First, about Fuzzy, and most important. Who was he? What was he? Where did he live? Had he got a wife? And if so, why? And if not, more especially, why again? Also, how much money had he, and what in the world did he do with it; and could he have, under the rose, any reason for keeping our women so distant? Particularly, I had orders to know whether he was considered handsome by the Devonshire women. For our women could not make up their minds, and feared to give way to the high opinion engendered by his contempt of them. Only they liked his general hairiness, if it could be warranted not to come off.
Upon this point I learned nothing at all. No man even knew Bethel Jose, or, at any rate, none would own to it, perhaps because Ikey was there to hearken; so I left that until I should get with the women. My next matter was about Braunton Burrows, and the gentleman of high rank who wandered up and down without telling us why. And I might hereupon have won some knowledge, and was beginning to do so, when a square stout man came in and said "Hush!" and I would gladly have thrown a jug at him. Nevertheless, I did learn something which I mean to tell next to directly.
But as concerned the third question before me (and to myself the most itching of any), satisfaction, to at least half-measure, was by proper skill and fortune brought within my reach almost. And this I must set down at leisure, soberly thinking over it.
It was of course not Parson Rambone but the Parson Chowne who aroused my desire of knowledge so strongly. And even here I was met at first by failure and disappointment. The men would only shake their hands and say "Ah, he is a queer one!" or, "Well, well, we can't expect all folk to be alike, you know;" or even some of the ruder spirits, "You had better go yourself and ask him"--a most absurd suggestion, for never yet had I seen a man less fit to encourage impertinence. Far more ready would I have been to displease even his great comrade, the Reverend John Rambone; and no one who saw them together could doubt which of the two was the master. My true course was clearly to bide my time, and, as chairman, to enhance the goodwill and geniality of the evening. And this I was ready enough to do--ay, and in the vein for it--bearing in mind the wisdom of enjoying to the utmost such favourable circumstances, to be on the free boot, and well received in a place entirely new to me, where I found myself so much ahead of everybody in matter of mind, and some of them glad to acknowledge it; also where no customer could be waiting to reproach me, nor even a justice of the peace well versed in my countenance; moreover, blessed as I was with a sense of pity for these natives, and a largeness of goodwill to them, such a chance had never crossed me since the day my wife did.