Chapter VIII: The Old Fox-Hunter

Joe Stockman had tried a new haricot bean for his own table and was now engaged in the easy task of shelling the brown husks and extracting the pearly white seeds. It amused him and put no strain upon his faculties. But he tired of it after ten minutes. He sat in an out-house with a mass of the dried pods beside him, and as the boy, Neddy Tutt, passed by, Joe's eye twinkled and he called.

"Look here, Ned--a-proper wonder--I'll show 'e something as no human eye have ever seen since the beginning of the world!" he cried out, and Neddy, agape, approached.

"Don't you be frightened," said Joe. "Won't hurt 'e."

Then under the lad's round eyes, he opened a bean pod and roared with laughter. Neddy also grinned.

"Now you go about your business, my son," said his master, and then, wearying of the beans, he stretched himself and looked out of doors. The day was mild and still. Mr. Stockman went into his kitchen and called Susan.

"Get on with they beans, there's a dear; I've been at 'em till my fingers ache; and we'll have a dish to-night for supper if you please. Such things be never so nice as when fresh and soft--far better than boughten beans. And I'll poke round and see if I can pick up a wood-pigeon to go with 'em. 'Tis soft by the feel of it this morning and a little exercise won't do me no harm."

She nodded, and getting a gun, Joe disappeared with his dogs. He skirted an outlying field, where Maynard and Palk were pulling mangel-wurzel. Bending low they plodded along, with the rhythmic swing and harmonious action proper to their work. Simultaneously with each hand they pulled up two roots from the earth, then jerked their wrists, so that the great turnips fell shorn of their foliage. The roots dropped on one side, the leaves were thrown down on the other, and behind each labourer extended long, regular lines--one of mangel awaiting the cart, one of heavy leaves. Mr. Stockman praised the roots, put a task or two upon Lawrence and Thomas for later in the day, and proceeded into the woods. It was Saturday, and when first they came, there had been a general understanding that on the afternoon of that day leisure might be enjoyed at Falcon Farm as far as possible; but slowly--so slowly that Lawrence had hardly remarked it--the farmer appeared to forget this vague arrangement; indeed, he exhibited a marked ingenuity in finding minor tasks for the later hours of that day. Thomas Palk, who had less to occupy his mind than his fellow labourer, was conscious of this fact, and when Joe had proceeded after the wood-pigeons he pointed it out.

"His hand tightens," he said. "You may have marked it, or you may not, and it don't matter to you seemingly, because you've got nothing to do of a Saturday afternoon; but I have."

Lawrence conceded the fact.

"He likes his pound of flesh. But you haven't got anything to quarrel with, Tom."

"I don't say I have."

"Best way is to tell him clear at the beginning of a week that you want next Saturday afternoon off--then he knows and it goes through all right."

"You might think it was the best way," answered Palk; "but it ain't, because I've tried it. If you do that, he'll run you off your legs all the week, and hit upon a thousand jobs, and always remind you about Saturday, and say he knows as you'll be wanting to put in a bit extra, owing to the holiday coming. Then he'll offer to do your work o' Saturday afternoon, though of course there ain't none, and make a great upstore about putting off a bit of pleasuring he'd planned for himself."

Maynard laughed and stood up for a moment to rest the muscles of his back.

"It'll take cleverer chaps than us to be even with him."

"A cruel, vexatious man, and knows how to balance the good against the bad so clever that nobody in his senses would leave him," grumbled the elder.

They continued to pull the great golden roots from the earth, and for a long time neither spoke. Then Palk, whose mind still ran on his Saturday afternoon, explained that he had intended to meet a man at Ashburton and would now be unable to do so.

"If that's it, don't bother. I'm free and I can do all he wanted," said Lawrence.

"If you can, then I'm obliged," answered the horseman. "It's somebody I'm very wishful to see, because he married my sister. She's dead, but she had a son, and I like to know, for his mother's sake, how he's going on."

Maynard was not interested and they spoke no more. At the side of the field they were building up the roots into a "cave"--packing them together and then heaping earth upon them. The hour was early noon, and at the end of the row they desisted, emptied the full cart at the hedge-side and presently went in to dinner.

"I'm going to see that old hunter, Enoch Withycombe, again to-morrow," declared the younger. "He's a queer man to meet. Wonderful the learning he's gotten, along of being crippled and nought much to do but read and think."

"Miss Susan says he's not a very good companion for you young men, however."

"Why, Tom?"

"Along of his opinions."

"He's taught me a lot."

"That you may have to unlearn. They clever men are dangerous. I don't like clever men. You never know where you are with 'em."

Mr. Stockman did not return for dinner and they ate it with Susan. She was perturbed at the necessity of going to Ashburton for her father.

"He wants half a dozen things, and I'm so properly busy here this week-end that I don't know how I'll do it," she declared, unaware that Thomas was going down.

