Chapter V: Part 5

He was still rather surly that evening when he made his appearance at the Green Man; he explained to one who was formerly his closest friend that he had been enjoying a bit of a talk with the wife. Surroundings in the clubroom were, however, so congenial that before long he showed guarded signs of amiability, albeit he found grounds for annoyance in the fact that some of his old companions had prospered, and had given up what was referred to as the old game to engage on sport that, relatively speaking, was of an honest, law-abiding character. His best friend indeed owned a large gold chain and a watch at the end of it; he was now a bookmaker by profession, not, of course, a literary person, but one who made money. On James suggesting they might perhaps go into partnership together in the racecourse business, the closest friend said, with some reserve, that it was an occupation requiring years of patient study, and the fact of James having been out of the movement so long barred him both from participating in the profits or sharing the losses.

“See what I mean, don’t you?” asked the bookmaker. “Chuck that what you’re smoking away, and have a real cigar!”

“I shan’t give you another opportunity,” said James curtly. “Should have thought you would have been glad of a pretty sharp man for your right ’and.”

“But you’ve been rusting,” pointed out the bookmaker. (“Now you’ve been and bitten off the wrong end.”)

Nothing, however, could exceed the geniality of the hosts. Thick crusty sandwiches rested on the deal tables; there was no stint, so far as the guest of the evening was concerned, in regard to liquids. Everybody crowded around him in a flattering way and everybody shook him by the hand several times; a few promising younger men, who were brought up and introduced, showed themselves highly sensible of the honour, and asked eagerly what adventure he thought of going in for next.

“’Aven’t quite made up me mind,” he replied cautiously.

The younger men winked knowingly at each other, saying that James was a deep one and no mistake, adding that an ability to keep one’s head shut was a gift to be envied. They had singing later. Songs were given which for James (who had no musical tastes) should at least have possessed the charm of novelty; the slang contained in them and in the public speech of many of those present was to him quite incomprehensible. They repeated unceasingly that they wished him well, and the bookmaker made a speech just before closing time in which he pointed out that every man-jack present was prepared to give James a helping hand. Never should it be said of them that they had refused a helping hand to one of the best. A helping hand was due to such a hero and a helping hand he should have.

“Friends, one and all,” said James. (He refused for some minutes to make a speech, but gave in to encouragement.) “Friends, one and all.”

A cry of “So you said!” and reproving shouts of “Order!”

“I’ve been away from you fer a few year owin’ to—owin’ to circs not altogether under my control” (the room laughed uproariously), “but I’m back in the midst of you once more, and I can tell you one thing, and that ain’t two, I’m jolly glad of it! I’ve had quite enough penal to last me my time. I’m full up of it! I’ve reached me limit! It’s no catch, I tell you!” (Murmurs of sympathy.) “If there’s any one ’ere that’s acquired a taste for it, they’re welcome to my share. I don’t know that I have much more to say. I ’aven’t had much practice at public speaking of late. Once you begin to ’old forth in there” (here he gave a vague jerk of the head), “why, they let you know it. Anyway, it’s no use ’arping on the past, and in regard to the promise of a ’elping ’and to which you, Mr. Chairman, have so kindly referred, and to me being a hero, there’s only one thing I want to say, and that is this: I shall keep you to it!”

The club-room seemed to think the last sentence had an ungracious sound, and there would have been an inclination to hedge only that the white-sleeved potman arrived at that moment with a dictatorial shout of “Now you cheps! Time!” and the party had to break up. Out in the street, James’s arm was again in request, and his hand was shaken so often with so many assurances of admiration and enthusiastic comradeship, that he went off towards Hammerton Street quite dazed and not sure whether he had won a battle, or saved lives from drowning. The men cheered him as he left and began to chant an appropriate song, but a policeman came up, and the crowd, not wishful for argument with the force, said respectfully, “It’s all right, Mr. Langley, sir; we’re just on the move,” and disappeared.

Womenfolk came round to Hammerton Street the next day asking to be permitted to see him, and James’s wife would have taken another day off, but James said there had been quite enough gadding about for her already, and insisted she should go to work. He sunned himself at the front door with a fine pretence of not knowing that he was being observed, the while women on the opposite side of the pavement held up their babies to see him and whispered admiring comments.

“You’d never think it to look at him, would you, now?”

“I recollect his case as well as anything. It was before I was married to my present ’usband, but I can recollect it all just as though it was only yesterday. I remember so well saying to my young sister—I was on speaking terms with her just then—I remember saying, ‘Ah, well!’ I said. Just like that!”

“She’s kept herself to herself, mind you, all the time he’s been away. I will say that for her!”

“Wonder what he’ll be up to now. He’s turning something over in his mind, I lay!”

The hero could not help being pleased with all this attention, and after he had taken his dinner at a coffee-shop, where the waitress, informed of his distinguished reputation, stood back and watched him over an illustrated paper, he put on a collar and again lounged at the doorway. The crowd was not so great now, and consisted for the greater part of children who played tip-cat, and gave no notice to him excepting when his presence interfered with the game. Disappointed with his audience, James went indoors and, taking off his collar, indulged in the unaccustomed luxury of an afternoon nap. When his wife returned from work it struck him that she was slightly more argumentative in manner than she had been on the first day; in the course of debate she threw out a most disconcerting hint in regard to a job of work, news of which had come to her ears.

