that car? Is it a fact, sir, that before you reached that house you saw
a glow in the sky? And that when these friends wanted to go back you
said: ‘Let the damn store burn--it’s insured’?”
“Don’t answer those questions,” thundered Evans. “Your Honor, this
man’s not on trial!”
“He will be!” cried the old lawyer, “for perjury in open court! I am
_not_ surmising, Your Honor. I can prove the truth of everything I
have implied, sir. I was fortunate enough to get hold of the number of
that car. Through the number I traced the occupants. Happily for the
good of our humanity, sir, there is always to be found among a group
of young men, however wild, one who will tell the truth. Such a one is
young John Duckett, who was in that car that night.” He turned to the
court-room. “Mr. Court Crier--call John Duckett into court!”
* * * * *
At one side of the witness chair that sat high above the main
court-room, and which was on a level with the judge’s seat, ran a
railing. And now Frank Blainey, who had been growing whiter and whiter,
turned sideways, his arm on this railing, and buried his face in his
arm, his fingers clutching at his hair. With a cry, Mrs. Blainey sprang
to her feet and started forward. The voice of the judge was clear and
compelling.
“Keep your seat, madam. Stay where you are, the rest of you. This
witness has not fainted. Mr. Crier, one minute. Do not call the other
witness until I so instruct you. Mr. Blainey, here, seems to have
something on his mind. Mr. Blainey?”
Blainey raised his face. The glance he shot at Donaldson was a bit
wild, a bit vicious, too. His hair was all disheveled. He sat limp in
his chair. The judge, turning toward him, went on.
“Mr. Blainey, if you have anything to say concerning the facts implied
in Colonel Donaldson’s questions, you are at liberty to speak, sir.
Otherwise this witness, Mr. Duckett, will be called. My advice to you,
Mr. Blainey, is that you speak.”
The court-room was straining forward now; hundreds of tense faces were
turned toward the witness chair, faces strained in the effort to hear
the mumbling, halting, reluctant words.
“I--I-- Aw, it’s all true!”
“Sit up, Mr. Blainey!” commanded the judge. “Look at me, sir. You have
perjured yourself in this court! That is a grave offense; but it is as
nothing, sir, compared with the motive behind that perjury. In order to
save your practices from exposure, you would have sent an old man to
prison, probably for the remainder of his natural life. I have no words
strong enough, sir, to express my abhorrence, and the abhorrence of all
men, of what you’ve done! Are you listening, Mr. Blainey?”
Again the vicious glance around, followed by the bowed head, and a nod.
“But,” continued the judge, “the law puts in my hands the means of
punishing you. By your own confession, you have committed perjury, and
perjury is punished by a long jail sentence and a heavy fine. Combined,
they will not be sufficient for your offense, but they will be enough,
sir, to make you remember all the rest of your days--”
And now he stopped, for from his seat, face quivering, old Jeff had
sprung to his feet.
“Jedge!” he cried. “Don’t send him to the pen, Jedge! Jedge, he’s Sam
Blainey’s son!”
Compassionately the judge looked down at him where he stood beside the
table, trembling; then he spoke:
“Sit down, old man. Frank Blainey, the man whom you have attempted so
grievously to wrong pleads for you. And because of his plea, which
I can do nothing but honor and accede to, I shall remit any prison
sentence which I might have imposed. But I warn you, sir, that when the
time for your trial comes, in the due process of law, I shall fine you
to the very limit allowed me by the statute. Mr. Sheriff, see that this
man, Frank Blainey, does not leave the jurisdiction of this court.”
“Old man, stand up once more, so that all in this court-room may see
you.... Jeff Potter, this plea of yours shall go down on the records
of this court as a memorial to you and as a high example to all men
who may know or read of it of that quality of mercy which is the
sovereign good in human nature. And now, gentlemen of the jury, you are
automatically discharged from this case, and I shall ask the crowd to
pass out quietly, for court is adjourned.”
How many people old Jeff shook hands with that afternoon, he never
knew. He did know though that Burton Evans was the first among them;
that Mrs. Carson, who came next, was crying; that the strong hands of
Bill Carson and Squire Kirby almost crushed his own frailer hand; and
that off yonder, at a table below the clerk’s desk, a prim old lawyer
in a long black coat had picked up a carved Indian and was presenting
it to a little girl in a blue dress, with an old-fashioned bow strange
to see.
