THE RETURN OF THE FATHER AND THE LAST OF THE RANTAN
YES, there he sat, there could be no doubt about it--he sat in his
wooden chair upon one side of the hearth, a wan, blear-eyed, crouching,
shivering specimen, too visibly in a condition of tipsiness. Annie had
been used to her father in every stage of drink, and could see at once
at what phase he had arrived, a state of virtue and moral indignation,
ready to be maudlin at the first opportunity. At a little distance,
with pale, indignant looks, though not near each other, sat his wife
and son--Jenny upright, silent, her lips stern and compressed, a
strange expression for her timid face to wear. She did not draw close
to Nat, nor he to her, rather they preferred to remain obviously
apart--it was evident that if she was divided from her husband she was
also for some reason separated from her son. Indeed there had been a
painful scene that morning; as Annie, on her part, had good cause to
know, though the religious excitement that she had since experienced
had driven the scene of the morning from her mind. She stood by
the door now, uncertain what to do, her pulses quivering, and her
face aflame.
‘It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?--er--er--?’ cried Rob to her,
addressing her as a stranger who had come into the house, ‘it’s a nice,
good thing I should come into my dwellin’, an’ be welcomed i’ this way
by my wife an’ son. There’s my wife she wo-ant kiss me for all I ask
her to--she’s too good for me, happen--’ and here for a while he
cried--‘or it’s like as she’s doin’ what she don’ want me to know, an’
is ashamed when an honest man comes ho-am.’
‘You needn’t go tellin’ your vile, wicked thoughts,’ cried Jenny,
absolutely excited into speech; ‘or think as there’s any one at’ll
believe ye, when ye set for to take away my character. Ye’ve been my
disgrace an’ shame sin’ we were wed; an’ t’ boy, he’ll be like ye, it
is like enough--if ye’d set about to train him and correct him, there
might a bin some chance for him, but now there’s none.’
‘There ye go!--ye’re on at my trainin’ an’ correctin’,’ burst out Nat,
his young face afire with rage and shame; ‘ye’d set my father upon me
if ye could--but I can’t have t’ strap now, I’m too old for that.’
And Rob faltered with tears that t’ boy had a fine spirit--he was _his_
boy, an’ was not t’ mother’s son.
‘Come an’ kiss me, Nat--come an’ kiss me,’ he whimpered, ‘t’ mother she
haven’t no heart for either on us--she’ll be tellin’ me as I am in
drink, it’s like; when I haven’t not touched a drop sin’ I was
here. But _ye_ will kiss me--an’ then ye’ll come wi’ me--an’ we’ll make
our fortunes, an’ get away fro’ here.’
‘Go an’ kiss your father, Nat,’ said Jenny, slowly and coldly--and the
boy got up from his chair, but then stood still, for even the sense of
his mother’s scorn was not sufficient to induce him to go near his
father. He stood still, trembling and troubled, without being able to
decide to which side to turn, to the wrath and righteousness in his
mother’s eyes, or the unalluring vice that asked for an embrace. His
hesitation had a voice more plain than words, and Rob’s sense of injury
found a new direction.
‘Do ye think as ye’ll go to disobey me, ye little d--d scoundrel?’
cried the father’s wrath; ‘I’ll teach ye, an’ leather ye, an’ shew yer
mother too as I’m goin’ to be master, whatever she may say. Ye dare to
come near me! I’ll know how to teach ye; ye give me t’ cha-ance, an’
I’ll make use on it.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ answered Nat, with resolution, and he did indeed take
one step towards his father; but in an instant, with a little cry of
terror, poor Jenny rushed forward and threw herself between. She was
not always ready to forgive her son, even when such forgiveness might
have brought him to her feet; but she was ready to be struck in his
stead at any moment, even whilst not forgiving him--that is a mother’s
love. Rob did raise his hand; but confused by a change of victims, he
let it drop, and fell once more into tears--he whimpered that it
was a strange thing for a man to come back, and not find that his
‘people were proud to meet wi’ him.’
