To see for himself how it fared with the big laborer at the hands of
Preliminary Justice, Felix went into Transham with Stanley the following
morning. John having departed early for town, the brothers had not
further exchanged sentiments on the subject of what Stanley called 'the
kick-up at Joyfields.' And just as night will sometimes disperse the
brooding moods of nature, so it had brought to all three the feeling:
'Haven't we made too much of this? Haven't we been a little extravagant,
and aren't we rather bored with the whole subject?' Arson was arson; a
man in prison more or less was a man in prison more or less! This was
especially Stanley's view, and he took the opportunity to say to Felix:
“Look here, old man, the thing is, of course, to see it in proportion.”
It was with this intention, therefore, that Felix entered the building
where the justice of that neighborhood was customarily dispensed. It was
a species of small hall, somewhat resembling a chapel, with distempered
walls, a platform, and benches for the public, rather well filled
that morning—testimony to the stir the little affair had made. Felix,
familiar with the appearance of London police courts, noted the
efforts that had been made to create resemblance to those models of
administration. The justices of the peace, hastily convoked and four in
number, sat on the platform, with a semicircular backing of high gray
screens and a green baize barrier in front of them, so that their legs
and feet were quite invisible. In this way had been preserved the really
essential feature of all human justice—at whose feet it is well known
one must not look! Their faces, on the contrary, were entirely exposed
to view, and presented that pleasing variety of type and unanimity of
expression peculiar to men keeping an open mind. Below them, with his
face toward the public, was placed a gray-bearded man at a table also
covered with green baize, that emblem of authority. And to the side, at
right angles, raised into the air, sat a little terrier of a man,
with gingery, wired hair, obviously the more articulate soul of these
proceedings. As Felix sat down to worship, he noticed Mr. Pogram at
the green baize table, and received from the little man a nod and the
faintest whiff of lavender and gutta-percha. The next moment he
caught sight of Derek and Sheila, screwed sideways against one of the
distempered walls, looking, with their frowning faces, for all the world
like two young devils just turned out of hell. They did not greet him,
and Felix set to work to study the visages of Justice. They impressed
him, on the whole, more favorably than he had expected. The one to his
extreme left, with a gray-whiskered face, was like a large and sleepy
cat of mature age, who moved not, except to write a word now and then on
the paper before him, or to hand back a document. Next to him, a man
of middle age with bald forehead and dark, intelligent eyes seemed
conscious now and again of the body of the court, and Felix thought:
'You have not been a magistrate long.' The chairman, who sat next, with
the moustache of a heavy dragoon and gray hair parted in the middle,
seemed, on the other hand, oblivious of the public, never once looking
at them, and speaking so that they could not hear him, and Felix
thought: 'You have been a magistrate too long.' Between him and the
terrier man, the last of the four wrote diligently, below a clean, red
face with clipped white moustache and little peaked beard. And Felix
thought: 'Retired naval!' Then he saw that they were bringing in Tryst.
The big laborer advanced between two constables, his broad, unshaven
face held high, and his lowering eyes, through which his strange and
tragical soul seemed looking, turned this way and that. Felix, who, no
more than any one else, could keep his gaze off the trapped creature,
felt again all the sensations of the previous afternoon.
“Guilty? or, Not guilty?” As if repeating something learned by heart,
Tryst answered: “Not guilty, sir.” And his big hands, at his sides, kept
clenching and unclenching. The witnesses, four in number, began now to
give their testimony. A sergeant of police recounted how he had been
first summoned to the scene of burning, and afterward arrested Tryst;
Sir Gerald's agent described the eviction and threats uttered by the
evicted man; two persons, a stone-breaker and a tramp, narrated that
they had seen him going in the direction of the rick and barn at five
o'clock, and coming away therefrom at five-fifteen. Punctuated by the
barking of the terrier clerk, all this took time, during which there
passed through Felix many thoughts. Here was a man who had done a
wicked, because an antisocial, act; the sort of act no sane person could
defend; an act so barbarous, stupid, and unnatural that the very beasts
of the field would turn noses away from it! How was it, then, that he
himself could not feel incensed? Was it that in habitually delving into
the motives of men's actions he had lost the power of dissociating what
a man did from what he was; had come to see him, with his thoughts,
deeds, and omissions, as a coherent growth? And he looked at Tryst. The
big laborer was staring with all his soul at Derek. And, suddenly, he
saw his nephew stand up—tilt his dark head back against the wall—and
open his mouth to speak. In sheer alarm Felix touched Mr. Pogram on the
arm. The little square man had already turned; he looked at that moment
extremely like a frog.
“Gentlemen, I wish to say—”
“Who are you? Sit down!” It was the chairman, speaking for the first
time in a voice that could be heard.
“I wish to say that he is not responsible. I—”
“Silence! Silence, sir! Sit down!”
