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“You cowards!” he cried. “I’ll be even with you for this.”
A yell from the wall, followed by another from the crowd, was the response, when Mr Selwood turned to Mrs Glaire.
“If you have any influence with him get him inside somewhere, or we shall have a fresh disturbance.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the anxious mother, catching her son’s arm. “Come into the counting-house, Dick. Go with him, Eve. Take him in, and I’ll speak to the men.”
“I’m not afraid of the brutal ruffians,” cried Richard, shrilly. “I’ll not go, I’ll – ”
Here there was a menacing shout from the wall, and a disposition shown by some of the men to leap down; a movement which had such an effect on Richard Glaire that he allowed his cousin to lead him into a building some twenty yards away, the vicar’s eyes following them as they went.
“I’ll speak to the men now,” said the little lady. “Banks, you may open the gates; they won’t hurt me.”
“Not they, ma’am,” said the sturdy foreman, looking with admiration at the self-contained little body, as, hastily wiping a tear or two from her eyes, she prepared to encounter the workmen.
Before the gates could be opened, however, an ambassador in the person of Eve Pelly arrived from Richard.
“Not open the gates, child?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire.
“No, aunt, dear, Richard says it would not be safe for you and me, now the men are so excited.”
For a few minutes Mrs Glaire forgot the deference she always rendered to “my son!” and, reading the message in its true light, she exclaimed angrily —
“Eve, child, go and tell my son that there are the strong lock and bolts on the door that his father had placed there after we were besieged by the workmen ten years ago, and he can lock himself in if he is afraid.”
The Reverend Murray Selwood, who heard all this, drew in his breath with a low hissing noise, as if he were in pain, on seeing the action taken by the fair bearer of Richard Glaire’s message.
“Aunt, dear,” she whispered, clinging to Mrs Glaire, “don’t send me back like that – it will hurt poor Dick’s feelings.”
“Go and say what you like, then, child,” cried Mrs Glaire, pettishly. “Yes, you are right, Eve: don’t say it.”
“And you will not open the gates, aunt, dear?”
“Are you afraid of the men, Eve?”
“I, aunt? Oh, no,” said the young girl, smiling. “They would not hurt me.”
“I should just like to see any one among ’em as would,” put in Harry, the big hammerman, giving his shirt sleeve a tighter roll, as if preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden. “We should make him sore, shouldn’t we, Tom Podmore, lad?”
“Oh, nobody wouldn’t hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here,” said Tom, gruffly. And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little – a movement imitated by his followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.
Volume One – Chapter Seven.
Mrs Glaire’s Speech
“It’s all raight, lads,” roared Harry, in a voice of thunder. “Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”
The cheers were given lustily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.
“Stop, stop!” he cried; “it isn’t all raight yet. I want to know whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and righteous demands ’corded to us. What I want to know is – ”
“Stop a moment, Simeon Slee,” said Mrs Glaire, quickly; and a dead silence fell on the crowd, as her clear, sharp voice was heard. “When I was young, I was taught to look a home first. Now, tell me this – before you began to put matters straight for others, did you make things right at home?”
There was a laugh ran through the crowd at this; but shaken, not daunted, the orator exclaimed —
“Oh, come, that wean’t do for me, Mrs Glaire, ma’am – that’s begging of the question. What I want to know is – ”
“And what I want to know is,” cried Mrs Glaire, interrupting, “whether, before you came out here leading these men into mischief, you provided your poor wife with a dinner?”
“Hear, hear,” – “That’s a good one,” – “Come down, Sim,” – “The Missus is too much for ye!” were amongst the shouts that arose on all sides, mingled with roars of laughter; and Sim Slee’s defeat was completed by Harry, the big hammerman, who, incited thereto by Banks, shouted —
“Three more cheers for the Missus!” These were given, and three more, and three more after that, the workmen forgetting for the time being the object they had in view in the defeat of Simeon Slee, who, vainly trying to make himself heard from the hill of old metal, was finally pulled down and lost in the crowd, while now, in a trembling voice, Mrs Glaire said —
“My men, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to find you fighting against the people who supply you with the work by which you live.”
“Not again you, Missus,” cried half a dozen.
“Yes, against me and my son – the son of your old master,” said Mrs Glaire, gathering strength as she proceeded.
“You come back agen, and take the wucks, Missus,” roared Harry. “Things was all raight then.”
“Well said, Harry; well said,” cried Tom Podmore, bringing his hand down on the hammerman’s shoulder with a tremendous slap. “Well said. Hooray!”
