Dawn

by S. Fowler Wright

  Jim Rattray was sentimental. He was singing a song which had survived the ruin of the world that had produced it:

  “There ain’t no sense

  Sitting on a fence

  All by yourself in the moonlight.”

  He had a good voice. There was hilarious applause as the song ceased. He was quite willing to accept the encore:

  “There ain’t no thrill

  By the water-mill

  All by yourself in the moonlight.”

  But he was interrupted by the arrival of Reddy Teller.

  It must be observed that Jim was unaware of the anger which his actions had caused to Tom Aldworth and his companions.

  A man had begun to quarrel with them, and he had been knocked out. What of that? He did not even know that he was dead, and, in any case, it was no one’s business except their own.

  They had made sport with a woman, and let her go. It might have been better to keep her, but it would have been troublesome, and tomorrow must take care of itself. What of that either? He did not even know where she had gone, and cared less.

  But Reddy knew more than he did, and had a cunning tongue. He drew a picture of aggressive activity on the part of Tom Aldworth, to whom it was well known that Rattray had a particularly active antipathy. He represented the population of the coast, and of Cowley Thorn, as in preparation for armed hostilities against the railway camp, which was greedily absorbing all the remaining women. He made Rattray feel, in his own case, that they had nefariously pilfered his feminine property, and had refused to restore it, and, beyond that, he pointed out that if the camp should be successfully attacked, and Rattray did not participate, he would be shut out from any share in the resulting spoils; on the other hand, should the forces of Bellamy and Cooper be defeated owing to his absence, what fate could he expect from a victorious Aldworth? He continued to hint the importance of Jim’s assistance, both of brain and hand; and the emotions of fear, and greed, and vanity having been in turn excited, he had easily secured the promise of his support.

  Drunk or sober, Jim Rattray could always talk. It was by his tongue that he maintained ascendancy over his equally dissolute companions. He had no difficulty in arousing them to a like determination. He was eloquent upon the weakness of the doomed camp, and upon the richness of the spoils it held. He even thought that it might surrender without a fight when it realized the forces that were arrayed against it. He quoted Scripture, “to every man a damsel or two,” being about the only text which he had retained from his childhood’s teachings.

  A suggestion from one of his companions that they were ill-equipped with weapons of offence for such an adventure was met by an assurance that they could be obtained from Butcher, against the promise of payment from the expected spoils.

  He burst into song again:

  “So it’s up and it’s over to Stornoway Bay,

  Where the liquor is good, and the lasses are gay….”

  Reddy Teller was inwardly sceptical about the credit to be obtained from Butcher’s direction, but it was not his part to make difficulties, nor to loiter when his work was done.

  He left with little ceremony, the chorus following him as he went:

  “All for bully rover Jack,

  Waiting with his yard aback,

  Out upon the Lowland sea.”

  He reported to Bellamy, and went on to see Jerry Cooper, who thereupon sent the letter to Tom of which we have heard already.

  Jim Rattray had a few hours of discomfort, following an interview with Butcher, who assured him that he had no weapons for disposal of any kind, though he did not deny that he might exert himself to procure some if there were an immediate inducement to do so.

  But the following morning there was a note from Butcher telling him of the swords with which he could now supply him, and with no awkwardness of condition to delay delivery. He took the good that came, without looking for explanation beyond his own very obvious merits.

  His followers learnt of the proposed meeting with satisfaction. Supposing a more militant attitude on the part of Cooper’s supporters than was the fact, the combination against the railway camp seemed sufficiently formidable to justify the supposition that Tom would offer terms of peace which would include the surrender of at least a large proportion of the women which the camp contained. They accepted Jim’s assurance that he would agree to nothing which did not give them a fair share of the spoils. The bundle of weapons which he had distributed among them had increased their confidence both in their leader and themselves. They were content to wait his return, with the report either of the surrender of the camp or that war was to be commenced against it.

  As for Bellamy, he sat down on his allotted tub (considered more fit to endure his weight than the chairs, which were of varying degrees of instability) with a simple object before him. He wanted his woman and his revenge. Anything which would give him these would have his support, and nothing else would interest him.

  So the seven more or less self-elected delegates came together; but the expected crowds were not there.

  There was, it is true, a solid body of men from the camp, and some show of rifles among them, but there was nothing but a miscellaneous and obviously non-militant crowd on the other side. Jerry Cooper, who might have made some objection to the show of force with which they were confronted, observed it with an inward satisfaction. He was too good a judge of men to fear that any treachery was intended, and he reflected that such a display would be likely to check any impulse of sudden violence which his colleagues might otherwise be disposed to gratify. Like Bismarck, he knew the importance of the imponderables, and he had no wish that public opinion should be outraged by the allies which circumstance had thrust upon him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The table which had been provided by Jerry Cooper’s administrative capacity was of exceptional size, and had been brought to the appointed place with some difficulty, and from a considerable distance. His was not the type of mind which overlooks the minor details of any undertaking to which it is committed, and it had occurred to him as of a possible importance that a sufficient distance should separate the rival parties to provide an obstacle to any sudden inclination to resort to physical arguments.

