considering the case, found a subconscious way of also speculating as to what lay behind it. He knew everybody's affairs and was familiar with a rumour that Maynard secretly paid court to Dinah Waycott. For some reason he suspected that this might be in the mind of Maynard's fellow-worker.

"You put the question very well, Tom, and yet make it a bit difficult to answer," he said. "For it ain't a straight question, but hemmed about with doubt. If you was to say you saw wrong being done and asked me if you ought to try and right it, than I should answer you that it was your bounden duty to try to right it and not let anything come between. But you ban't sure in your mind if it is wrong being done, so that's the point you've got to fasten on and clear up; and until I know more of the facts of the case, I couldn't say more than that you must be sure afore you set about it."

Thomas Palk considered this speech and did not immediately reply, while Arthur spoke again.

"Have you heard anybody else on the subject, or be it a thing only come to your own notice? Mind I don't want to know a word about it--only to help you, or, if it ain't you yourself, whoever it may be."

"It is me," answered the other. "And I see what I take to be a wrong thing going on. I don't feel no doubt myself; but I can't say as anybody else but me seems to see it. And if I was to up and say I thought so, which I ban't at all feared to do, I might open his eyes, or I might not."

"Would you be harming anybody if it was took in a wrong spirit?"

"It didn't ought to."

"There's no anger to it, nor nothing like that, Thomas?"

"Not a bit. I'm very friendly disposed to all concerned."

"Mind--don't you answer if you don't want; but is there a woman in it, Thomas?"

Mr. Palk considered.

"If there was?"

"Then be terrible careful."

"There is--and that's all I be going to tell you," answered Mr. Palk, growing a little uneasy.

The carpenter doubted not that here lay direct allusion to Dinah and Lawrence; but he had no motive, beyond inherent curiosity, for going farther into that matter then. Indeed, he saw the gathering concern of Mr. Palk and sought only to put him at his ease.

"You're not a boy," he said. "And you have got plenty of experience of human nature and a Christian outlook. I should fall back on my religion if I was you, Tom, for you can trust that to lead over the doubtfullest ground. You're not a joker-head, as would rush in and make trouble along of hasty opinions; and if you think what's doing be wrong, and if you think a word in season might do good and make the mistaken party hesitate afore he went on with it, then, in my judgment, you'd do well and wisely to speak. But keep the woman in your mind and do naught to hurt her."

Mr. Palk expired a deep breath of satisfaction at this counsel.

"So be it," he said. "I'll do it; and for the sake of a female it will be done."

"Then you won't have it on your conscience, whether or no, Thomas."

"'Tis my conscience be doing of it," said Mr. Palk; "it can't be nothing else."

Nevertheless he felt a measure of doubt on this point. His motives were beyond his own power of analysis.

"I might come and let you know the upshot one day," he said.

"You'll be welcome, and all the more so if I can do you a good turn," promised Mr. Chaffe; then Thomas went his way.

There now awaited him a very formidable deed; but he was determined not to shrink from it, while still quite unable to explain to himself the inspiration to anything so tremendous.