_The Century Magazine_
“A SOURCE OF IRRITATION”
BY
STACY AUMONIER
“A SOURCE OF IRRITATION”[3]
By STACY AUMONIER
To look at old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having nerves.
His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of the soil
had given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him hoeing,
or thinning out a broad field of turnips, hardly attracted one’s
attention, he seemed so much part and parcel of the whole scheme.
He blended into the soil like a glorified swede. Nevertheless, the
half-dozen people who claimed his acquaintance knew him to be a man who
suffered from little moods of irritability.
And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him
unreasonably. It concerned his niece Aggie. She was a plump girl with
clear, blue eyes, and a face as round and inexpressive as the dumplings
for which the county was famous. She came slowly across the long
sweep of the downland and, putting down the bundle wrapped in a red
handkerchief which contained his breakfast and dinner, she said:
“Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”
Now, this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely to
cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly and
unnecessary question. It was, moreover, the constant repetition of it
which was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a day. In the
morning she brought his bundle of food at seven, and when he passed
his sister’s cottage on the way home to tea at five she was invariably
hanging about the gate, and she always said in the same voice:
“Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”
Noos! What noos should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never
lived farther than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of those
years he had bent his back above the soil. There were, indeed, historic
occasions. Once, for instance, when he had married Annie Hachet. And
there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a famous occasion
when he had visited London. Once he had been to a flower-show at Market
Roughborough. He either went or didn’t go to church on Sundays. He had
had many interesting chats with Mr. James at the Cowman, and three
years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Way. But he couldn’t always have
interesting noos of this sort up his sleeve. Didn’t the silly zany
know that for the last three weeks he had been hoeing and thinning out
turnips for Mr. Hodge on this very same field? What noos could there be?
He blinked at his niece, and didn’t answer. She undid the parcel and
said:
“Mrs. Goping’s fowl got out again last night.”
“Ah,” he replied in a non-committal manner and began to munch his
bread and bacon. His niece picked up the handkerchief and, humming to
herself, walked back across the field.
It was a glorious morning, and a white sea mist added to the promise of
a hot day. He sat there munching, thinking of nothing in particular,
but gradually subsiding into a mood of placid content. He noticed the
back of Aggie disappear in the distance. It was a mile to the cottage
and a mile and a half to Halvesham. Silly things, girls. They were all
alike. One had to make allowances. He dismissed her from his thoughts,
and took a long swig of tea out of a bottle. Insects buzzed lazily. He
tapped his pocket to assure himself that his pouch of shag was there,
and then he continued munching. When he had finished, he lighted his
pipe and stretched himself comfortably. He looked along the line of
turnips he had thinned and then across the adjoining field of swedes.
Silver streaks appeared on the sea below the mist. In some dim way he
felt happy in his solitude amidst this sweeping immensity of earth and
sea and sky.
And then something else came to irritate him: it was one of “these
dratted airyplanes.” “Airyplanes” were his pet aversion. He could find
nothing to be said in their favor. Nasty, noisy, disfiguring things
that seared the heavens and made the earth dangerous. And every day
there seemed to be more and more of them. Of course “this old war”
was responsible for a lot of them, he knew. The war was a “plaguy
noosance.” They were short-handed on the farm, beer and tobacco were
dear, and Mrs. Steven’s nephew had been and got wounded in the foot.
He turned his attention once more to the turnips; but an “airyplane”
has an annoying genius for gripping one’s attention. When it appears
on the scene, however much we dislike it, it has a way of taking the
stage-center. We cannot help constantly looking at it. And so it was
with old Sam Gates. He spat on his hands and blinked up at the sky. And
suddenly the aëroplane behaved in a very extraordinary manner. It was
well over the sea when it seemed to lurch drunkenly and skimmed the
water. Then it shot up at a dangerous angle and zigzagged. It started
to go farther out, and then turned and made for the land. The engines
were making a curious grating noise. It rose once more, and then
suddenly dived downward, and came plump down right in the middle of Mr.
Hodge’s field of swedes.
And then, as if not content with this desecration, it ran along the
ground, ripping and tearing up twenty-five yards of good swedes, and
then came to a stop.
