XIX

Is it best to have a strong imagination, or to be entirely without it? An imaginative mind creates for itself a beautiful world; but upon entering into practical life, at every step, first one and then another portion of the structure is shattered till the entire fabric falls to pieces. Dust under foot and bitterness to the taste are all that remain; a void heart, a hopeless future, a weary present. The commonplace crushes the ideal as a cannonball might a statue.

The world, therefore, has long since decided that the imaginative is to be avoided. Have nothing to do with books, pictures, sculpture, with thought or dream. Above all things be practical.

Those who do not possess an imagination are clearly the gainers in this life; horses, carriages, money, expensive wines, or, if they prefer it, the solid applause of well-to-do folk, are given to them. The imaginative dream of flowers, but the practical possess a garden. The infinite superiority of the non-imaginative is established.

Robert Godwin had never any difficulty in choosing between these two courses⁠—the imaginative and the practical⁠—because he had not even imagination enough to see that there were two courses. By nature he was absolutely devoid of imagination. He took things as he saw them, and the idea of there being anything beyond never occurred to him.

There were the hills visible from his window; he knew by experience that hills were steep, and that a horse had to pull against the collar to draw him over them. The higher they were the thinner the soil, the smaller the crops, and the less rent to be obtained. Occasionally he glanced at them to see if the descending or ascending mist, the clearness or dimness of outline, promised rain or sunshine⁠—and so much for the hills. This practical knowledge completed his concern in these mounds of chalk.

The depth of the rich blue sky, the sweep of the clouds, the sunrise, the colours of sunset, the stars so clear seen at an altitude⁠—these mere imaginative things were invisible to him altogether. He simply did not see them, any more than if a thick curtain had been drawn before his eyes.

The thoughts which flow from the contemplation of the azure, the noble hope of sunrise, the godlike promise of the stars, were to him nonexistent; as he could not see the things that suggested the thought, so his mind was blind to the thought itself.

Yet further, that scarce definable culture⁠—that idea which exists in the heart and soul independent of outward appearances⁠—the sense of a beautiful inner life⁠—so delicate a music was soundless to his ears.

The ground was solid under his feet; the sky afar off a mere translucent roof; the sun a round ball of heat, never seen unless he chanced to be driving westwards towards sunset. He measured trees, and put a red mark against those to be felled, so many every year; they were timber⁠—wood; they were hard, oak some of them; he could tell the cubical contents, and how many feet of planking they would saw up into. The shape of the oak, the shadow, the birds who came to it, all its varied associations⁠—its dream⁠—had no meaning to him. Sometimes he saw the sea, its green plain, from the higher ground; but it did not attract him to the shore.

Through the woods in springtime his feet waded among pools, broad lakes of azure-purple, acres upon acres of bluebells, so crowded they could not swing; he crushed the tender anemone; he passed the white June rose.

Robert Godwin never walked by the sea, nor gathered a flower.

The old books which had accumulated in the house of his forefathers remained upon the shelves untouched. Since his schooldays, when it was compulsory, he had never opened any other book than the almanac.

He handled cattle and sheep, he inspected horses, he visited men at plough, at harrow, at harvest, at building, at sawing, smith’s work, every kind of labour. He attended markets and fairs, he drove and rode to and fro; he kept his accounts; he looked to every detail of the estate and of his own farm. He was always in action; when he returned from a long day’s round, so soon as he alighted he walked briskly down into the garden to see if the gardener had fulfilled a full day’s task.

Robert Godwin drove men as cattle are never driven. For cattle are let linger by the roadside that they may crop the clover which likes to grow in trodden places; cattle are permitted to drink at the pond, and to rest in the shade of the elm-trees. The evening comes and they are turned into a field to graze, and chew the cud, and consider, as it were, till the morning.

No man rested that Robert Godwin could get at to drive. His own farm labourers, the men who did the estate work, the woodcutters, the drain-diggers, the masons and smiths, the very messengers to and fro the Squire’s house and his farm⁠—he drove them all. He would waylay the rural postman at six in the morning, and bully him for not coming at half-past five: what business had he to waste time taking a draught of milk at the farmhouse yonder? He should be reported. Robert Godwin stood at the stile and shouted to the children, and threatened them with the stick if they did not hasten on to school.

