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Bessie tinted the world for Robert like a sunrise. All through the day he carried memories of lightless woods, of fields hushed in the swale, of the smudge of her old purple cotton beside him—of, perhaps, some dim divine moment when his hand had touched hers hanging at her side.
Then winter came, with carol-singing, and the choristers tramped round, lantern-led, from farm to farm. There in the fluttering light outside Kitchenhour, Old Turk, Ellenwhorne, or Edzell, Robert would watch Bessie's chicory-flower eyes under her hood, while the steam of their breath mingled in the frosty air, and they drooped their heads together, singing to each other, only to each other, "Good King Wenceslas," "As Joseph was a-walking," or "In the Fields with their Flocks."
As they were both simple souls, their love only made the words more real. Sometimes it seemed almost as if they could see up in the white glistering field behind the barn, the manger with the baby in it, the mother watching near, and the ox and the ass standing meekly beside them in the straw. Bessie said she felt sure that the shepherds watched their flocks by night in the little old meadow at the corner of Totease ... she once thought she had heard them singing. But she would not go and look.
As the year climbed up again into spring, a tender pity for Bessie mingled with Robert's love. It was not the pity which begets love, but the sweeter kind which is begotten of it. Robert forgot all about his own hard life, the monotonous ruthless grind of work, the absence of all softness, homeliness, or sympathy, the denial of all gaiety and sport. He thought only of Bessie's troubles, and would have given the world to lighten them. He longed to give her some little treat, or a present. But he had no money. For the first time he inwardly rebelled against the system which kept him penniless. None of the boys had any money, except Pete on Fair days—not even Albert, for the Rye Advertiser did not pay its poets. For the first time Robert saw this as unjust.
March blew some warm twilights to Peasmarsh, and the choristers began their summer lingering. Bessie and Robert often took the longer way home by Ellenwhorne—he would not leave her now till they were at her cottage door, and often he would run home hare-footed from Eggs Hole, afraid that he might be shut out of Odiam, and perhaps his precious comradeship discovered and put under the tyrant's ban.
Then came an evening in April, when the air smelled of primroses and young leaves. The choir practice was early, and rifts of sunshine sloped up the clerk's kitchen, linking in one golden slant Robert's dark healthy face just under the ceiling, Bessie's shoulders pressed against his arm, the frail old hands of Joe Hearsfield on his flute, and the warm plum-brown of the bass viol close to the floor. To Robert it was all a dream of holiness and harmony. Old Spodgram confined himself almost entirely to two notes, Miss Hubble insisted on her four bars of arrears, young Ditch extemporised an alto of surprising reediness, and Robert bellowed the last lines of the last verse just as the other choristers were loudly taking in breath preparatory to line three—but the whole thing was to him a foretaste of Paradise and the angels singing ever world without end.
When the practice was over it was still light, and Robert and Bessie turned inevitably along the little bostal that trickles through the fields towards Ramstile. As usual they did not speak, but in each glowed the thought that they had a full two hours to live through together in the mystery of these sorrowless fields.
The sun set as they came to Ellenwhorne. They stood and watched it dip behind the little cluster of roofs and oast-houses in the west. The turrets of the oasts stood out black against the crimson, then suddenly they purpled, faded into their background of night-washed cloud.
The fields were very dark in their low corners, only their high sweeps shimmered in the ghostly lemon glow. Out of the rabbit-warrens along the hedges, from the rims of the woods, ran the rabbits to scuttle and play. Bessie and Robert saw the bob of their white tails through the dusk, and now and then a little long-eared shape.
The boy and girl were still silent. But in the consciousness each had of the other, kindled and spread a strange dear poignancy. They walked side by side through the dusk, now faintly cold. Dew began to tremble and shine on the grass, to pearl the brambles and glimmer on the twigs.
Robert looked sideways at Bessie. She was colourless in the dark, or rather coloured all over with the same soft grey, which gathered up into itself the purple of her gown and the pale web of her hair. In her eyes was a quiver of starlight.
Their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly Bessie stopped and lifted her shoe:
It's justabout wet, Robby.
He looked.
So it be—I shudn't have brought you through all this damp grass. We shud have gone by the lane, I reckon.
Oh, no, she breathed, and her voice and the half-seen glimmer of her eyes troubled him strangely.
Lookee, I'll carry you—you mustn't git wet.
She opened her lips to protest, but the sound died on them, for he stooped and swept her up in his arms. She slipped her hand to his neck to steady herself, and they went forward again towards the south.
Bessie was a sturdily built little person, but the weight of her was a rich delight, and if his arms strained, they strained with tenderness as well as with effort. Under them her frock crushed and gave out a fragrance of crumpled cotton, her hand was warm against his neck, and on his cheek tickled her soft hair. The shadows ran towards them from the corners of the field, slipping like ghosts over the grass, and one or two pale stars kindled before them, where the sky dropped into the woods.... An owl lifted his note of sadness, which wandered away over the fields to Ellenwhorne....
Her young face bowed to his neck, and suddenly his lips crept round and lay against the coolness of her cheek. She did not move, and he still walked on, the grass splashing under his feet, the rabbits scampering round him, showing their little cotton-tails in the dark.
Then his mouth stole downwards and groped for hers. Their lips fluttered together like moths. Then suddenly she put her arms round his neck, and strained his head to her, and kissed him and kissed him, with queer little sobs in her throat....
