I had jumped at once to an interpretation of his words. I knew that
there was an intermittent dispute between the House people and the
villager public about the use of this track, and it is needless to say
where my sympathies fell in that dispute.
“Eh?” he cried in surprise.
“Thought I would run away, I suppose,” said I, and came close up to
him.
All my enormous hatred of his class had flared up at the sight of his
costume, at the fancied challenge of his words. I knew him. He was
Edward Verrall, son of the man who owned not only this great estate but
more than half of Rawdon’s pot-bank, and who had interests and
possessions, collieries and rents, all over the district of the Four
Towns. He was a gallant youngster, people said, and very clever. Young
as he was there was talk of parliament for him; he had been a great
success at the university, and he was being sedulously popularized
among us. He took with a light confidence, as a matter of course,
advantages that I would have faced the rack to get, and I firmly
believed myself a better man than he. He was, as he stood there, a
concentrated figure of all that filled me with bitterness. One day he
had stopped in a motor outside our house, and I remember the thrill of
rage with which I had noted the dutiful admiration in my mother’s eyes
as she peered through her blind at him. “That’s young Mr. Verrall,” she
said. “They say he’s very clever.”
“They would,” I answered. “Damn them and him!”
But that is by the way.
He was clearly astonished to find himself face to face with a man. His
note changed.
“Who the devil are _you?_” he asked.
My retort was the cheap expedient of re-echoing, “Who the devil are
you?”
“_Well_,” he said.
“I’m coming along this path if I like,” I said. “See? It’s a public
path—just as this used to be public land. You’ve stolen the land—you
and yours, and now you want to steal the right of way. You’ll ask us to
get off the face of the earth next. I sha’n’t oblige. See?”
I was shorter and I suppose a couple of years younger than he, but I
had the improvised club in my pocket gripped ready, and I would have
fought with him very cheerfully. But he fell a step backward as I came
toward him.
“Socialist, I presume?” he said, alert and quiet and with the faintest
note of badinage.
“One of many.”
“We’re all socialists nowadays,” he remarked philosophically, “and I
haven’t the faintest intention of disputing your right of way.”
“You’d better not,” I said.
“No!”
“No.”
He replaced his cigar, and there was a brief pause. “Catching a train?”
he threw out.
It seemed absurd not to answer. “Yes,” I said shortly.
He said it was a pleasant evening for a walk.
I hovered for a moment and there was my path before me, and he stood
aside. There seemed nothing to do but go on. “Good night,” said he, as
that intention took effect.