“Look ’ere, my gel!” said James definitely. “You may as well understand me fust as last. A man with so many friends as I’ve got won’t want to work for many a long day yet.”

Nevertheless the idea gave him perturbation and he went round to the Green Man to meet the friends referred to and receive from them reinforcement of his hopes and views. There were only two or three in sight, and these were outside the house; they hailed him with a casual cry of, “’Ullo, James! Your turn to stand drinks, ain’t it?” and having brought some money out, the savings of his compulsory retreat, he found himself compelled to entertain them.

“And what you think of doing now, James?” they asked. (“Here’s luck!”)

“Well,” he said slowly, “I s’pose eventually I shall ’ave to find, as the missis says, something or other. But not yet for a month or two.”

“You’ll probably discover a chance of—”

“No,” said James with emphasis. “Not me! No more jobs on the cross for this child. Risks are too great.”

“But you don’t mean to say that you’re going to chuck it?” The men were so much amazed that their glasses remained in mid-air.

“If you guess again,” said James stolidly, “you’ll be wrong.”

He looked about in Hoxton the rest of the evening for friends, and looked about in vain. The next day he called on his closest friend, the bookmaker; the bookmaker was just off to Kempton Park and in peril of losing a train at Waterloo. He had heard, it seemed, of James’s decision, and James could trace no sign of the generous friendship previously expressed. To James’s suggestion that he should accompany the bookmaker to Kempton Park, and enjoy a day at the other’s expense, the reply came prompt and definite. “That be ’anged for a tale!” said the bookmaker.

On the following Monday James went to ask about the job of work to which his wife had referred; all his worst fears were confirmed when he found himself successful in obtaining it.

“Drawback of being an ’ero is,” said James gloomily, “that it don’t last much more than about five minutes.”

XIII—DAMAGES FOR LIBEL

“A RARE rush whilst it lasts,” mentioned Mrs. Crowther, assisting in the task of clearing tables. “My dear husband used to reckon up how much we should be making profit in a year if, instead of being from twelve to two, it went on from what he called early morn to dewy eve.” She sighed. “Mr. Crowther had a lot of poetry in his disposition—much more so than most eating-house keepers in Millwall.”

“Did he make bits up out of his own ’ead?” asked the girl deferentially.

“Ethel,” said the proprietress, nursing a column of plates and speaking with resolution, “you’re new to the place, and you’re not full acquainted with the rules. Understand, once for all, please, that I don’t allow a word to be said against my late husband—nor whispered.”

“Here’s a stray customer coming in, ma’am,” remarked the assistant. “Give me that armful, and you see to him.”

A stout man, after examining the day’s announcement outside, entered and sat down with the relieved air common to those who have walked a great distance and to those who find in any form of exercise a source of trouble; he took off his hat, hung up his overcoat, and said, with relish, “Here comes the busy part of my day!”

Mrs. Crowther rested one palm on the table and gazed at the reversed notice on the window: “The Best of Everything and Everything of the Best,” giving him the space to make up his mind.

“You’ve got a nice little show here.”

“Not bad, sir,” she replied briefly. “What can I get for you?”

“Been all done up recently, too, if I mistake not. If it hadn’t been that I remembered it was exactly opposite the entrance to the works I shouldn’t have recognised it. Spent some of the ’appiest hours of my life, I did, over the way.”

“The steak and kidney pudding is off,” she said, glancing over his shoulder. She took the bill of fare from his hand and deleted the entry, returning the pencil to its position in the fastening of her blouse. Frowning at the impetuosity exhibited, he gave an order. She left, and returned with the liver and bacon and a basket containing squares of household bread.

“Any idea where my old friend Crowther is at the present moment?” he asked jovially. “Him and me were great chums in the old days that are past and done with.”

“He’s gone.”

“Where to?”

She pointed upward reverently.

“That isn’t exactly the place where I should have thought of looking for him.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded sharply.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, beginning to eat. “Only very few of us in this world, ma’am, if you don’t mind putting yourself out of the question, can be looked upon as perfect. My name’s Hards,” he went on, his mouth full. “Hards, with an aitch. Daresay you’ve heard him mention me. I’m speaking now of—what shall I say?—four, or it might be the early part of five. We were what they call inseparable, him and me, at that period.”

“Crowther gave up all his former companions when I married him.”

“He used to complain that you ruled him with a rod of iron.”

“I only wish,” she declared vehemently, “that the dear man was here to contradict you.”

“Crowther was the sort of chap,” said the other, with deliberation, “who’d contradict anything. Never better pleased than when he was arguing that black was white. I’ve known Crowther say one thing to a girl one minute, and another the—”

The customer found his plate snatched away, the remainder of his chunk of bread swept to the floor.

“Go off out of my dining-rooms,” she ordered. “Don’t you stay here another minute, or else I may use language that I shall be sorry for afterwards, and that you’ll be sorry for afterwards. There’s your hat, hanging up just behind you. Now move, sharp!”

The sleeves of his overcoat, owing to some defect in the lining, were difficult to manage, and this gave him time to protest. He had come, he declared, with no other intention than that of giving patronage to an establishment which he remembered, with affection, in the time of Crowther’s mother, and to enjoy a talk over the past; if, in the course of conversation, he had over-stepped the mark, no one regretted it more acutely than himself. A plain man, accustomed to speaking his mind, he often found that he gave offence where none was intended.

“Jack Blunt they used to call me over at the works,” he added penitently. “Owing to me having the awk’ard trick of always telling the truth!”

