Chapter VII: In Committee

Hilary Woodrow's departure from Ruddyford made no difference to the course of events. Routine work progressed according to the prescribed custom of Dartmoor husbandry. Oats were sown during the last week of March; potatoes followed; then the seed of mangold went to ground, and lastly, in June, with the swedes, this protracted planting of crops ended.

There came a night when John Prout found himself too weary to keep an appointment at Lydford. Therefore he asked Daniel to go instead.

"'Tis the business of the water-leat," he explained. "The water's coming in autumn some time, and now Churchward and the rest are going to set about things again in earnest. The committee sits at the schoolroom this evening."

Brendon, however, doubted.

"I can't just go and say I've come to take your place," he answered. "The rest might not want me on the committee."

"Oh yes, they will," declared Prout. "You'll do a lot better than me. You'm younger and have your ideas. 'Tis about the procession and so on. A lot was done last time; but 'tis such a while agone, that I dare say they'll have to begin all over again. Anyway, I couldn't ride to Lydford to-night for a fortune. I'm dog tired."

"'Twill fit very well," said Sarah Jane, who was clearing away the tea-things in Ruddyford kitchen. "I walk into Lydford myself this evening, to take the butter to Mrs. Weekes. Say you'll go, Daniel."

"I'm willing enough. The only point is if I can serve on a committee in place of another man."

"Certainly you can," said Mr. Prout. "They'll be very pleased to see you, I'm sure. Jarratt Weekes is a member, and he'll take you along with him."

"I'll go, then," assented Daniel, "and Weekes will post me up in the business, no doubt."

It happened that relations of a harmonious character existed at present between the family of Philip Weekes and Ruddyford. Hephzibah took large quantities of Sarah Jane's butter into Plymouth every Saturday; and sometimes Philip himself, or the girl Susan, came for this produce. Occasionally it was brought to Lydford by a messenger from the farm. The Brendons were now on terms of friendship with Jarratt's parents and of superficial friendship with the castle-keeper himself.

To-night Sarah Jane and Daniel heard the familiar voice raised as they entered the front gate, and, despite a loud summons, they stood some while under the dusk, with the scent of the garden primroses in their nostrils, before any attention was paid to them.

Then Susan appeared, and as she opened the door the full and withering blast of Hephzibah's rhetoric burst upon the air.

"Didn't hear 'e first time," said the girl. "Aunt's in one of her tantrums. A very awkward thing's happed just now. Awkward for Uncle Philip, I mean. He was in the street talking to Mr. Churchward; and unbeknownst to him, on our side the wall, not two yards off, Aunt Hepsy chanced for to be."

"Never mind all that," interrupted Sarah Jane. "Here's the butter, and my husband be come to see Jarratt. We don't want to hear none of your rows, Susie."

"You'll have to hear--you know what Aunt Hepsy be."

They went into the kitchen, and Mrs. Weekes, without saluting them, instantly turned the torrent of her speech in their direction.

Philip sat by the fire with his hands in his pockets and his wistful grey eyes roaming, rather like a wild animal caught in a trap; his son was eating at the table; Mrs. Weekes stood in the middle of the kitchen; her legs were planted somewhat apart, and her arms waved like semaphores to accentuate her speech.

"Your eyes be enough," she said. "You cast 'em to the ceiling, an' search the floor an' the fire with 'em; but you can't hide the guilt in 'em--you evil-speaking traitor! He'd have me dead--what d'you think of that, Sarah Jane? As a wife you can understand, perhaps. Every word I caught when I was in the garden--doing his work, of course, and picking the lettuces that he'd ought to have picked and washed and packed two hours afore. An' him t'other side of the wall telling to that wind-bag that teaches the children--though what he does teach 'em except to use long, silly words, I can't say. 'The sooner she's dead the better!' That was the thing my husband spoke--in a murdering voice he spoke it. And my knees curdled away under me--the Lord's my judge! I could almost hear him sharpening a knife to do it! 'The sooner she's dead the better.' That was what he said. Murder, I call it--black murder; and he'll hang in the next world for it, if he don't in this. Wished me dead! Knave--foul-minded rascal!--beastly coward to kill the wife of his bosom with a word! And now----"

The familiar gasp for which her husband waited came, and he spoke before she could resume.

"I'll only say this. I was speaking of Adam Churchward's old collie bitch--may I be stuck fast on to this settle for evermore if I wasn't; and when I said 'sooner she's dead the better,' 'twas in answer to schoolmaster's question. If I was struck dumb this instant moment, that's the truth."

