"It'll be a bad lookout for him," he said. "Bless yo'! They'd tear him to pieces. They're in th' humor for it. They've been carryin' a grudge so long they're ready fur owt. They've nivver thowt mich o' him, though, but start 'em on that an' they wouldn't leave a shred o' it together—nor a shred o' him, eyther, if they got the chance."
Haworth laughed again.
"Wouldn't they?" he said. "Let 'em try. He'd have plenty to stand by him. Th' masters are on his side, my lad."
He touched his horse, and it began to move. Suddenly he checked it and looked back, speaking again.
"Keep it to yourself, then," he said, "if there's danger, and keep my name out of it, by George, if you want to be safe!"
Just as he drove up to the gates of the yard Murdoch passed him and entered them. Until then—since he had left Briarley—he had not spoken. He had driven rapidly on his way with a grim, steady face. As Murdoch went by he got down from his gig, and went to the horse's head. He stood close to it, knotting the reins.
"Nor of him either," he said. "Nor of him either, by——"
The same night Mr. Briarley came home in a condition more muddled and disheveled than usual. He looked as if he had been hustled about and somewhat unceremoniously treated. He had lost his hat, and was tremulous and excited. He came in without the trifling ceremony of opening the door. In fact, he fell up against it and ran in, and making an erratic dive at a chair, sat down. Granny Dixon, who had been dozing in her usual seat, was roused by the concussion and wakened and sat up, glaring excitedly.
"He's been at it again!" she shouted. "At it again! He'll nivver ha' none o' my brass to mak' way wi'. He's been at——"
Mrs. Briarley turned upon her.
"Keep thy mouth shut" she said.
The command was effective in one sense, though not in another. Mrs. Dixon stopped in the midst of the word "at" with her mouth wide open, and so sat for some seconds, with the aspect of an ancient beldam ordinarily going by machinery and suddenly having had her works stopped.
She would probably have presented this appearance for the remainder of the evening if Mrs. Briarley had not addressed her again.
"Shut thy mouth!" she said.
The works were set temporarily in motion, and her countenance slowly resumed its natural lines. She appeared to settle down all over and sink and become smaller, though, as she crouched nearer the fire, she had rather an evil look, which seemed to take its red glow into her confidence and secretly rage at it.
"What's tha been doin'?" Mrs. Briarley demanded of her better half. "Out wi' it!"
Mr. Briarley had already fallen into his favorite position. He had placed an elbow upon each knee and carefully supported his disheveled head upon his hands. He had also already begun to shed tears, which dropped and made disproportionately large circles upon the pipe-clayed floor.
"I'm a misforchnit chap," he said. "I'm a misforchnit chap, Sararann, as nivver had no luck."
"What's tha been doin'?" repeated Mrs. Briarley, with even greater sharpness than before; "out wi' it!"
"Nay," said Mr. Briarley, "that theer's what I've getten mysen i' trouble wi'. I wunnot do it again."
"Theer's summat i' beer," he proceeded, mournfully, "as goes agen a man. He towd me not to say nowt an' I did na mean to, but," with fresh pathos, "theer's summat i' beer as winds—as winds a chap up. I'm not mich o' th' speakin' loine, Sararann, but afore I knowed it, I wur a-makin' a speech—an' when I bethowt me an' wanted to set down—they wur bound to mak' me—go on to th' eend—an' when I would na—theer wur a good bit—o' public opinion igspressed—an' I did na stop—to bid 'em good-neet. Theer wur too much agoin' on."
"What wur it aw about?" asked Mrs. Briarley.
But Mr. Briarley's voice had been gradually becoming lower and lower, and his words more incoherent. He was sinking into slumber. When she repeated her question, he awakened with a violent start.
"I'm a misforchnit chap," he murmured, "an' I dunnot know. 'Scaped me, Sararann—owin' to misforchins."
"Eh!" remarked Mrs. Briarley, regarding him with connubial irony, "but tha art a graidely foo'! I'd gie summat to see a graidelier un!"
But he was so far gone by this time that there was no prospect of a clear solution of the cause of his excitement. And so she turned to Granny Dixon.
"It's toime fur thee to be i' bed," she shouted.
Granny Dixon gave a sharp, stealthy move round, and a sharp, stealthy glance up at her.
"I—dunnot want to go," she quavered shrilly.
"Aye, but tha does," was the answer. "An' tha'rt goin' too. Get up, Missus."
And singularly enough, Mrs. Dixon fumbled until she found her stick, and gathering herself up and leaning upon it, made her rambling way out of the room carrying her evil look with her.
"Bless us!" Mrs. Briarley had said in confidence to a neighbor a few days before. "I wur nivver more feart i' my life than when I'd done it, an' th' owd besom set theer wi' her cap o' one side an' her breath gone. I did na know but I'd put an eend to her. I nivver should ha' touched her i' th' world if I had na been that theer upset as I did na know what I wur doin'. I thowt she'd be up an' out i' th' street as soon as she'd getten her breath an', happen, ca' on th' porlice. An' to think it's been th' settlin' on her! It feart me to see it at th' first, but I wur na goin' to lose th' chance an' th' next day I give it to her up an' down—tremblin' i' my shoes aw th' toime. I says, 'Tha may leave thy brass to who tha loikes, but tha'lt behave thysen while tha stays here or Sararann Briarley'll see about it. So mak' up thy moind.' An' I've nivver had a bit o' trouble wi' her fro' then till now. She conna bide th' soight o' me, but she dare na go agen me fur her life."
The next day Haworth went away upon one of his mysterious journeys.
"To Leeds or Manchester, or perhaps London," said Ffrench. "I don't know where."
The day after was Saturday, and in the afternoon Janey Briarley presented herself to Mrs. Murdoch at an early hour, and evidently with something on her mind.
"I mun get through wi' th' cleanin' an' go whoam soon," she said. "Th' stroikers is over fro' Molton an' Dillup again. Theer's summat up among 'em."
"We dunnot know nowt about it," she answered, when further questioned. "We on'y know they're here an' i' a ill way about summat they've fun out. Feyther, he's aw upset, but he dare na say nowt fur fear o' th' Union. Mother thinks they've getten summat agen Ffrench."
"Does Mr. Ffrench know that?" Mrs. Murdoch asked.
