THE EXECUTIVE.
Through the wall-stones of the end of the “Cross Pipes” that abutted on
the market-place the soot of the chimneys had in some mysterious way
worked, so that the flues and branchings from the various chambers
showed like some grimy inverted cactus. An addition had been built
forward to the cobbled space, and up and down it, following the pitch of
the roof, ran the name of the house, with every “S” turned the wrong way
about. From this again projected the red-curtained bow-window of the
parlour; and while the public entrance lay to the right within the
stable-arch, the approach to the kitchen and private parts of the house
lay on the other side, up a cobbled alley.
The March night had fallen, and the lights of the scattered farmhouses
of the Shelf might almost have been stars, so lofty were they. The
market-place was filled with the dim illumination that came through the
blinds and the chinks of the shutters of the surrounding houses. A
lantern that had been set down for a moment on one of the pieceboards
made a dull gleam down the polished surface. The crimson square of the
window of the “Pipes” was broken by the shadows of heads within the
window-seat, and up the dark alleyway to the kitchen, through an
ace-of-heart’s perforation in the upper part of the door, another light
flickered, as of a candle guttering in a draughty passage.
In the kitchen a fire of peats smouldered on the hearth and made a rich
glow on the copper kettle that bubbled before it. The lid of the kettle
vibrated with a continuous sound of purring metal. Two oil-lamps hung
side by side from the low ceiling; and the blur of lamp carbon on the
plaster above them was patterned with concentric circles that
intersected and made as it were the eyes of an enormous owl. A deep
recess formed a window-seat; opposite, a niche in the wall was hidden by
a curtain on a string; and the kitchen was spotlessly clean and smelt of
new bread.
Matthew Moon sat on an infant’s stool by the hearth, with a quill set
bit-wise between his teeth. On the floor by his side lay a ledger.
Goîtred John Raikes (who, in this business that was not cloth,
represented the Back o’ th’ Mooiners on the Executive) lay smoking along
the window-seat. Eastwood, the flockmaster, was spinning a bright
crown-piece on the table; and Arthur Monjoy bestrode the hearth
colossus-wise with the back of his fox-skin cap rubbing against the high
mantel.
The purring of the kettle seemed to irritate Matthew Moon; he set the
lid on edge, the sound ceased, and a little cloud of vapour escaped.
Presently Monjoy spoke.
“Well, say you have it so,” he said. “I’ll not deny the prudence of
watching, setting an extra crow or two along the Causeway, and all that;
but why do you want to shift the Forge? We were glad enough to move from
Fluett; before that we were Booth way, and a pretty time we had getting
there; and now you’d set it up in Brotherton Slack, the dampest, darkest
hole in all the district, five miles from the Causeway--Brotherton
Slack, where the ground steams like a tip and toadstools come up out o’
the bog rank as sink-strippings and red as a runner’s waistcoat----”
Matthew Moon answered earnestly.
“Do listen, Arthur. If the Causeway’s handy for us, it’s handy for
others too. Fluett was different. You know why we left Fluett. Fluett
was over-easy got at t’other side, Trawden side, and the lime-trade was
brisk at Fluett, too, and folk about. As for toadstools, it’s safety
we’re taking to the Slack for, not health.”
Monjoy brought himself to an upright posture and rubbed his hands down
his scorched thighs. “Heigho!” he cried; and he was about to reply,
when the door opened, and Sally Northrop entered. She was a dark-haired
little body, but her brightness was faded, and weeks of anxiety had
pulled her down. She stepped to the niche in the wall, lifted the
curtain, and looked within.
“I thought he stirred,” she said, replacing the curtain; and then she
hesitated, her hands fumbling with her apron.
“Ye’ve no word, I suppose, Arthur? Cicely hasn’t been gone an hour; she
knew o’ no news, she said----”
“No word’s a good word, Sally,” Monjoy replied gently. “He has all he
wants--money for garnish, ease o’ irons, and all you can think of; and
the lawyers shall have every penny but he shall be back. Don’t worry.
‘No case’ is what John Emmason says.”
“What did he say o’ Jimmy?” She glanced towards the niche.
“His love he sent, and a kiss. That’ll make his home-coming glad. Keep
all as tidy as a new pin for a little longer, and let Cicely help you
all she can.”
“D’ye want anything now?”
“No.”
She sighed and went out. The men remained silent for a full minute, and
then Moon muttered: “Thank God I bring trouble to no woman.” They
resumed their discussion.
“Another thing,” said the merchant. “John there brings the silver in,
and I keep the books, and bring most o’ the gold. John and me’s your
outriders, that can tell the way things are going. Now ask John if this
isn’t true. Though the most shuts their eyes and thinks none the worse
of a guinea after we’ve had it a day or two, yet there’s others wouldn’t
lend us a crown or a Portugal, no, not to have it back an hour after
with interest paid safe as a bank. They’re quiet, that sort, but they’re
always there. They’ve been there all along, and I know who they
are.--Ay, I see this plating idea well enough; it’s good, and does away
with a deal o’ borrowing; but these others is still there. So this new
man has that to start wi’. He may be another Huggins, or he mayn’t; give
him no advantage. He must be watched for the present from getting up to
doffing his shirt again. The clogger’s shop--we’re agreed on that; and
past Wadsworth Scout a crow must be set behind every whin and stone.