Felix saw his nephew waver, and Sheila pulling at his sleeve; then, to
his infinite relief, the boy sat down. His sallow face was red; his thin
lips compressed to a white line. And slowly under the eyes of the whole
court he grew deadly pale.
Distracted by fear that the boy might make another scene, Felix followed
the proceedings vaguely. They were over soon enough: Tryst committed,
defence reserved, bail refused—all as Mr. Pogram had predicted.
Derek and Sheila had vanished, and in the street outside, idle at this
hour of a working-day, were only the cars of the four magistrates; two
or three little knots of those who had been in court, talking of the
case; and in the very centre of the street, an old, dark-whiskered man,
lame, and leaning on a stick.
“Very nearly being awkward,” said the voice of Mr. Pogram in his ear. “I
say, do you think—no hand himself, surely no real hand himself?”
Felix shook his head violently. If the thought had once or twice
occurred to him, he repudiated it with all his force when shaped by
another's mouth—and such a mouth, so wide and rubbery!
“No, no! Strange boy! Extravagant sense of honour—too sensitive, that's
all!”
“Quite so,” murmured Mr. Pogram soothingly. “These young people! We live
in a queer age, Mr. Freeland. All sorts of ideas about, nowadays. Young
men like that—better in the army—safe in the army. No ideas there!”
“What happens now?” said Felix.
“Wait!” said Mr. Pogram. “Nothing else for it—wait. Three months—twiddle
his thumbs. Bad system! Rotten!”
“And suppose in the end he's proved innocent?”
Mr. Pogram shook his little round head, whose ears were very red.
“Ah!” he said: “Often say to my wife: 'Wish I weren't a humanitarian!'
Heart of india-rubber—excellent thing—the greatest blessing. Well,
good-morning! Anything you want to say at any time, let me know!” And
exhaling an overpowering whiff of gutta-percha, he grasped Felix's
hand and passed into a house on the door of which was printed in brazen
letters: “Edward Pogram, James Collet. Solicitors. Agents.”
On leaving the little humanitarian, Felix drifted back toward the court.
The cars were gone, the groups dispersed; alone, leaning on his stick,
the old, dark-whiskered man stood like a jackdaw with a broken wing.
Yearning, at that moment, for human intercourse, Felix went up to him.
“Fine day,” he said.
“Yes, sir, 'tis fine enough.” And they stood silent, side by side. The
gulf fixed by class and habit between soul and human soul yawned before
Felix as it had never before. Stirred and troubled, he longed to open
his heart to this old, ragged, dark-eyed, whiskered creature with the
game leg, who looked as if he had passed through all the thorns and
thickets of hard and primitive existence; he longed that the old fellow
should lay bare to him his heart. And for the life of him he could not
think of any mortal words which might bridge the unreal gulf between
them. At last he said:
“You a native here?”
“No, sir. From over Malvern way. Livin' here with my darter, owin' to my
leg. Her 'usband works in this here factory.”
“And I'm from London,” Felix said.
“Thart you were. Fine place, London, they say!”
Felix shook his head. “Not so fine as this Worcestershire of yours.”
The old man turned his quick, dark gaze. “Aye!” he said, “people'll be
a bit nervy-like in towns, nowadays. The country be a good place for a
healthy man, too; I don't want no better place than the country—never
could abide bein' shut in.”
“There aren't so very many like you, judging by the towns.”
The old man smiled—that smile was the reverse of a bitter tonic coated
with sweet stuff to make it palatable.
“'Tes the want of a life takes 'em,” he said. “There's not a many like
me. There's not so many as can't do without the smell of the earth. With
these 'ere newspapers—'tesn't taught nowadays. The boys and gells they
goes to school, and 'tes all in favor of the towns there. I can't work
no more; I'm 's good as gone meself; but I feel sometimes I'll 'ave to
go back. I don't like the streets, an' I guess 'tes worse in London.”
“Ah! Perhaps,” Felix said, “there are more of us like you than you
think.”
Again the old man turned his dark, quick glance.
“Well, an' I widden say no to that, neither. I've seen 'em terrible
homesick. 'Tes certain sure there's lots would never go, ef 'twasn't so
mortial hard on the land. 'Tisn't a bare livin', after that. An' they're
put upon, right and left they're put upon. 'Tes only a man here and
there that 'as something in 'im too strong. I widden never 'ave stayed
in the country ef 'twasn't that I couldn't stand the town life. 'Tes
like some breeds o' cattle—you take an' put 'em out o' their own
country, an' you 'ave to take an' put 'em back again. Only some breeds,
though. Others they don' mind where they go. Well, I've seen the country
pass in my time, as you might say; where you used to see three men you
only see one now.”
“Are they ever going back onto the land?”