Mrs. Crowther so far relented as to call the new girl; she instructed her to attend to the customer the while she herself retired to the back to wash up dishes. Mr. Hards said in a whisper to the attendant: “Don’t seem to have quite pulled it off, first go!” and Ethel, also in an undertone, replied: “Mustn’t get discouraged, uncle. Mother always says it’s your one fault. Unsettle her mind about him, that’s what you’ve got to do.”

He read a newspaper after the meal, and sent to the proprietress a deferential inquiry, asking whether he might be allowed to smoke, and presently hit upon a device for securing another interview.

“Your memory seems not quite what it ought to be,” said Mrs. Crowther, following him to the doorway. “If I were you I’d see a chemist about it.”

“I should have recollected that I hadn’t settled up,” he declared, “just about as I was coming up from the subway at Greenwich.” He found coins. “No,” gazing at a shilling reverently, “mustn’t let you have that one with the hole through it. I was told it would bring me luck. Crowther was wrong for once, but he meant well.”

“Did that really once belong to my dear husband?” she asked, with eagerness. “Oh, do let me look. I’d give almost anything to be allowed to keep it.”

“Kindly accept it, ma’am, as a present from me, and as a kind of apology for the blunder I made just now.”

“I treasure everything he left behind,” said Mrs. Crowther tearfully, “since he went, last December, and I don’t know in the least how to thank you. Drop in any day you’re passing by, and let’s have another quiet chat; I’m never ’appier than when I’m talking about him.”

“My time’s practically my own,” answered Mr. Hards. “Since I retired from over opposite, owing to a slight disagreement years ago, I’ve done a bit of work, book-canvassing, but that don’t take up the entire day. So long!”

A few of the men came into the restaurant, after leaving the works; these were folk who had no expectations of finding tea or supper waiting at home, and they would have stayed on in comfort, gazing admiringly at the young proprietress, only that Mrs. Crowther offered a broad hint by instructing Ethel to find the shutters. They were drifting off, reluctantly, and one was saying to the rest that he would certainly make a dash for it (implying by this that he would make a proposal of marriage) if the lady were not so obviously devoted to a memory, when Mr. Hards appeared at the doorway, heated and exhausted by the effort to arrive before closing-time. With him a shy-looking companion, who had to be taken by the arm because he exhibited inclination to refrain, at the last moment, from entering. “Be a sport,” urged Mr. Hards. The other intimated by his manner that the task was, for him, considerable.

“Looking younger than ever,” declared Mr. Hards effusively. “How are you, ma’am, by this time? Still keeping well? Allow me to introduce you to my friend Ashton.”

“Very pleased,” said Mrs. Crowther with a nod. “What will you gentlemen take—tea or coffee?”

“Don’t suppose,” he remarked still in complimentary tones, “that we shall be able to tell any difference. Ashton, you decide.”

Ashton, looking around, inquired whether the place did not possess a licence; Mrs. Crowther gave the answer, and he said that perhaps coffee would do him as little harm as anything.

“Happened to run across him,” explained Mr. Hards, “and mentioned that I’d met you by chance, ma’am, and he says ‘Not the widow of silly old Millwall Crowther?’ he says. Just like that. Didn’t you, Ashton?”

Mrs. Crowther turned abruptly, and went to furnish the order. “Mind you say ‘yes’ to everything,” ordered Hards privately and strenuously, “or else I’ll make it hot for you.”

The two greeted Mrs. Crowther with frank and open countenances.

“The late lamented,” went on Mr. Hards, with a confidential air, “as you may or may not be aware, used to be in the ’abit of paying attentions to my friend Ashton’s sister.”

“I know all about that,” she remarked curtly. “It was before he met me.”

“And, realising how anxious you was to get hold of everything that once belonged to him, I persuaded him to hop off home and have a search. And lo and behold,” producing a small paper parcel from the inside pocket of his overcoat, “he found this.” Mr. Hards untied the string with deliberation. “There you are!” triumphantly. “_Pearls from the Poets_. And inside, his handwriting.”

“Not sure that I want anything that he gave away to another lady at a time when him and me were not acquainted.”

“The date’ll settle that,” said Hards. “Ashton, your eyes are younger than mine; what do you make of it?”

Ashton recited the entry with an emphasis on the date; Mrs. Crowther grabbed at the book, glanced at the writing, and sat down on the nearest chair, gazing steadily at a ginger-ale advertisement.

“Don’t tell me,” begged Hards distressedly, “that I’ve put my foot into it again. ’Pon my word, if I ain’t the most unlucky chap alive. If I’d had the leastest idea that I was going to be the means of disclosing to you the circumstance that Crowther gave away presents of this kind, and with this sort of remark, after he was married to you, why, I’d sooner—”

She started up with the book, and, selecting the fly-page, placed this between her eyes and the gas-light.

“Some one’s been altering the date,” she said quietly. She threw the volume across. “You gentlemen have got just two minutes and a half before we close for the night. And, as the business is doing pretty well, perhaps you don’t mind if I suggest you never show your faces inside here again.” She went.

“Any objection to me offering you a word of advice, old man?” asked Ashton, on the pavement. “You’re on the wrong tack. When a woman’s made up her mind, the best plan is to agree with her. What you ought to do—”

“Keep quiet,” ordered the other exasperatedly. “Can’t you see I’m thinking?”