Yet when Robert Godwin’s back was turned and the hedge had hidden him from view, the ploughman relaxed his hold on the stilts of his plough, and the team stayed as he listened to the peaceful caw of the rooks. But Godwin’s back was never turned upon himself. He drove himself forever. He was always up at six, often at five; from then till dusk he moved to and fro his own farm, and the estate he managed; after dusk a cheap candle was lit for him, and he worked at his accounts till bedtime. He never listened to the caw, caw of the rooks.

Reading by the open window of a sunny day, when the mind for a moment pauses from its dwelling on the page, and the glance goes out into the light, it is very pleasant to hear them⁠—these peaceful rooks caw, cawing over to their favourite furrows. Doubtless you have heard them and rested. Robert Godwin never heard them.

Incessant physical occupation was a necessity of his existence. But surely there must have been times when, his hands being still and his frame reposing in the early evening, “between the lights,” his mind roamed in reverie, when fancy bore sway, when a dream or thought came to him?

No. When his hands were still and his frame reposed, his mind was simply vacant, like that of a horse looking from his stabledoor, or a dog by his kennel. He saw the wall, or the fireplace, nothing more. His mind was simply quiescent⁠—vacant⁠—like a mirror turned face downwards, as old countryfolk place them on the bed in a storm of thunder and lightning.

In such a position the glass reflects nothing, and so when his hands were still Godwin’s mind reflected nothing. It did not work within itself. Thus it was that on lying down at bedtime he fell instantly asleep, sound, undisturbed, complete, like an animal’s. No long train of aerial fancies passed through his mind; that organ, like a muscle unemployed, fell into perfect repose.

This incessant work was not persevered in as a “religion,” such as it is the fashion nowadays to “dignify” toil for the benefit of those who own factories. Nor was it the restless energy of a great genius, for Godwin had no ambition, and to drive nails in a carpenter’s shop would have contented him as well as to lead the army at Pharsalia, Nor was it nervous restlessness; he was quite without nerves. It was his nature.

Just as rooks fly because they are rooks, so Godwin worked because he was Godwin, worked and accumulated money, and drove himself, and every human being with whom he came into the smallest contact, and knew no more rest or fatigue than the old mill-wheel.

His forefathers had had money; it was a family, a hereditary trait⁠—this faculty for accumulation. Robert got together more, and it was whispered that he had lent a large sum to the Squire. Certainly his will was law on the Cornleigh estate; it was no use appealing to the Squire, who merely referred applicants back to his steward.

There could not have been a more faithful steward. There was not a halfpenny wasted on that property, not the value of a rusty nail. Economy, rigid control, perfect accounts; every shilling brought to the board. Everything organized and in order; no confusion, no uncertainty. Above all, no weak paltering with tenants who had had losses, or suffered from illness or infirmity; no feeble yielding to the entreaties of the widow, or the fatherless children, or the unfortunate. The same rigid rule was applied unfalteringly to all alike, so that there could be no favouritism: “Pay or go.”

The steward allowed no time, consented to no compromise. “Pay or go.” Three omnipotent words, which brought to the Squire’s pockets an unfailing supply of gold twice a year.

Some did, indeed, say that the reputation thereby acquired prevented tenants with large capital from applying when farms were vacant; they would rather go farther and have more freedom and kindliness of treatment. However that might be, for the present, at all events, the Godwin rule was a success.

It was thought that the succession of bad seasons must necessitate a relaxation of this iron government, but fortune sometimes favours the hardest natures, and in this case favoured Robert Godwin. By a piece of good luck that neighbourhood did not suffer so severely at first as many districts; the crops were below the average, but not so seriously; some little allowance had to be made, but not much; the tenants certainly lost money, yet they could not make out a sufficiently pressing case to obtain much reduction of rent. Of late there had been more serious complaint. No appreciable difference was caused in the Godwin government.

He was ever on the alert, just the same, to detect the least infringement of the strict letter of the agreement; ever ready with objections if any expenditure was applied for; always watching for an opportunity to assert the authority of his master.

A labourer began to build a hut on waste ground by the wayside. Godwin had the materials carted away, as he had commenced without permission from the lord of the manor. A cottager had made a garden in a hedge, leaving enough of the fence each side to prevent cattle straying; he worked on the estate, but Godwin spied out the encroachment and had quickset thorns planted among the potatoes.