Old Sam Gates was in a terrible state. The aëroplane was more than a
hundred yards away, but he waved his arms and called out:
“Hi, you there, you mustn’t land in they swedes! They’re Mister
Hodge’s.”
The instant the aëroplane stopped, a man leaped out and gazed quickly
round. He glanced at Sam Gates, and seemed uncertain whether to address
him or whether to concentrate his attention on the flying-machine.
The latter arrangement appeared to be his ultimate decision. He dived
under the engine and became frantically busy. Sam had never seen any
one work with such furious energy; but all the same it was not to be
tolerated. It was disgraceful. Sam started out across the field, almost
hurrying in his indignation. When he appeared within earshot of the
aviator he cried out again:
“Hi! you mustn’t rest your old airyplane here! You’ve kicked up all Mr.
Hodge’s swedes. A noice thing you’ve done!”
He was within five yards when suddenly the aviator turned and covered
him with a revolver! And speaking in a sharp, staccato voice, he said:
“Old Grandfather, you must sit down. I am very much occupied. If you
interfere or attempt to go away, I shoot you. So!”
Sam gazed at the horrid, glittering little barrel and gasped. Well, he
never! To be threatened with murder when you’re doing your duty in your
employer’s private property! But, still, perhaps the man was mad. A man
must be more or less mad to go up in one of those crazy things. And
life was very sweet on that summer morning despite sixty-nine years. He
sat down among the swedes.
The aviator was so busy with his cranks and machinery that he hardly
deigned to pay him any attention except to keep the revolver handy.
He worked feverishly, and Sam sat watching him. At the end of ten
minutes he appeared to have solved his troubles with the machine,
but he still seemed very scared. He kept on glancing round and out
to sea. When his repairs were complete he straightened his back and
wiped the perspiration from his brow. He was apparently on the point
of springing back into the machine and going off when a sudden mood of
facetiousness, caused by relief from the strain he had endured, came to
him. He turned to old Sam and smiled, at the same time remarking:
“Well, old Grandfather, and now we shall be all right, isn’t it?”
He came close up to Sam, and then suddenly started back.
“_Gott!_” he cried, “Paul Jouperts!”
Bewildered, Sam gazed at him, and the madman started talking to him in
some foreign tongue. Sam shook his head.
“You no roight,” he remarked, “to come bargin’ through they swedes of
Mr. Hodge’s.”
And then the aviator behaved in a most peculiar manner. He came up and
examined Sam’s face very closely, and gave a sudden tug at his beard
and hair, as if to see whether they were real or false.
“What is your name, old man?” he said.
“Sam Gates.”
The aviator muttered some words that sounded something like “mare
vudish,” and then turned to his machine. He appeared to be dazed and
in a great state of doubt. He fumbled with some cranks, but kept
glancing at old Sam. At last he got into the car and strapped himself
in. Then he stopped, and sat there deep in thought. At last he suddenly
unstrapped himself and sprang out again and, approaching Sam, said very
deliberately:
“Old Grandfather, I shall require you to accompany me.”
Sam gasped.
“Eh?” he said. “What be talkin’ about? ’Company? I got these ’ere
loines o’ turnips--I be already behoind--” The disgusting little
revolver once more flashed before his eyes.
“There must be no discussion,” came the voice. “It is necessary that
you mount the seat of the car without delay. Otherwise I shoot you like
the dog you are. So!”
Old Sam was hale and hearty. He had no desire to die so ignominiously.
The pleasant smell of the Norfolk downland was in his nostrils;
his foot was on his native heath. He mounted the seat of the car,
contenting himself with a mutter:
“Well, that be a noice thing, I must say! Flyin’ about the country with
all they turnips on’y half thinned!”
He found himself strapped in. The aviator was in a fever of anxiety
to get away. The engines made a ghastly splutter and noise. The thing
started running along the ground. Suddenly it shot upward, giving the
swedes a last contemptuous kick. At twenty minutes to eight that
morning old Sam found himself being borne right up above his fields and
out to sea! His breath came quickly. He was a little frightened.
“God forgive me!” he murmured.
The thing was so fantastic and sudden that his mind could not grasp
it. He only felt in some vague way that he was going to die, and he
struggled to attune his mind to the change. He offered up a mild prayer
to God, Who, he felt, must be very near, somewhere up in these clouds.
