BY THE CANAL
It was noon on that day, the day of the meeting at Riddsley, and Mary
was sitting in the parlor at the Gatehouse. She was stooping over the
fire with her eyes on the embers. The old hound lay beside her with his
muzzle resting on her shoe, and Mrs. Toft, solidly poised on her feet,
on the farther side of the table, rolled her apron about her arms and
considered the pair.
“It’s given us all a rare shock,” she said as she marked the girl’s
listless pose, “the poor Master’s death! That sudden and queer, too! I
don’t know that I’m better for it, myself, and Toft goes up and down
like a toad under a harrow, he’s that restless! For ’Truria, she’s
fairly mazed. Her body’s here and her thoughts are lord knows where.
Toft, he seems to think something will come of her and her reverend——”
“I hope so,” Mary said gently.
“But it’s beyond me what Toft thinks these days. I asked him
point—blank yesterday, ‘Toft,’ I says, ‘are we going or are we
staying?’ And, bless the man, he looks at me as if he’d eat me. ‘Take
time and you’ll know,’ he says. ‘But whose is the house?’ I asks, ‘and
who’s to pay us?’ ‘God knows!’ he says, and whiffs out of the room like
one of these lucifers!”
“I think that the house is Mr. Basset’s,” Mary explained, “for the rest
of the lease; that’s about three years.”
“But you’ll not be staying, begging your pardon, Miss? I suppose you’ll
be naming the day soon? The Master’s gone and his lordship will be
wanting you somewhere else than here.”
“Yes, Mrs. Toft,” Mary said quietly. “I suppose so.”
Mrs. Toft looked for a blush and saw none, and she drew her
conclusions. She went on another tack. “There’s like to be a fine
rumpus in the town to-day,” she said comfortably. “The Squire’s brought
a foreigner down to trim their nails, and there’s to be a wagon and
speaking and such like foolishness at the Maypole. As if all the
speeches of all the fools in Staffordshire would lower the quartern
loaf! Anyway, if what Petch says is true, the farmers are that mad
there’s like to be lives lost!”
Mary stooped and carefully put a piece of wood on the fire.
“And, to be sure, they’re a rough lot,” Mrs. Toft continued, dropping
her apron. “I’m not forgetting what happened to the reverend Colet, and
I wish the young master safe out of it. It’s all give and no take with
him, too much for others and too little for himself! I’m thinking if
anybody’s hurt he’ll be there or thereabouts.”
Mary turned. “Is Petch—couldn’t Petch go down and——”
“La, Miss,” Mrs. Toft answered—the girl’s face told her all that she
wished to know—“Petch don’t dare, with his lordship on the other side!
But, all said and done, I’ll be bound the young master’ll come through.
It’s a pity, though,” she continued thoughtfully, as she began to dust
the sideboard, “as people don’t know their own minds. There’s the
Squire, now. He’s lived quiet and pleasant all these years and now he
must dip his nose into this foolishness, same as if he dipped it into
hot worts when Toft’s a-brewing! I don’t know what’s come to him. He
goes riding up to Blore these winter nights, twenty miles if it’s a
furlong, when this house is his! He’s more like to take his death that
way, if I’m a judge.”
“Is he doing that?” Mary asked in a small voice.
“To be sure,” Mrs. Toft returned. “What else! Which reminds me, Miss,
are those papers to go to the bank to-day?”
“I believe so.”
“Well, you’re looking that peaky, you’d best take a jaunt with them.
Why not? It’s a fine day, and if there is a bit of a clash there’s none
will hurt you. Do you go, Miss, and get a little color in your cheeks.
At worst, you’ll bring back the news and I’m sure we’re that dead-alive
and moped a little’s a godsend!”
“I think I will go,” Mary said.
So when the gig, which was to convey the boxes to the bank, arrived
about three, she mounted beside the driver. Here, were it only for an
hour, was distraction and a postponement of that need to decide, to
choose between two courses, which was crushing her under its weight.
For Mary was very unhappy. That moment which had proved to her that she
did not love the man she was to marry and did love another, had stamped
itself on her memory, never to be wiped from it. In Audley’s company,
and for a time after they had parted, the shock had numbed her mind and
dulled her feelings. But once alone and free to think, she had grasped
all that the discovery meant—to her and to him; and from that moment
she had not known an instant of ease.
She saw that she had made a terrible mistake, and one so vital that, if
nothing could be done, it must wreck her happiness and another’s
happiness. And what was she to do? What ought she to do? In a moment of
emotion, led astray by that love of love which is natural to women, and
something swayed—so she told herself in scorn—by
Those glories of our blood and state,
which to women are not shadows, she had made this mistake, and now,
self-tricked, she had only herself to blame if
Sceptre and crown
Were tumbled down
And in the dust were lesser made
Than the poor crooked scythe and spade!
But to see her folly did not avail. What was she to do?
