by Ian Hay
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
ATHANASIUS CONTRA MUNDUM.
A confused medley of men and women--not to mention the inevitablesmall boy element--was pouring up the road from Belton Pit in thedirection of the Hall, which lay beyond the brow of the hill in agreen hollow as yet unsullied by winding-wheels and waste-heaps.People who have made up their minds to do evil are usually in a hurryto get it over. Consequently our friends were advancing at a high rateof speed, keeping up their courage by giving forth unmelodious noises.
Juggernaut's prophecy had come true. The rebellion had been dampeddown by sheer starvation; and now that starvation was over-past, therebellion was flaming out again with tenfold vigour. That fineunreasoning human instinct which under a certain degree of pressurebids logic and argument go hang, and impels us to go forth and breaksome one else's windows, held the reins that evening. As thenight-shift assembled at the pit-head, what time the day-shift wasbeing disgorged, a cageful at a time, from the depths below, a greatand magnificent project suddenly hatched itself in the fertile brainof Mr Tom Winch, who had been haunting the neighbourhood on businessconnected with the propaganda of his own particular revolutionaryorganisation for the past six weeks. Now was his chance. Evilpassions, hitherto dimmed by hunger and privation, were reviving. Themen were ripe for any mischief. What they were asking for, reflectedMr Winch, was blood, or its equivalent, and a man to lead them to it.
Mr Winch was, to do him justice, a master of his own furtive trade. Infive minutes his project was circulating through the throng. Infifteen the crowd had pledged itself to do something really big; andin half an hour most of the windows of the pit offices had been brokenas a guarantee of good faith.
Having whetted its appetite on this _hors-d'oeuvre_, the mob listenedreadily to Mr Winch's suggestion of a brisk walk to Belton Hall and apersonal interview with its proprietor. The notion ran through theexcited mass of humanity like fire through dry grass; and presently,as if from one spontaneous impulse, the advance on Belton Hall began.No one quite knew what he proposed to do when he got there, but thepossibilities of the expedition were great. It was a picturesqueprocession, for every man carried a safety-lamp in one hand and amissile in the other. It was probably owing to the multiplicity of thetwinkling points of light thus produced that no one observed theflickering halo of a solitary bicycle-lamp, as the machine which boreit slipped out from the side-door of the pit offices and silentlystole away through the darkness, carrying a frightened messenger overthe hill to Belton Hall.
It may here be noted that Mr Tom Winch, having despatched his avenginghost upon its way, remained behind at headquarters--doubtless tosuperintend the subsequent operations with that degree of perspectivewhich is so necessary to a good general. Mr Killick, an oldacquaintance of ours, supported by his friend Mr Brash, led theprocession.
"Supposin' the lodge gates is locked--what then?" enquired MrBrash--ever a better critic than creator of an enterprise--as theytrudged along the muddy road.
"We shall trample them down," replied Mr Killick, ever contemptuous ofirritating detail.
But the lodge gates stood hospitably open. The lodge itself wasshuttered and silent; and the procession, pausing momentarily todeliver a hilarious and irregular volley of small coal, proceeded onits way.
Up the long avenue they tramped. There were electric lamps atintervals, intended for the guidance of strange coachmen ondinner-party nights. These were all ablaze. Evidently Juggernaut wasexpecting friends.
Five minutes later our glorious company of apostles rounded the lastturn in the avenue, and the broad Elizabethan _facade_ of Belton Hallloomed up before them. Every window was alight.
A flagged and balustraded terrace ran along the whole frontage of theHall. In the middle of the balustrade was a gap, where a broad flightof shallow stone steps led down to a velvety lawn three hundred yearsold. Most of the crowd knew that lawn and terrace well. The grounds atBelton were constantly and freely granted for miners' _fetes_,political demonstrations, and the like. On these occasions a band wasnearly always playing upon the terrace, and not infrequentlypost-prandial orations were outpoured from the rostrum formed by thestone steps upon the heads of a gorged and tolerant audience on thegrass below.
To-night no band was playing; but at the head of thesteps--motionless, upright, inflexible--stood a solitary figure. Itwas the master of the house, waiting to receive his guests--oneagainst four hundred.
