by M. P. Shiel
XXII
OLD TOM
He continued, however, to swim after his conscious efforts ceased:for his body was found next morning on a strip of Cornish sand betweenGorran and Mevagissey, washed by every sheet of surf.
His rescuer, a shrimp-fisher, occupied one of three cots perched on aravine; and there on the evening of the second day he opened his eyes ona settee, four children screaming in play around him; he so far havingbeen seen only by a reporter from Mevagissey, and the doctor fromGorran, who, on his wide rounds, had been asked into the cottage.
The same night Hogarth spoke to the fisher: told him that he was not awrecked sailor, had reasons for avoiding observation, and would payfor shelter and silence: whereat the fisher, who was drinking hot beer,winked, and promised; and the next day took for Hogarth a telegram,signed "Elm Tree", to Mevagissey, asking of Loveday five pounds.
Finally, one midnight, after two weeks of skulking, he reachedWhitechapel, where, the fact of his brown skin now giving him the ideaof orientalizing himself, at a Jew's, in a little interior behind thecounter, he bought sandals, a caftan, a black sudayree, an old Bagdadshawl for girdle, and a greenish-yellow Bedouin head-cloth, or kefie,which banded the forehead, draped the face like a nun's wimple, and fellloose. For these he discarded the shrimp-man's clothes; and now dubbedhimself "Peter the Hermit".
For he meant to start-a Crusade.
At a police-station on the third day he saw a description of himself:three moles, bloodshot eye, white teeth, pouting mouth; but over themoles now hung the head-cloth.
For several days he lay low in a garret, considering himself, abandoninghimself to sensuality in cocoa, vast buns, tobacco: rioting above all inthe thought of the secret truth which lay in his head.
Up to now, not a word to anyone about it; but on the seventh night hespoke.
It was in some "Cocoa Rooms" in a "first-class room", strewn withsawdust, where, as he sat alone, another man, bearing his jug, came andsat; and soon he addressed Hogarth.
"Talk English?"
"I am an Englishman", answered Hogarth.
"What, in those togs? What countryman?"
"Norfolk".
"Know Manchester?"
"I was there one day".
"Difference between Manchester and London, isn't there? I am aManchester man, I am. All the difference in the world. This cold, stiff,selfish city. Londoners, eh? A lot of peripatetic tombstones!"
And so he went on; this being his whole theory of God and Man: thatLondoners are peripatetic tombstones, but Manchester-men just the otherway--seemed a mechanic, brisk-eyed, small; a man who had read; but now,evidently, down on his luck.
"Then, why come to London?"--from Hogarth.
"Looking for work",--with a shrug--"looking for a needle in a bundle ofhay. What would you have? the whole place overrun with Jews. England nolonger belongs to the English, that's the long and short of it".
Hogarth looked him in the face. "Did England belong to the Englishbefore the Jews came?"
"How do you mean? Of course it did".
"Which part of it?"
"Why, all of it".
"But fix your mind upon some particular piece of England--some street,or field, that you know--and then tell me: did that belong to theEnglish?"
"Belonged to some Englishman".
"But you don't mean to say that some Englishman is the English?"
"Ah, yes, I know what you are driving at", said the mechanic, witha patronizing nod: "but the point is this: that, apart from vaguetheorizing, a man did manage to make a good living before these dogsoverran the country".
"But--a _good_ living? How much did you make?--forty shillings a week?toiling in grime six days, sleeping the seventh? I call that a deadlyliving".
"Well, I _don't_, you see. Besides, I made, not forty, but forty-_five_shillings, under the sliding-scale".
"Yes, but no brave nation would submit one day to such petty squalorsafter it was shown the way to escape them".
"There _is_ no way", said the mechanic: "there are the books, and thetalkers; but the economic laws that govern the units like you and meare as relentless as gravitation. Don't believe anyone who talks to youabout 'ways of escape'".
"But suppose someone has a new thought?"
"There can be no new thoughts about _that_. The question has long sincebeen exhausted".
"Well, come "--with sudden decision--"I will tell you a thought of myown ". And he told.
If the English people paid the rent for England to themselves--to theirgovernment--instead of to a few Englishmen, then, by one day's labour insix, Englishmen would be much more rich in all things than a fisherman,by one day's labour in six, was rich in fish.
The expression which he awaited on the face before him was one ofilluminated astonishment; but, with a chill in his nerves, he saw theworkman's lips curve.
"Bah!" said the Manchester man, "that is an exploded theory!"
_Exploded!!!_
Hogarth was rather pale.
Yet he knew that it was true....Who, then, could have been exploding theAlmighty?
"Who has exploded it?"
"Been exploded again and again!" said the Manchester man; "of all thetheories of land-tenure, that is about the weakest: _I_ should know,for I've studied them all. The fact is, no change in the system ofland-tenure will have the least effect upon the lot of the masses; wouldonly make things worse by unsettling the country--if it didn't mean acivil war".
