"Look here, parson," cried the young workman, in a voice husky with
emotion; and as he spoke he dashed his cap upon the ground and began to
roll up his sleeves, displaying arms fit, with their sturdy rolls of
muscle, for a young Hercules. "Look here, parson. You're a straanger
here, and I'll tell 'ee. That's my master, that is, and I shall kill
him afore I've done."
"Hush, man, hush!" cried the young vicar.
"I don't keer, I shall. Why ain't I at work, eh? Never another stroke
will I do for him; wish that my hammer may come on my head if I do.
Look here, parson," he went on, catching the other's arm hard in a grasp
of iron, "that's his lass, that is--that's his young lady--Miss Eve
Pelly; God bless her for a perfect angel, and too good for him. He's
engaged to her, he is--engaged to be married, and he's got thousands and
thousands of his own, and the Foundry, and horses to hunt wi', and he
ain't satisfied. No, no; I ain't done yet. Look here, ain't all that
enough for any man? You know what's right, and what ain't. What call's
he got to come between me and she?"
He jerked one fist in the direction taken by Daisy, and went on.
"Things ran all right between us before he steps in with his London
dandy air, and his short coot hair, and fine clothes. Old Joe Banks was
willing; and as for Missus Banks, why, bless her, she's always been like
a mother to me. I'd saved up a hundred and sixty pun' ten, all hard
earnings, and we was soon to be married, and then he comes between us
and turns the girl's head. You come on to me when I'd gone up the
hill-side there, to chew it all over, after she'd huffed me this
morning, and I coot up rough. I say, warn't it enough to make any man
coot up rough?"
"It was, indeed, Podmore," said the vicar, kindly.
"But I wean't stand it, that I wean't," roared the young man, like an
angry bull. "A man's a man even if he is a master. I'll fight fair;
but if I don't break every bone in his false skin, my name ain't Tom
Podmore."
This burst over, he resumed his cap and snatched down his sleeves,
looking half ashamed of his effusion in the presence of a stranger, and
he shrank away a little as the vicar laid his hand upon his arm.
"Look here, Podmore," he said kindly; "when I went first to school they
used to give me for a copy to write, `Do nothing rashly.' Don't you do
anything rashly, my friend, because things done in haste are repented of
at leisure. I have come down here to be a friend, I hope, to everybody,
and as you were the first man I met in Dumford, I shall look upon you as
one of the first to have a call upon me."
"Thanky, sir, thanky kindly," said Podmore, in a quieter tone. "I don't
know how it is, but you've got a kind of way with you that gets over a
fellow."
"She seems a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl, that Daisy Banks," said
the vicar.
"There isn't a better nor a truer-hearted girl nor a prettier nowhere
for twenty miles round," cried the young fellow, flushing up with a
lover's pride. "Why look at her, sir, side by side with Miss Eve,
that's a born lady. Why, Miss Eve's that delicate and poor beside my
Daisy, as there ain't no comparison 'tween 'em. My Daisy, as was," he
added, sorrowfully. "Something's come over her like of late, and it's
all over now."
The great strong fellow turned his back, and resting one hand upon the
stile, his broad shoulders gave a heave or two.
"I shan't take on about it," he said, roughly, as he turned round with a
sharp, defiant air of recklessness. "I ain't the first fool that's been
jilted by a woman, ay, parson--hundred and sixty pound 'll buy a sight
o' gills o' ale. Don't you take no heed o' what I said."
He was turning away, but a strong hand was upon his shoulder.
"Look here, Podmore," said the vicar, firmly, "you said something about
fools just now. You are not a fool, and you know it. You leave the ale
alone--to the fools--and go back and get to work as hard, or harder,
than you ever worked before. I shall see you again soon, perhaps bowl
to you in the cricket field. As for your affairs, you leave them to me.
Do you know why Englishmen make the best soldiers?"
"Do I know why Englishmen make the best soldiers, parson?" said Podmore,
staring. "No: can't say I do."
"Because, my lad, they never know when they are beaten. Now, you are
not beaten yet. Good-bye."
He held out his hand, and the great grimy, horny palm of the workman
came down into it with a loud clap, and the grip that ensued from each
side would have been unpleasant to any walnut between their palms.
Then they parted, taking different routes, and ten minutes later the
Reverend Murray Selwood was walking quietly through the empty town
street, quite conscious though that head after head was being thrust out
to have a look at the stranger.
There was the usual sprinkling of shops and private houses, great blank
red-brick dwellings, which told their own tale of being the houses of
the lawyer, the doctor, and their newer opponents. Then there was the
factory-looking place, with great gates to the yard, and a time-keeper's
lodge inside, surmounted by a bell in its little wooden hutch. The
throb of machinery could be heard, and the shriek of metal being
tortured into civilised form came painfully to the ear from time to
time. Smoke hung heavily in the air--smoke tinged with lurid flame; and
above all came the roar of the reverberating furnaces, where steel or
some alloy was being fused for the castings which had made
out-of-the-way, half-savage Dumford, with its uncouth, independent
people, famous throughout the length and breadth of the land.
There were very few people visible, for the works had not yet begun to
pour forth their masses of working bees, but there were plenty of big
rough lads hanging about the corners of the streets.
"I wonder what sort of order the schools are in," said the new vicar to
himself, as he neared the church, towards which he was bending his
steps, meaning to glance round before entering the vicarage. "Yes, I
wonder what sort of a condition they are in. Bad, I fear. Very bad,
I'm sure," he added.
For at that moment a great lump of furnace refuse, or glass, there known
as slag, struck him a heavy blow in the back.
He turned sharply, but not a soul was visible, and he stooped and picked
up the lump, which was nearly equal in size to his fist.
"Yes, no doubt about it, very bad," he said. "Well, I'll take you to my
new home, and you shall have the first position in my cabinet of
specimens, being kept as a memorial of my welcome to Dumford."
"Well," he said, as he reached the church gate, "I've made two friends
already, and--perhaps--an enemy. By Jove, there's another brick."
Volume 1, Chapter III.