Steve said, “I’ll go. You won’t need the dog.” He passed the sack to one of the others. Martin understood that a guide had been provided.
As the man walked beside his horse, Martin questioned and listened, learning new things from the leisurely answers he received, as he always did when he approached a fresh mind, and the altered conditions were presented from another angle.
He learnt, among other things, that Steve Fortune was satisfied. It was true that there had been bad times, with deaths and cruelties and disorders, but those were past. Those who remained alive were in very good health, and some of them—Steve, anyway—found it a much pleasanter life than he had spent under the industrial servitude from which it had rescued him. His first desire was that nothing should disturb or end it. Winter? Yes, but they would find food enough. Look at the cattle! Anyway, if they had to go short it wouldn’t be with shops of food all round them, and cops and jails for those who wouldn’t starve without protest.
Steve was a conservative. He had found it possible to live very comfortably, and he feared change.
He admitted that it would be an advantage if women were more numerous, but even on this point he gave no indication of any personal grievance.
Martin listening to this, and much else, was left in doubt of whether this man were a coward or a poseur, or of a selfishness too simple and absolute for any diffidence to disturb it.
As they followed the western bank of the canal-bed, Martin noticed that the opposite side had been fenced with barbed wire, but that this protection had been pulled aside in many places, where foot-tracks crossed the ditch.
He had not come to the bridge before he had seen many indications of the rough and sordid existence to which even these people, who had been represented to him as the best element of the population, had descended.
He passed four men and a woman, who sat on a patch of grassy ground, playing cards. The men played, the woman watched, looking over the shoulder of one of them.
She said something in the man’s ear, as Martin rode up. The man shot him a sudden glance from beneath a mass of shaggy hair that overhung his forehead. The glance was not friendly. He took no further notice, bending down to the game. Martin did not know any of them. He had a trained memory for faces. They gave him no greeting.
He saw that they were staking a few sticks of tobacco, and a heap of shining jewellery, among which some large diamonds glittered from ring and pendant. Probably the tobacco was the more highly valued now.
Gaining the camp, and inquiring first for Tom Aldworth, he learnt that he was away, and that there were few left in the camp that morning.
A large ship’s mast had been washed ashore, and Tom had got a party together to salve a quantity of wire rope and ladder which were attached to it. He had tried to get every one to join, but there had been many refusals, Steve and his friends among them. There were those to whom such a suggestion only meant that they must think of some more congenial activity, as an excuse for refusal, rather than spend the day with the laziness which they had intended.
The uses of wire rope are many, but there was no immediate individual urgency to prompt them to share in the rough and heavy labour which would be necessary to secure it.
A suggestion that the wire might be used for the more effectual blocking of the fords by which the cattle so often escaped across the river was met by the argument that the land on which they were confined was poor and exhausted, and that the real requirement was to move them out of, not to confine them in, the present area. So, as usual, there had been ready talk, and reluctant action.
Hearing this, Martin did not stay at the camp. He rode over the flat and barren waste that lay between it and the sea
It was true enough that the cattle needed removal. Such grass as grew in this area had been grazed bare, and it was too late in the season for further fertility. It would have looked even barer but for the fact that cattle cannot graze as closely as sheep or horses. But the urgent removal would require much repairing of fence and hedge, and the milking herd would be farther from the camp if they were put upon the richer pasture south of the river, and so nothing had been done, beyond the periodic expulsion of the less useful animals.
Martin rode along a beaten path, formed by the dragging of many heavy objects from shore to camp, and easily found the band of workers round the broken mast, which lay half covered by a falling tide.
He found Tom, and about a dozen helpers, who had already detached a quantity of wire rope and hempen cordage, and were now grouped round the cart which had been intended to assist its transport, but which was exhibiting a weakness in the felloes of one wheel, which foretold a breakdown in the first fifty yards to anyone who was not of an exceptionally sanguine temperament.
Neither horse nor cart appeared to have suffered from underwork on the rough tracks they followed, and the former, turning a patient head toward the arguing group of its masters, appeared to regard the difficulty with a quiet contentment.
There was a confused murmur of greeting as Martin rode up, not deficient either in respect or cordiality, and the group parted for Tom to advance to his horse’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Martin asked.
“More than we can put right here. We might patch the felloes, but the hub’s cracked, and that’s loosening the spokes, and that’s what’s making the trouble. The axle’s about done for too. Butcher’s got a spare wheel he wants to sell us…. But we can’t do anything here without Pellow.… And it’s a question whether he’d come. We miss Ellis Roberts with things like this.”
“Well, I want to talk to you. Why not walk back with me, and see Pellow yourself? They can go on stripping the mast as the tide falls, and getting ready to load.”
Tom agreed readily, and they walked back together.
“I suppose you’re fairly sure things will be right for tomorrow, or you wouldn’t have been busy on that?” Martin asked. “It didn’t look very urgent.”