"Truth--you grey and godless lump of horror! Truth--who be you to talk of truth? After this the very word 'truth' did ought to rust your tongue black and choke you! Not a word of that will I believe. 'Twas me you meant; an' when I heard it, I tell you the sky went round like a wheel. I catched hold of a clothes-post to stop myself from falling in a heap. And now if cherubims in a flaming, fiery chariot come down for me from heaven, I wouldn't go. Nothing would take me--I'd defy death for my indignation! I'll see you out yet, you wife-murderer, you vagabond, you cut-throat dog of a man--ess fay, I'll see you out if I've got to wait twenty thousand years to do it!'

"Here," said Jarratt Weekes to Daniel Brendon, "me and you will get from this. When she lets go, you might as well try to put in a word with a hurricane as with her."

"All the same, it was Churchward's old worn-out dog, as he'll testify to," said Philip. "The creature's suffering, and she'll be killed to-morrow morn; an' that's evidence for anybody who's got a level mind and no grudge against me. Be it sense or reason that I'd say a thing like that to a neighbour--even if I thought it?"

"How you can sit there with your owl's eyes a-glaring----" began Mrs. Weekes--then Daniel followed Jarratt.

"I'll come back along for you presently," he said to Sarah Jane. "You stop here till we're home from the committee."

A moment later he explained his purpose, and Weekes raised no objection.

"'Tis a silly business altogether," he said. "I so good as swore I'd not join 'em again myself; but if the thing's to be, 'tis well there should be a little sense among these foolish old men. You can take Prout's place and welcome. Churchward will try to talk Latin about it when he hears, and pull a long face, and say 'tis irregular or some rot. But if I tell him I wish it, he'll cave in. Last meeting was at his home; but we turned the room into a public-house bar before we'd done with it, and so his daughter won't let us assemble there again. Quite right too."

"A very fine woman she is--so Sarah Jane tells me."

"She is--and plenty of sense. In fact----"

Jarratt broke off and changed the subject; but Daniel, without tact, returned to it.

"I hope we'll all soon be wishing you joy in that matter."

Weekes made no answer at all. The thought was bitter to him that this common man, who had beaten him and won Sarah Jane, could thus easily approach him as an equal and congratulate him on his minor achievement. He hated anything to remind him of the past, and disliked to think that the fact of his rumoured engagement to Mary Churchward had reached the Brendons' ears. This girl was a promising wife enough; but she fell far short of Sarah Jane in beauty and strength and melody of voice.

"There's the schoolroom--the hour was seven-thirty, so we'm a thought late," said Jarratt Weekes.

They entered to find the rest of the committee assembled. Mr. Churchward, Mr. Spry, Mr. Huggins, Mr. Norseman, Mr. Pearn and Mr. Taverner--all were there.

Weekes explained that Daniel Brendon had come to represent John Prout, and suggested that the rest should fall in with this alteration. Some questions arose whether it could be permitted, and the schoolmaster instantly fulfilled Jarratt's prophecy by doubting if Daniel might stand for Prout--_in propria persona_.

Nathaniel Spry was referred to, but would express no definite opinion; then Weekes spoke again, inviting the committee to use its common sense, if it had any, and asked what earthly difference it could make to the upshot whether one farming man or another joined their deliberations.

"Me an' Mr. Prout think alike in some ways--not in all," explained Brendon. "As to such a matter as a revel, when the water's brought into Lydford, we might be of one mind. But I warn you, please, that in matters of religion we're different."

"That's all right, then," declared Noah Pearn, the publican, "for this hasn't nothing to do with religion--any more than my free lunch have."

"All the same I'll be party to nothing that can hurt religion, and well the committee knows it," declared Mr. Norseman.

"Don't you shout till you're hurt," said Weekes. "We're not heathen, I believe. I propose that Mr. Brendon takes Prout's place on the committee, and I ask you to second, schoolmaster."

None raised any further objection. Daniel took his place and Mr. Churchward turned to Nathaniel Spry.

"Read the minutes of the last meeting," he said.

The postmaster rose rather nervously and shuffled his papers.

"Keep it short as you can, Spry. We wasted a lot of time over that meeting--don't want to be here all night," remarked Jacob Taverner.

"I can't be 'urried, Jacob," answered the other. "I'm secretary, and I've done the work in a very secretarial way, and it's got to be read--all of it--hasn't it, Mr. Churchward?"

