Chapter IV The Wisdom of Many
When the news spread to all ears at Endicott’s and beyond it, Mr. Cramphorn, ever generous of his great gift, and always ready to speak in public if a high theme was forthcoming, proposed to make an official congratulation in the name of himself and his companions. His love of his mistress prompted him to the step; yet he designed a graceful allusion to Myles also.
It was with much difficulty that Churdles Ash prevailed upon Jonah to postpone this utterance.
“’Tis a seemly thought enough,” admitted the ancient, “an’ I, as knaws your power of speech, would be the fust man to hit ’pon the table an’ say ‘Hear, hear’ arter; but ban’t a likely thing for to do just now, ’cause fust theer’s the bashfulness of her—an’ a woman’s that bashful wi’ the fust—that shaame-faaced an’ proud all to wance, like a young hen lookin’ round to find a plaace gude enough to lay her fust egg in, an’ not findin’ it. Then theer’s the laws of Nature, as caan’t be foretold to a hair by the wisest; so, all in all, I’d bide till the baaby’s born if I was you. You’m tu wise to count your awn chickens ’fore they’m hatched out; then why for should ’e count any other party’s? But bide till arter—then you’ll give us a braave discoourse no doubt.”
So Jonah delayed his next important declaration as mouthpiece of Bear Down; but while he thus restrained the warmth of his heart and denied himself the pleasure of his own voice uplifted in a public capacity, neither he nor any other adult member of the little community saw reason to desist from general conversation upon so interesting a subject. During Sunday evenings, after supper, while the men smoked their pipes upon departure of Honor and her maids, the welfare of the little promised one grew to be a favourite theme; and Myles, proud but uneasy at first, in the frank atmosphere of conjecture, theory, and advice, now accepted the reiterated congratulations as a matter of course, and listened to the opinions and experiences of those who might be supposed to have deeper knowledge than his own in such delicate affairs.
There fell a Sunday evening hour towards Christmas, when Mr. Ash, full of an opinion awakened in him at church, began to utter advice concerning Honor; and the rest, chiming in, fell to recording scraps of sense and nonsense upon the great subject in all its relations.
“Seed missis down-along to worship’s marnin’,” said Mr. Ash; “an’ fegs! but she was a deal tu peart an’ spry ’pon her feet if you ax me. She did ought to keep her seat through the psalms an’ hymns an’ spiritual songs; an’ theer’s another thought, as rose up in sermon: Onless you want for your son—come a bwoy—to be a minister, ’tis time missis gived up church altogether till arter.”
“Why for not a parson?” inquired Cramphorn. “’Tis a larned, necessary trade, though other folk, tu, may knaw a little ’bout principalities here an’ there. Still, seein’ all they do—why they’m so strong as Lard Bishops come to think of it, ’cept for laying on of hands—though why that calls for a bigger gun than a marryin’ I never yet heard set out. You’d say a weddin’ was the stiffest job—the worst or the best as man can do for his fellow-man. However, a larned trade ’twill be no doubt—not farmin’, of course,” he concluded.
“As to that, it depends,” said Stapledon quite seriously, “if he showed a strong taste.”
“We’ll hope he’ll be ambitious,” declared Mark. “Yes, ambitious and eager to excel in a good direction. Then he’ll be all right.”
“But he might be blowed away from his ambition by the things as look gude to young gen’lemen, so I should keep un short of money if I was you,” advised Mr. Ash.
“Blown away! Not he—not if his ambition is a live thing. If he lets pleasure—dangerous or harmless—come between him and his goal—then ’twill be mere vanity, only wind, nothing. But let me see a lad with a big, clean ambition. Nought keeps him so straight or makes his life a happier thing to himself and others.”
“You never do see it,” declared Myles. “A fine idea, but it hardly ever happens.”
“Not lawyering,” begged Jonah, drawing down his eyebrows. “Doan’t ’e let un go for a lawyer, maister. ’Tis a damn dismal trade, full of obstructions and insurrections between man an’ man, an’ man an’ woman.”
“So it is then!” ejaculated Mr. Endicott heartily. “A damn dismal trade! You never said a truer word, Jonah. They live in a cobweb world of musty, dusty, buried troubles, and they rake justice out of stuff set down by dead men for dead men. ’Tis precedent they call it; and it strangles justice like dogma strangles religion. Myles understands me.”
“They’m a solemn spectacle—the bettermost of ’em be—savin’ your honor’s pardon,” ventured Pinsent. “The fur an’ robes an’ wigs of ’em do look terrible enough to a common man.”
“Terrible tomfoolery! Terrible science of escaping through the trap-doors of precedent from common-sense!”