It’s expense, but it’s the cheapest. We’re the Exec’tive, and that’s my
vote; that, and shift the Forge to Brotherton, and all meetings after
this at the ‘Gooise.’”
“It’s right what Matthew says about them others,” Raikes observed from
the window-seat; “things has got very tight lately. Your
plating-notion’s naught but just come i’ time.”
Monjoy leaned against the mantel-piece again.
“Well, I’ll not hold out; we may as well eat the devil as sup the broth
he’s boiled in,” he said. “So we shift the forge. Well, what next?”
Moon glanced quickly at the door by which Sally Northrop had gone out;
then he dropped his voice.
“This next, that I was saying to James this morning, Arthur,” he said.
“Ye give too much away wi’ your tongue. It’s folly to talk as ye did
this morning. They say ye told him ye’d thought o’ copying the Queen
Anne yonder i’ metal.”
“I never said so,” cried Monjoy.
“Well, you talk o’ Charles Edwards and Commonwealths. Remember, there’s
a bairn i’ yon niche that his father hasn’t seen yet----”
James Eastwood interposed quickly.
“Let me speak,” he said. “John Emmason’s sent this Cope word to sup wi’
him next week. Now mark; afore Cope can do anything--and that’s
supposing he isn’t another Huggins, and Huggins got bedsore sooner nor
footsore--afore he can do anything, he must see John, or else John
Leedes, or else Hemstead, the solicitor. Very well; what is it he wants?
Information, ye say: now listen. He can have it. Let him come to this
very Horwick Thursday. Let one of us say this: ‘Yon’s Red Monjoy, that
engraves the dies; plating’s his next move! Yon’s Matthew Moon, a
cloth-merchant by trade, that keeps the books, every crown and Portugal
entered up this dozen year and more. Mish yonder, and Dick o’ Dean, they
do most o’ th’ striking; and for clipping and lending and so on, there’s
three or four hundred here, and ye can tak’ your pick.’ Tch! All that
isn’t worth a tick o’ one o’ my sheep! It’s like he knew all that afore
he came. Hear what John Emmason says, mumbling in his sleep in an
armchair (ye know John’s ways): It’s evidence he’ll want, evidence to
base a case on. They’d ha’ hanged Jim and Haigh months ago if they’d had
evidence. They’re bound by th’ Law, same as us, and John--well, if John
hasn’t, telled me th’ Law, he can leave a book open, can’t he? and I can
read what’s marked in it wi’ a pen, can’t I? It’s treason, by Edward
Third; four hundred pound and branding for having clippings, William; a
search-warrant on complaint, George; but all’s ta’en on evidence.--But
I’m for moving the Forge too, for it wadn’t be such bad evidence to
catch us wi’ our fingers in it.”
“To be sure,” murmured John Raikes.
“That’s agreed,” said Monjoy, curtly. He had not ceased to frown since
Matthew Moon’s rebuke.
The infant in the niche gave a feeble cry, and Moon rose to call Sally.
Sally took up babe and bedclothes in a bundle.
“Send us some ale in, Sally,” Monjoy said; and he added to his
companions; “When the ale comes I have something to say to the
Executive.”
Presently the ale was brought. Monjoy took a deep draught, and bestrode
the hearth again.
“Tell me, Matthew--tell me, John and James,” he said slowly, “what d’ye
think this trade of ours, as it stands, is worth? (Wait a minute and let
me finish.) Is it worth a deal? Reckon the risk. Reckon the cost, time
and money. Reckon we’ve to dodge about with the Forge, Fluett, Booth,
Brotherton, and so on. Reckon what I could make at engraving; John at
the stocks and teazels; James with his flocks; Matthew at the
pieceboards and his warehouse. Is it a deal better than honesty?”
The amazed faces of the three told how deeply they were committed to the
traffic; for a minute they were motionless. Then Moon said, “Ye haven’t
finished.”
“I say, as it stands, it’s poor wages,” Monjoy said.
There was no chair to his hand; he drew up the infant’s stool that the
merchant had vacated. His chin was just above the edge of the table, and
he took the bright crown-piece and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.
After a minute’s pondering he continued:
“This--the plating--is well enough; but suppose there’s better to be
done?--Tell me, which of you’ve heard of Bulmer’s workings, Trawden
side?”
“Eh?” said Moon. “Nobody, since their mother dandled them.”
“Of course, of course; my tongue will be running away with me, I
suppose. Never mind Bulmer, then. Instead, what about the bellpits all
along the Causeway, and the alum mine still working a mile or two over
the Edge?”
“Come to something, Arthur,” Eastwood interposed.