The thatched roofs of the cottages in one of the hamlets were rotten, and let the rain through; the poor inhabitants begged for repairs. Nothing of the sort: they could buy straw and repair the roofs if they wished; if not, the wet might drip on their beds.

Enclosure of the common had already begun when Mr. Goring came forward and contested the right of Cornleigh Cornleigh, Esq., to enclose. Godwin blustered and thundered; letters were written on blue paper; but public opinion had been drawn to the question, emissaries from powerful societies appeared on the scene, and the scheme was let drop.

Some day, perhaps, Mr. Goring would leave. These objectors have never much status or stability. They are not fixed like great hereditary owners. The Pope is dead⁠—long live the Pope! The interests of hereditary estates are handed on generation after generation, much like the will of Peter the Great; but objectors, such as Mr. Goring, usually disappear in a few years. The hand that repairs the embankment once withdrawn, the sea soon rushes in.

Godwin was ceaselessly on the alert to extend the authority of his employer. Footpaths were stopped, and odd corners of waste ground enclosed with stone walls costing thrice the value of the land, in order that no one might “squat” and presently assert a right to a few square yards of their own country.

These proceedings were by no means confined to the outlying agricultural places, where the well-to-do people were almost all tenants, and the remainder poor and without organization. Robert Godwin attacked the town with equal zest and equal success. The Cornleigh Cornleigh property included a considerable part of the town, and his “rights” extended more or less over the rest.

Except by long and costly legal process it was impossible to tell where those “rights” really began or ended. The steward made the fullest use of this uncertainty. Old byways and paths were blocked, corners enclosed, possession asserted and taken, and not a voice was raised. The whole town was straitened, and a band as it were drawn tight about it so that it could scarce breathe.

The park was closed, though the inhabitants had used it for a hundred years as a recreation ground, and had undoubted claims to roads across it. Not a voice was raised. Old inhabitants retained a respect for “the family,” and would not oppose its will. Tradespeople wished to enjoy its custom and patronage, though, as a matter of fact, they got neither, as “the family” bought all they required in London; still they did not like to shut the door in their own faces. There were not enough shoemakers in Maasbury.

Long since there had been a glove industry in the surrounding villages⁠—an industry at which the poor folk worked in their own cottages. For the most part it had disappeared, yet to this day the magistrates could distinguish the hamlets where it had once flourished by the records in their books. To this day half the cases brought before them came from these hamlets.

Your artisan who works at home⁠—your cottage glovemaker, or shoemaker⁠—is a terrible radical, a fearful character, a frequenter of taverns, a fisticuff fellow, and above all things a contemner of authority. He will get into trouble for no other purpose than to show his despite of authority. His descendants had it in their blood, and still continued to exhibit the same disposition. But the industry had died out, and there were no shoemakers to speak of in Maasbury town. Consequently Mr. Godwin ruled as he chose.

The result was that the property was trimmed, walled, enclosed, and improved in every possible manner. Had it been set out to sale, the auctioneer could have honestly laid stress on the singular completeness of the estate. It was in perfect order. The “family” reaped that advantage.

A breathless hatred of Robert Godwin prevailed from north to south, east to west, of that broad stretch of land. From the tenant of a thousand acres, and the wealthy tradesman (like Rosa’s father) down to the miserable old woman in her shanty, living on tea and soaked bread, the hatred of Robert Godwin was universal.

The well-to-do exhibited this feeling by asking him to every entertainment they gave⁠—invitations seldom accepted, for Godwin was a solitary man⁠—by publicly praising him at every meeting, by treating him with the greatest respect, and by holding their tongues in private. No one ever abused Robert Godwin.

Even the old women did not curse him, as they do in storybooks, for they have come to learn⁠—these old women⁠—in the nineteenth century that curses are as harmless as thistledown. They looked after him as he passed⁠—simply folded their arms and looked after him.

His mind, hard set upon the subject in hand, was clear and practical, consequently upon agricultural topics, and such as came within his reach, Godwin could make a good speech. He frequently spoke, expressing himself in plain and forcible language; his speeches appeared in full in the local prints, and were even transferred to the London agricultural papers. He possessed a considerable reputation of this kind, and justly so, for he spoke out of the fullness of practical knowledge.