“But I seed a high judge to Exeter,” persisted Pinsent. “An’ ’twas at the ‘Sizes; an’ he told a man for hangin’; an’ his eyes was like gimlets; an’ his lean face was so grey as his wig; an’ a black cap he had; an’, what’s worse, left no room for hope of any sort.”
“Rogues, rogues,” growled the blind man. “I’d sooner see son of mine fighting with the deep sea or building honest houses with moor-stone. A vile trade, I tell you; a trade to give any young mind a small, cunning twist from the outset!”
To hear and see Mr. Endicott show heat upon any subject, and now lapse from his own judicial attitude upon this judicial theme, provoked a moment of silence and surprise. Then Mr. Ash returned to his practical starting-point.
“Gospel truth and the case against law put in a parable,” he declared; “but theer’s a gude few things to fall out afore the cheel’s future performances call for minding. Fegs! He’ve got to be born fust, come to think of it. ’Tis the mother as you must be busy for, not the cheel; an’ I’d warn ’e to fill her mind with gude, salted sense; an’ also let her bide in the sunshine so much as her can these dark days. An’ doan’t let her read no newspapers, for the world’s a bloody business by all accounts, with battles an’ murders an’ sudden deaths every weekday, despite the Litany Sundays—as doan’t make a ha’porth o’ differ’nce seemin’ly. Keep her off of it; an’ never talk ’bout churchyards, nor ghostes, nor butcher’s meat, nor any such gory objects.”
“I won’t—in fact I never do,” answered Myles, who was as childlike as the rest of the company upon this subject. “No doubt a calm and reposeful manner of living is the thing.”
“Ess,” concluded Mr. Ash; “just Bible subjects, an’ airly hours, an’ such food as she fancies in reason. ‘Seek peace and ensue it,’ in Scripture phrase. An’ leave the rest to Providence. Though in a general way ’tis a gude rule to leave nought to Providence as you can look arter yourself.”
“Shall ’e lift your hand to un, maister?” inquired Mr. Collins. “They tell me I was lathered proper by my faither afore I’d grawed two year auld. Do seem a gentle age to wallop a bwoy; yet here I be.”
“’Tis a very needful thing indeed,” declared Cramphorn—“male an’ female for that matter. A bwoy’s built to larn through his hide fust, his head arterwards. Hammer ’em! I sez. Better the cheel should holler than the man groan; better the li’l things should kick agin theer faither’s shins than kick agin his heart, come they graw.”
“If we could only be as wise as our words,” said Myles. “I’m sure I gather good advice enough of nights for a king’s son to begin life with. So many sensible men I never saw together before. You’re likely to kill him with kindness, I think.”
The boy Tommy Bates returned home from a walk to Chagford at this moment, with his mouth so full of news that he could not get it out with coherence.
“A poacher to Godleigh last night! Ess fay! An’ keeper runned miles an’ miles arter un, if he’s tellin’ truth; an’ ’twas Sam Bonus—that anointed rascal from Chaggyford by all accounts. Not that keeper can swear to un, though he’s very near positive. Catched un so near as damn it—slippery varmint! An’ his pockets all plummed out wi’ gert game birds! But theer ’tis—the law ban’t strong enough to do nought till the chap’s catched red-handed an’ brought for trial.”
Thus the advent of a precious new life at Endicott’s was discussed most gravely and seriously. Mark Endicott indeed not seldom burst a shell of laughter upon so much wisdom, but Stapledon saw nothing to be amused at. To him the subject was more important and fascinating than any upon which thought could be employed, and he permitted no utterance or canon of old custom to escape unweighed. At first he repeated to his wife a little of all that eloquence set flowing when she retired; but Honor always met the subject with a silver-tongued torrent of irreverent laughter, and treated the ripest principles of Mr. Ash and his friends with such contemptuous criticisms that her husband soon held his peace.
Yet he erred in forgetting the blind man’s warning under this added provocation of a little one in the bud; he spent all his leisure with his wife; he tried hard to catch her flitting humours, and even succeeded sometimes; but oftener he won a smile and a look of love for the frank failure of his transparent endeavours.
“Don’t be entertaining, sweetheart,” she said to him. “I cannot tell how it is, but if you are serious, I am happy; if you jest and try to make me laugh, my spirits cloud and come to zero in a moment. That’s a confession of weakness, you see; for women so seldom have humour. Everybody says that. So be grave, if you want me to be gay. I love you so; and gravity is proper to you. It makes me feel how big and strong you are—how fortunate I am to have you to fight the battle of life for me.”
