EMMASON.
From John Emmason, the magistrate, circuitously through James Eastwood
(who, better than anyone else, had the magistrate’s humour), came a word
that set Matthew Moon’s brows a-pucker and started him pacing with his
fists doubled deep in his breeches pockets. Emmason, meeting the
flockmaster near the Piece Hall, had put it after his own fashion.
“Willis is looking very well,” he had remarked, allowing his eyelids to
flutter and fall.
Eastwood’s own eyes had narrowed suddenly. “Who is?” he had asked.
“Willis. Parker’s clerk at Ford. I saw him in conversation with our
supervisor on one of the feast days.”
“Oh, aye?” Eastwood had replied. “Well, your health’s a grand thing to
keep.... How if me and Matthew was to look in for a bit of a chat this
evening, John?”
“You’d be very welcome, James,” the magistrate had answered; and
Eastwood had straightway sought Matthew Moon.
They repaired to the magistrate’s house at eight that evening; they
found him in his blandest mood. His lids drooped more than ever; his
finger-tips met silkily; and he rang for wine.
“We must have wine,” he remarked. “You, James, or your daughter, or our
good friend Monjoy (or all three), are to be congratulated, I believe?
We must drink their healths. A happy event! I should have liked well to
assist at the ceremony, but business--His Majesty’s business----”
“To be sure; I thank ye, John. Ay, there were stirrings; ye’d ha’
laughed to see Cope o’ th’ pile o’ fleeces----”
“Ah, Cope was there? An oddity, that man; a crooked sort of personage; a
man, I should say, not readily understood.”
Matthew Moon was frowning at his untasted wine. He looked up.
“What’s that you told James about Cope?” he demanded; and again the
magistrate’s horse-face grew bland.
“I told James? Surely not!... Ah! I remember; I did mention that Willis
seemed in excellent health and spirits. A very capable fellow, that
Willis--zealous. I wish I had his like for a clerk. A clerk who can be
trusted on a delicate errand----”
“What sort o’ delicate errand?” Moon demanded again; and the
magistrate’s brows rose.
“--who can be trusted on a delicate errand, why, I’ve been looking for
one this five years!”
James Eastwood nudged the merchant that he should hold his peace; and by
and by the magistrate hummed softly, as if at something interior to
himself, and punctuated his remarks with delicate touchings of his
fingers.
“Hum, hum! Do you happen, James (but possibly you won’t)--do you happen
to remember a conversation we had a little while ago, about saying Yes
when No is meant?--Surely it was to you I was speaking of that?”
“To be sure,” said Eastwood (though he remembered no such thing). “It’s
odd ye should mention it, for I was thinking of it to-day. I’ve oft
noticed that to speak o’ things seems in a way to bring ’em about
a’most.”
“Ah! I thought my memory had not failed me! Well, I had an instance only
this morning, a trifle of business; briefly, it was this: Among my many
letters was one from the solicitor to the Mint; two letters, to be
precise, and they come pat on that conversation of ours. I was struck by
the way in which these highly-placed law-officers can talk (so to put
it), and say nothing. You will excuse me that I do not show you the
letters themselves; and certainly I expected news in them. Perfectly
formal, courteous letters--” he mused long, “--and yet so entirely
superfluous as almost to seem blinds--puttings-off----” His eyes closed;
he seemed to be tasting something delicate on his tongue; and Matthew
Moon opened his mouth to speak. Again Eastwood nudged him.
“Ay,” said the flockmaster unctuously, “when letters doesn’t say
anything ye ha’ to be sharpish to understand ’em.”
“Yes--yes and no,” mused the magistrate. “Ah, this Law!--You make a full
confession of a thing, the Law finds it insufficient; you deny, and the
Law murmurs ‘Indeed?’ and presently takes you by the heels. I have long
letters sometimes, full of words, and all they say is this
‘Indeed?’--And so much for our recent conversation, James.”
This time Matthew Moon struck bluntly in.
“Do ye mean, i’ plain words, that they’re setting ye aside?” he said;
and at that moment an accident befell the magistrate’s glass of wine. It
overturned at his elbow, and Emmason rose hastily for a napkin. He
dabbed up the spilt liquid, and then crossed to the window, putting his
hand against the crack of the shutter.
“I think the wind is north, for this room is uncommonly draughty,” he
muttered. “You will pardon me, I’m sure, but I am just recovering from
an ear-ache----” He took some morsels of cotton-wool from his pocket and
stuffed them into his ears.
The merchant made a little exclamation of contempt, and turned to
Eastwood.
“Is that it, James?” he asked, while the magistrate inspected the
cornice of the room.