“By and by.--Lead has been found hereabouts, and some of it’s been
shipped to Holland, and worked over again, and a tithe of it lost in the
working, but a profit made even then. How, think you?” He advanced his
chin along the table, flipped away the crown-piece, and quietly
pronounced the word “Silver.”
By and by he continued.
“I’ve had a busyish winter in that garret over your warehouse, Matthew.
This is our first meeting since last November, and perhaps I’m
over-shooting myself a little. Never mind. At Rimington in Craven, and
on Brunghill Moor in Craven, they’ve had it. Lead ore it is, and a
test-master has assayed it (Basby, they called him), and it worked out
at sixty pounds more or less to the ton.”
“In Craven,” observed Matthew Moon, drily.
“Well, I’ve been to see it,” Monjoy retorted; “but let me finish. Here,
alum and coal we know about. For iron, Holdsworth Dyke is red as a haw
with canker-water any day you care to go and look. Noon Nick stones,
they’re pure pyrites. Kick up the heather, and all Back o’ th’ Mooin’s
red and blue and grey with mineral. Whether it would pay’s another
matter; the Dutchmen made it pay.”
“It were me closed up th’ last bellpit,” John Raikes remarked; “go on,
Arthur; it’s grand hearing.”
“Very well; and you’ll laugh at this; Matthew will, because it isn’t
business-like. What else d’you think I’ve studied this winter? Why, a
ballad-book. Hugh Pudsay’s ballad. You’ve heard of Pudsay’s
cockleshell-shillings (when you were dandled, maybe), and so had I; but
I thought twice. I’m not talking now of his making silver dilly-spoons
and selling them for a shilling, and then waking up to it that he might
just as well make the shilling. Perhaps he _didn’t_ work a silver mine
without patent, and get tripped by some Cope or other, and set off on
horse-back for London to save his neck. Perhaps that’s only a song about
his getting patent and pardon and meeting the exciseman coming in ten
minutes after the fair. But that cockleshell he stamped his shillings
with--follow me--it was an escallop, and a mint-mark for that very year
of Elizabeth. D’you take me?”
James Eastwood was tilted back in his chair, watching the intersecting
rings of light on the ceiling; he let the chair slowly down.
“D’ye mean, Arthur, you’d mine Back o’ th’ Mooin on th’ chance o’
finding silver?”
“We haven’t got quite so far yet,” Monjoy replied, rising from the low
stool; and James Eastwood gave a low whistle.
Presently Matthew Moon shoved out his lip.
“Pshaw! It’s a ballad, Arthur, a ballad,” he said.
“What do you say, John?” Monjoy demanded of Raikes in the window-seat.
“Tell us some more; it’s grand,” murmured Raikes.
“Very well; now take this in. Within this ten years money’s been put up
in Lancashire to open Bulmer’s workings again. Reason they didn’t do it,
it was blabbed, and the excise pricked up its ears. They prayed for a
patent for lead, but that wasn’t what they wanted. They’d have mixed
their ores and done the Dutchmen’s trick; but as soon as that pays and
the excise wakes up, pff!--it’s a Mine Royal at once.”
“If they stopped it in Lancashire, they’d stop it here,” Eastwood said
thoughtfully.
“In Back o’ th’ Mooin?” said Monjoy, meaningly; and there was a long
silence, broken only by the sound of the leaves of the ledger that
Matthew Moon turned over at arms-length.
Suddenly he closed the ledger with a flap.
“Ah, well!” he observed, “then we’ve only to walk there and get it.”
Monjoy spoke composedly, ignoring the irony.
“I wonder what Matthew would say if he heard my plan for finding it,”
he said. “Phew! He’d call _that_ madness!”
“Tell us, Arthur,” said Raikes.
“Not I! If I don’t find it, I’m fool enough already without that.”
Raikes and Eastwood were plainly engaged by the idea, and soon Eastwood
ejaculated under his breath: “My God! the risk!”
At that Monjoy flung out his arms, displaying his vast chest.
“Risk?” he cried. “What can you risk more than you’re risking now--a
white cap and the mortal push? You’ve risked that this dozen years; and
for what? Clippings and scrapings and filings! You’ve risked Ouse Bridge
for that! Now by ----, there are those in Back o’ th’ Mooin ready to call
Arthur Monjoy king, but I’ll kick my shoes off at the end of a tow for
the chance of being a king in truth!... Risk? Could an army rout us out
o’ that wilderness? Who gets far over Wadsworth Scout without a
‘by-your-leave’? The country’s made for it!--To Pudsay and the ballad,
Matthew!” He drank.
“To the gold they find i’ partridges’ heads and hares’ bellies,” quoth
the merchant, rising. “Well, I suppose we go on the old way while
Arthur’s looking for his silver? A new way o’ finding it, too; happen
it’ll be a new sort o’ silver. We’ll have to wait for the plating-plant
too, now. Ah, well!--The next meeting’s at the ‘Gooise’.... Nay, if
we’re all stirring I’ll turn the lamps down; there’s no sense in wasting
oil; we aren’t kings yet----”
He turned low the lamps that made on the ceiling the rings that
intersected like the eyes of an owl.