“I wish I could,” he said. “But you’re right. I’m not much of a joker. It’s not that you have a weak sense of humour that makes me miss fire; it’s because you have a strong one.”
Sometimes the veil between them seemed to thicken from his standpoint. Even a little formality crept into his love; and this Honor felt and honestly blamed herself for. Mark Endicott also perceived this in the voice of the man; and once he spoke concerning it, when the two walked together during a January noon.
It was a grey and amber day of moisture, gentle southern wind and watery sunlight—a day of heightened temperature, yet of no real promise that the earth was waking. Ephemera were hatched, and flew and warped in little companies, seen against dark backgrounds. Hazardous bud and bird put forth petal and music, and man’s heart longed for spring; but his reason told him that the desire was vain.
“No lily’s purple spike breaking ground as yet, I doubt?” said Mark Endicott, as he paced his favourite walk in the garden.
“Not yet. But the red japonica buds already make a gleam of colour against the house.
“What good things this coming springtime has hidden under her girdle for you, Myles! Leastways, one’s a right to hope so. That reminds me. Is Honor happy with you alone? Not my business, and you’ll say I’m an old cotquean; but I’m blind, and, having no affairs of my own, pry into other people’s. Yet Honor—why, she’s part of my life, and the best part. She seems more silent than formerly—more and more as the days pass. Natural, of course. I hear her thread, and the click of her needle, and her lips as she bites the cotton; but her work I can’t follow with my ears now, for it’s all soft wool, I suppose. She said yesterday that she much wished I could see her new garb—’morning gown’ she called it. She’s pleased with it, so I suppose you’ve praised it.”
“Yes, uncle, and was sorry that I had. I don’t know how it is, but I contradict myself in small things, and she never forgets, and reminds me, and makes me look foolish and feel so. This gown—a brown, soft, shiny thing, all lined with silky stuff the colour of peach-blossom, warm and comfortable—I admired it heartily, and said it was a fine thing, and suited her well.”
“You could do no more.”
“But somehow I was clumsy—I am clumsy, worse luck. And she said, ‘Don’t praise my clothes, sweetheart; that’s the last straw.’ ‘Last straw’ she certainly said, yet probably didn’t guess how grave that made the sentence sound. Then she went on, ‘You know my gowns don’t match earth and sky one bit; and you love better the drabs and duns of the folk. You’ve told me so, and I quite understand. You’d rather have Sally’s apron and sun-bonnet, and see her milking, with her apple cheeks pressed against a red cow, than all my most precious frippery. And, of course, you’re right, and that makes it so much the more trying.’ Now that was uncalled for. Don’t you think so? I say this from no sorrow at it, God bless her! but because you may help read the puzzle. I don’t understand her absolutely, yet. Very nearly, but not absolutely.”
“No, you don’t, that’s certain. The mistake is to try to. You’re wise in what you let alone, as a rule. But her nature you can’t suffer to grow without fuss. There’s a sound in your voice to her—afore the hands, too—like a servant to his mistress.”
“I am her servant.”
“Yes, I know; so am I also; but—well, no call to tramp the old ground. You might guess she’d look for gentleness and petting, yet——”
“She asks for it one moment, and grows impatient at it the next.”
“Well, you’ll learn a bit some day; but you’ve not got the build of mind to know much about women.”
Myles sighed, and drummed his leg with a whip.
“It’s all so small and petty and paltry—these shades and moods and niceties and subtleties.”
“Women will have ’em.”
“Well, I try.”
“Go on trying. The world’s full of these small things, speaking generally. You’re built for big, heavy game. Yet it’s your lot to catch gnats just now—for her. And she knows how hard you try. It’ll come right when she’s herself again. Life brims with such homespun, everyday fidgets. They meet a man at every turn.”
“I long to be heart and heart with her; and I am; but not always.”
“Well, don’t addle your brains about it. Your large kindness with dogs and beasts, and love of them, and discipline would please her best. If you could only treat her as you treat them.”
“Treat her so! She’s my wife.”
“I know; and lucky for her. But remember she can’t change any more than you can. The only difference is that she doesn’t try to, and you do. All this brooding and morbidness and chewing over her light words is not worthy of a man. Be satisfied. You’ll wear—you can take that to your comfort. You’ll wear all through, and the pattern of you is like to be brighter in her eyes ten years hence than now. No call to go in such a fog of your own breeding. Wood and iron are different enough in their fashion as any two creatures in the world; but that doesn’t prevent ’em from cleaving exceeding tight together. She knows all this well enough; she’s a woman with rather more sense of justice than is common to them; and your future’s sure, if you’ll only be patient and content; for she loves you better far than she’s ever told you, or is ever likely to.”