"Certainly it has," answered the schoolmaster. "In these cases the minutes of previous assemblies have to be kept carefully, including all memoranda and data. There is a right way and a wrong way, and----"

"Get on!" interrupted Weekes. "If Spry have to read out all that mess and row we had at the first meeting--sooner he's about it the better."

Nathaniel Spry rose and wiped his glasses.

"Go under the lamp, postmaster," said Brendon. "You'll see better."

"Thank you," answered the secretary. "Much obliged to you. I will do so."

"One thing," suddenly remarked Noah Pearn. "I want to ax whether among the characters in the show we might have Judge Jeffreys. I seed his name in an old book awhile ago, and 'tis clear he held his court to Lydford castle. Shall he walk with the procession?"

"We can go into that later. We _must_ read the minutes first. Otherwise everything is _ultra vires_ and illegal," declared Mr. Churchward.

"Well, Spry can set it at rest in a minute by saying who Judge Jeffreys was--that is if he knows," suggested Mr. Taverner.

"We all know that," declared Mr. Norseman. "He was a regular historical Lydford character."

"Would he do to walk, Spry, or wouldn't he? Answer in a word. If he's no good--we need say no more."

"Order!" cried Mr. Churchward. "I call everybody to order who interferes with Spry. We must have the minutes!"

"You ought to know about Judge Jeffreys yourself," said Weekes shortly. "You're a schoolmaster, and should have the whole history of the man at your finger-ends."

"And so I have," declared Mr. Churchward. "Of course I have. Who doubts it?"

"Then let's hear it. Ban't for the chairman to deny information to the committee," said Mr. Pearn.

Adam shrugged his shoulders.

"I bow to your opinions, though it's very unbusinesslike and improper."

Then he turned to Spry and spoke with resignation.

"Tell them about Judge Jeffreys, Nathaniel--since they insist upon knowing. If you make any mistake, I'll correct you."

Mr. Spry dropped his report hopelessly, took off his glasses and scratched his head over the right ear.

"He wasn't a very nice man, if my memory serves me, gentlemen. A thought 'asty and a thought 'arsh. There's poetry written about him. He did his work in the time of Charles I., or it might be Charles II."

"Or the Commonwealth," interrupted Mr. Churchward.

"Very true--very true, 'or the Commonwealth,' as you say, schoolmaster. He was rather what is called a hanging judge. Still, his red robes and flowing wig would be a great addition to the scene."

"Let the man walk!" cried Mr. Huggins. "A solemn judge would be so good as a sermon to all the young youths for miles around, and show 'em what wickedness might bring 'em to at any moment."

"You don't mean that, Mr. Huggins," explained Brendon, who knew the veteran. "You mean----"

"We all know what he means," declared Mr. Taverner. "Well, you propose Jeffreys and I'll second it, Noah."

"In due course--in due course. The judge shall pass committee in his proper turn," said Mr. Churchward. "Now, Spry, read as quickly as you can, but nothing's to be missed."

"How long is the report?" asked Henry Norseman.

"Twenty-four pages of foolscap and a half," answered the secretary. "I've written it all out twice, and it filled my spare time for three weeks doing it."

"Let's take the thing as read!" suggested Mr. Taverner.

But Nathaniel objected indignantly.

"Not at all!" he said. "I won't have that. I appeal to the chair--three weeks' work----"

"Don't want to have any words with you, postmaster; but all the same, without feeling, as a member of this committee, I propose we take the minutes as read," answered Taverner firmly.

"Who'll second that?" asked Weekes.

"I will," said Noah Pearn.

Mr. Churchward sighed, shook his head tragically, and put his hand over his brow.

"I do wish, Jacob Taverner, you would bend to the law of committees and listen to the chair," he begged. "Don't you understand me? I'm pretty good at making myself clear, I believe--it's my business to do so to the youthful mind--and I tell yuu it can't be done. Legally everything we enact before the minutes are read is nothing at all--a mere _lapsus lingua_, in fact."

"Besides," said Daniel, "I beg to say I ought to hear the minutes--else how can I know what was settled at the first meeting?"

"You're soon answered," replied Jarratt Weekes. "Nothing was settled at the first meeting."

"I beg your pardon, Jarratt," said Adam Churchward. "That is neither kind nor true. A great deal was settled--else how would it take Nathaniel Spry twenty-four and a half pages of foolscap to put it all down? And no man writes a better or neater hand. Therefore I ask you to call back that statement."

"There was a lot said--I admit. But surely you must allow there was mighty little done," retorted Weekes.

