The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was
informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it.
The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the the night before,
but the crowd had none of the elastic excitement and fighting spirit,
the antagonisms and enthusiasms, which had gone off from it in wave-like
vibrations the night before. News of Arthur Henty's death had left
everybody aghast, and awakened realisation of the abysses which even a
life that seemed to move easily could contain. The shock of it was on
everybody; the solemnity it had created in the air.
George Woods, elected spokesman for the men, and Roy O'Mara deputed to
take notes of the meeting because he was reckoned to be a good penman,
sat at a table on the platform. Michael took a chair just below the
platform, facing the men. He was there to answer questions. No one had
asked him to be present, but it was the custom when men of the Ridge
were holding an inquiry of the sort for the man or men concerned to have
seats in front of the platform, and Michael had gone to sit there as
soon as the men were in their places.
"This isn't like any other inquiry we've had on the Ridge," George Woods
said. "You chaps know how I feel about it--I told you last night. But
Michael was for it, and I take it he's come here to answer any questions
... and to clear this thing up once and for all.... He's put his case to
you. He says he'll stand by what you say--the judgment of his mates."
Anxious to spare Michael another recital of what had happened, he went
on:
"There's no need for Michael to repeat what he said last night. If
there's any man here wasn't in the hall, these are the facts."
He repeated the story Michael had told, steadily, clearly, and
impartially.
"If there's any man wants to ask a question on those facts, he can do it
now."
George sat down, and M'Ginnis was on his feet the same instant; his
bat-like ears twitching, his shoulders hunched, his whole tall, thin
frame strung to the pitch of nervous animosity.
"I want to know," he said, "what reason there is for believing a word of
it. Michael Brady's as good as admitted he's been fooling you for
goodness knows how long, and I don't see----"
"Y' soon will, y'r bleedin', blasted, fly-blown fool," Bully Bryant
roared, rising and pushing back his sleeves.
"Sit down, Bull," George Woods called.
"The question is," he added, "what reason is there for believing what
Michael says?"
"His word's enough," somebody called.
"Some of us think so," George said. "But there's some don't. Is there
anyone else can say, Michael?"
Michael shook his head. He thought of Snow-Shoes, but the old man had
refused to be present at the inquiry or to have anything to do with it.
He had pretended to be deaf when he was asked anything about Paul's
opals. And Michael, who could only surmise that Snow-Shoes' reasons for
having taken the stones in a measure resembled his own when he took them
from Paul, would not have him put to the torture of questioning.
George had said: "It might make a lot of difference to Michael if you'd
come along, Mr. Riley."
But Snow-Shoes had marched off from him as if he had not heard anyone
speak, his blue eyes fixed on that invisible goal he was always gazing
at and going towards.
George had not seen him come into the hall; but when he was needed, his
tall figure, white clad and straight as a dead tree, rose at the back of
the hall.
"It's true," he said. "I wanted to be sure of Michael; I shadowed him. I
saw him with the stones when he says. I did not see him with them any
other time."
He sat down again; his eyes, which had flashed, resumed their steady,
distant stare; his features relapsed into their mask of impassivity.
M'Ginnis sprang to his feet again.
"That's all very well," he cried, sticking to his question. "But it's
not my idea of evidence. It wouldn't stand in any law court in the
country. Snow-Shoes----"
"Shut up!"
"Sit down!"
Half a dozen voices growled.
Because of the respect and affection they had for him, and because of a
certain aloof dignity he had with them, no man on the Ridge ever
addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. They resented M'Ginnis
calling him "Snow-Shoes" to his face, and guessed that he had been going
to say something which would reflect on Snow-Shoes' reliability as a
witness. They admitted his eccentricity; but they would not admit that
his mental peculiarities amounted to more than that. Above all, they
were not going to have his feelings hurt by this outsider from the Punti
rush.
Broad-shouldered, square and solid, Bill Grant towered above the men
about him. "This doesn't pretend to be a court of law, Mister M'Ginnis,"
he remarked, with an irony and emphasis which never failed of their mark
when he used them, although he rarely did, and only once or twice had
been heard to speak, at any gathering. "It's an inquiry by men of the
Ridge into the doings of one of their mates. What they want to know is
the rights of this business ... and what you consider evidence doesn't
matter. It's what the men in this hall consider evidence matters. And,
what's more, I don't see why you're butting into our affairs so much:
you're not one of us--you're a newcomer. You've only been a year or so
in the place ... and this concerns only men of the Ridge, who stand
by the Ridge ways of doing things.... Michael's here to be judged
by his mates ... not by you and your sort.... If you'd the brain
of a louse, you'd understand--this isn't a question of law, but of
principle--honour, if you like to call it that."
"Does the meeting consider the question answered?" George Woods inquired
when Bill Grant sat down.
"Yes!"
A chorus of voices intoned the answer.
"If you believe Michael's story, there's nothing more to be said,"
George continued. "Does any man want to ask Michael a question?"
No one replied for a moment. Then M'Ginnis exclaimed incoherently.
"Shut up!"
"Sit down!"
Men cried out all over the hall.
"That's all, I think, Michael," George said, looking down to where
Michael sat before the platform; and Michael, pulling his hat further
over his eyes, went out of the hall.
It was the custom for men of the Ridge to talk over the subject of their
inquiry together after the man or men with whom the meeting was
concerned had left the hall, before giving their verdict.