Slowly it dawned over his mind that he might serve her. He hesitated, for he dreaded making any original proposition. He felt ready and even desirous to offer his services, but spoke not from native caution. Maynard, however, helped him.

"Tom's going in," he said. "Can't he do it?"

"I've no right to trouble him," answered Soosie-Toosie.

"Why not, then? I'm sure he'll do anything he can."

"He might be busy on his own account?"

"He'll make time if he can save you trouble."

They debated the question as though Mr. Palk were not present. He listened quite silently; but finally, when it became impossible not to state his opinion on the point, he spoke.

"I will certainly do so," he said. "If you'll write them down, I will carry out the items, miss."

"It's asking too much," hesitated Susan.

"It may be, or it may not," he answered. "But I'll do it--for you."

She thanked him very heartily. She was honestly most grateful.

"It's proper kind and will take a great weight off my mind, Mr. Palk."

"Set 'em down; and if there's anything to be carried, I'll carry it."

Susan evinced her gratitude, but repeated her fears that she was asking too much. She was almost excited and forgot her dinner.

"There's the patterns from the tailor first. Father wants a new, warm suit, and be hopeful Mr. West have got the same stuff as before; but tailor will give you a little book of patterns, as will go in your pocket I should think. And there's they cough drops made with black currants for father, and his boots, that went to be mended, and his new leggings."

"Nought for yourself?" asked Thomas.

"That'll be enough. What I want can wait."

"No," he said slowly. "If there's any chores for you, set 'em down. In for a penny, in for a pound."

"A reel of thread at Miss Bassett's shop and a pound of loaf sugar--but there, you've got enough without them."

"Put 'em down."

"And if tailor's shut, will you knock at the side door? 'Tis understood I be coming."

"I'll knock at the side door if tailor's shut," promised Thomas. He was really gratified at receiving this commission, but his vague, subconscious emotion on the subject, even if he had desired to declare it, was of a nature far too nebulous for any words.

He went and duly returned with the patterns for Joe's new suit, his cough lozenges and the rest. Both Susan and Mr. Stockman expressed the deepest thanks.

"Nevertheless, Thomas, another time it may be better, in my humble judgment, if each of us does his appointed task," said the master. "You see, if I may say so, it puts us out of our stride if you do my daughter's lawful work, and Maynard does yours. I'm a great believer in method, Thomas, as you are yourself, thank God; so I feel pretty sure you'll put duty afore pleasure another time. And now I hope you're going to take a spot out of my new bottle of whisky along with me."

Mr. Palk replied nothing, but accepted the drink and hid his thoughts.

Next day Lawrence kept his engagement to see the old huntsman, and their conversation advanced their friendship. Maynard was under a common experience and had found that one man might charm his confidence in one direction, while another could win him upon a different plane. One string in him had vibrated to the geniality, tolerance and worldly wisdom of his new master and he had responded thereto; while the bed-ridden man in the valley served to awaken a different interest and attract the young man on higher, impersonal grounds. Enoch Withycombe was friendly and fearless. He loved talking, for no other social activity remained to him, and he enjoyed to retail the experiences of his life and the results of his reading, both in season and out. He declared that there was no better way to remember the things that he best liked in his past, and in his books, than by restating them to any who would listen. Some indeed mourned Enoch's opinions; but others were impressed by his acquired learning, and humble men, though they failed to follow his arguments, felt flattered that he should be at the trouble to discourse with them on such large subjects.

Maynard had found a common bond, and with the enthusiasm of the young went farther in some directions than the veteran was prepared to follow. For Enoch had a great theory that nobody must move faster than his wits could carry him, or accept any truth beyond his intelligence to grasp and, if need be, explain again.

Thus it happened that while Joe Stockman knew most about Lawrence's actual history, Mr. Withycombe alone learnt the result of the young man's experience in terms of opinion and belief. The one had sympathy and understanding for the objective events in Maynard's life, the other listened to the subjective convictions arising from those events. To-day Enoch's visitor indicated the nature of his own ideas, in language that Mr. Withycombe felt was too definite.

Lawrence sat by the invalid's bed, for the day was cold and wet and Enoch had not risen. Melinda was out for the afternoon, and Maynard had undertaken to keep her father company and make the tea. Invited to give his views on the eternal question, the young man did so.

"You can only judge of things by your own experience," he said. "You must talk of life as you find it, I reckon, not as somebody else finds it. It's what God Almighty does to us must decide our honest view about Him--not what He does to our neighbours."

Enoch was alert at once.

"A doubtful view, but go on; I'll hear your argument first."

"My argument is that God Almighty have treated me like a cat treats a mouse--that's my argument. Let me go a little way in hope, then down comes His Hand again; let me think I'm clear and free of doubt and difficulty and begin to get my breath and look round, and He pounces again. Cruelty for certain, and makes you feel that what He taught the cat to do, He thinks is a very good plan and worth copying."

