Part 45 (2/2)
To watch the man at his job gave positive pleasure, and it was extraordinarily rea.s.suring--rea.s.suring about everything. Outside the station, the groom stood at Joan's head, and a wonderful fox-terrier sat alert under the dog-cart. Instantly the dog sprang out and began to superintend the preparations for departure, rus.h.i.+ng to and fro and insisting all the time that delay would be monstrous, if not fatal. The dog's excellence as a specimen of breeding was so superlative as to accuse its breeder and owner of a lack of perspective in life. It was as if the entire resources of civilization had been employed towards the perfecting of the points of that dog.
”Balanced the cart, I suppose, Jos?” asked Harry, kindly.
”Yes, sir,” was all that Jos articulated, but his bright face said: ”Sir, your a.s.sumption that I have already balanced the cart for three and a bag is benevolent and justified. You trust me. I trust you, sir.
All is well.”
The bag was stowed and the porter got threepence and was so happy in his situation that apparently he could not bring himself to leave the scene.
Harry climbed up on the right, Edwin on the left. The dog gave one short bark and flew madly forward. Jos loosed Joan's head, and at the same moment Harry gave a click, and the machine started. It did not wait for young Jos. Jos caught the back step as the machine swung by, and levered himself dangerously to the groom's place. And when he had done it he grinned, announcing to beholders that his mission in life was to do just that, and that it was a grand life and he a lucky and enviable fellow.
Harry drove across the Tavy, and through the small grey and brown town, so picturesque, so clean, so solid, so respectable, so content in its historicity. A policeman saluted amiably and firmly, as if saying: ”I am protecting all this,--what a treasure!” Then they pa.s.sed the Town Hall.
”Town Hall,” said Harry.
”Oh!”
”The Dook's,” said Harry.
He put on a certain facetiousness, but there nevertheless escaped from him the conviction that the owners.h.i.+p of a town hall by a Duke was a wondrous rare phenomenon and fine, showing the strength of grand English inst.i.tutions and traditions, and meet for honest English pride. (And you could say what you liked about progress!) And Edwin had just the same feeling. In another minute they were out of the town. The countryside, though bleak, with its spare hedges and granite walls, was exquisitely beautiful in the morning light; and it was tidy, tended, mature; it was as though it had nothing to learn from the future.
Beyond rose the slopes of the moor, tonic and grim. An impression of health, moral and physical, everywhere disengaged itself. The wayfarer, st.u.r.dy and benign, invigorated by his mere greeting. The trot of the horse on the smooth winding road, the bounding of the dog, the resilience of the cart-springs, the sharp tang of the air on the cheek, all helped to perfect Edwin's sense of pleasure in being alive. He could not deny that he had stood in need of a change. He had been worrying, perhaps through overwork. Overwork was a mistake. He now saw that there was no reason why he should not be happy always, even with Hilda. He had received a short but nice and almost apologetic letter from Hilda. As for his apprehensions, what on earth did it matter about Dartmoor being so near? Nothing! This district was marvellously rea.s.suring. He thought: ”There simply is no social question down here!”
”Had your breakfast?” asked Harry.
”Yes, thanks.”
”Well, you just haven't, then!” said Harry. ”We shall be in the nick of time for it.”
”When do you have breakfast?”
”Nine thirty.”
”Bit late, isn't it?”
”Oh no! It suits us.... I say!” Harry stared straight between the horse's ears.
”What?”
Harry murmured:
”No more news about Johnnie, I suppose?”
(Edwin glanced half round at the groom behind. Harry with a gesture indicated that the groom was negligible.)
”Not that I've heard. Bit stiff, isn't it?” Edwin answered.
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