Chapter IV: Saturday Night

After heavy rain the evening cleared awhile and the sky showed palest blue, touched with little clouds that carried the sunset fire. But banks of mist already began to roll up with night, and their vans, as they billowed along the south, were touched with rose. Darkness swiftly followed; the world faded away under a cold fog, that increased in density until all things were hidden and smothered by it. Into the valleys it rolled, swept croft and heath and the channels of the rivers, sank into the deep lanes, searched the woods, spread darker than night upon the lowlands. Outside the Castle Inn it hung like wool, and across it, from the windows of the bar, streamed out radiance of genial light. But this illumination was choked within a dozen yards of its starting point; and, if a door was opened, the fog crept in with the visitor.

Men appeared to take their familiar parts in the drinking and talking of Saturday night, and each made a similar comment on the unusual density of the mist, each rubbed the dewy rime from his hair as he entered.

"If it freezes 'pon this, us shall have a proper sight of ammil in the trees to-morrow," said Mr. Jacob Taverner, who was of the company. "I haven't seen that wonder for ten years now; but well I can mind it. 'Twas a day soon after the beginning of the New Year--even as this might be; and us rose up to find every twig and bough, and stone and fuzz bush coated with pure ice, like glass. The sun played upon the country, and never such a dazzle was seen. 'Twas like a fairy story--all the world turned to gold and precious gems a-glittering. As Huggins said, it might have been the New Jerusalem itself, if it hadn't been so plaguey cold along with. Didn't you, Val?"

"I did say so--I remember them words," answered Mr. Huggins from his corner. "Cold enough to freeze the bird on the bough 'twas. I hope it won't never go so chill again, while I'm spared, for 'twould carry me off without a doubt."

"You'll live to play Moses an' walk along with St. Petrock yet," said Mr. Pearn slily.

Mr. Huggins always became uneasy when Moses was mentioned; and this his friends well knew.

"I wish the water had run to Lydford when 'twas first planned. This putting off for a year be very improper in my opinion," declared Taverner; and Mr. Adam Churchward, from his snug seat behind a leathern screen near the fire, replied:

"We can't honestly throw the blame on anybody, Jacob. You see, they were suddenly confronted with some engineering difficulties in getting the water over the railway cutting. 'Tis not as easy as they thought to do it. And then there was another trouble in that hollow full of springs under the Tavistock road. But I have no hesitation in saying, after my recent conversation with the deputy assistant engineer, that the water will be here definitely by June next, or Autumn at latest."

"Will you call up another committee then?" asked Mr. Huggins.

"Certainly I shall. Spry wrote out the minutes of the last meeting, and will be able to refresh your minds as to what was proposed and seconded all in form and order."

"How's 'the Infant' faring to Tavistock?" asked Mr. Pearn. "I was offered five shilling for that there little picture of the Castle he made a while back, and give me for a bad debt. It hangs over your head, Huggins."

Mr. Churchward was familiar with the sketch, and nodded.

"Yes, he has the artist's instinct. He colours still, I believe, and has sold one or two little trifles at Tavistock. He doesn't take to the book business, I find. If we could but get a patron for him--somebody to send him to London free of expense to develop the possibilities of art. But patrons are things of the past."

"Else you would be in a higher sphere yourself, no doubt, schoolmaster."

"Thank you, Taverner. But I am quite content. _Multum in parvo_, as we say. I get much into little. I hope the rising generation will show that I have done my duty, if not more than my duty."

"Be they a very on-coming lot, or thick-headed?" inquired Mr. Huggins. "I often think if us old men had had such chances to larn as the boys nowadays, that we should have made a stir in the nation. Anyway, we stood to work in a fashion I never see of late years. Hard as nails we used to be. Now--my stars! you'll see the childer going to school under umbrellas! 'Tis a great sign of weakness in my opinion, and ought to be stopped."

"As to the main question," answered Adam, "my youthful charges may be considered rather under than over the average in their intellects. With the exception of Johnny Williams and his brother Arthur, I should say my present classes will leave the world pretty much as they find it. I need not tell you that I inculcate high moral principles; and in that respect they are as good and honest a lot of boys as Lydford has ever turned out--or any other centre of instruction. But as to book learning--no."

"Too many school treats and holidays, in my opinion," said Jarratt Weekes.

He had just entered, and was shaking himself like a dog that emerges from the water.

"Hold on!" cried Jacob Taverner. "What be about?"

Weekes took off his coat and flung it on a settle.

"The usual," he said to Mr. Pearn, and, while his drink was being poured, turned to the schoolmaster.