"That's too ownself a view--too narrow far. You're not everybody."

"No; but I'm somebody; and if God makes a mouse, He ought to respect it; and since He's made me, He ought to respect me, so long as I'm respectable. I've got my rights, same as everything that comes in the world. If you make a child, it's your duty to cherish it, and think for it, and be jealous for it."

"But God don't make us like we make our children," said Enoch. "We ain't His own flesh and blood, Maynard. With a child, the kinship's closer. Our blood be in them and our faults, belike, are handed on. In fact, 'tis a terrible serious thing, knowing yourself, to make a child in your own image; and that's why Nature tickles us to do it afore we've got the wits to think twice. But God--that's different."

"Why? Either He's our Eternal, loving Father, or He ain't? And we're told He is. Then why don't He go one better than our good, earthly fathers, Mr. Withycombe, and put a bit more of Himself into us to start us safer? Have God ever neighboured with me? Have He ever allowed for my weakness, or lent a hand to help me through the dark places, or shown a light when I needed it most? Never. I've had to go single-handed all my life. And, when I've done my best to be straight and honest, has He ever patted me on the back and rewarded me? Never. He's flung my pride and my blood in my face, and showed up the past, when I hoped and prayed it was buried, and landed me in new difficulties, when I thought by my own just acts I had the right to suffer no more. He won't come between a man and his past, or save your character from the tyrant things stuffed into it by your havage."*

* _Havage_--ancestry.

"The sins of the fathers are visited on the children, my lad, because the Lord's reasonable and can't strain His own laws for special cases."

"Then He's weaker than man, who can do so. A just judge will often strain a law in particular cases, when he knows that to enforce it would be unjust. No God of justice would visit the sins of the fathers on the children surely?"

"When you say 'justice,' you use a very big word. There's the justice of Nature, which often looks unjust to our eyes, the justice that makes the fittest to survive. Not the fittest in our point of view, very likely. We fight Nature there, because what we understand by 'fittest' be what makes for our own convenience and advancement. But she's not out for us more'n anything else, and if she was to set to work on our account, and banish our enemies, and serve our friends, that wouldn't be justice from her point of view. And the justice of God's the same as that, Maynard. You may be tolerable sure He ain't out for us first and last and always. God's got a darned sight more on His hands than Buckland-in-the-Moor, or the world for that matter; and if our intellects was big enough to fathom His job, or get an idea of the Universe and the meaning of the Creator of the Universe, then we should see that His justice must be something long ways different from ours. 'Tis a quality of sin that it plays back and forth, like an echo, and every human knows that the sins of the children be visited on the parents, quite as often as it goes t'other way. Law's law."

"You wouldn't whip your child for showing the sins you put into him yourself?"

"Yes, I would, if I could help whip 'em out of him by so doing. I know a man, who told me he never felt his own sins come back to roost so bitter cruel, as when he had to flog his son for committing the same. These things are dark mysteries, you must know, and we can only see 'em, not solve 'em. But you mustn't let your own faults and misfortunes make you a sour man. That won't help you."

"It comes down to this," said Maynard: "either you end in believing in God, or not. I can talk to you, because you're broadminded and a thinker."

"Yes, it comes down to God, or no God," admitted Enoch. "And if you do believe in Him, then it's no manner of use yelping at Him, or whining at the way He treats you. You've got to knuckle under and there's an end of it. And if you don't believe in Him, then it's equally silly to snivel; because, if there's no God, then you might as well be a hound and bay at the moon as talk hard words against Him. There's a lot I read in my books that shows me the free-thinkers ain't so much angry with God, as angry with their neighbours for believing in Him. And what's the sense of that?"

"Do you believe in Him, if I may ask?"

"Most certainly I do. But once I did not. For a time I did in my fox-hunting days. Then I was terrible frightened of Him and felt a lot of fear when I saw good men suffer bad things. Then, when I was smashed, I flung Him over, lock, stock and barrel, and didn't worry no more. But now I believe in Him again."

"I believe in Him too," said Lawrence.

"Then believe in Him, and don't waste your wind and fret your wits blaming Him, because He don't do to others as He teaches us to do to others. If you believe, you must hold that His ways ain't our ways and that He sees the end from the beginning and suchlike comforting opinions. To believe in Him and think that you could go one better than Him is silly."

"One thing's certain: you can't have it both ways."

"You never spoke a truer word," admitted Mr. Withycombe. "Foxhunting taught me that afore you were born; and life didn't ought to hurt a man that admits it. You've looked at life with seeing eyes no doubt, and you must have seen lots of men treated worse than you, as well as better. The machine treats the blades of grass much the same, whether they be tall or short, and to be under the harrow, or under the weather, is the common lot of us all. Only a man's self knows his luck--not them looking at him from outside. One primrose be set on the south side of the hedge, another on the north; but that never puzzles me, or troubles them."

