Wood and Stone (37 page)

The policemen kept looking anxiously towards the Half Moon where the road across the hill terminated. They were evidently very nervous and extremely
desirous
of the arrival of re-enforcements. No
re-enforcements
coming, however, and the destruction of property continuing, they were forced to act; and drawing their staves, they made a determined rush
upon the men attacking the shed. Had these persons not been already half-drunk, the emissaries of the law would have come off badly. As it was, they only succeeded in flinging the rioters back a few paces. The whole crowd moved forward and a volley of stones and sticks compelled the officials to retreat. In their retreat they endeavoured to carry Mr. Homer with them, assuring him, in hurried gasps, that his life itself was in danger. “They’ll knock your head off, sir—the scoundrels! Phil Wone has seen you.”

The pale son of Mr. Wone had indeed pushed his way to the front. He at once began an impassioned oration.

“There he is—the devil himself!” he shouted, panting with excitement. “Do for him, friends! Throw him into one of his own pits—the
bloodsucker
, the assassin, the murderer of the people!”

Wild memories of historic passages rushed through the young anarchist’s brain. He waved his arms savagely, goading on his companions. His face was livid. Mr. Romer moved towards him, his head thrown back and a contemptuous smile upon his face.

The drunken ring leaders, recognizing their
hereditary
terror—the local magistrate—reeled backwards in sudden panic. Others in the front line of the crowd, knowing Mr. Romer by sight, stood stock still and gaped foolishly or tried to shuffle off unobserved. A few strangers who were there, perceiving the
presence
of a formidable-looking gentleman, assumed at once that he was Lord Tintinhull or the Earl of Glastonbury and made frantic efforts to escape. The crowd at the back, conscious that a reverse
movemen
t
had begun, became alarmed. Cries were raised that the “military” had come. “They are going to fire!” shouted one voice, and several women screamed.

Philip Wone lifted up his voice again, pointing with outstretched arm at his enemy, and calling upon the crowd to advance.

“The serpent!—the devil-fish!—the bread-stealer!—the money-eater!” he yelled. “Cast him into his own pit, bury him in his own quarries!”

It was perhaps fortunate for Mr. Romer at that moment that his adversary was this honest youth in place of a more hypocritical leader. An English crowd, even though sprinkled with a leaven of angry strikers, only grows puzzled and bewildered when it hears its enemy referred to as “devil-fish” and “assassin.”

The enemy at this moment took full advantage of their bewilderment. He deliberately drew out his cigarette-case and lighting a cigarette, made a gesture as if driving back a flock of sheep. The crowd showed further signs of panic. But the young
anarchist
was not to be silenced.

“Look round you, friends,” he shouted. “Here is this man defying you on the very spot where you work for him day and night, where your descendants will work for his descendants day and night! What are you afraid of? This man did not make this hill bring forth stone, though it is stone, instead of bread, that he would willingly give your children!”

Mr. Romer gave a sign to the policemen and
approached
a step nearer. The cider-drinkers had already moved off. The crowd began to melt away.

“The very earth,” went on the young man, “cries aloud to you to put an end to this tyranny! Do you realize that this is the actual place where in one grand revolt the men of Mid Wessex rose against the—”

He was interrupted by a man behind him—a poacher from an outlying hamlet. “Chuck it, Phil Wone! Us knows all about this ’ere job.”

Mr. Romer raised his hand. The policemen seized the young man by the arms, one on either side. He seemed hardly to notice them, and went on in a loud resonant voice that rang across the valley.

“It will end! It will end, this evil day! Already the new age is beginning. These robbers of the people had better make haste with their plundering, for the hour is approaching! Where is your priest?”—he struggled violently with his captors, turning towards the rapidly retreating crowd, “where is your vicar,—your curer of souls? He talks to you of
submission
, and love, and obedience, and duty. What does this man care for these things? It is under this talk of” love “that you are betrayed! It is under this talk of” duty, “that your children have the bread taken from their mouths! But the hour will come;—yes, you may smile,” he addressed himself directly to Mr. Romer now, “but you will not smile for long.
Your
fate is already written down! It is as sure as this rain,—as sure as this storm!”

He was silent, and making no further resistance, let himself be carried off by the two officials.

