IV

He himself slept heavily; and, waking at dawn, went down. Pippin was

still at his desk; his pen had dropped; he was asleep. The ink was wet;

Scorrier's eye caught the opening words:

“GENTLEMEN,—Since this happened I have not slept....”

He stole away again with a sense of indignation that no one could be

dragged in to share that fight. The London Board-room rose before his

mind. He imagined the portentous gravity of Hemmings; his face and

voice and manner conveying the impression that he alone could save

the situation; the six directors, all men of commonsense and certainly

humane, seated behind large turret-shaped inkpots; the concern and

irritation in their voices, asking how it could have happened; their

comments: “An awful thing!” “I suppose Pippin is doing the best he can!”

“Wire him on no account to leave the mine idle!” “Poor devils!” “A

fund? Of course, what ought we to give?” He had a strong conviction that

nothing of all this would disturb the commonsense with which they would

go home and eat their mutton. A good thing too; the less it was taken

to heart the better! But Scorrier felt angry. The fight was so unfair!

A fellow all nerves—with not a soul to help him! Well, it was his own

lookout! He had chosen to centre it all in himself, to make himself its

very soul. If he gave way now, the ship must go down! By a thin thread,

Scorrier's hero-worship still held. 'Man against nature,' he thought,

'I back the man.' The struggle in which he was so powerless to give

aid, became intensely personal to him, as if he had engaged his own good

faith therein.

The next day they went down again to the pit-head; and Scorrier himself

descended. The fumes had almost cleared, but there were some places

which would never be reached. At the end of the day all but four bodies

had been recovered. “In the day o' judgment,” a miner said, “they

four'll come out of here.” Those unclaimed bodies haunted Scorrier. He

came on sentences of writing, where men waiting to be suffocated had

written down their feelings. In one place, the hour, the word “Sleepy,”

and a signature. In another, “A. F.—done for.” When he came up at last

Pippin was still waiting, pocket-book in hand; they again departed at a

furious pace.

Two days later Scorrier, visiting the shaft, found its neighbourhood

deserted—not a living thing of any sort was there except one Chinaman

poking his stick into the rubbish. Pippin was away down the coast

engaging an engineer; and on his return, Scorrier had not the heart to

tell him of the desertion. He was spared the effort, for Pippin said:

“Don't be afraid—you've got bad news? The men have gone on strike.”

Scorrier sighed. “Lock, stock, and barrel”

“I thought so—see what I have here!” He put before Scorrier a telegram:

“At all costs keep working—fatal to stop—manage this somehow.—HEMMINGS.”

Breathing quickly, he added: “As if I didn't know! 'Manage this

somehow'—a little hard!”

“What's to be done?” asked Scorrier.

“You see I am commanded!” Pippin answered bitterly. “And they're quite

right; we must keep working—our contracts! Now I'm down—not a soul will

spare me!”

The miners' meeting was held the following day on the outskirts of the

town. Pippin had cleared the place to make a public recreation-ground—a

sort of feather in the company's cap; it was now to be the spot whereon

should be decided the question of the company's life or death.

The sky to the west was crossed by a single line of cloud like a bar of

beaten gold; tree shadows crept towards the groups of men; the evening

savour, that strong fragrance of the forest, sweetened the air. The

miners stood all round amongst the burnt tree-stumps, cowed and sullen.

They looked incapable of movement or expression. It was this dumb

paralysis that frightened Scorrier. He watched Pippin speaking from his

phaeton, the butt of all those sullen, restless eyes. Would he last

out? Would the wires hold? It was like the finish of a race. He caught

a baffled look on Pippin's face, as if he despaired of piercing that

terrible paralysis. The men's eyes had begun to wander. 'He's lost his

hold,' thought Scorrier; 'it's all up!'

A miner close beside him muttered: “Look out!”

Pippin was leaning forward, his voice had risen, the words fell like a

whiplash on the faces of the crowd: “You shan't throw me over; do you

think I'll give up all I've done for you? I'll make you the first power

in the colony! Are you turning tail at the first shot? You're a set of

cowards, my lads!”

Each man round Scorrier was listening with a different motion of the

hands—one rubbed them, one clenched them, another moved his closed fist,

as if stabbing some one in the back. A grisly-bearded, beetle-browed,

twinkling-eyed old Cornishman muttered: “A'hm not troublin' about that.”

It seemed almost as if Pippin's object was to get the men to kill him;

they had gathered closer, crouching for a rush. Suddenly Pippin's voice

dropped to a whisper: “I'm disgraced Men, are you going back on me?”

The old miner next Scorrier called out suddenly: “Anny that's Cornishmen

here to stand by the superintendent?” A group drew together, and with

murmurs and gesticulation the meeting broke up.