  He had already seated himself, with Rattray on his right hand, and Bellamy on his left (a quick movement having been necessary to prevent Rattray from securing the central position), when Tom and his three companions approached, with the little group of their supporters a short distance behind them.

  The three men looked at Muriel with some curiosity, both because she was personally unknown and was not of a kind to pass unnoticed in such society, and because they had not expected to see a woman among the deputation. None of them had been accustomed to regard women with any respect under the conditions which the flood had covered, though their attitudes had been widely different.

  To Bellamy they were inferior animals, intended by nature merely for blows and breeding; Rattray was accustomed to meet them on an equality of degradation; Jerry Cooper regarded them as a necessary part of the race, but one which could have little place in the thoughts of a business man. He gave Muriel a hard, shrewd glance, which did not linger, but had appraised her keenly. She had discarded the unsightly jacket of the deceased Rector of Sterrington for the only alternative which she possessed—a selection from the plundered trunk which she had discovered on the last day of her solitude. In the result, she was dressed in a manner which it would have been difficult to match among the remaining women either of Larkshill or Cowley Thorn, and Jerry Cooper wondered, behind an expressionless face, if she could be an average example of the society of the railway camp. If so…. But he decided that it was more probable that she was of the nature of a traveller’s sample, though he could not imagine why they should wish to display their goods, in view of the nature of the negotiations on which they were occupied. It only showed (which he already knew) that Tom Aldworth had no head for business.

  But these refl
ections, though they may take some time to set down, were of momentary duration. Jerry Cooper did not intend that anyone but himself should take the chair at that conference.

  He commenced at once.

  “I suppose we all know why we’re meeting here this afternoon. There’s a few hundred of us who aren’t drowned, and there’s only a few score of women among us. That’s bad enough; but it’s worse when most of those women are in one camp, and they hold on to any others that come their way. There’s been bloodshed already over this, and there’ll be more if we don’t talk sense here.

  “I’ve got no grievance myself. I’m only here to get the whole thing settled. I’m here to see a fair deal. But you can’t wonder if Bellamy and Rattray feel a bit sore—”

  Tom broke in with “Let’s have that out first. What’s Bellamy’s grievance?”

  It was scarcely a wise interruption. Bellamy had a bad case. But its discussion was hardly likely to improve the prospects of peaceful understanding.

  Cooper may have smiled inwardly as he answered. “It’s just the usual thing. You’ve got his wife.”

  “His wife?” said Tom. “I thought—”

  “You can call her what you like. It makes no difference. You know that. There haven’t been many marriage-services in the past month. You’ve got his woman and he wants her back.”

  Jack Tolley spoke for the first time. “We’re not keeping her. She can go back if she wants to.”

  He looked straight at Bellamy as he spoke. Something rumbled in the giant’s throat, as though a reply were attempting exit, but he did not answer. He had little use for words. He looked at Jack almost amiably. He thought the time was very near.…

  Jerry Cooper took up the answer. “How do you know that? You wouldn’t let him see her to find out. His woman bolts into your camp, and you say you don’t keep her, not you! But when he comes to find out, you meet him with a rifle poked at his belly.”

  “Mr. Cooper”—Muriel’s voice, quiet and restrained, broke into the discussion—“do you know that he killed the man she was with, and that he has broken three of her fingers?”

  Cooper was not easily disconcerted. He answered with an attempt at an equal logic.

  “No, Miss…? Miss Temple, we don’t know anything. Your men won’t let us. But I don’t think there’s much in that. I suppose the men fought for her, and the best man won. We can’t help such things happening now. Who’s to stop them? Anyway, I don’t suppose she minded. She was with him a week. Then they quarrelled, and he was a bit too rough. But you don’t ask why they quarrelled, or what she’d done to deserve it.”

  Muriel knew the weak point in the woman’s case well enough, before Cooper mentioned it. She had stayed with him a week. She might have been too frightened to run before—or she might not. But no decent person would force her to return to his brutality. To look at him was sufficient to understand.

  She answered frankly, “I don’t know why she stayed with him at all. But if you see her yourself, and know that she has a free choice—?”

  Cooper dismissed her civilly enough from the discussion.

  “No, miss, it wouldn’t. That’s not the real point at all.” He turned to Tom with a sudden change of manner. “The point is, what the hell is it to do with you? She wasn’t your woman. We don’t meet you with rifles at Cowley Thorn.”

  “It wasn’t you, it was Bellamy,” Tom answered. “We’ll have no truck with him.”

  “Then you shouldn’t keep his wife.”

  “We’re not keeping anyone.”

  “Then send her back.”

  “Not unless she wishes to go.”

  “You mean she’s to be another one for your lot?”

  “We mean her to please herself.”

  Rattray broke in impatiently. “We’re wasting time at this talk. They’re to please themselves—are they? What about pleasing us? Fifty-fifty’s the word. Tell them that, Cooper. That’s a fair deal. Fifty-fifty, and our pick! We don’t want the antiques. Tell them it’s either that, or we’ll take the lot, and the camp too.”