The rain he spoke of was indeed beginning. Heavy drops, precursors of what seemed likely to be a tropical deluge, fell upon the broken wood-work, upon the half-burnt bracken, upon the slabs of Leonian
stone, and upon the trampled grass. They also fell upon Mr. Romer’s silver match-box as he selected another cigarette of his favourite brand, and walked slowly and smilingly away in the direction of
Nevilton
.

I
SEE,” said Luke Andersen to his brother, as they sat at breakfast in the station-master’s kitchen, about a fortnight after the riot on Leo’s Hill, “I see that Romer has withdrawn his charge against young Wone. It seems that the magistrates set him free yesterday, on Romer’s own responsibility. So the case will not come up at all. What do you make of that?”

“He is a wiser man than I imagined,” said James.

“And that’s not all!” cried his brother blowing the cigarette ashes from the open paper in front of him. “It appears the strike is in a good way of being settled by those damned delegates. We were idiots to trust them. I knew it. I told the men so. But they are all such hopeless fools. No doubt Romer has found some way of getting round them! The talk is now of arbitration, and a commissioner from the government. You mark my words, Daddy Jim, we shall be back working again by Monday.”

“But we shall get the chief thing we wanted, after all—if Lickwit is removed,” said James, rising from the table and going to the window, “I know I shall be quite satisfied myself, if I don’t see that rascal’s face any more.”

“The poor wretch has collapsed altogether, so they said down at the inn last night,” Luke put in. “My
belief is that Romer has now staked everything on getting into Parliament and is ready to do anything to propitiate the neighbourhood. If that’s his line, he’ll succeed. He’ll out-manœuvre our friend Wone at every step. When a man of his type once tries the conciliatory game be becomes irresistible. That is what these stupid employers so rarely realize. No doubt that’s his policy in stopping the process against Philip. He’s a shrewd fellow this Romer—and I shouldn’t wonder if, when the strike is settled, he became the most popular landlord in the country. Wone did for himself by sneaking off home that day, when things looked threatening. They were talking about that in Yeoborough. I shouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t lose him the election.”

“I hope not,” said James Andersen gazing out of the window at the gathering clouds. “I should be sorry to see that happen.”

“I should be damned glad!” cried his brother, pushing back his chair and luxuriously sipping his final cup of tea. “My sympathies are all with
Romer
in this business. He has acted magnanimously. He has acted shrewdly. I would sooner, any day, be under the control of a man like him, than see a sentimental charlatan like Wone get into Parliament.”

“You are unfair, my friend,” said the elder brother, opening the lower sash of the window and letting in such a draught of rainy wind that he was immediately compelled to re-close it, “you are thoroughly unfair. Wone is not in the least a charlatan. He believes every word he says, and he says a great many things that are profoundly true. I cannot see,” he went on, turning round and confronting his equable relative
with a perturbed and troubled face, “why you have got your knife into Wone in this extreme manner. Of course he is conceited and long-winded, but the man is genuinely sincere. I call him rather a pathetic figure.”

“He looked pathetic enough when he sneaked off after that riot, leaving Philip in the hands of the police.”

“It annoys me the way you speak,” returned the elder brother, in growing irritation. “What right have you to call the one man’s discretion cowardice, and the other’s wise diplomacy? I don’t see that it was any more cowardice for Wone to protest against a riot, than for Romer to back down before public opinion as he seems now to have done. Besides, who can blame a fellow for wanting to avoid a scene like that? I know
you
wouldn’t have cared to
encounter
those Yeoborough roughs.”

“Old Romer encountered them,” retorted Luke. “They say he smoked a cigarette in their faces, and just waved them away, as if they were a cloud of gnats. I love a man who can do that sort of thing!”

“That’s right!” cried the elder brother growing thoroughly angry. “That’s the true Yellow Press attitude! Here we have one of your ‘still, strong men,’ afraid of no mob on earth! I know them—these strong men! Its easy enough to be calm and strong when you have a banking-account like Romer’s, and all the police in the county on your side?”

“Brother Lickwit will not forget that afternoon,” remarked Luke, taking a rose from a vase on the table and putting it into his button-hole.

“Yes, Lickwit is the scape-goat,” rejoined the
other. “Lickwit will have to leave the place, broken in his nerves, and ruined in his reputation, while his master gets universal praise for magnanimity and generosity! That is the ancient trick of these crafty oppressors.”