In the evening a deputation came to visit Pippin; and all night long

their voices and the superintendent's footsteps could be heard. In the

morning, Pippin went early to the mine. Before supper the deputation

came again; and again Scorrier had to listen hour after hour to the

sound of voices and footsteps till he fell asleep. Just before dawn he

was awakened by a light. Pippin stood at his bedside. “The men go down

to-morrow,” he said: “What did I tell you? Carry me home on my shield,

eh?”

In a week the mine was in full work.

V

Two years later, Scorrier heard once more of Pippin. A note from

Hemmings reached him asking if he could make it convenient to attend

their Board meeting the following Thursday. He arrived rather before the

appointed time. The secretary received him, and, in answer to inquiry,

said: “Thank you, we are doing well—between ourselves, we are doing very

well.”

“And Pippin?”

The secretary frowned. “Ah, Pippin! We asked you to come on his account.

Pippin is giving us a lot of trouble. We have not had a single line

from him for just two years!” He spoke with such a sense of personal

grievance that Scorrier felt quite sorry for him. “Not a single line,”

said Hemmings, “since that explosion—you were there at the time, I

remember! It makes it very awkward; I call it personal to me.”

“But how—” Scorrier began.

“We get—telegrams. He writes to no one, not even to his family. And why?

Just tell me why? We hear of him; he's a great nob out there. Nothing's

done in the colony without his finger being in the pie. He turned out

the last Government because they wouldn't grant us an extension for our

railway—shows he can't be a fool. Besides, look at our balance-sheet!”

It turned out that the question on which Scorrier's opinion was desired

was, whether Hemmings should be sent out to see what was the matter

with the superintendent. During the discussion which ensued, he was an

unwilling listener to strictures on Pippin's silence. “The explosion,”

he muttered at last, “a very trying time!”

Mr. Booker pounced on him. “A very trying time! So it was—to all of us.

But what excuse is that—now, Mr. Scorrier, what excuse is that?”

Scorrier was obliged to admit that it was none.

“Business is business—eh, what?”

Scorrier, gazing round that neat Board-room, nodded. A deaf director,

who had not spoken for some months, said with sudden fierceness: “It's

disgraceful!” He was obviously letting off the fume of long-unuttered

disapprovals. One perfectly neat, benevolent old fellow, however,

who had kept his hat on, and had a single vice—that of coming to the

Board-room with a brown paper parcel tied up with string—murmured: “We

must make all allowances,” and started an anecdote about his youth. He

was gently called to order by his secretary. Scorrier was asked for

his opinion. He looked at Hemmings. “My importance is concerned,” was

written all over the secretary's face. Moved by an impulse of loyalty to

Pippin, Scorrier answered, as if it were all settled: “Well, let me know

when you are starting, Hemmings—I should like the trip myself.”

As he was going out, the chairman, old Jolyon Forsyte, with a grave,

twinkling look at Hemmings, took him aside. “Glad to hear you say that

about going too, Mr. Scorrier; we must be careful—Pippin's such a good

fellow, and so sensitive; and our friend there—a bit heavy in the hand,

um?”

Scorrier did in fact go out with Hemmings. The secretary was sea-sick,

and his prostration, dignified but noisy, remained a memory for ever;

it was sonorous and fine—the prostration of superiority; and the way in

which he spoke of it, taking casual acquaintances into the caves of his

experience, was truly interesting.

Pippin came down to the capital to escort them, provided for their

comforts as if they had been royalty, and had a special train to take

them to the mines.

He was a little stouter, brighter of colour, greyer of beard, more

nervous perhaps in voice and breathing. His manner to Hemmings was full

of flattering courtesy; but his sly, ironical glances played on the

secretary's armour like a fountain on a hippopotamus. To Scorrier,

however, he could not show enough affection:

The first evening, when Hemmings had gone to his room, he jumped up

like a boy out of school. “So I'm going to get a wigging,” he said;

“I suppose I deserve it; but if you knew—if you only knew...! Out here

they've nicknamed me 'the King'—they say I rule the colony. It's myself

that I can't rule”; and with a sudden burst of passion such as Scorrier

had never seen in him: “Why did they send this man here? What can he

know about the things that I've been through?” In a moment he calmed

down again. “There! this is very stupid; worrying you like this!” and

with a long, kind look into Scorrier's face, he hustled him off to bed.

Pippin did not break out again, though fire seemed to smoulder behind

the bars of his courteous irony. Intuition of danger had evidently

smitten Hemmings, for he made no allusion to the object of his

visit. There were moments when Scorrier's common-sense sided with

Hemmings—these were moments when the secretary was not present.

