"His daughter's been paid back, all the same," said Lintern. "She keeps his house, and the old boy gave the money to her, to be used or saved according as she thinks best." "That leaves only me," said Jack. "Me and Rupert was running over the figures a bit ago," continued Heathman. "We made out that the sporting old blade had dropped upwards of six thousand over this job, and we was wondering how much that is out of all he's got." "A fleabite, I reckon," answered Head; but the other doubted it. "Rupert says he thinks 'tis pretty near half of his fortune, if not more. He goes shabbier than ever, and he eats little better than orts for his food." "That's no new thing," said another man as he held a mug for some more of the hot cider; "'twas always so, as Susan Hacker will tell you. My wife have heard her grumbling off and on these ten years about it. His food's poor and coarse, like his baccy and his cider. His clothes be kept on his back till there ban't enough of the web left to hold 'em together any longer. Susan offered an old coat to a tramp once, thinking to get it away afore Baskerville missed it; and the tramp looked it over--through and through, you might say--and he thanked Susan as saucy as you please, and told her that when he was going to set up for a mommet[1] he'd let her know, but 'twouldn't be yet." [1] _Mommet_--scarecrow. "A strange old night-hawk, and always have been," said Head. "Not a man--not even me, though I know him best--can measure him altogether. Never was such a mixture. Now he's so good-natured as the best stone, and you'll go gaily driving into him and then, suddenly, you'll strike flint, and get a spark in your eye, and wish to God you'd left the man alone. He's beyond any well-balanced mind to understand, as I've told him more than once." "Meek as Moses one minute, then all claws and prickles the next--so they tell me," declared Abraham Elford. "But whether 'tis true or not, I can't say from experience," he added, "for the man don't come in here." "And why?" said Heathman. "That's another queer side of him. I axed him that same question, and he said because to his eyes the place was haunted by my father. 'I should see Nathan's long beard wagging behind the bar,' he said to me, 'and I couldn't abide it.'" "He's above common men, no doubt," declared another speaker. "We can only leave him at that. He's a riddle none here will ever guess, and that's the last word about him." Rupert Baskerville came in at this moment and saw Heathman. Both were in Dennis Masterman's carol choir, and it was time that they gathered with the rest at the vicarage, for a long round of singing awaited them. "A mild night and the roads pretty passable," he announced. "We're away in half an hour wi' books and lanterns; but no musickers be coming with us, like in the good old days. Only voices to carry it off." He stopped to drink, and the sight of Jack Head reminded him of a commission.