"He'll know it soon enow, if he does na," dryly. "They'll noan stand back at tellin' him if they're i' th' humor—but he's loiker to know than not. He's too feart on 'em not to be on th' watch."
It was plain enough before many hours had passed that some disturbance was on foot. The strikers gathered about the streets in groups, or lounged here and there sullenly. They were a worse-looking lot than they had been at the outset. Idleness and ill-feeling and dissipation had left their marks. Clothes were shabbier, faces more brutal and habits plainly more vicious.
At one o'clock Mr. Ffrench disappeared from his room at the bank, no one knew exactly how or when. All the morning he had spent in vacillating between his desk and a window looking into the street. There was a rumor among the clerks that he had been seen vanishing through a side door leading into a deserted little back street.
An hour later he appeared in the parlor in which his daughter sat. He was hot and flurried and out of breath.
"Those scoundrels are in the town again," he said. "And there is no knowing what they are up to. It was an insane thing for Haworth to go away at such a time. By night there will be an uproar."
"If there is an uproar," said Miss Ffrench, "they will come here. They know they can do nothing at the Works. He is always ready for them there—and they are angrier with you than they are with him."
"There is no reason why they should be," Ffrench protested. "I took no measures against them, heaven knows."
"I think," returned Rachel, "that is the reason. You have been afraid of them."
He colored to the roots of his hair.
"You are saying a deuced unpleasant thing, my dear," he broke forth.
"It is true," she answered. "What would be the use in not saying it?"
He had no reply to make. The trouble was that he never had a reply to make to these deadly simple statements of hers.
He began to walk up and down the room.
"The people we invited to dine with us," she said, "will not come. They will hear what is going on and will be afraid. It is very stupid."
"I wonder," he faltered, "if Murdoch will fail us. He never did before."
"No," she answered. "He will not stay away."
The afternoon dragged its unpleasant length along. As it passed Ffrench found in every hour fresh cause for nervousness and excitement. The servant who had been out brought disagreeable enough tidings. The small police force of the town had its hands full in attending to its business of keeping order.
"If we had had time to send to Manchester for some assistance," said Mr. Ffrench.
"That would have been reason enough for being attacked," said Rachel. "It would have shown them that we felt we needed protection."
"We may need it, before all is quiet again," retorted her father.
"We may," she answered, "or we may not."
By night several arrests had been made, and there was a good deal of disorder in the town. A goodly quantity of beer had been drunk and there had been a friendly fight or so among the strikers themselves.
Rachel left her father in the drawing-room and went upstairs to prepare for dinner. When she returned an hour afterward he turned to her with an impatient start.
"Why did you dress yourself in that manner?" he exclaimed. "You said yourself our guests would not come."
"It occurred to me," she answered, "that we might have visitors after all."
But it was as she had prophesied,—the guests they had expected did not come. They were discreet and well-regulated elderly people who had lived long in the manufacturing districts, and had passed through little unpleasantnesses before. They knew that under existing circumstances it would be wiser to remain at home than to run the risk of exposing themselves to spasmodic criticism and its results.
But they had visitors.
The dinner hour passed and they were still alone. Even Murdoch had not come. A dead silence reigned in the room. Ffrench was trying to read and not succeeding very well. Miss Ffrench stood by the window looking out. It was a clear night and the moon was at full; it was easy to see far up the road upon whose whiteness the trees cast black shadows. She was looking up this road toward the town. She had been watching it steadily for some time. Once her father had turned to her restlessly, saying:
"Why do you stand there? You—you might be expecting something to happen."
She did not make any reply and still retained her position. But about half an hour afterward, she turned suddenly and spoke in a low, clear tone.
"If you are afraid, you had better go away," she said. "They are coming."
It was evident that she at least felt no alarm, though there was a thrill of excitement in her voice. Mr. Ffrench sprang up from his seat.
"They are coming!" he echoed. "Good God! What do you mean?"
It was not necessary that she should enter into an explanation. A clamor of voices in the road told its own story. There were shouts and riotous cries which, in a moment more, were no longer outside the gates but within them. An uproarious crowd of men and boys poured into the garden, trampling the lawn and flower-beds beneath their feet as they rushed and stumbled over them.
"Wheer is he?" they shouted. "Bring the chap out, an' let's tak' a look at him. Bring him out!"
Ffrench moved toward the door of the room, and then, checked by some recollection, turned back again.
"Good Heaven!" he said, "they are at their worst, and here we are utterly alone. Why did Haworth go away? Why——"
His daughter interrupted him.
"There is no use in your staying," she said. "It will do no good. You may go if you like. There is the back way. None of them are near it."
"I—I can't leave you here," he stammered. "Haworth was mad! Why, in Heaven's name——"
"There is no use asking why again," she replied. "I cannot tell you. I think you had better go."
Her icy coldness would have been a pretty hard thing to bear if he had been less terror-stricken; but he saw that the hand with which she held the window-curtain was shaking.
He did not know, however, that it was not shaking with fear, but with the power of the excitement which stirred her.
It is scarcely possible that he would have left her, notwithstanding his panic, though, for a second, it nearly seemed that he had so far lost self-control as to be wavering; but as he stood, pale and breathless, there arose a fresh yell.
"Wheer is he? Bring him out! Murdoch, th' 'Merican chap! We're coom to see him!"
"What's that?" he asked. "Who is it they want?"
"Murdoch! Murdoch!" was shouted again. "Let's ha' a word wi' Murdoch! We lads ha' summat to say to him!"
"It is not I they want," he said. "It is Murdoch. It is not I at all!"
She dashed the window-curtain aside and turned on him. He was stunned by the mere sight of her face. Every drop of blood seemed driven from it.
"You are a coward!" she cried, panting. "A coward! It is a relief to you!"
He stood staring at her.
"A—a relief!" he stammered. "I—don't understand you. What is the matter?"
She had recovered herself almost before he had begun to speak. It was over in a second. He had not had time to realize the situation before she was moving toward the window.
"They shall see me," she said. "Let us see what they will have to say to me."
He would have stopped her, but she did not pay the slightest attention to his exclamation. The window was a French one, opening upon a terrace. She flung it backward, and stepped out and stood before the rioters.
For a second there was not a sound.