  Cooper turned on his impatient colleague, and his jaw set angrily. He wanted to manage the interview in his own way. He did not think that Tom Aldworth was capable of sustaining an argument against him successfully, and he was quite satisfied with the course of the preliminary exchanges. Rattray, on his side, objected to the secondary position to which he was relegated. Angry glances met, and words might have followed, but Cooper restrained himself with an effort. He saw Jack Tolley’s smile as he watched them. He addressed Tom Aldworth again, in the manner of one who was trying to bring reasonable counsels to contending follies.

  “You see what the feeling is. We can’t let things go on as they are. The boys won’t stand it. That’s a fair offer enough. But we’re here to deal, if you’ll talk sense, as I told you before. If you don’t accept, I suppose you’ve got something else to offer.

  “Yes, I have,” Tom answered. He was not naturally eloquent, but he spoke now with some fluency, his mind for some days having been full of the project which he was putting before them. “We’re all agreed that things can’t go on as they are. We all found ourselves here a few weeks ago, just as though we’d been wrecked. Most of the women didn’t know the men, and the men didn’t know one another, except those of us from the mine, and there weren’t many women, and they’re all sorts, and here we were with no homes, and no food, and all wanting help from one another, and no law but our own hands, and some just crazed with trouble, and some not caring what happened, and—so on,” he concluded weakly, and then recommenced with a new fluency.

  “I reckon we were bound to have some rows before we could settle down from that start, but we’ve had more than we need, and as we all get to know one another, they get worse. I don’t understand why, but they do…. Now what I say is this: let the women choose. Tell them straight that they can each have the man they want, if he agrees, and we’ll stand by them, whether we get left out or not. Give them a time to choose, and if they don’t choose in the time, well, that’s their look out. That’s fair all round, and—”

  “Is it?” Cooper interjected.

  “Well, why not?”

  Cooper leaned forward aggressively. The groups of spectators had increased, and had closed up as the argument warmed; and there was now an attentive audience, with no clean division between the supporters of either side. His electioneering instinct caused him to address himself to the minds of this larger concourse, rather than to his immediate opponents.

  “I’ll tell you why it’s not fair, and why you know it’s not fair. Do you think we forget that you’ve got most of the women in your own hands? ‘Choose,’ you say, and you know they’ve chosen already. We’re to promise to back them up, and it’s nice fools we should look.

  “You ask us to play to your stakes, when you’ve looked at your own hand, and ours is face down on the table; and we say no to that. We say we’ll have a fresh deal.”

  Tom was not quick to answer. The accusation was unjust to himself, and inaccurate in its implications, but it had sufficient substance to raise a murmur of assent from Cooper’s supporters, and it was not easy to answer conclusively.

  The fact was that, in the short period which had elapsed since the deluge came, the majority of the women in the railway camp had not formed alliances of any definite kind, though there were exceptions, and the camp had not been without its episodes of violence and jealousy, with more than one resulting fatality. The ultimate difficulty was before them there, as it was everywhere; but, on the whole, since the expulsion of Rattray’s gang, the camp contained larger elements of self-respect and stability than were present in other sections of this chance-mingled population. For all that, if the women were confronted with such a necessity of selection, it might be true that they would incline toward the men they knew, and it was a fact that those of the railway camp would come off best under such circumstances.

  As Tom paused, Muriel asked in her quiet, penetrating voice, �
�What do you propose, Mr. Cooper?”

  The interposition was adroit enough, and disconcerting to Cooper, though he did not show it. His experience had taught him the tactical advantage of the indefinite programme. Heckle your opponents for details. Let your own promises be as vague as they are alluring. That was the way to win the maximum of support at the polling-booth, with the minimum of resulting worries. But such vagueness must not be allied with hesitation. Assertion must be prompt and confident, however worded. He answered readily.

  “We propose nothing unfair, Miss Temple. We simply ask for a square deal all round. We don’t think it’s fair that all the women should be cornered in your camp, and we don’t mean to stand it. When it came to threatening Bellamy here with a rifle when he followed his own wife, it brought matters to a head, and we’re all come together now to see whether it’s to be peace or war.”

  “Would you tell me what you propose, Mr. Cooper?” her voice was even pleasanter than before, and her eyes met his with a friendly frankness. It was as though she declined to regard him otherwise than as being as simple and sincere as herself in the endeavour to face the problem.

  The happy individual

  Whose armour was his honest thought,

  And simple truth his utmost skill,

  must have been a very skilful one.

  Those who think that truth is easy to perceive or communicate can have had little practice in those occupations. Muriel’s disconcerting directness was the result of many years of such mental exercises. She had sought truth very honestly, though she may not always have found it.

  It will never be known how far Cooper would have risen to the occasion. He was in some difficulty, for while he felt that it was ‘good business’ to talk vaguely of the wrongs of his own locality, he was unsure how much active support he would gain if he should join with either Rattray or Bellamy in violent action to assert their claims. His constituents were uncontrolled, and there was no cohesion among them. Even those who would be glad to profit from any civil confusion might excuse themselves from the peril of getting knocked on the head, on a dozen pretexts.