Automatically he thought of the vicar at Halvesham, and a certain
sense of comfort came to him at the reflection that on the previous
day he had taken a “cooking of runner beans” to God’s representative
in that village. He felt calmer after that, but the horrid machine
seemed to go higher and higher. He could not turn in his seat and he
could see nothing but sea and sky. Of course the man was mad, mad as
a March hare. Of what earthly use could _he_ be to any one? Besides,
he had talked pure gibberish, and called him Paul something, when he
had already told him that his name was Sam. The thing would fall down
into the sea soon, and they would both be drowned. Well, well, he had
almost reached three-score years and ten. He was protected by a screen,
but it seemed very cold. What on earth would Mr. Hodge say? There was
no one left to work the land but a fool of a boy named Billy Whitehead
at Dene’s Cross. On, on, on they went at a furious pace. His thoughts
danced disconnectedly from incidents of his youth, conversations
with the vicar, hearty meals in the open, a frock his sister wore on
the day of the postman’s wedding, the drone of a psalm, the illness
of some ewes belonging to Mr. Hodge. Everything seemed to be moving
very rapidly, upsetting his sense of time. He felt outraged, and yet
at moments there was something entrancing in the wild experience. He
seemed to be living at an incredible pace. Perhaps he was really dead
and on his way to the kingdom of God. Perhaps this was the way they
took people.
After some indefinite period he suddenly caught sight of a long strip
of land. Was this a foreign country, or were they returning? He had by
this time lost all feeling of fear. He became interested and almost
disappointed. The “airyplane” was not such a fool as it looked. It
was very wonderful to be right up in the sky like this. His dreams
were suddenly disturbed by a fearful noise. He thought the machine
was blown to pieces. It dived and ducked through the air, and things
were bursting all round it and making an awful din, and then it went
up higher and higher. After a while these noises ceased, and he felt
the machine gliding downward. They were really right above solid
land--trees, fields, streams, and white villages. Down, down, down
they glided. This was a foreign country. There were straight avenues
of poplars and canals. This was not Halvesham. He felt the thing glide
gently and bump into a field. Some men ran forward and approached
them, and the mad aviator called out to them. They were mostly fat
men in gray uniforms, and they all spoke this foreign gibberish. Some
one came and unstrapped him. He was very stiff and could hardly move.
An exceptionally gross-looking man punched him in the ribs and roared
with laughter. They all stood round and laughed at him, while the mad
aviator talked to them and kept pointing at him. Then he said:
“Old Grandfather, you must come with me.”
He was led to an iron-roofed building and shut in a little room. There
were guards outside with fixed bayonets. After a while the mad aviator
appeared again, accompanied by two soldiers. He beckoned him to follow.
They marched through a quadrangle and entered another building. They
went straight into an office where a very important-looking man,
covered with medals, sat in an easy-chair. There was a lot of saluting
and clicking of heels. The aviator pointed at Sam and said something,
and the man with the medals started at sight of him, and then came up
and spoke to him in English.
“What is your name? Where do you come from? Your age? The name and
birthplace of your parents?”
He seemed intensely interested, and also pulled his hair and beard to
see if they came off. So well and naturally did he and the aviator
speak English that after a voluble examination they drew apart, and
continued the conversation in that language. And the extraordinary
conversation was of this nature:
“It is a most remarkable resemblance,” said the man with medals.
“_Unglaublich!_ But what do you want me to do with him, Hausemann?”
“The idea came to me suddenly, Excellency,” replied the aviator, “and
you may consider it worthless. It is just this. The resemblance is so
amazing. Paul Jouperts has given us more valuable information than any
one at present in our service, and the English know that. There is an
award of five thousand francs on his head. Twice they have captured
him, and each time he escaped. All the company commanders and their
staff have his photograph. He is a serious thorn in their flesh.”
“Well?” replied the man with the medals.
The aviator whispered confidentially:
“Suppose, your Excellency, that they found the dead body of Paul
Jouperts?”
“Well?” replied the big man.