They crossed, and walked beside the blank wall of the works.

Ashton was again invited, in plain language, to preserve silence by putting his head in a bag. The lights went out in the restaurant opposite; on the first floor a match was struck and applied to the gas globes; the music of a pianoforte was heard.

“It’s a shame,” declared Hards, throwing out his arms emphatically, “a right-down shame for a nice-looking young woman of her sort to be left alone and neglected. Here she is, able to cook, able to play, very good to look at, and she’s no business to be left by herself.”

“Evidently she don’t want to be left with you.”

“You hop off home,” ordered Hards, “soon as ever you like, and take that book with you, and don’t you ever attempt to interfere again with matters you’ve got no concern in. Otherwise—”

His friend hurried away without taking the opportunity to hear the alternative.

Mr. Hards waited until his niece came out with a letter for the post. A whistle brought her to him from the pillar-box.

“Who was it addressed to?” he demanded. The girl replied that she had omitted to look.

“’Pon my word,” he cried, “I seem to be surrounded by lunatics. Nobody’s got a particle of sense, so far as I can ascertain, excepting myself. No wonder I can’t manage matters as I should like. But, putting all that on one side, what I want now is another interview with her.”

“Judging by what she said after you left, you’re not likely to get it.”

“Look here, my girl. It was your own mother’s suggestion at the start, and she won’t be best pleased if you make yourself a stumbling-block. She, for some reason, seems to have got tired of me living in her house at Greenwich, and it was her idea I should marry well, and settle down somewhere else. Apart from which, I’ve arrived at a time of life when I need a woman’s care and good feeding, and enough money in my pocket to stand treat to friends after they’ve stood treat to me.” He spoke distinctly. “I’m going to knock at that door over there presently, and you’ve got to let me in, and you can stand by and listen whilst I say a few words, and put it all on a proper footing.”

“But she hates the very sight of you.”

“The sort of sensation,” he declared, “that can soon be turned to love.”

Mr. Hards thought it wiser, on finding himself outside the door of the restaurant, to give a sharp double knock. He smiled contentedly on hearing young Mrs. Crowther’s voice call out: “It’s all right, Ethel. Only the postman. I’ll answer him!” She opened the door, and faced him with a look of expectancy that at once vanished.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat, “but I’ve been speaking my mind to that young fellow, and he asked me to call back and apologise on his behalf. I never noticed what he’d been up to, altering that date; it wanted a lady’s sharpness and a lady’s intelligence to detect that. What he wants me to say is he acted on the impulse of the moment.”

“He’d better give up acting altogether,” she remarked. “Did you really know my husband well, or was it all gas?”

“Didn’t I never tell you about that affair poor Crowther and me had with a bobby down near the London Docks one night in November? A fine chap,” went on Hards reminiscently, “if ever there was one. The way he could put up his dooks whenever there was trouble about! I seldom met a fellow who was his equal. He was what I call a manly man. When they told me he’d gone and left you a widow I cried like a child, I did.”

“I was upset at the time,” remarked Mrs. Crowther, “but it soon wore off.”

“It’s often struck me,” he went on, surprised, “that perhaps you didn’t appreciate him at his true value whilst he was alive. Very likely you don’t know, as I know, the way he used to talk about you behind your back.”

“If it was anything like the way he talked in front of my face, I’d rather not hear.”

“Anyway, I daresay, ma’am, you often find yourself looking about for his successor?”

“To tell you the truth, I do.”

He tried to take her hand, but failed.

“I can see him now,” he remarked sentimentally. “We was walking together in Stratford Broadway, and suddenly he turned to me and he says, ‘Ernest,’ he says, ‘something seems to tell me I’m not long for this world. I want you to make me a promise,’ he says. ‘If anything amiss happens to me, I look to you to be a friend to the wife. And if so be,’ he says, with a sort of a kind of a break in his voice, ‘if so be as you should take a fancy to her, and she should take a fancy to you, nothing would give me more pleasure looking down on you both,’ he says, ‘than to—’”

“Bequeathed me to you, did he?”

“It amounts to that, ma’am.”

“All this is news to me,” she remarked. “About what date was it?”

“About what date?” echoed Hards, rubbing his chin. “I can give it you within a very little. It was the night before I met William Humphries, and him and me had a few friendly words about football, and I was in the horspital for three weeks. That was the early part of December. I think it was December you said that poor Crowther drew his last breath. Must have been only a few days—three at the utmost—that he had his talk with me.”

“That seems strange.”

“Strange things do occur in this world.”

“Because Crowther was laid up in his last illness for four months inside this house, and never went outside until the undertaker’s man carried him. And a pretty tidy nuisance he was, too, then, and, in fact, all the time I was married to him. Is that a constable-coming along, or a postman?”

Hards, having ascertained that the approaching man did not represent the law, remained, searching his mind busily. The postman stopped, gave Mrs. Crowther a letter with a foreign postmark, and remarked that the evening was fine.

“His ship will be home here within a fortnight,” she cried excitedly, glancing at the first words of the communication. “Two weeks from to-day.”

“Who?”

“Nobody you know,” said Mrs. Crowther. “And then we shall be married, and I shan’t have to keep the men at the works off by pretending to be so fond of my first. It’s taken a bit of doing. Let me think, now. You want to see Ethel, I expect, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to see no one,” he declared with an emphatic gesture, “no one on this side of the river ever again, so long as I jolly well live!”