They had been expecting to see a man,—perhaps Ffrench, perhaps Murdoch, perhaps even a representative of the small police force, looking as if he felt himself one too many in the gathering, or not quite enough,—and here was simply a tall young woman in a dazzling dress of some rich white stuff, and with something sparkling upon her hands and arms and in her high-dressed blonde hair.
The moonlight struck full upon her, and she stood in it serene and bore unmoved the stupid stare of all their eyes. It was she who spoke first, and then they knew her, and the spell which held them dumb was broken.
"What do you want?" she demanded. "I should like to hear."
Then they began to shout again.
"We want Murdoch!" they said. "We ha' summat to say to him."
"He is not here," she said. "He has not been here."
"That's a lee," remarked a gentleman on the outskirts of the crowd. "A dom'd un."
She made no answer, and, singularly enough, nobody laughed.
"Why do you want him?" she said next.
"We want to hear about that contrapshun o' his as is goin' to mak' th' mesters indypendent. He knows what we want him fur. We've just been to his house and brokken th' winders. He's getten wind on us comin', an' he made off wi' th' machine. He'll be here afore long if he is na here now, an' we're bound to see him."
"He'll be up to see thee," put in the gentleman on the outskirts, "an' I dunnot blame him. I'm glad I coom mysen. Tha's worth th' trip—an' I'm a Dillup chap, moind yo'."
She stood quite still as before and let them look at her, to see what effect the words had produced. It seemed as if they had produced none.
"If you have come to see him," she said, after a few seconds, "you may go away again. He is not here. I know where he is, and you cannot reach him. If there has not been some blunder, he is far enough away."
She told the lie without flinching in the least, and with a clever coolness which led her to think in a flash beforehand even of the clause which would save her dignity if he should chance to come in the midst of her words.
"If you want to break windows," she went on, "break them here. They can be replaced afterward, and there is no one here to interfere with you. If you would like to vent your anger upon a woman, vent it upon me. I am not afraid of you. Look at me!"
She took half a step forward and presented herself to them—motionless. Not a fellow among them but felt that she would not have stirred if they had rushed upon her bodily. The effect of her supreme beauty and the cold defiance which had in it a touch of delicate insolence, was indescribable. This was not in accordance with their ideas of women of her class; they were used to seeing them discreetly keeping themselves in the shade in time of disorder. Here was one—"one of the nobs," as they said—who flung their threats to the wind and scorned them.
What they would have done when they recovered themselves is uncertain. The scale might have turned either way; but, just in the intervening moment which would have decided it, there arose a tumult in their midst. A man pushed his way with mad haste through the crowd and sprang upon the terrace at her side, amid yells and hoots from those who had guessed who he was.
An instant later they all knew him, though his dress was disordered, his head was bare, and his whole face and figure seemed altered by his excitement.
"Dom him!" they yelled. "Theer he is, by——!"
"I towd thee he'd coom," shouted the cynic. "He did na get th' tellygraph, tha sees."
He turned on them, panting and white with rage.
"You devils!" he cried. "You are here too! Haven't you done enough? Isn't bullying and frightening two women enough for you, that you must come here?"
"That's reet," commented the cynic. "Stond up fur th' young woman, Murdoch. I'd do it mysen i' I wur o' that soide. Allus stond up fur th' sect!"
Murdoch spoke to Rachel Ffrench.
"You must go in," he said. "There is no knowing what they will do."
"I shall stay here," she answered.
She made an impatient gesture. She was shuddering from head to foot.
"Don't look at or speak to me," she said. "You—you make me a coward."
"They will stand at nothing," he protested.
"I will not turn my back upon them," she said. "Let them do their worst."
He turned to the crowd again. Her life itself was in danger, and he knew he could not move her. He was shuddering himself.
"Who is your leader?" he said to the men. "I suppose you have one."
The man known as Foxy Gibbs responded to their cries of his name by pushing his way to the front. He was a big, resolute, hulking scamp who had never been known to do an honest day's work, and was yet always in funds and at liberty to make incendiary speeches where beer and tobacco were plentiful.
"What do you want of me?" demanded Murdoch. "Speak out."
The fellow was ready enough with his words, and forcible too.
"We've heard tell o' summat goin' on we're not goin' to stond," he said. "We've heerd tell o' a chap 'at's contrivin' summat to do away wi' them as does th' work now an' mak's theer bread by it. We've heerd as th' mesters is proidin' theersens on it an' laughin' in their sleeves. We've heerd tell as theer's a chap makkin' what'll eend i' mischief—an' yo're th' chap."
"Who told you?"
"Nivver moind who. A foo' let it out, an' we wur na in th' humor to let it pass. We're goin' to sift th' thing to th' bottom. Yo're th' chap as was nam't. What ha' yo' getten to say?"
"Just one thing," he answered. "It's a lie from first to last—an accursed lie!"
"Lee or not, we're goin' to smash th' thing, whatever it is. We're noan particular about th' lee. We'll mak' th' thing safe first, an' then settle about th' lee."
Murdoch thrust his hands in his pockets and eyed them with his first approach to his usual sang-froid.
"It's where you won't find it," he said. "I've made sure of that."
It was a mad speech to have made, but he had lost self-control and balance. He was too terribly conscious of Rachel Ffrench's perilous nearness to be in the mood to weigh his words. He saw his mistake in a second. There was a shout and a surging movement of the mob toward him, and Rachel Ffrench, with an indescribable swiftness, had thrown herself before him and was struck by a stone which came whizzing through the air.
She staggered under the stroke but stood upright in a breadth's time.
"My God!" Murdoch cried out. "They have struck you. They have struck you!"
He was half mad with his anguish and horror. The sight of the little stream of blood which trickled from her temple turned him sick with rage.
"You devils!" he raved, "do you see what you have done?"
But the play was over. Before he had finished his outcry there was a shout of "th' coppers! th' coppers!" and a rush and skurry and tumble of undignified retreat. The police force with a band of anti-strikers behind them had appeared upon the scene in the full glory of the uniform of the corporation, and such was the result of habit and the majesty of the law that those who were not taken into custody incontinently took to their heels and scattered in every direction, uttering curses loud and deep, since they were not yet prepared to resist an attack more formally.
In half an hour the trampled grass and flower-beds and broken shrubs were the only signs of the tumult. Mr. Ffrench was walking up and down the dreary room in as nervous a condition as ever.