“I’m not as sure as I’d like to be,” Tom answered. “There’s too much talk, and the more they talk, the less they’re sure about anything. I tried to get them on to that job to keep their mouths shut, and give them something to do. But they wouldn’t come, except those I’m sure of.”
“There’s no fresh trouble?”
“Not exactly. Only they’re wondering what you mean to do, and whether they’re not promising too much. They’re afraid of having to obey a lot of laws they won’t like. Miss Temple says the same.”
“Says the same? Says what?”
“She says it’s no use making a lot of laws.”
“I want to see Miss Temple. My—Mrs. Webster told me about her.” (Should he say “my wife” or “one of my wives” in the future?)
“I think you’d better.”
“Has she much influence?”
“She might about turn the scale. I don’t mean merely a majority. We shall have that, with Butcher’s lot coming in. Jack says that’s certain. But we want more than that, now you’ve said you’ll turn out those who won’t join. We couldn’t turn out nearly half.… And we couldn’t turn out the women.”
“But Miss Temple wouldn’t want to leave us? I thought she was about the best helper you’d got.”
“I don’t know. She’s the sort you can’t turn. I think she means to help us, in her own way. But she could get about half the women in this camp, or hold them off, and it’s not much use having the men alone.”
Martin saw that. The idea of the men having sufficient loyalty to him to turn their wives into the wilderness because they declined his authority was absurd.
In a rash moment he had said that the women, equally with the men, must pledge their support, and whatever difficulty followed must be overcome, if he were not to fall at the first fence.
“I don’t think there’ll be any trouble about that,” he said easily. “I expect they’ll vote together—the women and their men—when the time comes. Is it only with the women that Miss Temple’s influen
ce counts?”
“No. There’s about ten men—perhaps twenty—here and round Larkshill, that will do anything for her. Men like Burke, some of them, that won’t for me…. And she can talk—especially when people get together. Straight, simple talk, that persuades. If she comes tomorrow, and says your way’s wrong, she’ll get every one who’s doubtful against you, and shake the rest.”
“Well, I don’t know that. I can talk a little myself,” Martin answered. “But it’s best done first, and alone. I’ll see her now, if I can. She seems to have some ideas. Is she the sort that won’t change?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. She won’t mind changing if you show her she’s wrong. But if she thinks you’re wrong, she’ll say what she thinks…. It’s all religion with her.… And getting people to clean the camp.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Martin found Muriel busy with some domestic work at her own location. She offered him a small, work-hardened hand, and asked him to enter the compartment which was bed- and living-room combined, and was, even so, a more luxurious dwelling than was the portion of most of those round her.
She called Monty, who was somewhere near, and he took charge of the horse.
The sky had clouded, and a fine rain was commencing, so that he was glad to accept the offered shelter.
After a few words of initial courtesy, he said directly, “Tom Aldworth tells me that you don’t think these people need laws or is it only that you think they don’t want them?”
“I think they don’t need laws, they need leading.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning just that. They don’t need laws. They need decisions.”
They were both silent for a moment: Martin because she had expressed an idea which had been inarticulately present, but discouraged, in his own mind; and she because she waited for his response.
Seeing him silent, she went on.
“Mr. Webster, I’m not a lawyer, and I haven’t got your capacity. I know we need someone to take control, and I know I couldn’t. I’ve thought of every one here, and there’s no one really fit, or not that every one would obey. I want to help you if I can, but that’s what I think, and if you make a lot of laws and penalties—and I suppose laws must mean penalties—straight away, I think we shall have more trouble, and I don’t think even you—I don’t think anyone—could prevent it.
“It seems to me,” she went on, “that laws should come gradually. If you should make laws I for one shouldn’t promise that I should obey them. I should want to know what they would be, and then I should want to think.
“We’ve had one law already about the women. I told Tom that I shouldn’t take any notice of it, and fortunately no one’s made any trouble about that.” (Was there a tone of bitterness in her voice, that denied the smiling of lips and eyes? It was so slight, if so, that Martin could not detect it with certainty.) “The idea was good enough, but the law was silly. There were so many things that might happen that we couldn’t foresee. We’re not ready for laws yet. They’ll break themselves, or get broken. I don’t know whether you’ll understand, but I can’t put it plainer than that. We don’t want laws, we want leading.”
“I see what you mean quite clearly,” Martin answered. “You mean you want orders dealing with immediate needs, rather than permanent laws dealing with general principle of conduct or policy.
“It isn’t such a simple alternative as you might think. It will lead to something like what we used to call case law—that is, one thing at a time will be decided on its merits, and the next time there’s a similar difference, or anything like it, there will be an appeal to what was decided then; but it may be best to start in that way.”
“May I ask you this? If I begin in that way, will you come and speak in my support on Thursday?
“I’m going to ask a good deal, if you do. I don’t look upon it as a country that’s to be governed, but rather as a ship that’s to be steered to port—and a ship that’s among the rocks, if it isn’t on them.
“It’s not a case for arguing, or thinking that we can steer two ways at once. I’ll concede all you ask. You shall have leading, not law. Shall I have following, not argument?”