There was a tremendous burst of cheering, and it was some little time before Mrs Glaire could again make herself heard.
“I cannot do that,” she said, “but I will talk matters over with my son, and you shall have fair play, if you will give us fair play in return.”
“That’s all very well,” cried a shrill voice; and Sim Slee and his red waistcoat were once more seen above the heads of the crowd, for, put out of the gates, he had managed to mount the wall; “but what we want to know, as an independent body of sittizens, is – ”
“Will some on yo’ get shoot of that chap, an’ let Missus speak,” cried Tom Podmore.
There was a bit of a rush, and Sim Slee disappeared suddenly, as if he had been pulled down by the legs.
“I don’t think I need say any more,” said Mrs Glaire, “only to ask you all to come quietly back to work, and I promise you, in my son’s name – ”
“No, no, in yours,” cried a dozen.
“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, “in my own and your dead master’s name – that you shall all have justice.”
“That’s all raight, Missus,” cried Harry. “Three more cheers for the Missus, lads!”
“Stop!” cried Mrs Glaire, waving her hands for silence. “Before we go, I think we should one and all thank our new friend here – our new clergyman, for putting a stop to a scene that you as well as I would have regretted to the end of our days.”
Mrs Glaire had got to the end of her powers here, for the mother stepped in as she conjured up the trampled, bleeding form of her only son; her face began to work, the tears streamed down her cheeks, and, trembling and sobbing, she laid both her hands in those of Mr Selwood, and turned away.
“Raight, Missus,” roared Harry, who had certainly partaken of more gills of ale than was good for him. “Raight, Missus. Parson hits harder nor any man I ever knowed. Look here, lads, here wur a blob. Three cheers for new parson!”
He pointed laughingly to his bruised forehead with one hand, while he waved the other in the air, with the result that a perfect thunder of cheers arose, during which the self-instituted, irrepressible advocate of workmen’s rights made another attempt to be heard; but his time had passed, the men were in another temper, and he was met with a cry raised by Tom Podmore.
“Put him oonder the poomp.” Simeon Slee turned and fled, the majority of the crowd after him, and the others slowly filtered away till the yard was empty.
Volume One – Chapter Eight.
Dear Richard
“Take my arm, Mrs Glaire,” said the vicar, gently; and, the excitement past, the overstrung nerves slackened, and the woman reasserted itself, for the doting mother now realised all that had gone, and the risks encountered. Trembling and speechless, she suffered herself to be led into the counting-house, and placed in a chair.
“I – I shall be – better directly,” she panted.
“Better!” shrieked her son, who was pacing up and down the room; “better! Mother, it’s disgraceful; but I won’t give way a bit – not an inch. I’ll bring the scoundrels to reason. I’ll – ”
“Dick, dear Dick, don’t. See how ill poor aunt is,” whispered Eve.
“I don’t care,” said the young man, furiously. “I won’t have it. I’ll – ”
“Will you kindly get a glass of water for your mother, Mr Glaire?” said the vicar, as he half held up the trembling woman in her chair, and strove hard to keep the disgust he felt from showing in his face – “I am afraid she will faint.”
“Curse the water! No,” roared Richard. “I won’t have it – I – I say I won’t have it; and who the devil are you, that you should come poking your nose into our business! You’ll soon find that Dumford is not the place for a meddling parson to do as he likes.”
“Dick!” shrieked Eve; and she tried to lay a hand upon his lips.
“Hold your tongue, Eve! Am I master here, or not?” cried Richard Glaire. “I won’t have a parcel of women meddling in my affairs, nor any kind of old woman,” he continued, disdainfully glancing at the vicar.
There was a slight accession of colour in Murray Selwood’s face, but he paid no further heed to the young man’s words, while, with her face crimson with shame, Eve bent over her aunt, trying to restore her, for she was indeed half fainting; and the cold clammy dew stood upon her forehead.
“Here’s a mug o’ watter, sir,” said the rough, sturdy voice of Joe Banks, as he filled one from a shelf; and then he threw open a couple of windows to let the air blow in more freely.
“Don’t let anybody here think I’m a child,” continued Richard Glaire, who, the danger passed, was now white with passion; “and don’t let anybody here, mother or foreman, or stranger, think I’m a man to be played with.”
“There’s nobody thinks nothing at all, my lad,” said Joe Banks, sharply, “only that if the parson there hadn’t come on as he did, you’d have been a pretty figure by this time, one as would ha’ made your poor moother shoother again.”
“Hold your tongue, sir; how dare you speak to me like that!” roared Richard.