"Good heavens, Rachel!" he said. "You must have been mad—mad."
She had persistently refused to lie down and sat in an easy-chair, looking rather colorless and languid. When they were left alone, Murdoch came and stood near her. He was paler than she, and haggard and worn. Before she knew what he was about to do he fell upon his knees, and covered her hands with kisses.
"If any harm had come to you," he cried—"if any harm had come to you——"
She tried to drag her hands away with an angry face, but he clung to them. And then quite suddenly all her resistance ceased and her eyes fixed themselves upon him as if with a kind of dread.
In expectation of something very serious happening, the constabulary re-enforced itself the day following and assumed a more imposing aspect, and was prepared to be very severe indeed upon all short-comings or symptoms of approaching disorder. But somewhat to its private disappointment, an unlooked-for quiet prevailed—an almost suspicious quiet, indeed. There were rumors that a secret meeting had been held by the strikers the night before, and the result of it was that in the morning there appeared to have been a sudden dispersing, and only those remained behind who were unavoidably detained by the rather unfortunate circumstance of having before them the prospect of spending a few weeks in the comparative retirement of the county jail. These gentlemen peremptorily refused to give any definite explanation of their eccentricities of conduct of the night before and were altogether very unsatisfactory indeed, one of them even going so far, under the influence of temporary excitement, as to be guilty of the indiscretion of announcing his intention of "doin' fur" one or two enemies of his cause when his term expired, on account of which amiable statement three months were added to said term upon the spot.
It was Janey Briarley who gave Murdoch his warning upon the night of the riot. Just before he left the Works she had come into the yard, saying she had a message for Haworth, and on being told that he was away, had asked for Murdoch.
"He'll do if I canna see th' mester," she remarked.
But when she reached Murdoch's room she stepped across the threshold and shut the door cautiously.
"Con anybody hear?" she demanded, with an uneasy glance round.
"No," he answered.
"Then cut thy stick as fast as tha con an' get thee whoam an' hoid away that thing tha'rt makkin. Th' stroikers is after it. Nivver moind how I fun' out. Cut an' run. I axt fur Haworth to throw 'em off th' scent. I knowed he wurna here. Haste thee!"
Her manifest alarm convinced him that there was foundation enough for her errand, and that she had run some risk in venturing it.
"Thank you," he said. "You may have saved me a great deal. Let us go out quietly as if nothing was in hand. Come along."
And so they went, he talking aloud as they passed through the gates, and as it was already dusk he was out on the Broxton road in less than half an hour, and when he returned the mob had been to his mother's house and broken a few windows in their rage at his having escaped them, and had gone off shouting that they would go to Ffrench's.
"He'll be fun theer," some one said—possibly the cynic. "Th' young woman is a sweetheart o' his an' yo'll be loike to hear o' th' cat wheer th' cream stonds."
His mother met him on the threshold with the news of the outbreak and the direction it had taken. A few brief sentences told him all, and at the end of them he left the house at once.
"I am going there to show myself to them," he said. "They will not return here. You are safe enough now. The worst is over here, but there is no knowing what they may do there when they find themselves baffled."
It was after midnight when he came back, and then it was Christian who opened the door for him.
He came into the little dark passage with a slow, unsteady step. For a second he did not seem to see her at all. His face was white, his eyes were shining and his brow was slightly knit in lines which might have meant intense pain.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
It was as if her voice wakened him from a trance. He looked at her for the first time.
"Hurt!" he echoed. "No—not hurt."
He went into the sitting-room and she followed him. The narrow horse-hair sofa upon which his father had lain so often stood in its old place. He threw himself full length upon it and lay looking straight before him.
"Are you—are you sure you are not hurt?" she faltered.
He echoed her words again.
"Am I sure I am not hurt?" he repeated dreamily. "Yes, I am sure of it."
And then he turned slightly toward her and she saw that the look his face wore was not one of pain, but of strange rapture.
"I am not hurt," he said quite slowly. "I am madly happy."
Then she understood. She was as ignorant of many things as she was bitterly wise in others, but she had not been blind and she understood quite clearly. She sat down upon a low seat, from which she could see him, her hands clasped on her knee.
"I knew," she said at last, "that it would come some day—I knew that it would."
"Did you?" he answered in the same dreamy way. "I did not. I did not even hope for it. I do not comprehend it even now."
"I do," she returned, "quite well."
He scarcely seemed to hear her.
"I hoped for nothing," he said. "And now—I am madly happy."
There was nothing more for her to say. She had a fancy that perhaps in the morning he would have forgotten that he had spoken. It seemed as if even yet he was hardly conscious of her presence. But before she went away she asked him a question.
"Where did you put the model?"
He gave a feverish start.
"Where?" And falling back into his previous manner—"I took it to the chapel yard. I knew they would not go there. There was space enough behind the—the head-stone and the old wall for it to stand, and the grass grew long and thick. I left it there."
"It was a safe place," she answered. "When shall you bring it back?"
He sighed impatiently.
"Not yet," he said. "Not just yet. Let it stay there a while. I am not—ready for it. Let it stay."
It was not until the week following that Haworth returned, and then he came without having given any previous warning of his intention. Ffrench, sitting in his office in a rather dejected mood one morning, was startled by his entering with even less than his usual small ceremony.
"My dear Haworth," he exclaimed. "Is it possible!"
His first intention had been to hold out his hand, but he did not do so. In fact he sat down again a little suddenly and uneasily. Haworth sat down too, confronting him squarely.
"What have you been up to?" he demanded. "What is this row about?"
"About!" echoed Ffrench. "It's the most extraordinary combination of nonsense and misunderstanding I ever heard of in my life. How it arose there is no knowing. The fellows are mad!"
"Aye," angrily, "mad enow, but you can't stop 'em now they've got agate. It's a devilish lookout for us. I've heard it all over the country, and the more you say agen it the worse it is. They're set on it all through Lancashire that there's a plot agen 'em, and they're fur fettlin' it their own fashion."
"You—you don't think it will be worse for us?" his partner suggested weakly. "It's struck me that—in the end—it mightn't be a bad thing—that it would change the direction of their mood."
"Wait until the end comes. It's not here yet. Tell me how it happened."