He still walked on through the deepening night and skipping rabbits. He never paused, just carried her and kissed her; and she kissed him, stroking his face with her hands—and all without a word.
At last they reached the lane by Eggs Hole Cottage, which with shimmering star-washed front looked towards the south. He stopped, and she slid to the ground. Then suddenly the words came.
Oh, my liddle thing! My dear liddle thing ... my sweet liddle thing!
Robby, Robby....
They kissed each other again and again, eagerly like children, but with the tears of men and women in their eyes.
Robby ... I love you ... I love you so!
Oh, you liddle thing!
They were hungry ... their arms wound about each other and their faces pressed close, now cheek to cheek, now with lips fluttering together in those sweet kisses of youth which have so much of shyness in their passion.
Suddenly a light kindled in the little house. Bessie slipped from him, and ran up the pathway into the dark gape of the door.
In August Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and the yoke tightened on Odiam. All had now been pressed into service, even the epileptic George. From morning till night feet tramped, hoofs stamped, wheels rolled, backs bent, arms swung. Reuben himself worked hardest of all, for to his actual labour must be added long tramps from one part of the farm to the other to superintend his sons' work. Besides, he would allow nothing really important to be undertaken without him. He must be present when the first scythe swept into the hay, when his wonderful horse-reaper took its first step along the side of the cornfield, he must himself see to the spreading of the hops over the drying furnaces in the oasts, or rise in the cold twinkling hour after midnight to find out how Buttercup was doing with her calf.
Pete made an able and keen lieutenant, but the other boys were still disappointing. It is true that Benjamin worked well and was often smart enough, but he had a roving disposition, which was more dangerous than Albert's, since it led him invariably down to the muddy Rother banks at Rye, where the great ships stood in the water, filling the air with good smells of fish and tar. Jemmy would loaf for hours round the capstans and building-stocks, and the piles of muddy rope that smelled of ooze, and he would talk to the sailormen and fishermen about voyages to the Azores and the Cape or to the wild seas south of the Horn, and would come home prating of sails and smoke-stacks, charts and logs, and other vain things that had nothing to do with Odiam. Reuben remembered that the boy's mother came of a family of ship-builders and sailormen, and he would tremble for Jemmy's allegiance, and punish his truancies twice as severely as Albert's.
Another trial to him now was that Robert seemed half-hearted. Hitherto he had always worked conscientiously and well, even though he had never been smart or particularly keen; but now he seemed to loaf and slack—he dawdled, slipped clear of what he could, and once he actually asked Reuben for wages! This was unheard-of—not one of Reuben's sons had ever dreamed of such a thing before.
Wages!—wot are you wanting wages fur, young r?ascal? You're working to save money, not to earn it. You wait till all yon Moor is mine, and Odiam's the biggest farm in Sussex, before you ask fur wages.
Up till then Robert had never troubled much about money. He did not want to buy books like Albert and Richard, neither did he care for drinking in Rye pubs with fishermen like Jemmy. But now everything was changed. He wanted money for Bessie. He wanted to marry her, and he must have money for that, no matter how meanly they started; and also he wanted to give her treats and presents, to cheer the dullness of her life. Reuben had indeed been wise in trying to keep the girls away from his sons!
There are no two such things for sharpening human wits as fullness of love and shortness of cash. Robert's brain was essentially placid and lumbering, but under this double spur it began to work wonders. After much pondering he thought of a plan. It was part of his duties to snare rabbits on Boarzell. Every evening he went round and inspected the traps, killed any little squealing prisoners that were in them, and sold them on market days at Rye. It was after all an easy thing to report and hand over the money for ten rabbits a week, while keeping the price of, say, three more, and any other man would have thought of it sooner.
In this way he managed to do a few little things to brighten Bessie's grey life—and his own too, though he did not know it was grey. Every week he put aside a shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at last to make their marriage possible. It was Reuben's fight for Boarzell on an insignificant scale—though Robert, who had not so much iron in him as his father, could not resist spending money from time to time on unnecessary trifles that would give Bessie happiness. For one thing he discovered that she had never been to the Fair. She had never known the delights of riding on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at Aunt Sally, watching the shooting or the panorama. Robert resolved to take her that autumn, and bought her a pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for the day.
Unluckily, however, he was not made for a career of prolonged fraud, and he ingloriously foundered in that sea of practical details through which the cunning man must steer his schemes. He fixed the number of rabbits to be sold at Rye as ten a week, pocketing the surplus whether it were one or six. This was a pretty fair average, but its invariable occurrence for seven or eight weeks could not fail to strike Reuben, whose brain was not placid and slow-moving like his son's.
The one thing against the idea that Robert was swindling him was that he thought Robert utterly incapable of so much contrivance. However, he had noticed several changes in the boy of late, and he resolved to wait another two weeks, keeping his eyes open and his tongue still. Each week ten rabbits were reported sold at Rye and the money handed over to him. On the morning of the next market day, when Robert's cart, piled with eggs, fruit, vegetables, and poultry, was at the door, Reuben came out and inspected it.
Let's see your conies, he said briefly.
It was as if someone had suddenly laid a cold hand on Robert's heart. He guessed that his father suspected him. His ears turned crimson, and his hands trembled and fumbled as he opened the back of the cart and took out his string of properly skinned and gutted conies.