Maynard was very silent before this philosophy. The ideas came as something new and the speaker's attitude of good-humoured, mental superiority did not tempt him to explain the reason for his own pessimistic attitude.

Presently Enoch challenged him.

"And what have you got to say against that?" he asked.

"Nothing at all. The point of view's everything, and if you, from your bed of sickness, can feel all's for the best, I suppose I ought."

"There's all sorts of beds of sickness," answered Mr. Withycombe, "and no doubt the highest wisdom would say that sickness of the body is a lesser evil than sickness of the mind. But it's a very natural thing that a young man like you should be more interested in your own case than any other, and think it harder than any other. You all do; I don't blame you for that. But, with your good wits and good health and the world before you, there's no reason why you should let the past make you too down-daunted, whatever it may have done to you. There's always the future for a young man."

"The past can bitch up the future past praying for, however," argued Maynard, and the hunter considered the statement.

"The future be at the mercy of the past in a manner of speaking I grant," he said; "but a lot depends on whether we hurt ourselves in the past, or was only hurt by other people. Of course bad blood in our veins and vices can maim our future past praying for, as you say; but, with an even-minded man like you, I should judge you'd always been master of your past, and so ought to face the future more hopeful than what you seem to."

Lawrence still felt no desire to go into details. He guessed that Mr. Withycombe must be a great talker and knew not as yet whether confidences would be sacred. Moreover, he was weary of the subject and thought that the other might be.

"I dare say you're right. It may be a fool's trick always to keep the past before your eyes and let it shadow the future. That is if you can help it. But--however, you'll be pretty tired of me and my affairs. The thing is to take big views."

"It is--and to take views that ain't got the figure of No. 1 stuck in front of 'em, Maynard. The first thing to do, if you be going to set up for a thinker, is to rule yourself out, and all you dread and fear, and all you wish and desire. You've got to clear yourself out of the way; and some can, and then, if they've got brains, they see things clearer; and some can't, and that sort will never add a mite to their own wisdom, or anybody's. Get me my tea now. Us'll drink some tea. It's good of you and other men to be here now and again, because it gives my daughter a chance to stretch her legs and get the news. Now I should call her a sensible pattern of woman."

"So she is then. And a very popular woman, Mr. Withycombe."

"She's one that haven't let ill fortune sour her. No childer, and a husband lost before his time. But there she is, fifty year old and facing life and its duties and the dull task of a bed-ridden father, all so quiet and seemly as need be. No grumbling--not a sigh. I'm devilish cranky when the pain's bad; and though we can all be very wise to our neighbours of a Sunday afternoon, like this, there's times when we ain't very wise to our relations on weekdays. The past--the past--small wonder we look back if it's been as good as mine."

Maynard got the tea from the kitchen and arranged a bed-table for the invalid.

"Fire's right for toasting," he said. "Shall I make some?"

"Do so. A good thought. You don't tell me the reasons for your dark view of things and I don't want 'em--don't think it. But I'll ax you something of a private nature, because you'll respect confidence. No need to answer, however, if you feel it's none of your business. And it certainly is not. But if you can reply in strict confidence, young man, you'll pleasure me. Does Joe Stockman ever tell about Melinda, or give his opinion upon her?"

"He does. He's got a mighty high opinion of her and says she's a burning light and a lesson to all the women. He don't hide his feelings. He was figuring up her age a bit backalong."

Enoch laughed.

"Ah! But you can't have it both ways, as we said just now. Master Joe's always crying out about being an old man, but he don't want to feel an old man, or look an old man where my Melinda's concerned. I read Joe like a book I may tell you. He often thinks what a fine thing it would be to wed Melinda; but he knows he couldn't make a servant of her, like he does of his daughter."

"He's always been uncommon friendly to me," said Lawrence.

"Long may he continue so. You're a good man at your job I doubt not, and he knows it. But--well, enough said."

Maynard sat another hour with the old man and the talk drifted to fox-hunting.

When Melinda returned, she found her father in the best of tempers and the tea things cleared away and washed up.

"My!" she exclaimed. "What a husband you'll make some of these days, Mr. Maynard!"

"And he's going to come again," said Enoch. "He's promised. We'll set the world right between us afore we've done--him and me. And next time you go up over to Falcon Farm, you've got to take the man a book. I can't put my hand on it for the minute; but he's got to read it."

"You let what my father says go in at one ear and out at the other," warned Melinda. "He's a dangerous old man and we all know it."

"You won't fright him," declared Enoch. "He's going to be a great thinker some day, same as me!"

Then Lawrence went his way.