Upon the whole, Mr. Ffrench made a good story of it. He depicted the anxieties and dangers of the occasion very graphically. He had lost a good deal of his enthusiasm on the subject of the uncultivated virtues and sturdy determination of the manufacturing laboring classes, and he was always fluent, as has been before mentioned. He was very fluent now, and especially so in describing the incident of his daughter's presenting herself to the mob and the result of her daring.
"She might have lost her life," he said at one point. "It was an insane thing to have done—an insane thing. She surprised them at first, but she could not hold them in check after Murdoch came. She will bear the mark of the stone for many a day."
"They threw a stone, blast 'em, did they?" said Haworth, setting his teeth.
"Yes—but not at her. Perhaps they would hardly have dared that after all. It was thrown at Murdoch."
"And he stepped out of the way?"
"Oh no. He did not see the man raise his arm, but she did, and was too much alarmed to reflect, I suppose—and—in fact threw herself before him."
He moved back disturbedly the next instant. Haworth burst forth with a string of oaths. The veins stood out like cords on his forehead; he ground his teeth. When the outbreak was over he asked an embarrassing question.
"Where were you?"
"I?"—with some uncertainty of tone. "I—had not gone out. I—I did not wish to infuriate them. It seemed to me that—that—that a great deal depended upon their not being infuriated."
"Aye," said Haworth, "a good deal."
He asked a good many questions Ffrench did not quite understand. He seemed in a questioning humor and went over the ground step by step. He asked what the mob had said and done and even how they had looked.
"It's a bad lookout for Murdoch," he said. "They'll have a spite again' him. They're lyin' quiet a bit now, because it's safest, but they'll carry their spite."
At Ffrench's invitation he went up to the house with him to dinner. As they passed into the grounds, Murdoch passed out. He was walking quickly and scarcely seemed to see them until Ffrench spoke.
"It's a queer time of day for him to be here," said Haworth, when he was gone.
Ffrench's reply held a touch of embarrassment.
"He is not usually here so early," he said. "He has probably been doing some little errand for Rachel."
The truth was that he had been with her for an hour, and that, on seeing Haworth coming down the road with her father, she had sent him away.
"I want to be alone when he comes," she had said.
And when Murdoch said "Why?" she had answered, "Because it will be easier."
When they came in, she was sitting with the right side of her face toward them. They could see nothing of the mark upon her left temple. It was not a large mark nor a disfiguring one, but there were traces of its presence in her pallor. She did not rise, and would have kept this side of her face out of view, but Haworth came and took his seat before her. It would not have been easy for her to move or change her position—and he looked directly at the significant little bruise. His glance turned upon it again and again as he talked to her or her father; if it wandered off it came back and rested there. During dinner she felt that, place herself as she would, in a few seconds she would be conscious again that he had baffled her. For the first time in his experience, it was he who had the advantage.
But when they returned to the parlor she held herself in check. She placed herself opposite to him and turned her face toward him, and let him look without flinching. It was as if suddenly she wished that he should see, and had a secret defiant reason for the wish. It seemed a long evening, but she did not lose an inch of ground after this. When he was going away she rose and stood before him. Her father had gone to the other end of the room, and was fussing unnecessarily over some memoranda. As they waited together, Haworth took his last look at the mark upon her temple.
"If it had been me you wore it for," he said, "I'd have had my hands on the throat of the chap that did it before now. It wasn't me, but I'll find him and pay him for it yet, by George!"
She had no time to answer him. Her father came toward them with the papers in his hands. Haworth listened to his wordy explanation without moving a line of his face. He did not hear it, and Ffrench was dimly aware of the fact.
About half an hour after, the door of the bar-parlor of the "Who'd ha' Thowt it" was flung open.
"Where's Briarley?" a voice demanded. "Send him out here. I want him—Haworth."
Mr. Briarley arose in even more than his usual trepidation. He looked from side to side, quaking.
"Wheer is he?" he asked.
Haworth stood on the threshold.
"Here," he answered. "Come out!"
Mr. Briarley obeyed. At the door Haworth collared him and led him down the sanded passage and into the road outside.
A few yards from the house there was a pump. He piloted him to it and set him against it, and began to swear at him fluently.
"You blasted scoundrel!" he said. "You let it out, did you?"
Mr. Briarley was covered with confusion as with a garment.
"I'm a misforchnit chap as is allus i' trouble," he said. "Theer's summat i' ivverythin' I lay hond on as seems to go agen me. I dunnot see how it is. Happen theer's summat i' me a-bein' a dom'd foo', or happen it's nowt but misforchin. Sararann——"
Haworth stopped him by swearing again, something more sulphurously than before—so sulphurously, indeed, that Mr. Briarley listened with eyes distended and mouth agape.
"Let's hear what you know about th' thing," Haworth ended.
Mr. Briarley shut his mouth. He would have kept it shut if he had dared.
"I dunnot know nowt," he answered, with patient mendacity. "I wur na wi' em."
"You know plenty," said Haworth. "Out with it, if you don't want to get yourself into trouble. Who was the chap that threw the stone?"
"I—I dunnot know."
"If you don't tell me," said Haworth, through his clenched teeth, "it'll be worse for you. It was you I let the truth slip to; you were the first chap that heard it, and you were the first chap that started the row and egged it on."
"I did na egg it on," protested Mr. Briarley. "It did na need no eggin' on. They pounced on it like cats on a bird. I did na mean to tell 'em owt about it. I'm a dom'd foo'. I'm th' dom'dest foo' fro here to Dillup."
"Aye," said Haworth, sardonically, "that's like enow. Who was the chap that threw the stone?"
He returned to the charge so swiftly and with such fell determination that Mr. Briarley began fairly to whimper.
"I dare na tell," he said. "They'd mak' quick work o' me if they fun me out."
"Who was it?" persisted Haworth. "They'll make quicker work of you at the 'Old Bailey,' if you don't."
Mr. Briarley turned his disreputable, battered cap round and round in his nervous hands. He was mortally afraid of Haworth.
"A man's getten to think o' his family," he argued. "If he dunnot think o' hissen, he mun think o' his family. I've getten a mortal big un—twelve on 'em an' Sararann, as ud be left on th' world if owt wur to happen—twelve on 'em as ud be left wi'out no one to stand by 'em an' pervide fur 'em. Theer's nowt a fam'ly misses so mich as th' head. The head should na run no risks. It's th' head's duty to tak' care o' hissen an' keep o' th' safe soide."