Reuben counted them—ten. Then he pushed them aside, and began rummaging in the cart among cabbages and bags of apples. In a second or two he had dragged out five more rabbits. Robert stood with hanging head, flushed cheeks, and quivering hands, till his father fulfilled his expectations by knocking him down.
So that's the way you queer me, you young villain. You steal, you hide, you try to bust the farm. It's luck you're even a bigger fool than you are scamp, and I've caught you justabout purty.
He kicked Robert, and called up Richard to drive the cart over to Rye.
An hour later the whole of the boy's plans, and worse still his sinews of war, were in the enemy's possession. Reuben ransacked his son's mind as easily as he ransacked his pockets and the careful obvious little hiding-place under his mattress where lay the twenty-two shillings of which he had defrauded Odiam. His love for Bessie, his degraded and treacherous hopes, filled the father with shame. Had he then lived so meanly that such mean ambitions should inspire his son?
A cowman's girl! he groaned, "at Eggs Hole, too, where they d?an't know plums from damsons! Marry her! I'd sooner have Albert and his wenches."
I love her, faltered Robert.
Well, you'll justabout have to stop loving her, that's all. I'm not going to have my place upset by love. Love's all very well when there's something wud it or when there's nothing in it. But marrying cowmen's girls wudout a penny in their pockets, we can't afford to kip that sort o' love at Odiam.
F?ather, pleaded Robert, "you loved my mother."
Yes—but she wur a well-born lady wud a fortun. D'you think I'd have let myself love her if she'd bin poor and a cowman's daughter? Not me, young feller!
But you can't help loving, surelye.
Well, if that's wot you think, the sooner you find out that you can help loving the better. Did I ever hear such weak womanish slop! Help loving? You'll help it before you're many days older. Meantime you kip away from that girl, and all them hemmed choir-singings which are the ruin of young people.
The colour rushed into Robert's cheeks, and something very unfamiliar and very unmanly into his eyes.
I'll—— he began desperately. But even Robert had the wit not to finish his sentence.
For the next two or three days the boy was desperate. His manhood was in a trap. He thought of a dozen plans for breaking free, but whichever way he turned the steel jaws seemed to close on him. What could he do? He was not strong and ruthless like his father, or he might have broken his way out; he was not clever like Richard, or he might have contrived it. Money, money—that was what lay at the bottom of his helplessness. Even if he had a very little he could take Bessie away and marry her, and then they could both find work together on a farm. But he had not a penny. He tried to borrow some of Pete, but Pete showed him his empty pockets:
If you'd asked me after the Fair, lad, I might have been able to let you have a shillun or two. But this time o' year, I'm as poor as you are.
Meantime Bessie knew nothing of the darkness in her lover's life. She was working away sturdily and patiently at Eggs Hole, looking forward to meeting him on practice night, and going with him to the Fair a week later.
Saturday came, the day which had always been Robert's Sabbath, with a glimpse into Paradise. He toiled miserably with the horses, Reuben's stern eye upon him, while hatred rose and bubbled in his heart. What right had his father to treat him so?—to make a prisoner and a slave of him? He vowed to himself he would break free; but how?—how?... A chink of pence in Reuben's pocket seemed like a mocking answer.
In the evening the taskmaster disappeared, to gloat over his wheatfields. Robert knew he would not be back till supper-time; only Albert was working with him in the stable, and he felt that he could persuade his brother to hold his tongue if he disappeared for an hour or two.
I want to go into Peasmarsh, he said to Albert; "if F?ather comes and asks where I am, you can always tell him I've gone over to Grandturzel about that colt, can't you now?"
Reckon I can, said Albert good-naturedly, knowing that some day he might want his brother to do the same for him.
So Robert put on his Sunday coat as usual and tramped away to the village. The only drawback was that from the high wheatfield Reuben distinctly saw him go.
He reached the clerk's house a little while after the practice had started, and stood for a moment gazing in at the window. A terrible homesickness rose in his heart. Must he really be cut off from all these delights? There they stood, the boys and girls, his friends, singing "Disposer Supreme" till the rafters rang. Perhaps after to-night he would never sing with them again. Then his eyes fell on Bessie, and the hunger drove him in.
He took his place beside her, but he could not fix his mind on what they sang. In the intervals between the anthems he was able to pour out instalments of his tragedy. Bessie was very brave, she lifted her eyes to his, and would not let them falter, but he felt her little coarse fingers trembling in his hand.
I d?an't know what I'm to do, my dear, he mumbled; "I think the best thing 'ud be fur me to git work on a farm somewheres away from here, and then maybe in time I cud put a liddle bit of money by, and you cud join me."
Oh, d?an't leave me, Robert.
For the first time the courage dimmed in her eyes.
Wot else am I to do? he exclaimed wretchedly; "'t?un't even as if I cud go on seeing you here. Oh, Bessie! I can't even t?ake you to the Fair on Thursday!"
Wot does a liddle thing lik that count when it's all so miserable?
"Disposer Supreme, And judge of the earth, Who choosest for thine The weak and the poor....
"The anthem crashed gaily into their sorrow, and grasping the hymn-sheet they sang together.
W?an't you be never coming here no more? whispered Bessie in the next pause.
Depends on if my f?ather catches me or not.
He drank in the heat and stuffiness of the little room as a man might drink water in a desert, not knowing when the next well should be. He loved it, even to the smoke-stains on the sagging rafters, to the faint smell of onions that pervaded it all.
"All honour and praise, Dominion and might, To God, Three in One, Eternally be, Who round us hath shed His own marvellous light, And called us from darkness His glory to see.