XIV—THE REST CURE

“KNEW you’d like it, dear,” said Mr. Gleeson confidently. “I declared the moment I saw the place, ‘Now this,’ I said to myself, ‘this will suit the dear wife down to the ground.’ Just look at that bit over there. (Wait a moment, driver.) Isn’t that simply—”

He gave a gesture which meant that the English language provided no adequate words. His wife, with one hand upon his shoulder, offered an “Ah!” of content.

“You must paint this,” he went on, recovering powers of speech. “You must bring your easel and your white umbrella some morning when I’m busy, and try to get this effect. See the top of the church spire above the trees?”

“That there’s a oast house,” interrupted the driver.

“You will not forget that I shall have my duties in the village,” she reminded him. “We are going to make life brighter, you know, for everybody.”

“True!” he admitted. “It will require discretion.”

“And diplomacy.”

“Still, we’re not exactly amateurs. We bring something like a ripe experience to the task. This will be child’s play after London. Think of the difference in numbers. Driver, how many inhabitants are there in Murford Green?”

“Can’t say as I ever counted ’em.”

“But speaking approximately.”

“Well,” said the driver, with deliberation, “speaking approximately, I should say they was no better than they ought to be. And you’ll excuse me, but I’ve got to get back to meet the five-eight, and if you and your lady could give me what you may call permission to go on now without any more pulling up, I shall jest do it. Otherwise I shan’t, and then Miss Bulwer won’t let me never hear the last of it. That’s what she won’t!”

“Who is Miss Bulwer?”

“Look ’ere,” argued the driver, half turning in his seat. “I’ve answered a pretty tidy number of questions sence we started from the railway station, and I’m beginning to lose my voice, and I’m not far off from losing my temper. But in reference to your question concerning, or regarding, or affecting Miss Bulwer, my answer is, you’ll jolly soon find out! Is that good enough for you, or isn’t it?”

“Merely a surface manner,” explained Mr. Gleeson, as the open fly trundled on again. “You don’t know these people, my dear. A certain veneer of brusqueness, but underneath that good pure gold. Simple natures, I admit, but as honest and straightforward—Wonder,” dropping his voice, “wonder how much he expects for this journey?”

“Pay him well,” suggested young Mrs. Gleeson, also in a whisper. “We must make a good impression at the start. Say eighteen-pence.”

“Fortunately,” resuming ordinary tones, “both you and I will be protected and saved by our keen sense of humour.” He smiled. “I expect our arrival will flutter Murford Green pretty considerably. On an even surface the slightest ripple shows.”

Both stood up in the open carriage on finding that the prophecy seemed to receive full justification. Twenty or thirty men and lads were rushing across the triangle of green, shouting wildly; in their hands they carried stout hammers and long-handled axes; women cheered from doorways of cottages. A few were distracted temporarily by sight of the station fly, but, reproved by the others, they went on, atoning for the slight delay by shrieking more loudly than the rest.

“Anything on, driver?”

“Something coming off,” answered the man. “I said what’d ’appen when people began to lock up gates that’d been open for gen’rations and gen’rations. I warned ’em, but they wouldn’t take no notice. And I ain’t of’en wrong, neither,” concluded the driver.

“Don’t be frightened, dear,” urged Mr. Gleeson. “I’ll go out presently and set it to rights. One wise word from an impartial person, and it will all be over.”

The driver said at the destination that, times without number, he had received three and six for the service, paid willingly; if the gentleman had no more silver he supposed he would have to be content with three shillings. In reply to contentions, the driver asked whether Mr. Gleeson was aware of the price being asked, at the present moment, for oats, and Mr. Gleeson having to admit that his knowledge on this subject was incomplete, the driver retorted, “Very well then, what’s the use of arguing? Why not pay up and look pleasant over it?” The fare obeyed the first part of this recommendation. The two maids (sent on in advance from Kensington) stood inside the gate, and caught the driver’s farewell remark.

“Really, ma’am,” said the elder primly, “the manners of these people! I thought I knew something about language, but I’ve learnt something the three days we’ve been down here. Had a pleasant journey? Me and Sarah have both been feeling humpish. I told her it would be all right soon as ever you and the master came.”

Mr. Gleeson set out, immediately after a meal, to arrange the question that was troubling Murford Green. He had changed into a Norfolk suit, and as a further concession smoked a briar pipe; with a thick walking-stick he prodded at dock-leaves on the green. Near one corner of the triangle a meeting was being held, with a large-faced man shouting excitedly from a Windsor chair. Mr. Gleeson, crossing over, added himself to the audience.

“Well spoke,” sang the crowd, as the large man appeared to finish. “Very well putt!”

“There’s my shop ’cross there,” shouted the orator, pointing to windows that had “Crutchley, Butcher,” in marble letters overhead. “If any one thinks I’ve broke the law, that’s where they can serve a summons.”

The crowd looked around at the village constable. The constable frowned with the air of a man who had not entirely succeeded in making up his mind.

“We’ve got our rights,” the butcher went on, “and I defy any one to say the contrairy. If there’s anybody here who don’t agree with me, now’s the time for him to step up and express his opinion. Free speech is our motto and— What name, please?”

“My name is Gleeson,” announced the newcomer, “and I should like to say a few words.”

“For the agitation, may I ask, or against?”

“My attitude,” said Mr. Gleeson, “is that of a peace-maker.”

The crowd grumbled; the butcher called for order. Mr. Gleeson ascended the chair.