'After all,' he told himself, 'it's a little thing to ask—one letter a

month. I never heard of such a case.' It was wonderful indeed how they

stood it! It showed how much they valued Pippin! What was the matter

with him? What was the nature of his trouble? One glimpse Scorrier had

when even Hemmings, as he phrased it, received “quite a turn.” It was

during a drive back from the most outlying of the company's trial mines,

eight miles through the forest. The track led through a belt of trees

blackened by a forest fire. Pippin was driving. The secretary seated

beside him wore an expression of faint alarm, such as Pippin's driving

was warranted to evoke from almost any face. The sky had darkened

strangely, but pale streaks of light, coming from one knew not where,

filtered through the trees. No breath was stirring; the wheels and

horses' hoofs made no sound on the deep fern mould. All around, the

burnt tree-trunks, leafless and jagged, rose like withered giants, the

passages between them were black, the sky black, and black the silence.

No one spoke, and literally the only sound was Pippin's breathing. What

was it that was so terrifying? Scorrier had a feeling of entombment;

that nobody could help him; the feeling of being face to face with

Nature; a sensation as if all the comfort and security of words and

rules had dropped away from him. And-nothing happened. They reached home

and dined.

During dinner he had again that old remembrance of a little man chopping

at a castle with his sword. It came at a moment when Pippin had raised

his hand with the carving-knife grasped in it to answer some remark of

Hemmings' about the future of the company. The optimism in his uplifted

chin, the strenuous energy in his whispering voice, gave Scorrier a more

vivid glimpse of Pippin's nature than he had perhaps ever had before.

This new country, where nothing but himself could help a man—that was

the castle! No wonder Pippin was impatient of control, no wonder he was

out of hand, no wonder he was silent—chopping away at that! And suddenly

he thought: 'Yes, and all the time one knows, Nature must beat him in

the end!'

That very evening Hemmings delivered himself of his reproof. He had sat

unusually silent; Scorrier, indeed, had thought him a little drunk, so

portentous was his gravity; suddenly, however he rose. It was hard on a

man, he said, in his position, with a Board (he spoke as of a family

of small children), to be kept so short of information. He was actually

compelled to use his imagination to answer the shareholders' questions.

This was painful and humiliating; he had never heard of any secretary

having to use his imagination! He went further—it was insulting! He had

grown grey in the service of the company. Mr. Scorrier would bear him

out when he said he had a position to maintain—his name in the City was

a high one; and, by George! he was going to keep it a high one; he would

allow nobody to drag it in the dust—that ought clearly to be understood.

His directors felt they were being treated like children; however that

might be, it was absurd to suppose that he (Hemmings) could be treated

like a child...! The secretary paused; his eyes seemed to bully the

room.

“If there were no London office,” murmured Pippin, “the shareholders

would get the same dividends.”

Hemmings gasped. “Come!” he said, “this is monstrous!”

“What help did I get from London when I first came here? What help have

I ever had?”

Hemmings swayed, recovered, and with a forced smile replied that, if

this were true, he had been standing on his head for years; he did not

believe the attitude possible for such a length of time; personally he

would have thought that he too had had a little something to say to the

company's position, but no matter...! His irony was crushing.... It

was possible that Mr. Pippin hoped to reverse the existing laws of the

universe with regard to limited companies; he would merely say that

he must not begin with a company of which he (Hemmings) happened to be

secretary. Mr. Scorrier had hinted at excuses; for his part, with the

best intentions in the world, he had great difficulty in seeing them. He

would go further—he did not see them! The explosion...! Pippin shrank

so visibly that Hemmings seemed troubled by a suspicion that he had gone

too far.

“We know,” he said, “that it was trying for you....”

“Trying!” “burst out Pippin.

“No one can say,” Hemmings resumed soothingly, “that we have not dealt

liberally.” Pippin made a motion of the head. “We think we have a good

superintendent; I go further, an excellent superintendent. What I say

is: Let's be pleasant! I am not making an unreasonable request!” He

ended on a fitting note of jocularity; and, as if by consent, all three

withdrew, each to his own room, without another word.

In the course of the next day Pippin said to Scorrier: “It seems I have

been very wicked. I must try to do better”; and with a touch of bitter

humour, “They are kind enough to think me a good superintendent, you

see! After that I must try hard.”

Scorrier broke in: “No man could have done so much for them;” and,

carried away by an impulse to put things absolutely straight, went on

“But, after all, a letter now and then—what does it amount to?”

Pippin besieged him with a subtle glance. “You too?” he said—“I must

indeed have been a wicked man!” and turned away.

Scorrier felt as if he had been guilty of brutality; sorry for Pippin,

angry with himself; angry with Pippin, sorry for himself. He earnestly

desired to see the back of Hemmings. The secretary gratified the wish

a few days later, departing by steamer with ponderous expressions of

regard and the assurance of his goodwill.

Pippin gave vent to no outburst of relief, maintaining a courteous

silence, making only one allusion to his late guest, in answer to a

remark of Scorrier:

“Ah! don't tempt me! mustn't speak behind his back.”