Proud to meet with him!--the shivering, drunken wretch, crouching over
the fire in the home that he disgraced, the words might even have been
considered ludicrous, as if any family could by possibility be proud of
him! But in the midst of the silence into which his words had fallen,
whilst Jenny sat upright and rigid, still and pale, whilst Annie stood
quivering, trembling, by the door, and Nat, still angry, had almost
broken down into tears--whilst the members of the little family were
all miserable, convulsed, absorbed in the private woes in which the
outside world is lost--it was at that instant that there echoed in the
distance a clang which, to three of the four, was a too familiar sound.
The last night had come--the greatest night of all! and the village
Rantan was on its way again.
‘Good be with us! what’s that?’ cried Rob, who was so much startled,
that for the moment the shock almost sobered him; the more so as he saw
in the faces of his family an unmistakeable evidence that the noise
concerned himself. A sudden remembrance of the Rantan frolics, in which
he had joined himself when a younger, better man, a sudden horror of
shame and indignation rushed down upon him, and for a moment choked his
breath. He sat silent, panting, the excitement of drink in his
eyes, at that moment almost like the dark, handsome suitor who had
wooed pretty Jenny in her girlish days. And now the clamour had turned
into the lane, and they could hear the hooting and laughing of the
lads--Rob could hear his own name in shouts, groans, and hisses,
accompanied by such opprobrious titles as village wit could furnish. It
was too much; the small amount of reason he had left combined with his
drunkenness to urge him to resist; with a sudden, fierce movement, he
flung himself from his seat, and rushed to the door, which he banged
behind his back. The sound of the clamour was increased and yet
interrupted by the noise of the different tumult which now broke upon
its course--the noise of a scuffle, of blows, of hasty warfare, a
confusion of steps and voices .... then, a fall.
And in an instant, overcome by a sudden terror that would not allow
even her pride to keep her still, poor Jenny flung the door open as
wide as it would go, and stood before her adversaries on the threshold
of her house. She stood there, a slight figure in the summer evening
light, and the respect in which she was always held imposed a silence
that was deep and universal, and that fell on the motley crowd with a
sudden calm. They had another and graver cause for silence; a fear of
consequences was rising in their hearts, for there in the lane, a
prostrate, motionless figure, a young man lay with his head in pools of
blood.
‘Ye needn’t fear, missus,’ cried our old acquaintance Bill, recovering
first from the panic of the crowd; ‘there’s not so much harm done
as ye might go to think; these young uns are tough, and he’ll get
up again. It is Tim Nicol--poor Tim, as ye know well--he’d come down to
try an’ turn t’ lads away--an’ Rob he supposed he was doin’ harm, it’s
like, for he caught up a clatch o’ wood, an’ made at him. Ye’ll let him
be brought into your house for a bit; Rob has got off, an’ he’s not
like to come back.’
They lifted the prostrate figure gently, and carried it into Jenny
Salter’s home; whilst she stood there, silent, pallid, unresisting, as
one who has been too much stunned with grief to move. The whole Rantan
was in confusion in the lane, the grotesque banners were lowered, the
clanging pans were silenced, the lads were gathered in terror-stricken
groups, appalled at the consequences of their fun. No one noticed that
from the back-door of the cottage an unseen figure had fled into the
fields--it was Annie, with wrath and terror in her heart, escaping from
this fresh misery in her life. Alas! the poor child--and alas! for such
poor children who find their incentives to evil within the shelter of
their homes.
The Rantan was scattered, dispersed to right and left, its members
escaped almost in silence through the streets; there was no bonfire, no
concluding ceremony, there had never been a Rantan come to such an end
before. Yet it may be that after all it had accomplished more than
previous Rantans had done, for issues and sequences are not to be
calculated by the careless hands that set such trains on fire. As the
corn ripened slowly to its harvest-time, the echoes of that summer
evening may have been working still.