“They tark about it. I read my newspaper reg'lar. In some places I see
they're makin' unions. That an't no good.”
“Why?”
The old man smiled again.
“Why! Think of it! The land's different to anythin' else—that's why!
Different work, different hours, four men's work to-day and one's
to-morrow. Work land wi' unions, same as they've got in this 'ere
factory, wi' their eight hours an' their do this an' don' do that? No!
You've got no weather in factories, an' such-like. On the land 'tes a
matter o' weather. On the land a man must be ready for anythin' at any
time; you can't work it no other way. 'Tes along o' God's comin' into
it; an' no use pullin' this way an' that. Union says to me: You mustn't
work after hours. Hoh! I've 'ad to set up all night wi' ship an' cattle
hundreds o' times, an' no extra for it. 'Tes not that way they'll do any
good to keep people on the land. Oh, no!”
“How, then?”
“Well, you'll want new laws, o' course, to prevent farmers an'
landowners takin' their advantage; you want laws to build new cottages;
but mainly 'tes a case of hands together; can't be no other—the land's
so ticklish. If 'tesn't hands together, 'tes nothing. I 'ad a master
once that was never content so long's we wasn't content. That farm was
better worked than any in the parish.”
“Yes, but the difficulty is to get masters that can see the other side;
a man doesn't care much to look at home.”
The old man's dark eyes twinkled.
“No; an' when 'e does, 'tes generally to say: 'Lord, an't I right, an'
an't they wrong, just?' That's powerful customary!”
“It is,” said Felix; “God bless us all!”
“Ah! You may well say that, sir; an' we want it, too. A bit more wages
wouldn't come amiss, neither. An' a bit more freedom; 'tes a man's
liberty 'e prizes as well as money.”
“Did you hear about this arson case?”
The old man cast a glance this way and that before he answered in a
lower voice:
“They say 'e was put out of his cottage. I've seen men put out for
votin' Liberal; I've seen 'em put out for free-thinkin'; all sorts o'
things I seen em put out for. 'Tes that makes the bad blood. A man wants
to call 'is soul 'is own, when all's said an' done. An' 'e can't, not in
th' old country, unless 'e's got the dibs.”
“And yet you never thought of emigrating?”
“Thart of it—ah! thart of it hundreds o' times; but some'ow cudden never
bring mysel' to the scratch o' not seein' th' Beacon any more. I can
just see it from 'ere, you know. But there's not so many like me, an'
gettin' fewer every day.”
“Yes,” murmured Felix, “that I believe.”
“'Tes a 'and-made piece o' goods—the land! You has to be fond of it,
same as of your missis and yer chillen. These poor pitiful
fellows that's workin' in this factory, makin' these here Colonial
ploughs—union's all right for them—'tes all mechanical; but a man on the
land, 'e's got to put the land first, whether 'tes his own or some one
else's, or he'll never do no good; might as well go for a postman, any
day. I'm keepin' of you, though, with my tattle!”
In truth, Felix had looked at the old man, for the accursed question
had begun to worry him: Ought he or not to give the lame old fellow
something? Would it hurt his feelings? Why could he not say simply:
'Friend, I'm better off than you; help me not to feel so unfairly
favored'? Perhaps he might risk it. And, diving into his trousers
pockets, he watched the old man's eyes. If they followed his hand, he
would risk it. But they did not. Withdrawing his hand, he said:
“Have a cigar?”
The old fellow's dark face twinkled.
“I don' know,” he said, “as I ever smoked one; but I can have a darned
old try!”
“Take the lot,” said Felix, and shuffled into the other's pocket the
contents of his cigar-case. “If you get through one, you'll want the
rest. They're pretty good.”
“Ah!” said the old man. “Shuldn' wonder, neither.”
“Good-by. I hope your leg will soon be better.”
“Thank 'ee, sir. Good-by, thank 'ee!”
Looking back from the turning, Felix saw him still standing there in the
middle of the empty street.
Having undertaken to meet his mother, who was returning this afternoon
to Becket, he had still two hours to put away, and passing Mr. Pogram's
house, he turned into a path across a clover-field and sat down on
a stile. He had many thoughts, sitting at the foot of this little
town—which his great-grandfather had brought about. And chiefly he
thought of the old man he had been talking to, sent there, as it seemed
to him, by Providence, to afford a prototype for his 'The Last of the
Laborers.' Wonderful that the old fellow should talk of loving 'the
Land,' whereon he must have toiled for sixty years or so, at a number
of shillings per week, that would certainly not buy the cigars he had
shovelled into that ragged pocket. Wonderful! And yet, a marvellous
sweet thing, when all was said—this land! Changing its sheen and
texture, the feel of its air, its very scent, from day to day. This
land with myriad offspring of flowers and flying folk; the majestic and
untiring march of seasons: Spring and its wistful ecstasy of saplings,
and its yearning, wild, wind-loosened heart; gleam and song, blossom
and cloud, and the swift white rain; each upturned leaf so little and so
glad to flutter; each wood and field so full of peeping things! Summer!