"
Young Ralph Bardon had come into the room, and stood by the door while the last verse was being sung. He was there to give an invitation from his father, for every year the Squire provided the choristers with a mild debauch at Flightshot. Robert had been to several of these, and they glittered in his memory—the laughter and games, the merry fooling, the grand supper table gay with candles. What a joke it had been when someone had given the salt to Rosie Hubble instead of the sugar to eat with her apple pie, and when some other wag had pulled away Ern Ticehurst's chair from under him....
Thank you, sir—thank you kindly.
The invitation had been given, and the choristers were crowding towards the door. Robert followed them mechanically. It was raining hard.
Oh, dear, oh, dear, said Bessie, "I never brought my cloak."
You must put on my coat.
He began taking it off when he heard someone beside them say:
I have a great-coat here.
Robert turned round and faced Bardon, whose eyes rested approvingly on the gleaming froth of Bessie's hair.
I'm driving home in my gig with a rug and hood, continued the young man, "so I've no need of a great-coat as well."
Robert opened his mouth to refuse. He was offended by the way the Squire looked at Bessie. But on second thoughts he realised that this was no reason for depriving her of a wrap; his own coat was too short to be much good. After all he could see that the acquaintance went no further.
Bessie had, however, already taken the matter out of his hands by saying—"Thank you kindly, sir."
You see, this is my very best gown, she confided to Robert outside the house, "and I d?an't know wot I shud do if anything happened to it."
Well, you're not to t?ake that coat back to Flightshot yourself. Give it to me when we come to Eggs Hole, and I'll see that he has it.
Very well, dear, she answered meekly.
They did not speak much on that walk home. Their minds seemed dank and washed out as the night. Their wet fingers gripped and twined ... what was the use of speaking? Everything seemed hopeless—no way to turn, no plans to make, no friends to look to.
It was quite dark when they reached Eggs Hole, and parted after kisses no longer as shy as they used to be.
On arriving at Odiam, Robert was seized by his father and flogged within an inch of his life.
Reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his son's rebellion. All the next day Robert seemed utterly cowed. He was worn out by the misery of the last few hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge physical ache. Reuben left him alone most of the day, smiling grimly to himself when he saw him. Robert spent several hours lying on the hay in the Oast barn, his mind as inert and bruised as his body. He had ceased to contrive or conjecture, even to dread.
Towards evening, however, a new alarm stirred him a little. He remembered Bardon's coat, which he had brought back with him to Odiam. If he did not take it over to Flightshot, the young Squire might call for it at Eggs Hole. Robert was most anxious that he should not meet Bessie again; he could not forget the admiration in his eyes, and was consumed with fear and jealousy lest he should try to take his treasure from him, or frighten or hurt her in any way. It is true that Bardon had a blameless record, and also a most shy and fastidious disposition, but Robert was no psychologist. And if anyone had said that the Squire's gaze had merely been one of tolerant approval of a healthy country-wench, and that he would not have taken the peerless Bessie as a gift, and rather pitied the man who could see anything to love in that bursting figure and broad yokelish face—then Robert would not only have disbelieved him, but fought him into the bargain.
So he managed with an effort to pull himself together and walk a couple of miles across the fields to the Manor. He was climbing the gate by Chapel Barn when something fell out of the pocket of the coat. Unluckily it fell on the far side of the gate, and Robert with many groans and curses forced his stiff body over again, as the object was a smart shagreen pocket-book, evidently of some value. It had dropped open in its fall, and as he picked it up, a bank-note fluttered out and eddied to the grass. It was a note for ten pounds, and Robert scowled as he replaced it in the pocket-book.
It was a hemmed shame—life was crooked and unfair, in spite of the Disposer Supreme and Judge of the Earth. For the first time he doubted the general providence of things. Why should young Bardon with his easy manners and roving lustful eye have a pocket full of money to spend as he pleased, whereas he, Robert, who loved truly and wanted to marry his love, should not have a penny towards his desires? This was the first question he had ever asked of life, and its effect was to upset not only the little store of maxims and truisms which made his philosophy, but those rules of conduct which depended on them. One did not take what did not belong to one because in church the Curate said, "Thou shalt not steal," whereat the choristers would sing, "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." Nevertheless, that bank-note spent the last mile of the way in Robert's pocket.
The act was not really so revolutionary as might at first appear, for up to the very steps of the Manor he kept on telling himself that he would put it back. But somehow he did not do so—when he handed the coat to the man-servant the pocket-book was still in his stable-smelling corduroys.
Well, he had taken it now—it was too late to give it back. Besides, why should he not have it? Those ten pounds probably did not mean much to the Squire, but they meant all things to him and Bessie. He could marry her now. He could take her away, find work on some distant farm, and comfortably set up house. The possibilities of ten pounds were unlimited—at all events they could give him all he asked of life.
In the middle of the night he woke up feeling quite differently. A sick and guilty horror overwhelmed him. He must have been delirious the day before, light-headed with pain and misery. Now he saw clearly what he had done. He was a thief. He had committed a terrible sin—broken one of the Ten Commandments. He might be caught and put in prison, anyhow, the God who said, "Thou shalt not" would punish him and perhaps Bessie too. The sweat poured down Robert's forehead and off his cheeks. The future seemed to be closing in upon him with iron walls. He trembled, cowered, and would have said, "Our Father" if he dared. Oh God, why had he done this dreadful thing?