"I begin to see".
Hogarth got up, walked home meditating: and suddenly blushed.
It was known! by mechanics in cocoa-rooms!--that secret thing of hissecret cell. And it was not believed!
As for him, what was he now doing outside Colmoor? That question heasked himself, as he sat unsandaling his feet; and he commenced to dresshimself again: but paused--would first see Loveday.
Accordingly, the next night, the two friends met at Cheyne Gardens.
And a long time they sat silent, Loveday feeding his eyes upon hisfriend's face, that hard, rounded brow which seemed harder, and frownednow, that gallant largeness of eye which seemed now wilder, and thatmanly height, which seemed Mahomet's in the Oriental dress.
"But where have you been for five weeks?" asked Loveday.
"Skulking, and thinking. But about my sister...."
"Do not ask..." said Loveday.
There was a long silence.
"Did not O'Hara tell you to make no more efforts for my escape?" askedHogarth.
"Who is O'Hara?"
"Why, the priest who escaped, instead of me, through the copse".
"O'Hara was not the name he gave me; and no, he said nothing aboutthat. I got him off to America, and only saw him twice. I thought himrather--But why didn't you escape youself?"
"I thought it improper".
"But you did finally?"
"For a reason: you remember the association which I was forming toanswer the question as to the cause of misery? Well, that question Ihave answered for myself in prison".
"Really? Tell me!"
Hogarth absently took up a water-colour drawing from the table, andturned it round and round, leaning forward on a knee, as he told how thematter was. Meantime, he kept his eyes fixed upward upon Loveday's face,who stood before him.
In the midst of his talk Loveday scratched the top of his head, wherethe hair was rather thin, and said he, twisting round: "Forgive me-letme ring for some brandy-and-soda--"
Hogarth stood briskly up.
"What I say, I can see, is not new to you?" said he.
"No, not new", Loveday confessed: "I believe that it is quite an ancienttheory; there are even savage tribes whose land-tenure is not unlikewhat you advocate--the Basutos, for example".
"And are these Basutos richer, happier, prettier fellows than averageEnglishmen?"
"Oh, beyond doubt. Don't suppose that I am gainsaying you: I am onlyshowing you that the theory is not new--"
"But why do you persist in calling it a _theory?_ Is
the fact thatone and one make two a _theory?_"--Hogarth's brow growing every momentredder.
"What can one call it?"
"Call it what you like! But do you believe it?"
"It is quite possibly true; and now that you say it I believe it; but Ihave never seriously considered the matter."
"Why not?"
"Because--I don't know. It is out of my line".
"Your line! Yet you are a human being--"
"Well, partly, yes: say--a novelist".
"Do not jest! It is incredible to me that you have written book afterbook, and knew of this divine thing, and did not cram your books withit!"
Loveday flushed. "You misunderstand my profession; and as to this theoryof land-tenure, let me tell you: it will never be realized--not inEngland. Anyway, it would mean civil war...."
Again those words! "Civil war...."
And as, for the second time, he heard them, Hogarth dashed the picturewhich he held to the ground, shattering glass and frame: which meantthat, then and there, he washed his hands of the world and its wagging;meant also his return to Colmoor.
He dashed from the room without a word; down the stairs; out into thestreet.
As he ran along the King's Road, he asked a policeman the way to thenearest police-station, then ran on through a number of smaller streets,seeking it, till, at a corner, he stopped, once more uncertain, thenight dim and drizzling.
He was about to set off again, when, behind him, he heard: "Excuse me,mister--could you give a poor man a penny to get a night's lodging?"
Turning, he saw--old Tom Bates: still in the guernsey; but very senileand broken now.
The fish-rich fisher...! he had come to this...
Hogarth had twenty-eight shillings about him, and, without disclosinghimself, put hand to pocket to give them all, just as the old manreached up to his ear to say: "It's the lumbago; I got it very bad; butit won't be long now. It wur a bad day for me as ever I come to Lunnon!I'm Norfolk born, I am: and I had eight sons, which the last was Fred,who, they say, met his death in Colmoor...."
At that word, "Fred", Hogarth started: for under the elm in thebeech-wood between Thring and Priddlestone Fred had concealed a thingfallen from heaven, which could be sold for--a thousand pounds.
That would keep the fisher rich during the few days that remained tohim!
But the old man could hardly go himself; if he could, would bungle: thething was heavy--on the lord-of-the-manor's land....
Do a kind act, Hogarth. He would see the old place, his father's grave;and there was a girl who lived in the Hall at Westring whom it was athrilling thing to be near, even if one did not see....
"Here are two shillings", said he, in an assumed voice: "and if you beat this spot, at this hour, on Thursday night coming, you shall havemore. Don't fail".
Again he ran, and took train, two hours later, for Beccles.