When Michael had gone, George Woods said:
"The boys would like to hear what you've got to say, I think, Archie."
He looked at Archie Cross. "You and Michael haven't been seein' eye to
eye lately, and if there's any other side in this business, it's the
side that lost confidence in Michael when we were fed-up with all that
whispering. You know Michael, and you're a good Ridge man, though you
were ready to take on Armitage's scheme. The boys'd like to hear what
you've got to say, I'm sure."
Archie Cross stood up; he rolled his hat in his hands. His face, hacked
out of a piece of dull flesh, sun-reddened, moved convulsively; his hair
was roughed-up from it; his small, sombre eyes went with straight
lightnings to the men in the hall about him.
"It's true--what George says," he said after a pause, as if it were
difficult for him to express his thought. "I haven't been seein' eye to
eye with Michael lately ... and I listened to all the dirty gossip that
mob"--he glanced towards M'Ginnis and the men with him--"put round about
him. It was part that ... and part listening to their talk about money
invested here making all the difference to Fallen Star ... and the
children growing up ... and gettin' scared and worried about seein' them
through ... made me go agin you boys lately, and let that lot get hold
of me.... But this business about Michael's shown me where I am.
Michael's stood for one thing all through--the Ridge and the hanging on
to the mines for us.... He's been a better Ridge man than I have.... And
I want to say ... as far as I'm concerned, Michael's proved himself....
I don't reck'n hanging on to opals was anything ... no more does Ted.
It's the sort of thing a chap like Michael'd do absent-minded ... not
noticin' what he was doin'; but when he did notice--and got scared
thinkin' where he was gettin' to, and what it might look like, he
couldn't get rid of 'em quick, enough. That's what I think, and that's
what Ted thinks, too. He hasn't got the gift of the gab, Ted, or he'd
say so himself.... If there's goin' to be opposition to Michael, it's
not comin' from us.... And we've made up our minds we stand by the
Ridge."
"Good old Archie!" somebody shouted.
"What have you got to say, Roy?" George Woods faced his secretary who
had been scratching diligently throughout the meeting. "You've been more
with the M'Ginnis lot, too, than with us, lately."
Roy flushed and sprang to his feet.
"I'm in the same boat with Archie and Ted," he said. "Except about the
family ... mine isn't so big yet as it might be. But it's a fact, I
funked, not having had much luck lately.... But if ever I go back on the
Ridge again ... may the lot of you go back on me."
Exclamations of approbation and goodwill reverberated as Roy subsided
into his chair again.
"That's all there is to be said on the subject, I think," George Woods
remarked.
"Michael wanted his mates to know what he had done--and why he had done
it. He's asked for judgment from his mates.... If he'd wanted to go back
on us he could have done it; he could have done it quite easy. Armitage
would have shut up on his suspicions about the stones. Charley could
have been bought. Michael need never 've faced all this as far as I can
see ... but he decided to face it rather than give up all we've been
fightin' for here. He'd rather take all the dirt we care to sling at him
than anything they could give him ... and that's why M'Ginnis has been
up against him like he has. Michael has queered his pitch, and most of
us have a notion that M'Ginnis has been here to do Armitage's work ...
work up discontent and ill-feeling amongst us, and split our ranks; and
he came very near doing it. If Michael hadn't 've stood by us, like he's
always done, we'd have the Armitage Syndicate on our backs by now."
"To tell you the truth, boys," George went on, after a moment's
hesitation, and then as if the impulse to speak a secret thought were
too strong for him, "I've always thought Michael was too good. And if
those stones did get hold of him for a couple of weeks, like he says,
all it proves, as far as I can see, is that Michael isn't any plaster
saint, but a man like the rest of us."
"That's right!" Watty called, and several men shouted after him.
Pony-Fence moved out from the crowd he was sitting with.
"I vote this meeting records a motion of confidence in Michael Brady,"
he said. "And when we call Michael in again we'd ought to make it clear
to him ... that so far from its being a question of not having as much
confidence in him as we had before--we've got more. Michael's stood by
his mates if ever a man did.... He's come to us ... he's given himself
up to us. He'll stand by what we say or do about him. And what are we
goin' to do? Are we goin' to turn him down ... read him a bit of a
lecture and tell him to go home and be a good boy and not do it another
time ... or are we going to let him know once and for all what we think
of him?"
Exclamations of agreement went up in a rabble of voices.
Bully Bryant rose from one of the back forms with a grin which
illuminated the building.
"I'll second that motion," he said, pushing back the sleeve on his left
arm. "And his own mother won't know the man who says a word against
it--when I've done with him."
Watty was sent to bring Michael back to the meeting. They walked to the
end of the hall together; and George Woods told Michael as quietly as he
could for his own agitation, and the joy which, welling in him, impeded
his speech, that men of the Ridge found nothing to censure in what he
had done. His mates believed in him; they stood by him. They were
prepared to stand by him as he had stood by the Ridge always. The
meeting wished to record a vote of confidence....
Cheers roared to the roof. Michael, shaken by the storm of his emotion
and gratitude, stood before the crowd in the hall with bowed head. When
the storm was quieter in him, he lifted his head and looked out to the
men, his eyes shining with tears.
He could not speak; old mates closed round to shake hands with him
before the meeting broke up. Every man grasped and wrung his hand,
saying:
"Good luck! Good luck to you, Michael!" Or just grasped his hand and
smiled with that assurance of fellowship and goodwill which meant more
to Michael than anything else in the world.