"'Tis all of a piece--the softness of the times," he said. "You larn boys to be lazy to school. I don't say it specially of your school. 'Tis the same at all of 'em. Look at your own son."

"You mustn't say that," answered Adam. "I cannot suffer it. You ought to remember that the average of human brain power is exceedingly low. I am always against putting too much strain on the human mind on principle. Our lunatic asylums are the result of putting too much strain--not only on the mind, but on the body. It should be the object of every schoolmaster to feel that, come what may, no pupil of his shall ever be sent to a lunatic asylum or to prison. That has always been my object, at any rate; and without self-praise I may say that I have achieved it, except in the case of Thomas Drury, the Saltash murderer."

"We're a canting lot of humbugs," said Weekes shortly. "We think more of the fools of to-day than the wise men of to-morrow."

"Quite right too," declared Mr. Pearn. "They want it more. The wise men coming will think for themselves; the fools can't."

"Yes; they'll think for themselves, and laugh at us," said Jarratt.

"Let 'em laugh," said Mr. Huggins. "Who cares? We shall be underground, in other Hands than theirs. We shall answer to God A'mighty for our works, not to the unborn."

"The unborn will judge us all the same--Weekes is right there," admitted the schoolmaster. "I always feel the truth of that when I lift my rod. I say to myself, 'this erring child will some day be a father. I am therefore not only teaching him to keep the narrow road, but helping his children and his grandchildren to do so.' As I wield the instrument of correction _in extremis_, I often think that I may be moulding the character of some great man, who will not draw his first breath until long after I am dust. This may seem merely the imagination of the scholarly mind, yet so it is. Take your next with me, Weekes. I always like our conversation to be raised to a high pitch; and you always do it."

Of late, to gain some private ends, Mr. Churchward had resolutely ignored the ill-will of the castle-keeper. Jarratt continued to treat him indifferently; but Adam would never allow himself to be annoyed, and always offered the cheek to the smiter. Everybody perceived this change of attitude, and everybody, including Mr. Churchward's daughter, knew the reason.

Mr. Weekes nodded and his glass was filled again.

"I hope your mother be having good trade?" asked Noah Pearn. "I hear that the Christmas markets touched high water this year."

"All we could wish," admitted Jarratt. "She's worked like ten women this winter."

"Very aggravating 'tis to hear it--to me," suddenly declared a sad-looking, silent man, in a corner. "There's my wife might be doing the very same; but rabbit it! she've never got time for nothing now. We've gived up our market stall altogether. I've got to do everything of late days. I never thought she'd have changed like that--else I'd never have took her."

"How many children have you got, Samuel?" asked Mr. Huggins.

"But one," said Samuel gloomily.

"There 'tis!" cried the ancient. "They'm all the same with one--'tis the commonest thing. But wait till she've brought 'e half-a-dozen or more, and she'll have time for everything--market included."

"'Tis strange but true, like other ways of Providence," declared Taverner; "but I've marked it in my own family, that one child be far more trouble than six; an' takes far more time. 'Tis the want of practice, no doubt."

Men came and went. Presently Weekes prepared to depart, and put on his coat again.

"Where's my father to-night?" he asked. "'Tis past his hour. He had rather a dressing down afore mother started this morning. I should have thought he'd have come for an extra glass in consequence."

"He never takes but four half pints of a Saturday night, year in, year out," answered Mr. Pearn. "Sometimes he'll top up with a thimble of sloe gin, if the weather's harsh; but that's his outside allowance."

"Life's a stormy voyage--without no harbour--for him," said Huggins. "I don't speak disrespectfully of Mrs. Weekes--very far from it--she's a born wonder; but one of the sort built for wild weather. She likes it; she'd droop if everything went smooth."

"Everything do go smooth," said Jarratt.

"She is like a stately vessel that casts up foam from its prow," declared the schoolmaster. "Mrs. Weekes is a lesson to Lydford, as I have always maintained, and always shall do."

The husband of the stately vessel appeared at this moment.

"Be blessed if I didn't miss the door," he said. "Never remember such a fog. 'Twill be blind man's buff to-morrow."

He sighed and came to the fire.

"Have a drink, father," said Jarratt, as to an inferior. But Philip shook his head.

"Not yet, Jar, thank 'e. I must get a thought warmer first. I'll smoke my pipe a bit."

"Down on his luck he is to-day," explained the younger Weekes. "Down on his luck--because he don't know his luck--eh, father?"

Philip did not answer; conversation became general, and the castle-keeper departed.

Then, when he had gone, Noah Pearn endeavoured to cheer his customer.

"Us have got some hot ale here wi' a nutmeg and a bit 'o toast in it, my dear," he said. "You sup a drop and 'twill brace your sinews. The cold have touched 'e perhaps."