“How dare I speak to you like that, my lad?” said the foreman, smiling. “Well, because I’ve been like a sort of second father to you in the works, and if you’d listened to me, instead of being so arbitrary, there wouldn’t ha’ been this row.”
“You insolent – ”
“Oh yes, all raight, Master Richard, all raight,” said the foreman, bluffly.
“Dick, dear Dick,” whispered Eve, clinging to his arm; but he shook her off.
“Hold your tongue, will you!” he shrieked. “Look here, you Banks,” he cried, “if you dare to speak to me like that I’ll discharge you; I will, for an example.”
Banks laughed, and followed the raving man to the other end of the great counting-house to whisper:
“No you wean’t, lad, not you.”
Richard started, and turned of a sickly hue as he confronted the sturdy old foreman.
“Think I didn’t know you, my lad, eh?” he whispered; and driving his elbow at the same time into the young man’s chest, he puckered up his face, and gave him a knowing smile. “No, you wean’t start me, Richard Glaire, I know. But I say, my lad, don’t be so hard on the poor lass there, your cousin.”
“Will you hold your tongue?” gasped Richard. “They’ll hear you.”
“Well, what if they do?” said the sturdy old fellow. “Let ’em. There’s nowt to be ashamed on. But there, you’re popped now, and no wonder. Get you home with your moother.”
“But I can’t go through the streets.”
“Yes, you can; nobody ’ll say a word to you now. Get her home, lad; get her home.”
It was good advice, but Richard Glaire would not take it, and his mother gladly availed herself of the vicar’s arm.
“You’ll come home now, Richard,” said Mrs Glaire, feebly; and she looked uneasily from her son to the foreman, as she recalled their conversation in the garden, and felt unwilling to leave them alone together.
“I shall come home when the streets are safe,” said Richard, haughtily. “They are safe enough for you, but I’m not going to subject myself to another attack from a set of brute beasts.”
“I don’t think you have anything to fear now,” said the vicar, quietly.
“Who said I was afraid?” snarled Richard, facing sharply round, and paying no heed to the remonstrant looks of cousin and mother. “I should think I know Dumford better than you, and when to go and when to stay.”
The young men’s eyes met for a moment, and Richard Glaire’s shifty gaze sank before the calm, manly look of the man who had so bravely interposed in his behalf.
“Curse him! I hate him,” Richard said in his heart. “He’s brave and strong, and big and manly, and he does nothing but degrade me before Eve. I hate him – I hate him.”
“What a contemptible cad he is,” said Murray Selwood in his heart; “and yet he must have his good points, or that sweet girl would not love him as she evidently does. Poor girl, poor girl! But there: it is not fair to judge him now.”
“Of course, you must know best, Mr Glaire,” he said aloud, “for I am quite a stranger. I will see your mother and cousin safely home, and I hope next time we shall have a more pleasant meeting. You are put out now, and no wonder. Good-bye.”
He held out his hand with a frank, pleasant smile upon his countenance, and the two women and the foreman looked curiously on as Richard shrank away, and with a childish gesture thrust his hand behind him. But it was of no use, that firm, unblenching eye seemed to master him, the strong, brown muscular hand remained outstretched, and, in spite of himself, the young man felt drawn towards it, and fighting mentally against the influence the while, he ended by impatiently placing his own limp, damp fingers within it, and letting them lie there a moment before snatching them away.
Directly after, leaning on the vicar’s arm, and with Eve on her other side, Mrs Glaire was being led through the knots of people still hanging about the streets. There was no attempt at molestation, and once or twice a faint cheer rose; but Mr Selwood was fully aware of the amount of attention they drew from door and window, for the Dumford people were not at all bashful as to staring or remark.
At last the awkward steps were reached, and after supporting Mrs Glaire to a couch, the new vicar turned to go, followed to the door by Eve.
“Good-bye, and thank you – so much, Mr Selwood,” she said, pressing his hand warmly.
“I did not think we should meet again so soon. And, Mr Selwood – ”
She stopped short, looking up at him timidly.
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Don’t be afraid to speak; we are not strangers now.”
“No, no; I know that,” she cried, eagerly. “I was only going to say – to say – don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning. He was excited and hurt.”
“Of course, of course,” said the vicar, pressing the little hand he held in both his. “How could any one judge a man harshly at such a time? Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“And with such a little ministering angel to intercede for him,” muttered the vicar, as the door closed. “Heigho! these things are a mystery, and it is as well that they should be, or I don’t know what would become of poor erring man.”