Luckily his body was so tired that even his kicking mind could not keep it awake. Suddenly, in the midst of all his remorse and terror, he fell asleep, and did not wake till sunshine two hours old was on his pillow.
When he woke, the nightmare had passed. Instead, he saw things as he had seen them yesterday. He could marry Bessie—and he must do so quickly, seize his chance for fear it should slip from him again. This time he must not muddle things. Above all he must avoid coming into conflict with his father—he was more afraid of Reuben than of all the police in Sussex.
All that day he expected to hear that the theft had been discovered. The Squire would be sure to remember his pocket-book and where he had put it. However, time passed and nothing happened. It was possible that young Bardon had not yet found out his loss. But Robert felt sure that when, sooner or later, the money was missed, it would be traced to him. He must act quickly. Oh Lord! how he hated having to act quickly! It was now a race between him and fate—and Fate must have smiled....
First of all he had to see Bessie. He could not send her a letter, for she could not read. He must somehow manage to go over to Eggs Hole. He would not tell her how he had come by the ten pounds. A pang went into his heart like a thorn as he realised this, but he felt that if she knew she might refuse to go away with him. He would marry her first, and confess to her afterwards. Perhaps some day they might be able to return the money—meantime he would say that a friend had lent it to him. The thought of this, his first lie to her, hurt him more than the actual theft.
He managed to slip over to Eggs Hole that evening. Albert, whom his father had not treated gently on the day of the choir practice, refused to be his accomplice a second time, but Reuben, thinking his rebellion crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took himself off after supper to the Cocks, where he had weighty matters of politics and agriculture to discuss. Robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole way to Eggs Hole—laid his plans before Bessie—and ran the whole way back again.
Bessie was as surprised as she was delighted to hear that he should suddenly have found a friend to lend him ten pounds—"a feller called Tim Harman, lives over at Rolvenden," said Robert in a perspiring effort to be convincing. However, it never struck her to doubt his word, and she put down to emotion and hard running all that seemed strange in her sweetheart's manner.
Bessie was quicker and more practical than Robert, and between them they evolved a fairly respectable scheme. Next Thursday was Fair Day, and all the Backfield family, including Robert, would be at the Fair. She would meet him in Meridiana the gipsy's tent at five—it was right on the outskirts of the Fair, and they could enter separately without attracting attention, on the pretext of having their fortunes told. Then they could easily steal off under cover of dusk. They would go to Wadhurst, where there were many farms—get work together, and marry at once. Meantime Robert was to divert suspicion by his blameless conduct, and find out as well as he could exactly what one did to get married.
On arriving home he was uncertain as to whether it would be more diplomatic to go straight to bed or let his father on his return from the Cocks find him industriously working at the corn accounts. He decided on the latter, and was soon with many groans and lickings of his pencil crediting and debiting Odiam's wheat.
Backfield came in about nine, by which time Robert's panting had completely subsided and his complexion lost the beetroot shade which might have betrayed his exertions. His father was in a good temper, and over-flowed with the Cocks' gossip—how Realf had got twenty-five pounds for his heifer at Battle, how the mustard had mixed in with Ticehurst's beans and spoilt his crop, how Dunk of Old Turk said he would vote Radical at the next election, and how young Squire Bardon had been robbed of his pocket-book, with certificates for three hundred pounds of Canadian stock and a ten-pound bank-note in it.
Robert bit off the end of his pencil, which his father, who was looking the other way, luckily did not see. The boy crouched over the fire, trying to hide his trembling, and longing yet not daring to ask a hundred questions. He was glad and at the same time sorry when Reuben having explained to him the right and the wrong way of sowing beans, and enlarged on the wickedness of Radicals in general and Gladstone in particular, returned to Bardon's loss.
Of course he ?un't sure as it wur stolen—he may have dropped it. But policeman d?an't think that's likely.
Then policeman's bin t?ald about it? came faintly from Robert.
Surelye! I wur spikking to him over at the Cocks. I said to him as I wur sartain as one of those lousy Workman's Institute lads of his had done it. That's wot comes of trying to help labourers and cowmen and such—there's naun lik helping the poor fur putting them above themselves, and in these times when everyone's fur giving 'em votes and eddicating them free, why—— and Reuben launched into politics again.
That night was another Hell. Robert lay wakeful in a rigor of despair. It was all over now. The constable would be at Odiam the first thing next morning. Bardon was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in the coat he had lent Bessie. He might even think that Bessie had taken it! This fresh horror nearly sent Robert out of the window and over the fields to the Manor to confess his crime. But he was kept back by the glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning, played fitfully over his mental landscape. He dared not stake everything. Perhaps after all young Bardon could not remember where he had put the pocket-book; he must have forgotten where it was when he offered the coat to Bessie, and it was possible that he would not remember till the lovers had escaped—after which he might remember as much as he liked, for Robert never thought for a moment that he could be traced once he had left Peasmarsh.
As a matter of fact his simplicity had done much for him in this matter. A man with a readier cunning would have taken out the money and restored the pocket-book exactly as he had found it. Robert had blunderingly grabbed the whole thing—and to that he owed his safety. If Bardon had found the pocket-book in his great-coat, he would at once have reconstructed the whole incident. As things were, he scarcely remembered lending the coat to Bessie, and it had certainly never occurred to him that his pocket-book was in it. Being rather a careless and absent-minded young man, he had no recollection of putting it there after some discussion with Sir Miles about his certificates. He generally kept it in his drawer, and thought that it must have been taken out of that.