“Nay, if ye will come in like that----”
“Does he mean Cope’s trafficking wi’ Ford magistrates and leaving ours
alone?”
“Why won’t ye leave John to me?”
“No need; it’s plain enough. We’ve been looking west instead o’ east,
that’s all.” (The magistrate nodded, and immediately seemed to doze,
nodding again twice or thrice.) “There’s the Gazette at the clogger’s,
with its pigeons and creeping about and all that, that’s all west; and
east, there’s them I warned ye o’ before, that’ll ha’ nothing to do with
us, and Ford, and a Ford magistrate’s clerk i’ Horwick.--His legs don’t
amount to much, but he can get letters, and sit in the ‘Pipes’ all ears,
and set fools sniggering with his ‘La, Mr. Monjoy!’”
“Well, let me get what I can out o’ John.”
“Ay, let’s have the clever work.”
Eastwood rose, set his hand for a moment to the crack of the door, and
returned to Emmason.
“Ye’re wrong, John; it’s from the door, not the window. Come and sit
between us,” he said.
The magistrate took the wool from his ears and changed his place, and
while the others rested their elbows on the table he leaned back between
them. Eastwood began the farce slowly.
“It’s come over me this bit back, John,” he said deliberatively, “that
there’s a deal o’ queer work goes on i’ Horwick that folk knows little
about.”
“Ay?” murmured the magistrate. “And in what sort?”
“Well, say there’s poaching. A man i’ your position doesn’t hear tell of
it, but it’s spoken of openly among us. Magistrates can’t be
everywhere.”
“No, no; we occupy a difficult position,” Emmason assented; but the slow
shake of his head said a good deal more. It said (for instance) that, if
in truth he were officially discredited, zeal against poachers would
hardly reinstate him.
“Then, there’s more nor a bit o’ smuggling along th’ Causeway, fro’ the
Lancashire ports,” Eastwood suggested, tentatively; and again Emmason
shook his head.
“The person to inform of that is Cope,” he said.
“True, true,” said Eastwood; and when again he spoke it was very slowly
indeed.
“The Law, ye say, doesn’t al’ays take plain speech; well, there’s
another thing, that ye’d best not take official till ye know more.--Now
and then th’ coin’s been tampered wi’.”
“Are you sure the draught was from the door?”
“Ay, ay; come a bit closer this way.--Now, if that’s so, ye ought to be
informed; and supposing ye were to show some knowledge, as I might say,
to the authorities--to interest ’em, like--then happen there’d be fewer
letters wi’ this ‘Indeed?’ in ’em.”
Emmason sat suddenly upright in his chair.
“You cannot mean to suggest to me, James, that in the event of any
evidence being produced against such person or persons and so
forth--that I should ever think of disregarding such evidence?”
Eastwood spoke with indescribable dryness--“I said information, not
evidence,” he murmured; “it’s a rum thing, is th’ Law.”
Emmason leaned slowly back again. He ceased to set his finger-tips
together, and his eyes gazed steadily at the reflection of the candles
in the polished table. Eastwood watched him furtively; Moon had not
moved. The magistrate began to murmur, neither quite aloud nor quite to
himself; and the expression on Eastwood’s face became one of deep
abstraction. All the world is agreed that when a man’s musings are
overheard the secrecy of them remains inviolable; it is a nicer point
whether or not you may rule your conduct by the light of any information
they may contain. Only by the acutest attention could John Emmason’s
murmurings have been overheard; but they were something like this: “If
it isn’t too late--if they’ll still listen to me--I could approach Cope
before he gets too deep with Parker--yes, to show a little
knowledge--ah!...”
* * * * *
Between Matthew Moon and the flagitious magistrate little love was lost,
and Moon’s view of the case was laid before the Executive two days
later, at a meeting in an upper room of the “Gooise” at Wadsworth.
“I was jealous of it at first; I am more than jealous now. Listen,” he
said with great earnestness. “A gauger without legs, that can’t knock
about and keep an eye on things, what good is he? And that’s the sort
they’ve sent to Horwick. Why, think ye? I’ve a wit o’ my own, with the
fancy-work left out, and I know what it _might_ be.--Suppose he _wants_
us to make light of him, and to be the jest of every lad in the
market-place, till we say, ‘Tut, it’s only Cope’; and then suppose he’s
listening and hedge-creeping, and setting a knot here and a knot there,
like poachers wi’ pheasants--what then?”
“You go too fast,” said Monjoy. “It may be that Emmason’s being passed
over; we’re not sure of that yet; but even to think it would cast John
down a bit.”