“I don’t like promising too much,” Muriel answered. “I shouldn’t do what I thought wrong, and I won’t promise blindly. But I think you’re right. I think it’s the only way we’ll succeed, and that I ought to agree.
“I’ll promise this now. As long as I’m here, I’ll give you all the help I can. If I can’t follow, I’ll come and tell you, and if you ask me to clear out—well, I’ll go.”
“I think that’s all I could ask, and more than I could expect,” Martin answered, “and I think it means that, with your help we shall succeed. I’m very glad I have seen you.”
“I don’t think,” Muriel answered, “that you’ll find that my help makes so much difference. But I don’t think that it matters so much whether we succeed or not. I know we can’t always feel like that, and we shouldn’t do much if we did. But I was sitting up most of last night—it was fine, and not very cold, and I was—not well enough to sleep. And I was watching the stars, and thinking how short our lives are, and how we are small and lost in the great space that we can see, but could never reach, and I thought of those terrible words of Paul: ‘without God in the world.’ I had never felt alone, as I did then.… And then I thought of all that the seas had covered, not the men and women only, but all that they had built and made—all the buildings, and the pictures and books that they thought so wonderful—and they just passed in a day, and the stars continued.… It was all so trivial that had gone.… And then faith came again, and I thought of the promises of God.… And it seemed that nothing that comes to us—nothing that we gain or lose—can matter, except how we face it.… And then I thought of the lines of an old hymn that you’ve probably never heard, or might think silly:
He hath His young men at the war,
His little ones at home,
and I thought that, if there’s nothing hard to face, it may be that God doesn’t think we’re worth trying. As though He knows we’ll break at any test, and He just leaves us in contempt….”
She stopped abruptly, and then added, in a different voice, “But you’ve got other things to think of. You must forgive me going on about my own thoughts. I suppose we all get these moods at times. And I’ve had no one to talk to lately…. But you won’t want to go through this rain. It won’t last much longer. It’s clearing now to the south.… You can depend on any help I can give. I believe you’ve been sent to help us.… There’s only one thing that could make me feel differently, and I feel sure I’ve no cause to doubt you there. But I hope you won’t mind telling me. I think we ought to know—and we’re bound to know, one way or other.”
She paused a moment, as though hesitating how to frame the question, and Martin said, “I’m sure you wouldn’t ask anything without reason.” His thought was, “Am I going to lose her support after all?” He did not doubt what was coming.
“It’s about Helen. You know I saw her before we knew that you were found—and then we heard that there was another. Of course, every one’s talking about it. Some say that you mean to keep one, and some the other, and some say that you want to give Helen up, but can’t because of the children, and some say you mean to go on as though you’d married them both—and I was thinking about this last night, and I saw how difficult it must be, and I thought, if you had the strength to do right in a position like that, you’d be the one to get things straight here. Would you tell me what you do mean to do?”
“Miss Temple,” he answered, “I can’t expect you to look at a matter of this kind quite as I do; and I can only say that if I lose your support I shall be sorry—I should be sorry even if it meant less than it does. I hoped that we should be friends, and it is a friendship that I should value. I hoped that you would be friends with—with Helen and Claire. But there can be no disguise about the decision that we have made. It didn’t rest with me onl
y. I consider that I am bound to both, and to that we stand. It is Helen’s view, as well as mine. It was her independent decision, as I felt sure it would be. There is no law to guide us now, as you have said, and we had to think what was right in circumstances which could not have been foreseen.”
“I didn’t say there was no law. There is God’s law always to me.”
“Well we don’t think we are going against that.”
“And you thought I should?” Muriel frowned slightly, as though the implication were not too pleasing. “Well, perhaps it was natural. But I thought about this last night, and I couldn’t be sure. I thought you were bound to Helen. ‘Whom God hath joined’.… the words wouldn’t leave my mind. They’re not easy to understand. They were used to baffle a trap, and I suppose they’re not meant to be easy…. And then I saw suddenly that ‘God’ didn’t mean a priest. It meant something greater than that.… And I thought that, if you’d all meant to be loyal to one another, well, this was the test, and if you all came through the right way, it meant that there’s still something better left in the world than the hateful things that we’ve seen here.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
There were over four hundred people gathered on Cowley Common, sitting on grass or heather, or standing between the gorse-bushes in the background.
The sun shone warmly, though October was opening, and, except for a passing gull, there was no sign on that open heath of any change having come to the world since Cowley fair had been held on the same spot a year before.
Curiosity had proved more powerful than Tom’s earlier efforts for the common good, and there were not ten people absent who could, by any possibility, have been expected to come.
Martin spoke first, from a raised knoll of land which had often been a showman’s vantage-point for declaring the wonders which a penny would disclose to such as penetrated the entrance of his curtained booth.
He saw Tom’s supporters grouped together, and the gleams of a dozen rifle-barrels among them showed that he was leaving little to chance.
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