So no constable called at Odiam the next morning, and at breakfast the whole Backfield family discussed the Squire's loss, with the general tag of "serve him right!"
The following day was market-day at Rye, and Robert and Peter were to take over the cart. Robert was glad of this, for he had made up his mind that he must change the bank-note. If he tried to change it at the Fair or after he had gone away with Bessie it might arouse suspicion; but no one would think anything of his father having so large a sum, and he could offer it when he went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. As for the pocket-book, he threw that into the horse-pond when no one was looking; it was best out of the way, and the three hundred pounds' worth of certificates it contained meant nothing to him.
Fate, having thus generously given him a start, continued to encourage him in the race he was running against her. On the way to Rye he fell in with Bertie Ditch. Bertie was going to marry a girl up at Brightling, and Robert found that there was nothing easier than to discuss with him the ways and means of marriage. From his ravings on his marriage in particular precious information with regard to marriage in general could be extracted. Oh, yes, he had heard of fellows who got married by licence, but banns were more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a marriage by banns was altogether a better and more religious sort. He and Nellie, etc., etc.... Oh, he didn't think a licence cost much—two or three pounds, and an ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as much as that; when one had paid for the choir and the ringers and the breakfast. Now he and Nellie ... oh, of course, if you were in a hurry—yes; but anyhow he thought one of the parties must live a week or so in the parish where the marriage was to take place.
Robert, after some considering, decided to go with Bessie to Wadhurst, and ask the clergyman there exactly what they ought to do. He could easily find a room for her where she could stay till the law had been complied with. They would travel by the new railway. It would be rather alarming, but Jenny Vennal had once been to Brighton by train and said that the only thing against it was the dirt.
So gradually the difficult future was being settled. When they came to Rye Robert left Peter to unpack the cart and went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. Reuben had given him five pounds, but he handed over the terrible bank-note, which was accepted without comment.
Fate still allowed him to run ahead.
Thursday broke clear and windy—little curls of cloud flew high against spreads of watery blue, and the wind raced over Boarzell, smelling of wet furrows. As usual everyone at Odiam was going to the Fair—even Mrs. Backfield, for Reuben said that he would not let the girls go without her. Caro and Tilly were now fifteen and sixteen, and their father began to have fears lest they should marry and leave him. Tilly especially, with her creamy complexion like Naomi's, and her little tip-tilted nose, freckled over the bridge, gave him anxious times. He sternly discouraged any of the neighbouring farmers' sons who seemed inclined to call; he was not going to lose his daughters just when Mrs. Backfield's poor health made them indispensable. It could not be long before his mother died—already her bouts of rheumatism were so severe that she was practically crippled each winter—and when she died Tilly and Caro must take her place.
Robert had not slept at all that night. Already sleeplessness, excitement, and anxiety had put their mark on him, giving a certain waxiness to his complexion and dullness to his eyes; but this morning he had curled and oiled his hair and put on his best clothes, which diverted the family attention, and in some way accounted for his altered looks. Everyone at the breakfast-table wore Sunday-best, except Beatup, who was to mind the farm in the morning, Richard taking his place in the afternoon.
Peter's strong frame and broad shoulders were shown off in all their glory by his tight blue coat—he was spoiling for the fight, every now and then clenching his fists under the table, and dreaming of smart cuts and irresistible bashes. Albert thought of the pretty girls he would dance with, and the one he would choose to lead away into the rustling solitude of Boarzell when his father was not looking ... to lie where the gorse flowers would scatter on their faces, and her dress smell of the dead heather as he clasped her to him. Richard was inclined to sneer at these rustic flings, and to regret the westward pastures where Greek syntax and Anne Bardon exalted life. Jemmy and George thought of nothing but the swings and merry-go-rounds; Tilly and Caro did not think at all, but wondered. Reuben watched their big eyes, so different from the boys', Tilly's very blue, Caro's very brown, and felt relieved when he looked from them to their grandmother, sitting stiffly in a patched survival of the widow's dress, her knotted hands before her on the table, at once too indifferent and too devoted to pity the questing youth of these two girls.
Reuben himself, in his grey cloth suit, starched shirt, and spotted tie, was perhaps the most striking of the company. Albert, the only one who had more than a vague appreciation of his father's looks, realised how utterly he had beaten his sons in their young men's game before cracked mirrors, showing up completely the failure of their waistcoats, ties, and hair oils in comparison with his. As was usual on festive occasions, his hair was sleeked out of its accustomed roughness, lying in blue-black masses of extraordinary shininess and thickness on his temples; his tight-fitting trousers displayed his splendid legs, and when he spoke he showed finer teeth than any of the youngsters. Albert scowled as he admired, for he knew that no girl would take him if she had a chance of his father.
Next to Reuben sat Harry—the other man whom Boarzell had made. He slouched forward over his plate, in terror lest the food which dropped continually out of his mouth should fall on the tablecloth, and he should be scolded. He looked at least ten years older than Reuben, for his face was covered with wrinkles, and there were streaks of grey in his hair. As he sat and ate he muttered to himself. No one took any notice of him, for the children had been brought up to look upon Uncle Harry as a sort of animal, to whom one must be kind, but with whom it was impossible to hold any rational conversation. Tilly was the most attentive to him, and would cut up his food and sometimes even put it in his mouth.