"The question is whether the minutes are to be taken as read. I've proposed that and Pearn's seconded it," repeated Mr. Taverner.

"And I rule it out of order, Taverner, so there's an end of that," answered Adam.

"The question is if you can rule it out of order," replied Jacob Taverner.

"Certainly he can. Bless the man, he's done it!" said Brendon.

"He says he's done it; but if it's not legal, he can't do it. Everybody's got a right to speak on a committee, and I never heard in all my born days that a chairman could rule a thing out of order, if 'twas properly proposed and seconded," answered the other.

Much irrelevant but heated argument followed, and none could satisfy Jacob that the chair was in the right.

Suddenly the landlord of the Castle Inn turned to Valentine Huggins.

"Let's abide by you, Val," he cried. "You'm the oldest among us. I warrant Taverner will abide by you. What do you say?"

"I say 'beer,'" piped the ancient man. "I be so dry as a dead bone along o' listening; what you talking members must be, I can't picture."

"I second," declared Weekes; "and 'tis idle for you to pretend that can't be passed, Churchward, because we're unanimous--except Norseman, who'll have his bottle of lemonade as per usual, no doubt."

Mr. Pearn had already put on his hat.

"I'll nip round myself an' tell 'em to send it in," he declared. Then he hurried off.

"I'm in your hands, of course," began the schoolmaster. "I merely remark that I don't pay again. If you had listened to the minutes, you'd have been reminded that the chairman stood liquor and tobacco last time. We must give and take--even in committee."

"I'll pay half," said Mr. Taverner.

"And I'll pay the rest," declared Nathaniel Spry,--"provided the committee will keep quiet and let me read the minutes while it's drinking."

"That's fair enough, certainly," said Brendon. "By the looks of it, this meeting won't have no time to do more than hear what fell out at the last. 'Tis near nine o'clock now, and us no forwarder."

When Mr. Pearn returned with a pot-boy and three quarts of ale, the secretary had started upon his report. Nobody paid much attention to him save Daniel Brendon; but as soon as the liquor was poured out--by which time Mr. Spry had come to St. George and the Dragon--an interruption took place.

"I ask for that passage to be given again," said Mr. Norseman. "I heard my name, but I didn't catch what went with it."

Nathaniel read as follows:--

"Mr. Valentine Huggins then proposed that the Dragon should go along with St. George, and it was suggested that Mr. William Churchward should enact the Dragon. Mr. Norseman then said that he would be party to no play-acting, because play-acting in his opinion was wickedness; and he added that if the committee persisted in this opinion, he would think it his duty to put the matter before the vicar. Mr. William Churchward was privately approached by the chairman subsequent to the meeting and refused to play Dragon----"

"If that's still your opinion, Norseman, you'd better go off the committee," said Mr. Taverner; "because to dress up to be somebody else is play-acting in a way, even though nought's said. You be in a minority of one, so you may just as well retire."

"I may be, or I may not be," answered Mr. Norseman. "I'm here to do my duty to the best of my power, and, in a word, I shan't retire."

"I don't hold with play-acting either," declared Daniel suddenly.

"Ban't sure that I do, on second thoughts," added Mr. Huggins. "Anyway, I want to say that if any other member would like to be Moses----"

"That's all settled and passed, and you can't withdraw, Valentine," replied Mr. Churchward. "Go on, Nat."

"What is play-acting and what isn't?" asked Mr. Pearn. "We'd better settle that once for all. I say 'tisn't play-acting if no speeches are made."

"If it has been carried that Mr. Huggins is to be dressed up as Moses, I'm afraid I must vote against it," said Daniel. "I'm very sorry to do anything contrary to the general wish, but I couldn't support that. In my view 'tis playing the fool with a holy character."

"Don't be so narrow-minded," said Mr. Taverner.

"You must be narrow-minded if you want to keep in the narrow way," declared Norseman. "The man's right, though I haven't seen him in church for three months."

"If we're going back on what we passed last time--'tis idle for you to read any more, postmaster," said Mr. Churchward. "I may remind the committee that Mr. Norseman himself had no objection to Moses before."

"More shame to me," answered the churchwarden frankly. "I was weak, as them in a minority too often find themselves; but now, with this man beside me, I'm strong, and I stand out against Moses tooth and nail."

"Let's drop Moses, souls!" said Mr. Huggins. "We can walk very well without him, and we don't want to offend church or chapel, I'm sure. 'Twould be a bad come-along-of-it if we had vicar and the quality against us. If I can give him up, I'm sure all you men ought to."