"Thank you, Noah," said Mr. Weekes, and took the glass. "You're very good, I'm sure. I've had a lot on my mind to-day."

"She'd be a fine woman, if there was a thought less lemon in her," said Taverner soothingly.

"She is a fine woman," answered Mr. Weekes, "--fine enough for anything; but fine weather's no good if you'm bedridden, and a fine woman's no good to her husband if she won't--however, us needn't wash our dirty linen in public. We've all our defects."

"Almost too high-spirited, if I may venture to say so," declared Mr. Churchward. "She has the courage of the masculine gender."

"So have I, if I was let bide," explained Philip. "That's the mischief of it. If I'd been a sort of weak man, ready to go under, and do woman's work, and play second fiddle happily, it wouldn't have mattered; but I ban't at all that sort of man by nature, and it hurts my feelings to be made to do it."

"I'm sure you'm too wise to rebel, however," said Mr. Huggins. "'Twas much the same with me, and often I wish I'd been so sensible as you; but my manly spirit wouldn't brook nothing of that sort. 'I won't have it!' I used to say in my fierce way. But I'm sorry now, because she might have been alive yet if I'd been a thought easier with her."

Noah Pearn winked behind the back of Mr. Huggins at the company generally, for it was well remembered that Valentine's vanished partner had ruled him with a rod of iron.

Mr. Weekes, however, showed no amusement. In his mind he was retracing certain painful recent incidents.

"Take what fell out this very day at morn," he said, "to show how rash and wilful Mrs. Weekes can be of a Saturday. I was down in the garden attending to a thing or two and packing a pair of birds for our own hamper. Suddenly she came out of the house and began. 'Twas all about Mrs. Swain, of course, and how I never can send two birds of the same size, and how my goings-on will ruin our custom and spoil business and fetch us to the poor-house in our old age. She was in full swing, souls, when down comes Susan from the kitchen, running as if the dowl was arter her. 'Oh, Aunt Hepsy!' she begins. Then her aunt cut her short, and told her not to dare open her silly mouth while she was talking. So Susan stood still and the missis went on at me. I was a greedy Gubbins, and a traitor, and a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a lot of other things; I was a reed shaken with the wind, a know-nought gert mumphead, and suchlike. Then, after ten minutes of it, I should think, she turned to Susan, and asked what she'd got to say. The toad of a girl grinned in our faces and said 'twas of no consequence, only a gert strange dog, with a bit of broken rope round his neck, had got into the kitchen and put his paws on the table and growled at her, like a bear, and showed all his teeth at once. Well--there 'twas--you can guess what the room looked like when I runned in. The dog--I know whose dog 'twas well enough!--had done just what he damn pleased. He only made off when he heard me coming, and a muck heap's a neat, orderly place to what that kitchen was after he'd gone. Everything off the table, for he'd got over the crockery to the bacon and swept the tea-pot and things afore him like a river sweeps straws--bread, milk, dripping--everything. Never you seed such a masterpiece! I lost my presence of mind and turned on the missis and said, 'There--that's your work! Let that be a lesson to you, you chattering woman!' I oughtn't to have said it, and I was sorry enough after; but God He knows 'twill be weeks afore I get in a word edgewise again. She had her spasms first; then she come to and let me catch it hot and strong from the shoulder, I promise you. She never stopped. While I drove her to the station, and shut the carriage door on her, and the guard he whistled and the train went, 'twas one shattering volume of speech. However, I needn't trouble other people. We've all got our cares, no doubt."

They expressed sympathy with Philip's difficulties, and Adam Churchward especially dwelt upon the bright side. He reminded Mr. Weekes of the noble character of his son, and explained that we all have the defects of our qualities, and must give and take in a large and understanding spirit, if we are to reach happiness, despite the adverse circumstance of being human creatures.

These kindly words and his third glass of warm beer and nutmeg comforted Philip; while the fourth and last found him resigned even to the verge of renewed cheerfulness.

"Take my advice and say the word in season first minute you see her to-morrow," said Mr. Pearn. "Then, if the market's been good, 'twill come all right."

"I will do so," promised Philip. "That reminds me: I must take a box o' straw to the station, for she was going to fetch home a new tea-pot and a good few other things with her. 'Twill all come right, and I dare say, after all, 'twasn't a bad thing that I forgot myself and put my foot down so resolute. She may think on it after."

"She will," foretold Jacob Taverner. "Be sure she'll think on it, and think none the worse of you for it. They like the manhood to flash out of us now and again--even the most managing sort."

Closing time had come, and with great exclamations at the density of the fog, Mr. Pearn's guests departed to their homes.