“Why do you use such grand words, Daddy Jim?” said Luke smiling and stretching out his legs. “It’s all nonsense, this talk about oppressors and oppressed. The world only contains two sorts of people—the capable ones and the incapable ones. I am all on the side of the capable ones!”

“I suppose that is why you are treating little Annie Bristow so abominably!” cried James, losing all command of his temper.

Luke made an indescribable grimace which
converted
his countenance in a moment from that of a gentle faun to that of an ugly Satyr.

“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, “so we are on that tack are we? And please tell me, most virtuous moralist, why I am any worse in my attitude to Annie, than you in your attitude to Ninsy? It seems to me we are in the same box over these little jobs.”

“Damn you!” cried James Andersen, walking fiercely up to his brother and trembling with rage.

But Luke sipped his tea with perfect equanimity.

“It’s no good damning me,” he said quietly. “That will not alter the situation. The fact remains, that both of us have found our little village-girls rather a nuisance. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame myself. These things are inevitable. They are part of the system of the universe. Little girls have to learn—as the world moves round—that they can’t have everything they want. I don’t know
whether you intend to marry Ninsy? I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying Annie.”

“But you’ve been making love to her for the last two months! You told me so yourself when we met her at Hullaway!”

“And you weren’t so very severe then, were you, Daddy Jim? It’s only because I have annoyed you this morning that you bring all this up. As a matter of fact, Annie is far less mad about me than Ninsy is about you. She’s already flirting with Bob Granger. Anyone can see she’s perfectly happy. She’s been happy ever since she made a fool of me over Gladys’ ring. As long as a girl knows she’s put you in a ridiculous position, she’ll very soon console herself. No doubt she’ll make Granger marry her before the summer’s over. Ninsy is quite a different person. Annie and I take our little affair in precisely the same spirit. I am no more to blame than she is. But Ninsy’s case is different. Ninsy is seriously and desperately in love with you. And her invalid state makes the situation a much more embarrassing one. I think my position is infinitely less complicated than yours, brother Jim!”

James Andersen’s face became convulsed with fury. He stretched out his arm towards his brother, and extended a threatening fore-finger.

“Young man,” he cried, “I will
never
forgive you for this!”

Having uttered these words he rushed incontinently out of the room, and, bare-headed as he was,
proceeded
to stride across the fields, in a direction
opposite
from that which led to Nevilton.

The younger brother shrugged his shoulders,
drained his tea-cup, and meditatively lit another cigarette. The stone-works being closed, he had all the day before him in which to consider this
unfortunate
rupture. At the present moment, however, all he did was to call their landlady—the
station-master’s
buxom wife—and affably help her in the removal and washing up of the breakfast things.

Luke was an adept in all household matters. His supple fingers and light feminine movements were equal to almost any task, and while occupied in such things his gay and humorous conversation made any companion of his labour an enviable person. Mrs. Round, their landlady, adored him. There was nothing she would not have done at his request; and Lizzie, Betty, and Polly, her three little daughters, loved him more than they loved their own father. Having concerned himself for more than an hour with these agreeable people, Luke took his hat and stick, and strolling lazily along the railroad-line railings, surveyed with inquisitive interest the motley group of persons who were waiting, on the further side, for the approach of a train.

A little apart from the rest, seated on a bench beside a large empty basket, he observed the
redoubtable
Mrs. Fringe. Between this lady and
himself
there had existed for the last two years a sort of conspiracy of gossip. Like many other
middl-eaged
women in Nevilton, Mrs. Fringe had made a pet and confidant of this attractive young man, who played, in spite of his mixed birth, a part almost analogous to that of an affable and ingratiating cadet of some noble family.

He passed through the turn-stile, crossed the track,
and advanced slowly up the platform. His plump Gossip, observing him afar off, rose and moved to meet him, her basket swinging in her hand and a radiant smile upon her face. It was like an encounter between some Pantagruelian courtier and some
colossal
Gargamelle. They stood together, in the wind, at the extreme edge of the platform. Luke, who was dressed so well that it would have been
impossible
to distinguish him from any golden youth from Oxford or Cambridge, whispered shameless scandal into the lady’s ears, from beneath the shadow of his panama-hat. She on her side was equally confidential.