After breakfast the whole family set out for the Moor. Odiam looked unnatural with its empty yard, where the discouraged Beatup mouched, gazing longingly and chewing a straw. But every farm round Boarzell looked the same, for Boarzell Fair emptied the neighbourhood as completely as a pilgrimage would empty a Breton hamlet—only the beasts and unwilling house-keepers were left behind.
Though it was not yet ten o'clock the Fair was crowded. A shout greeted Harry's appearance with his fiddle, for it was never too early to dance. Blind Harry climbed on his tub, flourished his bow with many horrible smiles—for he loved his treats of popularity and attention—and started the new tune "My Decided Decision," which Caro and Tilly had taught him the day before. Albert immediately caught a pretty girl by the waist, and spun round with her on the grass while Pete vanished into the sparring-booth, his shoulders already out of his coat. Mrs. Backfield led off Caro and Tilly, looking sidelong at the dancers, to the more staid entertainment of the stalls. Jemmy and George ran straight to the merry-go-round, which now worked by steam, and hooted shrilly as it swung. Robert and Richard stood with their arms folded, watching the dancing with very different expressions on their faces.
At last Robert decided to lead out Emily Ditch, thinking that it might lull his father's suspicions if he had any. As a matter of fact the son Reuben watched most closely was Albert. He looked upon Robert's affair as settled, for the present at any rate, and credited him—perhaps rightly—with so poor a cunning that an occasional glance would serve; whereas Albert's oiled hair, stiff shirt-front, and clean white handkerchief roused all his fears and carefulness together.
After the dance, which did not last long, as poor Robert trod so heavily on his partner's feet that she soon begged him to stop, they strolled off round the Fair. Robert thought that if he made it a custom to roam among the booths his father would not notice his final disappearance so quickly. Lord! he was getting a hemmed crafty fellow. All the boys were allowed a shilling or two to spend at the Fair, so Robert treated Emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick minutes in the swings. Then he took Mrs. Button—Realf's married daughter, who had come over from Hove, to see the Panorama and a new attraction in the shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting, but made her laugh tremendously.
He clung to Mrs. Button for most of the morning and afternoon, for he felt that she drove away suspicion, and at the same time had not the disadvantage of Emily Ditch, who had once or twice alarmed him by affectionately squeezing his hand. He did not take her to the fighting booth, as public opinion had shut that to ladies during the years that had passed since Reuben had sat with Naomi in the heat and sawdust—but she stood behind him in the shooting gallery, whilst he impartially scored bulls in the mouths of Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Emperor of France.
Let's go and dance now, she said as he pocketed his bag of nuts.
Robert wondered anxiously what time it was; already a faint blear of red was creeping into the cold, twinkling afternoon. The moon rose at a quarter to five—when he saw it come up into the sky out of Iden Wood he must go to Meridiana's tent. He led Mrs. Button to where the dancers jigged to Harry's unending tune. Reuben stood on the outskirts, among the spectators, watching with a stern eye Albert snatch kisses off a Winchelsea girl's brown neck as he swung her round. Luckily for Robert his brother was behaving outrageously—his misdeeds were as usual flagrant; just at that moment he pulled down his partner's hair, and they whirled about together, laughing in the coarse mesh that blinded them both. Reuben's mouth was a hard, straight line, and his eyes like steel. He scarcely noticed Robert and Mrs. Button hopping about together, and he did not see when half an hour later the boy stole away alone.
Robert felt warm and glowing—he had enjoyed that dance, and wished he could have danced with Bessie. Perhaps he would dance with her some day.... Behind him, the creak of Harry's fiddle sounded plaintively, with every now and then a hoot from the merry-go-round. The dusk was falling quickly. Yellow flares sprang up from the stalls, casting a strange web of light and darkness over the Fair. Gideon Teazel looked like some carved Colossus as he stood by the roundabout, his great beard glowing on his breast like flames ... behind, in the smeeth of twilight, with the wriggling flare of the lamps, the lump of dancers did not seem to dance, but to writhe like some monster on the green, sending out tentacles, shooting up spines, emitting strange grunts and squalls—and at the back of it all the jig, jig, jig of Harry's tune.
Further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans, the dusk became full of cowering shapes, sometimes slipping and sliding about apart, sometimes blotted together ... there were whispers, rustlings, strugglings, low cries of "d?an't" and "adone do!"—the sound of kisses ... kisses ... they followed Robert all the way to Meridiana's tent, where, standing in the brazier glow, and flushed besides with crimson of her own, stood Bessie.
Their eyes met over the flames, then Robert remembered the need for keeping up appearances, and said he wanted his fortune told. He could scarcely wait while Meridiana muttered about a fair young lady and a heap of money coming to him in a year or two. Bessie slipped round the brazier and stood beside him, their hands impudently locked, each finger of the boy's clinging round a finger of the girl's.
Meridiana's low sing-song continued:
It's a gorgeous time I see before you, dear; riches and a carriage and servants in livery, and a beautiful wife decked over with jewels and gold as bright as her hair—success and a fair name, honour and a ripe old age—and remember the poor gipsy woman, won't you, darling?
But he had already forgotten her. He stood with his arm round Bessie, stooping under the canvas roof, half choking in the brazier reek, while his lips came closer and closer to her face....
Hir me duval! said Meridiana to herself, "but they've forgotten the poor person's child."