Ought she to tell the truth, however painful it might be, to the man
whom she had deceived? Or ought she to go through with it, to do her
duty and save him at least from hurt? Either way, she had wrecked her
own craft, but she might still hope to save his. Or—might she hope? She
was not certain even of this.
What was she to do? Hour after hour she asked herself the question,
sometimes looking through the windows with eyes that saw nothing, at
others pacing her room in a fever of anxiety. What was she to do? She
could not decide. Now she thought one thing, now another. And time was
passing. No wonder that she was glad even of the distraction of this
journey to Riddsley that at another time had been so dull an adventure!
It was, at least, a reprieve, a respite from the burden of decision.
She would not own, even to herself, that she had any other thought in
going, or that anxiety had any part in her restlessness. From that side
of the battle she turned her eyes with all the strength of her will.
Her conduct had been that of a silly girl rather than that of a woman
who had seen and suffered; but she was not light—and besides Basset was
cured. She was only unfortunate, and desperately unhappy.
As they drove by the old Cross at the foot of the hill she averted her
eyes. Surely it must have been in some other life that she had made it
the object of a walk, and had told herself that she would never forget
it.
Alas, she had been right. She would never forget it!
The man who drove saw that her face matched her mourning, and he left
her to her thoughts, so that hardly a word passed between them until
they were close upon the outskirts of the town. Then the driver, to
whom the dull winter landscape, the lines of willows, and the low
water-logged fields, were no novelty, pricked up his ears.
“Dang me!” he said, “they’ve started! There’s a fine rumpus in the
town. Do you hear ’em, Miss? That’s a band I’m thinking?”
“I hope no one will be hurt.”
The man winked at his horse. “None of the right side, Miss,” he said
slyly. “But it might be a hanging, front o’ Stafford gaol, by the roar!
I met a tidy lot going in as I came out, a right tidy lot! I’m blest,”
after listening a moment, “if they’re not coming this way!”
“I hope they won’t do anything to——”
“La, Miss,” the man answered, misreading her anxiety and interrupting
her, “they’ll never touch us. And for the old nag, he’s yeomanry. He’d
not start if he met a mile o’ funerals!”
Certainly the noise was growing. But the lift of the canal bridge and
bank, which crossed the road a hundred yards before them, hid all of
the town from them save a couple of church towers, some tiled roofs,
and the brick gable of Hatton’s Works. The man whipped up his horse.
“Teach they Manchester chaps a trick!” he muttered. “Shouldn’t wonder
if there’ll be work for the crowner out of this! Gee-up, old nag, let’s
see what’s afoot! ’Pears to me,” as the shouting grew plainer, “we’ll
be in at the death yet, Miss!”
Mary winced at the word, but if the man feared that she would refuse to
go on, he was mistaken. On the contrary, she looked eagerly to the
front as the old horse, urged by the whip, took the rise of the bridge
at a canter, and, having reached the crown, relapsed into an
absent-minded walk.
“Dang me!” cried the driver, greatly excited, “but they do mean
business! It’s in knee in neck with ’em! Never thought it would come to
this. And who is’t they’ve got, Miss?”
Certainly there was something out of the common on foot. Moving to meet
the gig, and filling the road from ditch to ditch, appeared a
disorderly crowd of two or three hundred persons. Cheering, hooting,
and brandishing sticks, they came on at something between a walk and a
run, although in the heart of the mass there was a something that now
and again checked the movement, and once brought it to a stand. When
this happened the crowd eddied and flowed about the object in its
centre and presently swept on again with the same hooting and laughter.
But in the laughter, as in the hooting, there was, after each of these
pauses, a more savage note.
“What is it?” Mary cried, as the driver, scared by the sight, pulled up
his horse. “What is it?”
“D—n me,” the man replied, forgetting his manners, “if I don’t think
it’s Ben Bosham they’ve got! It is Ben! And they’re for ducking him!
It’s mortal deep by the bridge there, and s’help me, if it’s not ten to
one they drown him!”
“Ben Bosham?” Mary repeated. Then she recalled the name. She remembered
what Mrs. Toft had said of him—that the man had a wife and would bring
her to ruin. The crowd was not fifty yards from them now and was still
coming on. To the left a track ran down to the towing-path and the
canal, and already the leaders of the mob were swerving in that
direction. As they did so—and were once more checked for a moment—Mary
espied among them a man’s bald head twisting this way and that, as he
strove to escape. The man was struggling desperately, his clothes
almost torn from his back, but he was helpless in the hands of a knot
of stout fellows, and after a brief resistance he was hauled forcibly
on. A hundred jeering voices rose about him, and a something cruel in
the sound chilled Mary’s blood. The dreary scene, the sluggish canal,
the flat meadows, the rising mist, all pressed on her mind and deepened
the note of tragedy.
But on that she broke the spell. The blood in her spoke. She clutched
the driver’s arm and shook it. “Go on!” she cried. “Go on! Drive into
them!”