"Who threw the stone?" said Haworth.
Mr. Briarley gave him one cowed glance and broke down.
"It wur Tummas Reddy," he burst forth helplessly. "Lord ha' mercy on me!"
"Where is he?"
"He's i' theer," jerking his cap toward the bar-room, "an' I'm i' th' worst mess I ivver wur i' i' my loife. I'm fettlit now, by th' Lord Harry!"
"Which way does he go home?"
"Straight along the road here, if I mun get up to my neck—an'—an' be dom'd to him!—if I may tak' th' liberty."
"Settle yourself to stand here till he comes out, and then tell me which is him."
"Eh!"
"When he comes out say the word, and stay here till he does. I've got a bit o' summat to settle with him."
"Will ta—will ta promise tha will na let out who did it? If tha does, th' bury in' club'll ha' brass to pay out afore a week's over."
"You're safe enow," Haworth answered, "if you'll keep your mouth shut. They'll hear nowt from me."
A gleam of hope—a faint one—illumined Mr. Briarley's countenance.
"I would na ha' no objections to tha settlin' wi' him," he said. "I ha' not nowt agen that. He's a chap as I am na fond on, an' he's getten more cheek than belongs to him. I'd ha' settled wi' him mysen if I had na been a fam'ly man. Ha'in' a fam'ly to think on howds a man back. Theer—I hear 'em comin' now. Would yo,'" in some hurry, "ha' owt agen me gettin' behind th' pump?"
"Get behind it," answered Haworth, "and be damned to you!"
He got behind it with alacrity, and, as it was not a large pump, was driven by necessity to narrowing himself to its compass, as it were, and taking up very little room. Haworth himself drew back somewhat, and yet kept within hearing.
Four or five men came out and went their different ways, and Mr. Briarley made no sign; but as the sixth, a powerful, clumsy fellow, passed, he uttered a cautious "Theer he is!"
Haworth did not stir. It was a dark, cloudy night, and he was far enough from the road to be safe from discovery. The man went on at a leisurely pace.
Mr. Briarley re-appeared, breathing shortly.
"I mun go whoam," he said. "Sararann——" and scarcely waiting for Haworth's signal of dismissal, he departed as if he had been shot from a string-bow, and fled forth into the shadows.
Mr. Reddy went at a leisurely pace, as has been before observed. He usually went at a leisurely pace when he was on his way home. He was a "bad lot" altogether, and his home was a squalid place, and his wife more frequently than not had a black eye or a bruised face, and was haggard with hunger and full of miserable plaints and reproaches. Consequently he did not approach the scenes of his domestic joys with any haste.
He was in a worse humor than usual to-night from various causes, the chief one, perhaps, being that he had only had enough spirituous liquor to make him savage and to cause him to enliven his way with blasphemy.
Suddenly, however, at the corner of a lane which crossed the road he paused. He heard behind him the sound of heavy feet nearing him with a quick tramp which somehow presented to his mind the idea of a purpose, and for some reason, not exactly clear to himself, he turned about and waited.
"Who's that theer?" he asked.
"It's me," he was answered. "Stand up and take thy thrashin', my lad."
The next instant he was struggling in the darkness with an assailant, and the air was hot with oaths, and they were writhing together and panting, and striking blinding blows. Sometimes it was one man and then the other who was uppermost, but at last it was Haworth, and he had his man in his grasp.
"This is because you hit the wrong mark, my lad," he said. "Because luck went agen you, and because it's gone agen me."
When he had done Mr. Reddy lay beaten into seeming insensibility. He had sworn and gnashed his teeth and beaten back in vain.
"Who is it, by——?" he panted. "Who is it?"
"It's Haworth," he was answered. "Jem Haworth, my lad."
And he was left there lying in the dark while Haworth walked away, his heavy breathing a living presence in the air until he was gone.
"Let it stay there a while," Murdoch had said. "I am not ready for it yet." And it staid there between the head-stone and the old stone wall covered with the long grass and closed in by it. He was not ready for it—yet. The days were not long enough for him as it was. His mother and Christian rarely saw him, but at such times as they did each recognized in him a new look and understood it. He began to live a strange, excited life. Rachel Ffrench did nothing by halves. He was seen with her constantly. It continually happened that where she was invited he was invited also. He forgot that he dreaded to meet strangers and had always held aloof from crowds. There were no strangers now and no crowds; in any gathering there was only one presence and this was enough for him. When people would have cultivated him and drawn him out, he did not see their efforts; when men and women spoke to him they found that he scarcely heard them and that even as they talked he had unconsciously veered toward another point. He did things sometimes which made them stare at him.
"The fellow is like a ghost," a man said of him once.
The simile was not a bad one. He did not think of what he might be winning or losing—for the time being mere existence was all-sufficient. At night he scarcely slept at all. Often he got up and rambled over the country in the darkness, not knowing where he was going or why he walked. He went through the routine of the day in haste and impatience, doing more work than was necessary and frequently amazing those around him by losing his temper and missing his mark. Ffrench began to regard him with wonder. Divers things were a source of wonder to Ffrench, in these days. He understood Rachel less than ever and found her less satisfactory. He could not comprehend her motives. He had become accustomed to feeling that she always had a motive in the background, and he made the natural mistake of supposing that she had one now. But she had none. She had suddenly given way to a mysterious impulse which overmastered her and she let herself go, as it were. It did not matter to her that the time came when her course was discussed and marveled at; upon the whole, she felt a secret pleasure in defying public comment as usual, and going steadily in her own path.
She did strange things too. She began to go among the people who knew Murdoch best,—visiting the families of the men who worked under him, and leading them on to speak of him and his way of life. It cannot be said that the honest matrons she honored by her visits were very fond of her or exactly rejoiced when she appeared. They felt terribly out of place and awe-stricken when she sat down on their wooden chairs with her rich dress lying upon the pipe-clayed floors. Her beauty and her grandeur stunned them, however much they admired both.
"I tell yo' she's a lady," they said. "She knows nowt about poor folk, bless yo', but she's getten brass to gie away—an' she gies it wi'out makin' a doment. I mun say it puts me out a bit to see her coom in, but she does na go out wi'out leavin' summat."