“There was a pretty scene down our way last night,” she said. “Miss Seldom came in with some books for my young Reverend and, Lord! they did have an ado. I heard ’un shouting at one another as though them were rampin’ mad. My master ’ee were hollerin’ Holy Scripture like as he were dazed, and the young lady she were answerin’ ’im with God knows what. From all I could gather of it, that girl had got some devil’s tale on Miss Gladys. ’Tweren’t as though she did actually name her by name, as you might say, but she pulled her hair and scratched her like any crazy cat, sideways-like and cross-wise. It seems she’d got hold of some story about that foreign young woman and Miss Gladys having her knife into ’er, but I saw well enough what was at the bottom of it and I won’t conceal it from ’ee, my dear. She do want ’im for herself. That’s the long and short. She do want ’im for herself!”

“What were they disputing about?” asked Luke eagerly. “Did you hear their words?”

“’Tis no good arstin’ me about their words,” replied Mrs. Fringe. “Those long-windy dilly-dallies do sound to me no more than the burbering of
blow-flies
. God save us from such words! I’m not a reading woman and I don’t care who knows it. But I know when a wench is moon-daft on a fellow. I knows that, my dear, and I knows when she’s got a tale on another girl!”

“Did she talk about Catholicism to him?” enquired Luke.

“I won’t say as she didn’t bring something of that sort in,” replied his friend. “But ’twas Miss Gladys wot worried ’er. Any fool could see that. ’Tis my experience that when a girl and a fellow get hot on any of these dilly-dally argimints, there’s always some other maid biding round the corner.”

“I’ve just had a row with James,” remarked the stone-carver. “He’s gone off in a fury over towards Hullaway.”

Mrs Fringe put down her basket and glanced up and down the platform. Then she laid her hand on the young man’s arm.

“I wouldn’t say what I do now say, to anyone, but thee own self, dearie. And I wouldn’t say it to thee if it hadn’t been worriting me for some merciful long while. And what’s more I wouldn’t say it, if I didn’t know what you and your Jim are to one another. ‘More than brothers,’ is what the whole village do say of ye!”

“Go on—go on—Mrs. Fringe!” cried Luke. “That curst signal’s down, and I can hear the train.”

“There be other trains than wot run on them irons,” pronounced Mrs. Fringe sententiously, “and
if you aren’t careful, one such God Almighty’s train will run over that brother of yours, sooner or later.”

Luke looked apprehensively up the long converging steel track. The gloom of the day and the ominous tone of his old gossip affected him very unpleasantly. He began to wish that there was not a deep muddy pond under the Hullaway elms.

“What on earth do you mean?” he cried, adding impatiently, “Oh damn that train!” as a cloud of smoke made itself visible in the distance.

“Only this, dearie,” said the woman picking up her basket, “only this. If you listen to me you’d sooner dig your own grave than have words with brother. Brother be not one wot can stand these fimble-fambles same as you and I. I know wot I do say, cos I was privileged, under Almighty God, to see the end of your dear mother.”

“I know—I know—” cried the young man, “but what do you mean?”

Mrs. Fringe thrust her arm through the handle of her basket and turned to meet the incoming train.

“’Twas when I lived with my dear husband down at Willow-Grove,” she said. “’Twas a stone’s throw there from where you and Jim were born. I always feared he would go, same as she went, sooner or later. He talks like her. He looks like her. He treats a person in the way she treated a person, poor
moonstruck
darling! ’Twas all along of your father. She couldn’t bide him along-side of her in the last days. And he knew it as well as you and I know it. But do ’ee think it made any difference to him? Not a bit, dearie! Not one little bit!”

The train had now stopped, and with various
humorous observations, addressed to porters and passengers indiscriminately, Mrs. Fringe took her place in a carriage.

Heedless of being overheard, Luke addressed her through the window of the compartment. “But what about James? What were you saying about James?”

“’Tis too long a tale to tell ’ee, dearie,” murmured the woman breathlessly. “There be need now of all my blessed wits to do business for the Reverend.” There, look at that! “She waved at him a crumpled piece of paper. “Beyond all thinking I’ve got to fetch him books from Slitly’s. Books, by the Lord! As if he hadn’t too many of the darned things for his poor brain already!”