ARNOLD.
There was a crowd outside the Docks gates. Some, under the eyes of
vigilant policemen, were picketing the groups of workmen as they came
sullenly, nervously, defiantly, or indifferently out from the Docks.
Others were listening to a young man speaking from a cart. Arnold and
Eddy stopped to listen, too. It was poor stuff; not at all interesting.
But it was adapted to its object and its audience, and punctuated by
vehement applause. At the cheering, Arnold looked disgustedly on the
ground; no doubt he was ashamed of the human race. But Eddy thought,
“The man’s a fool, but he’s got hold of something sound. The man’s a
stupid man, but he’s got brains on his side, and strength, and
organisation; all the forces that make for civilisation. They’re crude,
they’re brutal, they’re revolting, these people, but they do look ahead,
and that’s civilisation.” The Tory-Socialist side of him thus
appreciated, while the Liberal-Individualist side applauded the
blacklegs coming up from work. The human side applauded them, too; they
were few among many, plucky men surrounded by murderous bullies, who
would as likely as not track some of them home and bash their heads in
on their own doorsteps, and perhaps their wives’ heads too.
Eddy caught sight of Fred Webb and his two sons walking in a group,
surrounded by picketters. Suddenly the scene became a nightmare to him,
impossibly dreadful. Somehow he knew that people were going to hurt and
be hurt very soon. He looked at the few police, and wondered at the
helplessness or indifference of the law, that lets such things be, that
is powerless to guard citizens from assault and murder.
He heard Arnold give a short laugh at his side, and recalled his
attention to what the man on the cart was saying.
“The poor lunatic can’t even make sense and logic out of his own case,”
Arnold remarked. “I could do it better myself.”
Eddy listened. It was indeed pathetically stupid, pointless,
sentimental.
After another minute of it, Arnold said, “Since they’re so ready to
listen, why shouldn’t they listen to me for a change?” and scrambled up
on to a cart full of barrels and stood for a moment looking round. The
speaker went on speaking, but someone cried, “Here’s another chap with
something to say. Let ’im say it, mate; go on, young feller.”
Arnold did go on. He had certainly got something to say, and he said it.
For a minute or two the caustic quality of his utterances was missed;
then it was slowly apprehended. Someone groaned, and someone else
shouted, “Chuck it. Pull him down.”
Arnold had a knack of biting and disagreeable speech, and he was using
it. He was commenting on the weak points in the other man’s speech. But
if he had thought to persuade any, he was disillusioned. Like an
audience of old, they cried out with a loud voice, metaphorically
stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord. Someone threw a
brick at him. The next moment hands dragged him down and hustled him
away. A voice Eddy recognised as Webb’s cried, “Fair play; let ’im
speak, can’t you. ’E was talking sense, which is more than most here
do.”
The scuffling and hustling became excited and violent. It was becoming a
free fight. Blacklegs were surrounded threateningly by strikers; the
police drew nearer. Eddy pushed through shoving, angry men to get to
Arnold. They recognised him as Arnold’s companion, and hustled him
about. Arnold was using his fists. Eddy saw him hit a man on the mouth.
Someone kicked Eddy on the shin. He shot out his fist mechanically, and
hit the man in the face, and thought, “I must have hurt him a lot, what
a lot of right he’s got on his side,” before the blow was returned,
cutting his lip open.
He saw Arnold disappear, borne down by an angry group; he pushed towards
him, jostling through the men in his way, who were confusedly giving now
before the mounted police. He could not reach Arnold; he lost sight of
where he was; he was carried back by the swaying crowd. He heard a
whimpering boy’s voice behind him, “Mr. Oliver, sir,” and looked round
into young Sid Webb’s sick, frightened face.
“They’ve downed dad.... And I think they’ve done for him.... They kicked
him on the head.... They’re after me now----”
Eddy said, “Stick near me,” and the next moment Sid gave an angry
squeal, because someone was twisting his arm back. Eddy turned round and
hit a man under the chin, sending him staggering back under the feet of
a plunging horse. The sight of the trampling hoofs so near the man’s
head turned Eddy sick; he swore and caught at the rein, and dragged the
horse sharply sideways. The policeman riding it brought down his
truncheon violently on his arm, which dropped nerveless and heavy at his
side. Hands caught at his knees from below; he was dragged suddenly to
the ground, and saw, looking up, the bleeding face of the man he had
knocked down close to his own. The next moment the man was up, trampling
him, pushing out of the way of the plunging horse. Eddy struggled to his
knees, tried to get up, and could not. He was beaten down by a writhing
forest of legs and heavy boots. He gave it up, and fell over on his side
into the slimy, trodden mud. Everything hurt desperately--other
people’s feet, his own arm, his face, his body. The forest smelt of mud
and human clothes, and suddenly became quite dark.
Someone was lifting his head, and trying to make him drink brandy. He
opened his eyes and said, moving his cut lips stiffly and painfully,
“Their principles are right, but their methods are rotten.” Someone else
said, “He’s coming round,” and he came.
He could breathe and see now, for the forest had gone. There were people
still, and gas-lamps, and stars, but all remote. There were policemen,
and he remembered how they had hurt him. It seemed, indeed, that
everyone had hurt him. All their principles were no doubt right; but all
their methods were certainly rotten.
“I’m going to get up,” he said, and lay still.
“Where do you live?” asked someone. “Perhaps he’d better be taken to
hospital.”
Eddy said, “Oh, no. I live somewhere all right. Besides, I’m not hurt,”
but he could not talk well, because his mouth was so swollen. In another
moment he remembered where he did live. “22A, Old Compton Street, of
course.” That reminded him of Arnold. Things were coming back to him.
“Where’s my friend?” he mumbled. “He was knocked down, too.”
They said, “Don’t you worry about him; he’ll be looked after all right,”
and Eddy sat up and said, “I suppose you mean he’s dead,” quietly, and
with conviction.
Since that was what they did mean, they hushed him and told him not to
worry, and he lay back in the mud and was quiet.