She made no pretense of bringing sympathy and consolation; she merely gave money, and money was an equivalent, and after all it was something of an event to have her carriage stop before the gate and to see her descend and enter in all her splendor. The general vague idea which prevailed was that she meant to be charitable after the manner of her order,—but that was a mistake too.
It happened at last that one day her carriage drew up before the house at whose window Murdoch's mother and Christian sat at work.
It was Saturday, and Janey Briarley, in her "cleanin' up" apparel opened the door for her.
"They're in th' parlor," she answered in reply to her question. "Art tha coom to see 'em?"
When she was ushered into the parlor in question, Mrs. Murdoch rose with her work in her hand; Christian rose also and stood in the shadow. They had never had a visitor before, and had not expected such a one as this.
They thought at first that she had come upon some errand, but she had not. She gave no reason for her presence other than she would have given in making any call of ceremony.
As she sat on the narrow sofa, she saw all the room and its meagerness,—its smallness, its scant, plain furnishing; its ugly carpet and walls; the straight, black dress of the older woman, the dark beauty of the girl who did not sit down but stood behind her chair, watching. This beauty was the only thing which relieved the monotony of the place, but it was the most grating thing she saw, to Rachel Ffrench. It roused within her a slow anger. She resented it and felt that she would like to revenge herself upon it quietly. She had merely meant to try the effect of these people and their surroundings upon herself as a fine experiment, but the effect was stronger than she had anticipated. When she went away Christian accompanied her to the door.
In the narrow passage Rachel Ffrench turned and looked at her—giving her a glance from head to foot.
"I think I have seen you before," she said.
"You know you have seen me," the girl answered.
"I have seen you on the Continent. Your apartment was opposite to ours in Paris—when you were with your mother. I used to watch the people go in and out. You are very like your mother."
And she left her, not looking back once,—as if there was no living creature behind, or as if she had forgotten that there was one.
Christian went back to the room within. She sat down but did not take up her work again.
"Do you know why she came?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She came to look at us—to see what manner of people we were—to see how we lived—to measure the distance between our life and hers. As she went away," she went on, "she remembered that she had seen me before. She told me that I was very like my mother."
She leaned forward, her hands clasped palm to palm between her knees.
"There was a man who did my mother a great wrong once," she said. "They had loved each other in a mad sort of way for a long time, but in the end, I suppose, he got tired, for suddenly he went away. When he was gone, my mother did not speak of him and it was as if he had never lived, but she grew haggard and dreadful and lost her beauty. I was a little child and she took me with her and began to travel from one place to another. I did not know why at first, but I found out afterward. She was following him. She found him in Paris, at last, after two years. One foggy night she took me to a narrow street near one of the theaters, and after we got there I knew she was waiting for some one, because she walked to and fro between two of the street lamps dragging me by the hand. She walked so for half an hour, and then the man came, not knowing we were there. She went to him, dragging me with her, and when she stood in front of him, threw back her veil and let the light shine upon her. She lifted her hand and struck him—struck him full upon the face, panting for breath. 'I am a woman,' she said. 'I am a woman and I have struck you! Remember it to your last hour as I shall!' I thought that he would strike her back, but he did not. His hands fell at his sides, and he stood before her pale and helpless. I think it was even more terrible than she had meant it to be——"
Mrs. Murdoch stopped her, almost angrily.
"Why do you go back to it?" she demanded. "Why should you think of such a story now?"
"It came to me," she answered. "I was thinking that it is true that I am like her,—I bear a grudge such a long time, and it will not die out. It is her blood which is strong in me. She spoke the truth."
Early in the afternoon Rachel Ffrench, sauntering about the garden in the sun, saw Murdoch coming down the road toward the house,—not until he had first seen her, however. His eyes were fixed upon her when she turned, and it seemed as if he found it impossible to remove them, even for a breath's time. Since his glance had first caught the pale blue of her dress he had not once looked away from it. All the morning, in the midst of the smoke and din of the workrooms, he had been thinking of the hours to come. The rest of the day lay before him. The weather was dazzling; the heat of summer was in the air; the garden was ablaze with flowers whose brightness seemed never to have been there before; there was here and there the drone of a bee, and now and again a stir of leaves. The day before had been of another color and so might the morrow be, but to-day left nothing to be believed in except its own sun and beauty.
When at last he was quite near her, he seemed for a little while to see nothing but the faint pale blue of her dress. He never forgot it afterward, and never remembered it without a sense of summer heat and languor. He could not have told what he said to her, or if he at first spoke at all. Soon she began to move down the path and he followed her,—simply followed her,—stopping when she stopped to break a flower from its stem.
It was as she bent forward once that she told him of what she had done.
"This morning," she said, "I went to see your mother."
"She told me so," he answered.
She broke the stem of the flower and stood upright, holding it in her hand.
"You do not ask me why I went."
"Why?" he asked.
Their eyes met, and she was silent for a moment. Then she said, with perfect deliberateness:
"I have known nothing of the life you live. I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted—to bring it near."
He drew quite close to her, his face pale, his eyes burning.
"Near!" he repeated. "To bring it near. Do you—do you know what you have said?"
"To bring it near," she said again, with no less deliberateness than before, but with a strange softness.
Just for to-day, she had told herself, she would try the sensation of being swept onward by the stream. But she weighed herself as she spoke, and weighed him and his passion, and her power against its force.
But he came no closer to her. He did not attempt to touch even her hand or her dress. His own hands fell helplessly at his sides, and he stood still before her.
"Oh, God!" he said in a hushed voice, "How happy I am!"
Late the same night, Mrs. Haworth, who had been watching for her son alone in the grand, desolate room in which it was her lot to sit, rose to her feet on hearing him enter the house.
The first object which met his eye when he came in was her little figure and her patient face turned toward the door. As he crossed the threshold, she took a few steps as if to meet him, and then stopped.
"Jem!" she exclaimed. "Jem!"
Her voice was tremulous and her eyes bright with the indefinable feeling which seized upon her the moment she saw his face. Her utterance of his name was a cry of anxiousness and fear.
"What!" he said. "Are you here yet?"
He came to her and laid a hand upon her shoulder in a rough caress.
"You'd better go to bed," he said to her. "It's late, and I've got work to do."