Ah! Summer, when on the solemn old trees the long days shone and
lingered, and the glory of the meadows and the murmur of life and the
scent of flowers bewildered tranquillity, till surcharge of warmth and
beauty brooded into dark passion, and broke! And Autumn, in mellow haze
down on the fields and woods; smears of gold already on the beeches,
smears of crimson on the rowans, the apple-trees still burdened, and a
flax-blue sky well-nigh merging with the misty air; the cattle browsing
in the lingering golden stillness; not a breath to fan the blue smoke
of the weed-fires—and in the fields no one moving—who would disturb such
mellow peace? And Winter! The long spaces, the long dark; and yet—and
yet, what delicate loveliness of twig tracery; what blur of rose and
brown and purple caught in the bare boughs and in the early sunset sky!
What sharp dark flights of birds in the gray-white firmament! Who cared
what season held in its arms this land that had bred them all!
Not wonderful that into the veins of those who nursed it, tending,
watching its perpetual fertility, should be distilled a love so deep and
subtle that they could not bear to leave it, to abandon its hills, and
greenness, and bird-songs, and all the impress of their forefathers
throughout the ages.
Like so many of his fellows—cultured moderns, alien to the larger forms
of patriotism, that rich liquor brewed of maps and figures, commercial
profit, and high-cockalorum, which served so perfectly to swell smaller
heads—Felix had a love of his native land resembling love for a woman,
a kind of sensuous chivalry, a passion based on her charm, on her
tranquillity, on the power she had to draw him into her embrace, to make
him feel that he had come from her, from her alone, and into her alone
was going back. And this green parcel of his native land, from which the
half of his blood came, and that the dearest half, had a potency over
his spirit that he might well be ashamed of in days when the true Briton
was a town-bred creature with a foot of fancy in all four corners of the
globe. There was ever to him a special flavor about the elm-girt fields,
the flowery coppices, of this country of the old Moretons, a special
fascination in its full, white-clouded skies, its grass-edged roads, its
pied and creamy cattle, and the blue-green loom of the Malvern hills.
If God walked anywhere for him, it was surely here. Sentiment! Without
sentiment, without that love, each for his own corner, 'the Land' was
lost indeed! Not if all Becket blew trumpets till kingdom came, would
'the Land' be reformed, if they lost sight of that! To fortify men in
love for their motherland, to see that insecurity, grinding poverty,
interference, petty tyranny, could no longer undermine that love—this
was to be, surely must be, done! Monotony? Was that cry true? What work
now performed by humble men was less monotonous than work on the land?
What work was even a tenth part so varied? Never quite the same from
day to day: Now weeding, now hay, now roots, now hedging; now corn, with
sowing, reaping, threshing, stacking, thatching; the care of beasts,
and their companionship; sheep-dipping, shearing, wood-gathering,
apple-picking, cider-making; fashioning and tarring gates; whitewashing
walls; carting; trenching—never, never two days quite the same!
Monotony! The poor devils in factories, in shops, in mines; poor devils
driving 'busses, punching tickets, cleaning roads; baking; cooking;
sewing; typing! Stokers; machine-tenders; brick-layers; dockers; clerks!
Ah! that great company from towns might well cry out: Monotony! True,
they got their holidays; true, they had more social life—a point that
might well be raised at Becket: Holidays and social life for men on the
soil! But—and suddenly Felix thought of the long, long holiday that
was before the laborer Tryst. 'Twiddle his thumbs'—in the words of the
little humanitarian—twiddle his thumbs in a space twelve feet by seven!
No sky to see, no grass to smell, no beast to bear him company; no
anything—for, what resources in himself had this poor creature? No
anything, but to sit with tragic eyes fixed on the wall before him for
eighty days and eighty nights, before they tried him. And then—not till
then—would his punishment for that moment's blind revenge for grievous
wrong begin! What on this earth of God's was more disproportioned, and
wickedly extravagant, more crassly stupid, than the arrangements of his
most perfect creature, man? What a devil was man, who could yet rise to
such sublime heights of love and heroism! What a ferocious brute, the
most ferocious and cold-blooded brute that lived! Of all creatures
most to be stampeded by fear into a callous torturer! 'Fear'—thought
Felix—'fear! Not momentary panic, such as makes our brother animals do
foolish things; conscious, calculating fear, paralyzing the reason of
our minds and the generosity of our hearts. A detestable thing Tryst has
done, a hateful act; but his punishment will be twentyfold as hateful!'
And, unable to sit and think of it, Felix rose and walked on through the
fields....