“My suggestion is this. To-morrow, as you know, the English are
attacking Hill 701, which for tactical reasons we have decided to
evacuate. If after the attack they find the dead body of Paul Jouperts
in, say, the second line, they will take no further trouble in the
matter. You know their lack of thoroughness. Pardon me, I was two years
at Oxford University. And consequently Paul Jouperts will be able to
prosecute his labors undisturbed.”
The man with the medals twirled his mustache and looked thoughtfully at
his colleague.
“Where is Paul at the moment?” he asked.
“He is acting as a gardener at the Convent of St. Eloise, at
Mailleton-en-haut, which, as you know, is one hundred meters from the
headquarters of the British central army staff.”
The man with the medals took two or three rapid turns up and down the
room, then he said:
“Your plan is excellent, Hausemann. The only point of difficulty is
that the attack started this morning.”
“This morning?” exclaimed the other.
“Yes; the English attacked unexpectedly at dawn. We have already
evacuated the first line. We shall evacuate the second line at
eleven-fifty. It is now ten-fifteen. There may be just time.”
He looked suddenly at old Sam in the way that a butcher might look at a
prize heifer at an agricultural show and remarked casually:
“Yes, it is a remarkable resemblance. It seems a pity not to--do
something with it.”
Then, speaking in German, he added:
“It is worth trying. And if it succeeds the higher authorities shall
hear of your lucky accident and inspiration, Herr Hausemann. Instruct
_Ober-lieutenant_ Schultz to send the old fool by two orderlies to
the east extremity of Trench 38. Keep him there till the order of
evacuation is given, then shoot him, but don’t disfigure him, and lay
him out face upward.”
The aviator saluted and withdrew, accompanied by his victim. Old Sam
had not understood the latter part of the conversation, and he did not
catch quite all that was said in English; but he felt that somehow
things were not becoming too promising, and it was time to assert
himself. So he remarked when they got outside:
“Now, look ’ee ’ere, Mister, when am I goin’ to get back to my turnips?”
And the aviator replied, with a pleasant smile:
“Do not be disturbed, old Grandfather. You shall get back to the soil
quite soon.”
In a few moments he found himself in a large gray car, accompanied
by four soldiers. The aviator left him. The country was barren and
horrible, full of great pits and rents, and he could hear the roar
of the artillery and the shriek of shells. Overhead, aëroplanes were
buzzing angrily. He seemed to be suddenly transported from the kingdom
of God to the pit of darkness. He wondered whether the vicar had
enjoyed the runner beans. He could not imagine runner beans growing
here; runner beans, aye, or anything else. If this was a foreign
country, give him dear old England!
_Gr-r-r! bang!_ Something exploded just at the rear of the car. The
soldiers ducked, and one of them pushed him in the stomach and swore.
“An ugly-looking lout,” he thought. “If I wor twenty years younger, I’d
give him a punch in the eye that ’u’d make him sit up.”
The car came to a halt by a broken wall. The party hurried out and
dived behind a mound. He was pulled down a kind of shaft, and found
himself in a room buried right underground, where three officers
were drinking and smoking. The soldiers saluted and handed them a
typewritten despatch. The officers looked at him drunkenly, and one
came up and pulled his beard and spat in his face and called him “an
old English swine.” He then shouted out some instructions to the
soldiers, and they led him out into the narrow trench. One walked
behind him, and occasionally prodded him with the butt-end of a gun.
The trenches were half full of water and reeked of gases, powder,
and decaying matter. Shells were constantly bursting overhead, and
in places the trenches had crumbled and were nearly blocked up. They
stumbled on, sometimes falling, sometimes dodging moving masses, and
occasionally crawling over the dead bodies of men. At last they reached
a deserted-looking trench, and one of the soldiers pushed him into the
corner of it and growled something, and then disappeared round the
angle. Old Sam was exhausted. He leaned panting against the mud wall,
expecting every minute to be blown to pieces by one of those infernal
things that seemed to be getting more and more insistent. The din
went on for nearly twenty minutes, and he was alone in the trench. He
fancied he heard a whistle amidst the din. Suddenly one of the soldiers
who had accompanied him came stealthily round the corner, and there
was a look in his eye old Sam did not like. When he was within five
yards the soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at Sam’s body. Some
instinct impelled the old man at that instant to throw himself forward
on his face. As he did so he was aware of a terrible explosion, and he
had just time to observe the soldier falling in a heap near him, and
then he lost consciousness.