"I felt," she answered, "as if I'd like to wait an' see you. I knowed I should sleep better for it—I always do."
There was a moment's pause in which she stroked his sleeve with her withered hand. Then he spoke.
"Sleep better!" he said. "That's a queer notion. You've got queer fancies, you women—some on you."
Then he stooped and kissed her awkwardly. He always did it with more or less awkwardness and lack of ease, but it never failed to make her happy.
"Now you've done it," he said. "You'd better go, old lady, and leave me to finish what I've got to do."
"It's late for work, Jem," she answered. "You oughtn't to try yourself so much."
"It ain't work so much," he said, "as thinking. There's summat I've got to think out."
For the moment he seemed quite to forget her. He stood with his hands thrust into his pockets and his feet apart, staring at the carpet. He did not stir when she moved away, and was still standing so when she turned at the door to look at him.
What she saw brought her back, hurried and tearful.
"Let me stay!" she cried. "Let me stay. There's trouble in your face, Jem, for I see it. Don't keep it from me—for the sake of what we've been through together in times that's past."
He bestirred himself and looked up at her.
"Trouble!" he repeated. "That's not the word. It's not trouble, old lady, and it's naught that can be helped. There's me and it to fight it out. Go and get your sleep and leave us to it."
She went slowly and sadly. She always obeyed him, whatever his wish might be.
When the last sound of her faltering feet had died away upon the stairs, he went to the side-board and poured out a glass of raw brandy and drank it.
"I want summat to steady me," he said,—"and to warm me."
But it did not steady him, at least. When he sat down at the table, the hand he laid upon it shook.
He looked at it curiously, clinching and unclinching it.
"I'm pretty well done for when it goes like that," he said. "I'm farther gone than I thought. It's all over me—over and through me. I'm shaking like a fool."
He broke out with a torrent of curses.
"Is it me that's sitting here," he cried, "or some other chap? Is it me that luck's gone agen on every side or a chap that's useder to it?"
Among all his pangs of humiliation and baffled passion there was not one so subtle and terrible in its influence upon him as his momentary sense of physical weakness. He understood it less than all the rest, and raged against it more. His body had never failed him once, and now for the first time he felt that its power faltered. He was faint and cold, and trembled not merely from excitement but from loss of strength.
Opposite to him, at the other side of the room, was a full-length mirror. Accidentally raising his eyes toward it he caught sight of his own face. He started back and unconsciously glanced behind him.
"Who——!" he began.
And then he stopped, knowing the face for his own—white-lipped, damp with cold sweat, lined with harsh furrows—evil to see. He got up, shaking his fist at it, crying out through his shut teeth.
"Blast her!" he said. "Who's to blame but her?"
He had given up all for her, his ambition, which had swept all before it, his greatest strength, his very sins and coarseness, and half an hour ago he had passed the open door of a room and had seen Murdoch standing motionless, not uttering a word, but with his face fairly transfigured by his ecstasy, and with her hand crushed against his breast.
He had gone in to see Ffrench, and had remained with him for an hour in one of the parlors, knowing that the two were alone in the other. He had heard their voices now and then, and had known that once they went upon the terrace and talked there. He had grown burning hot and deadly cold, and strained his ears for every sound, but never caught more than a word or low laugh coming from Rachel Ffrench. At last he had left his partner, and on his way out passed the open door. They had come back to the room, and Murdoch was saying his good-night. He held Rachel Ffrench's hand, and she made no effort to withdraw it, but gave it to his caress. She did not move nor speak, but her eyes rested upon his rapt face with an expression not easy to understand. Haworth did not understand it, but the rage which seized and shook him was the most brutal emotion he had ever felt in his life. It was a madness which left him weak. He staggered down the stairs and out into the night blindly, blaspheming as he went. He did not know how he reached home. The sight his mother had seen, and which had drawn a cry from her and checked her midway in the room had been cause enough for tremor in her. Nothing but the most violent effort had saved him from an outbreak in her presence. He was weaker for the struggle when she was gone.
He could think of nothing but of Rachel Ffrench's untranslatable face and of Murdoch's close clasp of her surrendered hand.
"What has she ever give me?" he cried. "Me, that's played the fool for her! What's he done that he should stand there and fondle her as if he'd bought and paid for her? I'm the chap that paid for her! She's mine, body and soul, by George, if every man had his rights!"
And then, remembering all that had gone by, he turned from hot to cold again.
"I've stood up agen her a long time," he said, "and what have I got? I swore I'd make my way with her, and how far have I gone? She's never give me a word, by George, or a look that'd be what another woman would have give. She's not even played with me—most on 'em would have done that—but she's not. She's gone on her way and let me go on mine. She's turned neither right nor left for me—I wasn't man enough."
He wore himself out in the end and went to the brandy again, and drank of it deeply. It sent him upstairs with heated blood and feverish brain. It was after midnight when he went to his room, but not to sleep. He lay upon his pillow in the darkness thinking of the things he had done in the past few months, and of the fruit the first seed he had sown might bring forth.
"There's things that may happen to any on us, my lad," he said, "and some on 'em might happen to you. If it's Jem Haworth that's to lose, the other sha'n't gain, by George!"
He had put the light out and lay in the darkness, and was so lying with this mood at work upon him when there came a timid summons on the door, and it opened and some one came in softly.
He knew who it was, even before she spoke.
"Jem," she said, "Jem, you're not asleep, my dear."
"No," he answered.
She came to the bed-side and stood there.
"I—I couldn't sleep," she said. "Something's a little wrong with me. I'm gettin' foolish, an'—an' fearful. I felt as if you wasn't quite safe. I thought I'd come and speak to you."
"You're out o' sorts," he answered. "You'll have to be looked after."
"It's nothing but my foolish way," she replied. "You're very good to me—an' me so full of fancies. Would you—would you mind me a-kneelin' down an' sayin' a prayer here to myself as I used to when you was a boy, Jem? I think it'd do me good. Would you mind it?"
"No," he answered hoarsely. "Kneel down."
And she knelt and grasped for his hand and held it, and he heard her whispering in the dark as he had been wont to hear her nearly thirty years before.
And when it was over, she got up and kissed him on the forehead.
"God bless you, my dear!" she said. "God bless you!" and went away.