When, at the end of ten minutes, he stepped down, only the constable was there to give him a hand. The constable accounted for the dispersal of the crowd by pointing out that supper time was near, and on Mr. Gleeson asking whether he thought the words spoken had produced any effect, replied, cautiously, that it was difficult to say. The constable, as one who had looked on at many struggles, gave the opinion that you could not do better than let the parties fight it out and, this done, then possibly, but not certainly, came the moment for you to interfere. Mr. Gleeson felt bound, in reply, to mention that he had in his time been called to the bar; intimated that, in circumstances such as these, it seemed more fitting that he should give advice than take it.

“Now,” admitted the constable, “now you’re putting a different light, sir, on the matter. To tell the truth, I wasn’t quite aweer who I was talking to. I look on your arrival here, sir, as particular fortunate, because you can back me up in any action I see fit to take.”

“Any correct action.”

“That’s the only way I’ve got of doing things. I’ve never yet made a blunder, and I don’t suppose now I ever shall.”

“We are all of us liable to err,” pointed out Mr. Gleeson.

“Being liable to do a thing,” retorted the constable judicially, “and actually doing it, is two entirely different matters. Shall I tell you, sir, what idea has just come into my head?”

Permission given.

“This is the way I get ’old of notions,” went on the other self-exultantly. “I may be walking along a quiet lane, or standing here, as I am now, and all at once they come into my noddle like a—well, more like a flash of lightning than anything else. It’s won’erful. Gives me quite a turn for the moment. Guess what the notion is that I’ve just thought of.”

The gentleman from London excused himself from making the attempt, and found his arm hooked confidentially by the handle of the policeman’s stick.

“I’ll bring over to your ’ouse this very evening two of the leaders of this movement, or agitation, or whatever you like to call it. You take down their evidence and to-morrow you go and call on Miss Bulwer. She’s the lady who’s been trying to stop up this path. You talk it over with her, you do, and settle it, and then announce your decision. As easy,” concluded the policeman, detecting hesitation, “as easy as saying the A.B.C.”

Two days later the constable, on receiving news from Crutchley, Butcher, that the affair had been amicably settled, was able to state that the village could reckon itself once more in debt to him, and mentioned the case of a colleague at Middlesham who had recently been presented by grateful inhabitants with a bicycle. Later came information that Miss Bulwer had discharged her housemaid, with a month’s wages in lieu of notice; the driver of the station fly, in the course of a chat with his fare, ascertained the cause for her dismissal was that Miss Bulwer had understood her (the housemaid) to say, before the Londoner’s call, that she believed Mr. Gleeson was a bachelor, whereas the departing housemaid declared she had only mentioned that he was clean-shaven. All the same the decision of the arbitrator stood; Miss Bulwer was declared to be the owner of the right of way, but graciously permitted the inhabitants to use it. Few of the villagers had walked along the path before the locked gate was placed there, and no one showed any anxiety to do so now that it was thrown open.

“A most satisfactory beginning,” said Mr. Gleeson to his young wife. “Nothing could be more auspicious. Now, we are about to take up the task of breaking down some barriers on our own account. Your help, dear, will be specially needed.”

“I haven’t your tact.”

“You have something better, my love,” he replied gallantly. “You have charm. Together we ought to do a great work.”

“The place is beautifully quiet now,” she remarked.

“‘If there’s peace to be found in the world,’” quoted Mr. Gleeson, “‘a heart that is humble may hope for it here.’”

“The girls are complaining.”

“They will soon become accustomed to the village and its surroundings. It takes time for a Londoner to settle down. The silence,” he went on, going to the window, “is to me most impressive.”

“It appears to strike them as being dull.”

That evening, when the two were consulting the local directory, taking down names and perfecting arrangements, a sudden uproar started near the open windows, and the servants came hurrying in to make protest against the noise; Mary and Emma urged that the master ought to go out and see what was happening. Looking through the open window the group could see that every man, every lad, every woman carried articles capable of producing clamour: some bore dustpans, some toy drums, some fire-irons. Mr. Gleeson felt able to give an explanation to the affrighted woman. It had, he believed, to do with bees; not quite certain about details, he felt sure it concerned bees—swarming or something of the kind.

“I don’t want to be stung,” said cook nervously. “Wasps always make straight for me!”

The crowd stopped at a house facing the green, and there the hullabaloo increased to such an extent that Mr. Gleeson, finding his cap, announced an intention of putting a stop to the row without further delay. The women expected the turmoil would cease directly he reached the scene; they observed that he spoke to one or two, remonstrating with them; the folk seemed to be making an explanation, and he again used argumentative gestures; they appeared to order him to go away and, after one or two further efforts, he retired. The uproar continued.

“Not bees,” he announced, entering the room. “No! My dear, just send the maids to the kitchen.”

The girls went.

“A primitive custom,” he explained, “with which I was not previously acquainted. It seems a retired farmer living at the house in question lost his wife three months ago.”

“Surely a strange way of expressing sympathy.”

“That is not exactly the idea. The retired farmer has married again—married the nurse, and the village thinks it not quite right.”

“It isn’t right,” she declared warmly. “I consider the villagers are quite justified in their action.”

“I don’t agree with you, dear.”

“If I died,” she contended, “and you married again in such a short time, I should be very much gratified in looking down to find that people—”

“Why do you say ‘down’?” The contention in the Gleesons’ house rivalled the demonstration in the roadway.