The man hesitated—he saw that the crowd was in no jesting mood. But the
old horse felt the twitch on the reins and started, and having the
slope with him, trotted gently forward as if the road were empty before
him. The crowd waved and shouted, and cursed the driver. But the horse,
thinking perhaps that this was some new form of parade, only cocked his
ears and ambled on till he reached the foremost. Then a man seized the
rein, jerked it, and stopped him.
In a moment Mary sprang down, heedless of the fact that she was one
woman among a hundred men. She faced the crowd, her eyes bright with
indignation. “Let that man go,” she cried. “Do you hear? Do you want to
murder him?” And, advancing a step, she laid her hand on Ben Bosham’s
ragged, filthy sleeve—he had been down more than once and been rolled
in the mud. “Let him go!” she continued imperiously. “Do you know who I
am, you cowards? Let him go!”
“Yah!” shouted the crowd, and drowned her voice and pressed roughly
about her, threatened her. One of the foremost asked her what she would
do, another cried that she had best make herself scarce! Furious faces
surrounded her, fists were shaken at her. But Mary was not daunted. “If
you don’t let him go, I shall go to Lord Audley!” she said.
“You’re a fool meddling in this!” cried a voice. “We’re only going to
wash the devil!”
“You will let him go!” she replied, facing them all without fear and,
advancing a step, she actually plucked the man from the hands that held
him. “I am Miss Audley! If you do not let him go——”
“We’re only going to wash him, lady,” whined one of the men who held
him.
“That’s all, lady!” chimed in half-a-dozen. “He wants it!”
But Ben was not of that opinion, or he did not value cleanliness.
“They’re going to drown me!” he spluttered, his eyes wild. All the
fight had been knocked out of him. “They’re paid to do it! They’ll
drown me!”
“And sarve him right!” shouted half-a-dozen at the rear of the crowd.
“Sarve him right, the devil!”
“They will not do it!” Mary said firmly. “They’ll not lay another hand
on you. Get in! Get in here!” And then to the crowd, “For shame!” she
cried. “Stand back!”
The man was so shaken that he could not help himself, but she pushed,
the driver pulled, and in a trice, before the mob had recovered from
its astonishment, Ben was above their heads, on the seat of the gig—a
blubbering, ragged, mud-caked figure with a white face and bleeding
lips. “Go on!” Mary said in the same tone, and the gig moved forward,
the old yeomanry horse tossing its head. She moved on beside it with
her hand on the rail.
The mob let them pass, but closed in behind them, and after a pause
began to jeer—a little in amusement, a little to cover its defeat. In a
moment farce took the place of tragedy; the danger was over. “We’ll
tell your wife, Ben!” screamed a youth, and the crowd laughed and
followed. Other wits took their turn. “You’ll want a new coat for the
wedding, Ben!” cried one. And now and again amid the laughter a sterner
note survived. “We’ll ha’ you yet, Ben!” a man would cry. “You’re not
out of the wood yet, Ben!”
Mary’s face burned, but she stuck to her post, plodding on beside the
gig, and after this fashion the queer procession, heralded by a score
of urchins crying the news, entered the streets of the town. On either
side women thronged the doorways and steps, and while some cried,
“Bravo, Miss!” others laughed and called to their neighbors to come out
and see the sight. And still the crowd clung to the rear of the gig,
and hooted and laughed and pretended to make forays on it.
Mary had hoped to shake them off, but as they persisted in following
and no relief came—for Basset and his rescue party had gone to the
canal by another road—she saw nothing for it but to go on to Lord
Audley’s. With a curt word she made the man turn that way.
The crowd still attended, curious, amused. It had doubled its numbers,
nay, had trebled them. There were friends as well as foes among them
now, some of Hatton’s men, some of Banfield’s, yellow favors as well as
blue. If Mary had known it, she might have set Ben down and not a hand
would have been laid upon him. Even the leaders of the riot were now
thankful that they had not carried the matter farther. Enough had been
done.
But Mary did not know this. She thought that the man was still in
peril. She did not dream of leaving him. And it was at the head of a
crowd of three or four hundred of the riff-raff of Riddsley that she
broke in upon the quiet of the suburban road in which The Butterflies
stood. Tumultuously, followed by laughter and hooting and cheers, she
swept along it with her train, and came to a halt before the house.
No house was ever more surprised. Mrs. Wilkinson’s scared face peered
above one blind, her sisters’ caps showed above another. Was it an
accident? Was it a riot? Was it a Puseyite protest? What was it? Every
servant, every neighbor, Lord Audley himself came to the windows.
Mary signed to the driver to help Ben down, and the moment the man’s
foot touched the ground she grasped his arm. With a burning face, but
with her head in the air, she guided his stumbling footsteps through
the gate and along the paved walk. They came together to the door. They
went in.
The crowd formed up five deep along the railings, and waited in
wondering silence to see what would happen. What would his lordship
say? What would his lordship do? This was bringing the election to his
doors with a vengeance, and there were not a few of the better sort who
saw the fun of the situation.