“John’s as cast down as you’re set up, Arthur, wi’ the pomp o’ this
grand scheme o’ yours. You’re not the fittest man for a counsellor just
now--leaving out ye’re newly wed.”
“No?” said Monjoy with a laugh. “Fit or not, I’ve got a hillside of ore
to go at, and laid out the foundations of two furnaces, and got the
fire-brick made and the stone to the spot and men just starting to work
day and night. That was a ballad, if I remember; but never mind that.
You’re out o’ health, Matthew; perhaps you’ve some trouble we know
nothing of.”
“Finish your say.”
“Here’s Emmason going over to give Parker a neighbourly call. If all
Emmason wants is to put up a show of zeal, we can manage that for him.
An old die or two planted here and there won’t do any harm, and he can
give Cope a search-warrant, all as fair as the day. That’ll amuse Cope
in Horwick, and we’re not going to invite him this side of Wadsworth.”
“Have you finished?” Moon asked.
“Why, what ails you, Matthew?”
“Because if ye have, I’ll ask ye this: Who’s been watching Cope lately?”
“I’ve been watching something better worth while,” Monjoy returned.
“Maybe; but I’ll tell ye what I’ve seen, that won’t hurt ye to know. I
said before yon’s mind was as ill-shapen as his body; listen: he’s a
man-eater, and hyænas laugh like him. There’s no man’s blood in yon. He
lets ye shoot your spittle at him, and laughs just the same. What was it
he laughed at first in the ‘Pipes’? I see ye remember. I began to watch
him after that, and I’ll back my own wits against Emmason’s clot o’
sized warps, for all the fancy-work. I’ve seen him licking round at ye
all with his filthy eyes, choosing men to fit the white cap wi’ the
black strings on and reckoning how many widows there’d be. Ay, I’ve seen
his eyes feeding on _that_!--” He pointed suddenly to John Raikes’s
great neck.
“What!” cried Raikes, with a hoarse oath, starting suddenly up, while
his chair tumbled behind him.
“Ay, and he’s leered at Sally bringing in ale, and at Cicely, too, by
God!--We’ve no grand new furnaces in Horwick, but there’s odds and ends
to watch. They weighed him at the shearing: how many of us has he
weighed, and measured the rope for, with his watch in his hand?”
John Raikes gave a cry to drown his words. “Whisht, whisht!” he shouted.
“Ay, I’ve touched ye, have I? That’s Cope. Don’t trust my eyes; come and
see. Come and see the busiest man in Horwick. Ye’re going to bide what
happens, are ye? See ye don’t bide too long. What Emmason’s going to do
he must do quick, and James, that can talk his daft talk, must see to
it. Don’t tell me I’ve troubles ye know nothing about; ye’ve heard my
trouble.”
John Raikes was pale, and he was clenching and unclenching his hands.
Eastwood’s crafty face was anxious and drawn into corrugations. Monjoy
fiddled with his russet whiskers. Moon’s speech had set a load on their
spirits. But soon Monjoy began to come round. He remembered the
merchant’s habitual caution and lack of enterprise, his attachment to
filing and clipping and sweating and such small matters, and quickly his
own hazardous venture filled his mind again.--It was the obtaining of
fuel that troubled him chiefly. Ore he had, and labour, and the security
of the hills, but unless fuel was to be had near at hand ... but there
must be coal still unworked ... there would be much to do before the
furnaces were finished that did not need his immediate supervision, and
he would see about the coal.... He was as thoughtful as the others,
tapping his fingers on the table; but the merchant’s words were already
out of his mind.
“Give me two months, if this weather holds,” he cried suddenly, “and
Johnny Cope shall think we’ve coined the big blessed silver moon
herself! By heaven! if we stick for fuel, the lads shall bring their
loom-timbers for the first fire! We’ll weave a shalloon with a ring and
music in it! What?--Then, some Horwick way, some Trawden, and we’ll run
it, rund and bar, down the Pennine to Sheffield, and Nottingham, and
Derby, where Charlie turned back.... An ilion-end for the Elector! What,
lads?”
He was on his feet, his arms extended, and the three looked at his red
radiant countenance as if it had suddenly become unfamiliar.--“What,
lads?” he cried again; and Matthew Moon rose.
“I’ve said my say,” he said. “There’s no talking to Arthur; but you,
John, keep in mind what I told you. I’ll stand by the Exec’tive as long
as I’m on it, and now I’ll go and look after these things that doesn’t
matter so much in Horwick. Good night.”
The door closed behind him, and his heavy tread was heard on the stairs.
Soon the others were deep in the discussion of the details of Big
Monjoy’s dangerous undertaking.