Mutual apologies having been made the next morning—

“I spoke without thinking of what I was saying, my love.”

“I suppose, dear, I am too sensitive.”

—The great task came up before them to be tackled. Mr. Gleeson made a short speech to his wife on the subject, calling it a scheme for welding the village into one harmonious whole, and they were both gratified by this neat way of putting the case. One harmonious whole, echoed Mrs. Gleeson. One harmonious whole, he repeated firmly.

So the two set out, furnished with cards, to call upon residents; an undertaking the more necessary and excusable because residents had made no attempt to call upon them. They divided the task, arranging to meet two hours later and report progress of affairs, and meanwhile said farewell in an affectionate style outside the house; two little girls, looking on with a scandalised air, prepared to run off to tell their respective mothers.

“Good luck, dear,” said Mrs. Gleeson.

“Bon voyage, ma cherie,” he replied. They kissed again.

At the time appointed she returned with satisfaction and triumph announced on her attractive young features. Her husband had not arrived, and she strolled across to some children who were fixing wickets for a game; they drew the stumps and retired to another corner of the green.

“Shy little things,” remarked Mrs. Gleeson.

She flag-signalled with a lace handkerchief to her husband, who could be seen walking slowly in the distance, but he was gazing at the dusty road in a thoughtful manner and did not respond; she ran to meet him and to take his arm.

“Well?” he asked shortly.

Everybody had said yes, she answered with enthusiasm. No sooner had she given the invitation than they accepted. The vicar, the Congregationalist minister, the auctioneer (who was also insurance agent, and local representative for Chipley’s Celebrated Guanos), the schoolmaster, Crutchley, the postman, two labourers, and the man who usually stood outside the Three Bells with a wisp of straw between his teeth—every one of these and others she had secured, every one had made careful note of the date.

“And you?” she asked.

Mr. Gleeson confessed his record was not so excellent. Miss Bulwer delayed him for thirty-five minutes, and, a grievance still rankling, managed in that time to intimate that she bossed the village.

“Her own phrase,” he said excusingly.

Miss Bulwer flattered herself she performed the task well, and certainly did not propose to allow new-comers to interfere. Miss Bulwer agreed that the barriers of class should be broken down; she came of a Liberal stock, and her father sat in Parliament once for nearly a year, but rather than meet Crutchley or any of his set on friendly terms, she would willingly be burnt at the stake.

“But surely, dear, it was an error, if you don’t mind my saying so, to tell her that we had invited anybody else.”

“Thought it fairer,” he replied.

“I said nothing of the kind to some of mine.”

“You should have done.”

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Gleeson, “but perhaps you will admit that my plan proved more successful.”

“Those two sisters, the dressmakers, are coming,” he went on, declining to argue the point, “and three other women accepted and promised to be with us providing nothing better turned up in the meantime. Singularly frank and open in their speech,” he remarked, with a sigh. “They went so far as to ask me what we expected to make out of it.”

“I like people to be genuine.”

“There are limits,” he said, “which should not be exceeded. Let us go in and reckon up the number of guests.”

The two small girls who had seen them kiss each other took up a position near the fence, watching with undisguised curiosity as Mr. and Mrs. Gleeson sat at the window completing arrangements. As these proceeded Mr. Gleeson regained something of his early enthusiasm. He intended to make a speech to the company, once the visitors were assembled, and his wife suggested that if his mind was made up in this regard, he had better rehearse; he walked up and down the room, using appropriate gestures, the while the two little spectators held on to the fence in their anxiety to miss nothing.

“Did you remember to telegraph to the Stores?” he demanded, breaking off.

“I did.”

“And have the things arrived?”

“Not yet. But they never fail.”

“Find a man,” he ordered, “the one outside the Three Bells, and send him off at once. Unless I see to everything, there is always a muddle!”

Full justification for the issuing of this command was found when the man returned with the case; it had duly arrived by the mid-day train and would, he reported, have remained at the station until goodness knew when if he had not been sent to fetch it. The man offered to prise open the lid, and on seeing the contents made the announcement that the two shops of the village would not be best pleased to hear that goods similar to those which might have been purchased at their establishments had been imported from town. Asked by the anxious young hostess to give his own opinion, the man said he was all for liberty and freedom, and letting people do as they liked, but he felt bound to say that home industries ought to be patronised. He had often argued this in the Three Bells, and felt he ought not to say behind people’s backs anything he did not dare to speak in front of their faces.

“All the same,” he added, accepting the shilling, “I shall pop round in good time this evening. You can rely upon me. My word’s as good as me bond.”

Now the two maids began to fly to and fro. Now Mr. Gleeson set out chairs on the lawn at the back in preparation for an overflow meeting. Now furniture was moved and the pianoforte opened. Now one of the maids ran across to hire twenty cups and saucers, and returned from the shop with the message that only regular customers were obliged in this way; the cups and saucers could be purchased, or they could be let alone, but no third alternative existed. Mr. Gleeson went over his speech once more and, on the suggestion of his wife, introduced a more pronounced tone of geniality, leaving out some of the sterner views concerning the value of friendship. Mrs. Gleeson’s sketches were set in a good position. Mr. Gleeson tried “I am a Jolly Mariner,” and decided he had found himself in worse voice. At seven o’clock they were ready for the thirty-five guests, and Mr. Gleeson snatched a few moments to practise a smile of welcome, one that would indicate gratification without degenerating into a broad grin.