But to one who knew, the odds were not overwhelming. In fact, providedthat the crowd possessed no resolute leader, the chances wereslightly in favour of the figure on the steps. One man with his witsabout him has two great advantages over a crowd. In the first place,he knows exactly what he is going to do, and, in the second, he knowsexactly what the crowd is going to do. The crowd knows neither. It isimpossible to foretell how a single individual will behave uponemergency: the human temperament varies too widely. But there isnothing in the world so normal or conventional as a crowd. Mankind inthe lump is a mere puppet in the hands of the law of averages. Given,as noted above, a resolute leader, the conditions are changed. Theleader imbues the crowd with a portion of his own spirit, and createsan instinct of unanimity. Then the odds are once more in favour of thecrowd; for now it is a resolute will, all alone, pitted against aresolute will with force behind it.
Sir John Carr knew all this. He had studied men all his life; and ashe stood silent and observant, surveying the surging multitude at hisfeet--it had flowed to the base of the steps now--he noted that therewas no leader in particular. The crowd were acting under the influenceof blind impulse, and, if properly handled, could be swayed about andsent home.
Presently the hubbub ceased, and the men stood gazing upward,fingering lumps of coal and waiting for some one to fire the firstshot.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," observed Juggernaut. [Theladies, be it noted, constituted the front row of the assemblage,their cavaliers having modestly retired a few paces under theiremployer's passionless scrutiny.] "If you have come to serenade me, Ishall have pleasure presently in sending you out some refreshment. Ifyou have merely come to burn the house down, I strongly advise you togo home and think twice about it."
The recipients of this piece of advice were undoubtedly a little takenaback. Playful badinage was the last thing they had expected. Theymurmured uneasily one to another, debating suitable retorts. Presentlya shrill female voice opened fire.
"Tyrant!"
"Money-grubber!" corroborated another voice.
"Who starves women and children?" shrieked a third.
"Yah! Booh!" roared the crowd, taking heart.
"Chuck some of his own coals at 'im!" was the frantic adjuration of afoolish virgin who had already expended all her ammunition against theshutters of the gate-lodge.
A lump of something black and crystalline sang past Juggernaut's head,and struck a richly glowing stained-glass window twenty feet behindhim. There was a sharp crash and a silvery tinkle, followed by alittle gasp from the crowd. The first shot had been fired. Juggernautknew well that a broadside was imminent, and countered swiftly. In thestartled silence which succeeded the destruction of the greatwindow--it had lighted the staircase at Belton for generations--hisvoice rang out like a trumpet.
"Listen to me!" he cried. "You have a grievance. You have come up hereto square accounts with me. You think you have right on your side: Ithink it is on mine. Both of us are spoiling for a fight. In ourpresent frame of mind nothing else will satisfy us. Now here is a fairoffer. Send up any two men you like out of that multitude down there,and I will take them on, both together or one after the other, as youplease. I am rising forty-seven, but if I fail to drop either of yourrepresentatives over this balustrade, back where he came from, insideof five minutes, I promise to remit the dues on that odd hundredweightthat you are making all this to do about. Is it a bargain, gentlemen?"
He had struck the right note. The low, angry murmuring suddenlyceased, and a great wave of Homeric laughter rolled over the crowd.The
British collier has his faults, but within his limits he is asportsman. He appreciates pluck.
"Good lad!" roared a voice out of the darkness. Then there fellanother silence.
"I am waiting, gentlemen," said Juggernaut presently.
But he had to continue waiting. His audience, as previously noted,were sportsmen within limits. The limits, alas! in those soft days aretoo often the coursing of a half-blinded rabbit, or the backing of ahorse in a race which will not be witnessed by the backer. It isalways gratifying to be invited to participate in a sporting event,but there is a difference between a seat on the platform and a stancein the arena. Getting hurt gratuitously is slipping into the _indexexpurgatorius_ of modern field sports.
Men began to look sheepishly at one another. One or two had startedforward instinctively, but the impulse died away. A humourist washeard imploring his friends to hold him back. There was somethingunutterably grim about the towering figure up on the terrace.Democracy and the equality of mankind to the contrary, Jack usuallyrecognises his master when it comes to a pinch. No Jack seemed todesire advancement on this occasion.
Juggernaut waited for another minute. He wanted the silence to sinkin. He wanted the crowd to feel ridiculous. That object achieved, heproposed to turn his visitors to the right-about and send them home.He had been through this experience before, and felt comparativelysure of his ground.
Provided, that is, that one thing did not occur. There were womenpresent.
Now women are exempt from the law of averages: the sex snaps itsfingers at computations based upon laboriously compiled statistics. Ifthe women--or more likely a woman--gave the men a lead, anything mighthappen. And just as Juggernaut uplifted his voice to pronounce avalediction, the disaster befel.
"Now go home," he began. "You are not yourselves to-night. Go home,and think things over. Consult the older men: I see none of them here.If you are of the same mind to-morrow, I promise to----"
"Call yourselves men? Cowards! cowards! cowards! One of _us_ is worththe lot of you!"