Jarratt Weekes had been turning over the pages of Mr. Spry's report while the rest talked. Now he suddenly rose to his feet and shouted loudly:

"Look here, Spry--what's this you've got here? Like your insolence--making me look a fool in the eyes of the committee! This stuff shan't be read--not officially. You've put words here that I spoke in heat. Not that they wasn't perfectly reasonable ones--all the same, they shouldn't be recorded. I'm not going to be written down, in cold blood, as using swear words. 'Tisn't fair to anybody's character. Here it is, neighbours, and I ask you if 'tis right--page twenty-one--"

He read as follows:--

"'The chairman then quoted the Latin language, which annoyed Mr. Jarratt Weekes, who thereupon asked him, why the hell he couldn't talk English."

"You oughtn't to have put that down, Nathaniel," said Mr. Churchward reproachfully. "It would far better have become you to leave that out. If I could forgive it--which I did do--surely----"

"There it is for anybody to see," continued Weekes; "and I propose we burn his silly minutes, for they'm nothing but a tissue of twaddle and impertinence and----"

"I rise to order!" cried Mr. Spry. "I'm not going to be insulted to my face and stand it. I claim the protection of the chair and the committee in general. What right had I to doctor the report? If people use foul language on a committee and lose their tempers and misbehave themselves at a public function, let 'em take the consequences!"

"You shut your mouth!" shouted Weekes, "or I'll make you. A pink-eyed rabbit of a man like you to stab me in the back with your pen and ink! I----"

"Order--order!" cried Pearn and Taverner simultaneously. Everybody began to talk at once, and Brendon turned to the chairman.

"Why the mischief don't you keep order?" he asked.

"Easy to say--easy to say," answered Adam wildly. "But what mortal man's going to do it?"

"'Twas you broke up the last meeting, Weekes, an' I don't think none the better of you for it," grumbled Mr. Huggins. "All the same us shan't get through no business now--an' the beer be all drunk and the time's past ten----"

"I propose we adjourn," said Mr. Norseman.

"And so do I," added Brendon. "Never knowed myself that a lot of growed-up men could make such a row and be so foolish."

"The meeting is suspended _sine die_, gentlemen," declared Adam Churchward, "and I may add that I'll not be chairman again. No--I will not. The strain is far too severe for a sensitive man."

"Just like you," answered Weekes. "The moment you get into a mess, you curl up, same as a frightened woodlouse. You're not the proper man for a chairman."

"And you're not the proper man for a committee," answered Adam, very pink and hot. "'Tis all your fault, and I say it out, notwithstanding the--the relations in which we stand. You've not the self-control for a committee. And you do swear a great deal too much--both in public and private life."

They wrangled on while Norseman and Brendon departed, and Spry only stayed to see his report scattered on the floor under everybody's feet. Then, with an expression of opinion unusually strong for him, he took his hat and went home. Mr. Pearn looked after the crockery, Mr. Taverner assisted Valentine Huggins into his coat and saw him on his way.

"Out of evil cometh good, Jacob," said the ancient. "Be it as 'twill, I've got Moses off my back. But this here have furnished a dreadful lesson to me not to push myself forward into the public eye. Never again will I seek to be uplifted in company. 'Twas only the sudden valour of beer made me offer myself, and I've never had a easy moment since."

Elsewhere Mr. Churchward and Jarratt quickly settled their difference. Indeed, as soon as Spry had departed, the chairman adopted an attitude very disloyal to the postmaster, and even called him an officious little whippersnapper. This appeased the injured Weekes, and when his future father-in-law went further and invited him home to see Mary and drink some whisky, Jarratt relented.

"Us'll drop this business once for all," he said. "It don't become your position to sit over a lot of silly fools that don't know their own mind. You've got something better to do with your time, I'm sure. When I'm married to Mary, you shall help me with figures and suchlike. Anyway, don't you call them ignorant men together again. I won't have it. Let the water come and be damned to it. 'Tis nothing to make a fuss about when all's said."

"You may be right," admitted Mr. Churchward. "In Christian charity the committee meant well, but they have not been educated. There's no logic--nothing to work upon. I'm disappointed, for I had spent a good deal of thought upon the subject. However, if it's got to fall through--there's an end of it."

And Brendon, as he tramped home with Sarah Jane, made her laugh long and loud while he told of the meeting. He was not much amused himself--only somewhat indignant at the waste of hours represented by that evening's work.