“We shall find them rather difficult at first,” he mentioned. “I must get you to help me, my dear, to make them feel thoroughly at home from the very outset. Wish you had thought to order some crackers.”

“Sorry!”

“In Stepney, if you remember, the pulling of these and the wearing of paper caps at once put everybody at their ease. What’s the time now?”

She exhibited her watch.

“Mary asked the constable just now whether anything of the kind had ever been arranged before and he said ‘No.’”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Mr. Gleeson.

“He added ‘And never won’t again, neither.’”

“The ability of peering into the future,” he remarked, nettled, “is a gift denied even to the village policeman. He seems to have the idea that no one can do right excepting himself.”

“There’s a knock.”

Please, ma’am (announced Mary), Mr. Crutchley, the butcher, has sent over to know whether we want a joint for Sunday, because if so we had better say so in good time. Ask the messenger (replied Mrs. Gleeson) to tell Crutchley that we shall only trouble him in the case of chops and steaks; the larger orders have been placed in town. Very well, ma’am. Mary, returning three minutes later, apologised for the message she had now to deliver; Crutchley sent word that where the Gleesons procured their joints there they could procure their chops and steaks; Crutchley told the messenger to add that he was not in the habit of being under an obligation to any one.

“I disliked the man,” declared Mr. Gleeson warmly, “from the very first. Understand, my dear, please, that not another penny of mine is to be spent in his shop—not another halfpenny.”

Another ring, and Mary, with a look of greater satisfaction, announced the vicar.

“Ah,” said the visitor, entering breezily, “Liberty Hall, Liberty Hall. This is extremely satisfactory. How are we this evening? Settling down to country life? That’s good. Before I forget it, there are two or three funds under my control, the finances of which are in rather—what shall I say?”

“Low water.”

“Capital!” declared the vicar, with enthusiasm. “The very phrase! Now I’m not going to bother you, and hate above all things any suspicion of begging, but if you have your cheque-book handy— How very, very kind of you! A great day, for Murford Green—here’s a fountain pen—for Murford Green when you two delightful people decided to take up your residence here. Thank you so much: I’ll blot it. Equally divided, shall we say? A thousand obligations. I have a number of letters to write; will you forgive me if I run off? Pray give my sincere regards to all the dear people. All the dear people. The dear people. Dear people. People.” The voice disappeared in the manner of a ventriloquist’s entertainment.

A note from the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster was sorry, but he had only just ascertained that the Rev. Mr. Barton, Congregationalist minister, had been asked, and in these circumstances the schoolmaster begged to be excused. A note from Mr. Barton. Mr. Barton, having ascertained that the schoolmaster had been invited, felt it impossible to meet that gentleman until he had withdrawn certain remarks concerning Passive Resisters, and hoped Mrs. Gleeson would permit him to defer his visit. The postman called at the back door to say that he could have spared an hour, and would have spared an hour, but talk was going on in the village, and until this received contradiction it was more than his position, as a Government official, was worth to set foot inside the house. Mary, answering her master’s impatient reprimand, declared she had asked for further particulars; the postman, with a deep blush, assured her it was not a subject he could discuss with a single young woman; on Mary insisting, he referred her to a Mrs. Larch, living in one of a row of cottages not far away. The Gleesons, greatly disturbed, requested the maid to fly in that direction and obtain details. As Mary went out of the front gate they noticed the two invited labourers, dressed in black suits.

“Beg pardon, missy,” they heard one of them say, “but if it ent a rude question, is there going to be any beer purvided at this affair what’s to come off this evening?” The maid gave an answer and ran on. “Not?” they echoed amazedly. “Very well then! No bloomin’ beer; no bloomin’ us!”

Other excuses came. The odd man of the Three Bells alone remained unaccounted for, and he arrived, pulling at the garden gate, which he should have pushed, and solving the difficulty by climbing over. Approaching the open window, he lurched across the flower-bed, took off his hat to Mr. Gleeson, blew a clumsy kiss to Mrs. Gleeson.

“Not coming in,” he said, with a wink. “No fear! Not me! Got my rep’tation to consider. I sh’d never ’old up my ’ead again. Warm lot, you Londoners. Thank goodness I was born ’n bred in the country. Honest man, that’s what I am, and I don’t care who says I’m not. You never catch me ’ugging a girl in middle of the roadway. Not me!”

A council was held so soon as the maid came back. Mary had assured Mrs. Larch that her master and her mistress were married, for she herself was present at the wedding, and the lady offered two suggestions: one that Mary’s eyesight was defective, the other that people only used a foreign language when they desired to say something that could not be spoken in decent English. Mary, having delivered the news, stood back and waited.

“Have you no suggestion to make, my dear?” asked the worried Mr. Gleeson. His wife shook her head despondently.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the maid, with respect, “but me and Emma have been talking it over, and as she says the doctor ordered you quiet, and you haven’t yet succeeded in letting the house at Kensington, what’s to prevent us from—”

“Get the A.B.C.,” he ordered. “We’ll find out what time there’s a train back to town in the morning.”

XV—REWARD FOR COURAGE

THE Committee gave Mr. Mayor the time to put on, with the aid of his man, the official garments. One member asked who was looking after Enderby, and the agitated young secretary ran into the largest room in the Town Hall, returned with the satisfactory assurance that the man was seated in the front row, well guarded by friends.