A woman, with a shawl over her head and a child in her arms, hadmounted half-way up the steps, and was addressing the mob below. SirJohn recognised her as Mrs Brash, a quiet little person as a rule.
"Come up, chaps!" she shrieked. "Are you going to let him stamp on us_all_? Look at his fine house, and his electrics, and his marble stepsand all!" [They were plain freestone, but let that pass.] "Where didhe get 'em all? From _us_--us that he has starved and clemmed thislast two months! Are you afraid of him--the lot of you? Great hulkingcowards! I see you, Brash, hiding there! Isn't there _one_ man here?"
"Yes--by _God_ there is!"
With a bound, Killick, the brooding visionary, the Utopian Socialist,was at the top of the steps, brandishing a pit-prop and haranguing hiscomrades. There was no stopping him. Mrs Brash had fired the train andKillick was the explosion. His words gushed out--hot, passionate,delirious. The man's sense of proportion, always unstable, was goneentirely. He burned with the conviction of his own wrongs and those ofhis fellows. _Nobilis ira_ gave him eloquence. He laid violent handsupon wealth and power and greed and tyranny, and flung them one by onedown the steps on to the heads of his hearers. Most of what he saidwas entirely irrelevant; a great deal more was entirely untrue; but itserved. For the moment Sir John Carr stood for all the injustice andcruelty that strength has ever inflicted upon weakness. Every wordtold. The mob was aflame at last. They hung upon Killick's fierysentences, surging ever more closely round the steps. The next wave,Juggernaut saw, would bring them in a flood upon the terrace; andthen--what? He thought coolly and rapidly. There was Daphne toconsider--also little Brian. Daphne, he knew, was close by, standingwith beating heart behind the curtains of the library window. He hadforbidden her to come farther. Perhaps, though, she had been sensible,and taken the opportunity of this delay to slip away. Of course, ofcourse.
There was a movement beside him, and he realised that his education infemininity still left something to be desired. A hand slid into his,and Daphne's voice whispered in his ear--
"Jack, I want to speak to them."
Her husband turned and smiled upon her curiously.
"What are you going to say?" he asked.
"I am going to tell them about--about the tea and sugar. It's the onlything to do," said Daphne eagerly.
"I would rather be knocked on the head by a pit-prop!" saidJuggernaut. And he meant it. Some of us are terribly afraid of beingexposed as sentimentalists.
Meanwhile the crowd had caught sight of Daphne. The men fell silent,as men are fain to do when a slim goddess, arrayed in black velvet,appears to them, silhouetted against a richly glowing window. Butthere was a vindictive shriek from the women.
"Get back at once, dear," said Juggernaut. "You are in great danger.Telephone to the police, and tell Graves to get the fire-hose out. Itmay be useful in two ways. I promise to come in if things get worse.Hallo! who is that?"
A burly man in a bowler hat, panting with the unwonted exertion of atwo-mile run, was approaching him along the terrace. He had come upthe drive unnoticed, and having skirted the edge of the crowd hadgained access to the terrace from another flight of steps at the end.It was Mr Walker, the mine manager.
"I tried to get you on the telephone," he shouted in Juggernaut's ear;"but they have cut the wire."
"What is it?" asked Juggernaut.
Walker told him.
There was just time to act. The mob were pouring up the steps inresponse to Killick's final invitation. Juggernaut strode forward.
"Stop!" he cried in a voice of thunder. "Stop, and listen to what MrWalker has to tell you!"
His great voice carried, and there was a moment's lull. Walker seizedhis opportunity.
"There has been an accident at the pit," he bellowed. "Some of yourlads went down after you had left, to see what damage they could do tothe plant. Some of the older men went down to stop them. Somethinghappened. The roofs of the main road and intake have fallen in, andNumber Three Working is cut off--with eight men in it!"
There was a stricken silence, and the wave rolled back from thesteps. Presently a hoarse voice cried--
"Who are they?"
Mr Walker recited six names. Four of these belonged to young bloodswho had been foremost in the riot at the pit-head. There were agonisedcries from women in the crowd. All four men were married. The fifthname, that of Mr Adam Wilkie, who was a bachelor and a misogynist,passed without comment. The sixth was that of a pit-boy named Hopper.
Mr Walker paused.
"You said eight!" cried another woman's voice in an agony of suspense."The other two--for the love of God!"
"Amos Entwistle," replied Mr Walker grimly--"and Mr Carthew."