She saw them go out of the tent, still linked and in their dream, then watched their dark shapes stoop against the sky.
They clung together panting and trembling, for she was really his at last, and he was hers. Before them lay the darkness, but they would go into it hand in hand. She was his, and he was hers.
At last they dropped their arms and stood apart. The dusk was full of rustlings, flittings, scuttlings, kisses....
God bless you, gorgeous lady and gentleman, cried Meridiana shrilly from the tent—"the dukkerin dukk tells me that you shall always wear satin and velvet, and have honour wherever you go."
Then suddenly a heavy hand fell on Robert's shoulder, and a voice said:
Robert Backfield, I arrest you on the charge of stealing a pocket-book containing bonds and money from Squire Ralph Bardon of Flightshot.
With many tears, and the help of the kindly farmer's daughter at Eggs Hole, who acted as penwoman, Bessie wrote a letter to Robert in the Battery gaol:
"You must not think, my dearest lad, that anything what you have done can separate you and me. We belong to each other as it seems, and what you have done I forgive as you would if I had done it. I shall always be yours, Robby, no matter how long you are in prison, I shall be waiting, and thinking of you always. And I forgive you for not telling me you had taken the money, but that a friend had lent it to you, because you thought I would not have gone away with you, but I would have, surely. Be brave and do not fret. I wish it was all over, but we must not fret.
"From your loving
"Bessie."
The proceedings before the Rye magistrates had been brief, and ended in Robert's committal for trial at Quarter Sessions. He had made no attempt to deny his guilt—it would have been useless. He was almost dumb in the dock, for his soul was struck with wonder at the cruel circumstances which had betrayed him.
He had been tracked by the number on the note—it was the first time he realised that notes had numbers. This particular note had been given by Sir Miles Bardon to his son as a part of his quarterly allowance, and though Ralph was far too unpractical to notice the number himself, his father had a habit of marking such things, and had written it down.
The saddler at Rye had not heard of the theft when young Backfield handed over the note in payment of the harness bill. He had at the time remarked to his wife that old Ben seemed pretty flush with his money, but had thought no more of it till the matter was cried by the Town Crier that evening, after Robert and Pete had gone home. Then out of mere curiosity he had looked at the number on his note, and found it was the same as the Crier had announced. Early the next day he went to the Police Station, and as young Bardon now remembered lending his coat to Robert Backfield it was fairly easy to guess how the theft had been committed.
The Squire regretted the matter profoundly, but it was too late now not to proceed with it, so he made it a hundred times worse by writing an apologetic letter to Reuben, and asking the magistrate to deal gently with the offender. Robert's pathetic story, and the tearful evidence of his sweetheart, gave him at once all the public sympathy; the blame was divided pretty equally between the Bardons and Backfield.
Richard bitterly abused his father to Anne, as they met in the midst of the strife of their two families:
It's always the same, he keeps us under, and makes our lives a misery till we do something mad. He's only got himself to thank for this. We're all the slaves of his tedious farm——
I should rather say 'abominable,' Anne interrupted gently.
His abominable farm—he gets every bit of work out of us he can, till we're justabout desperate——
Till we're absolutely desperate.
And he expects us to care for nothing but his vulgar ambitions. Oh Lord! I wish I was out of it!
Perhaps you will be out of it some day.
He shrugged.
How should I get free?
Perhaps a friend might help you.
He looked into her face, then suddenly crimsoned—then paled, to flush again:
Oh, ma'am, ma'am—if ever you cud help me get free—if ever ... oh, I—I'd sarve you all my life—I'd——
Hush, she said gently—"that's still in the future—and remember not to say 'sarve.'"
The Quarter Sessions were held early in December, and Robert's case came wedged between the too hopeful finances of a journeyman butcher and the woes of a farmer from Guldeford who had tried to drown himself and his little boy off the Midrips. Robert was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
There was nothing remarkable about the trial, and nothing to be said against the sentence from the point of either justice or humanity. Ten years ago the boy would have been transported to Van Diemen's Land. The Bardons took it upon themselves to be outrageously sorry, and were rather mystified by Reuben's contemptuous attitude towards them and their regrets.
The evidence had been merely a repetition of that which had been given before the magistrate, though Bessie did not cry this time in the witness-box, and Robert in the dock was not dumb—on the contrary, he tried to explain to the Recorder what it felt like to have absolutely no money of one's own.
Reuben was present at the trial, and sitting erect, in his good town clothes, drew the public glance away both from the prisoner and the Recorder. Feeling was against him, and when in his summing-up Mr. Reeve remarked on the strangeness of a young man of Backfield's age having no money and being compelled to work without wages, a low murmur went round the court, which Reuben did not seem to hear. He sat very stiffly while the sentence was pronounced, and afterwards refused to see his son before he was taken away to Lewes.
Poor feller, this 'ull be the breaking of him, said Vennal outside the Court-house.
No more'n he deserves. He's a hard man, said Ditch.
Thinks only of his farm and nothing of his flesh and blood, said old Realf.
It sarves un right, said Ginner.
So it was throughout the crowd. Some said "poor man," others muttered "his own fault." But all words, either of pity or blame, were silenced when Backfield came out of the Court-house and walked through the people, his head high, his step firm, his back straight.
The next few weeks were for Reuben full of bitter, secret humiliation. He might show a proud face and a straight back to the world, but his heart was full of miserable madness. It was not so much his son's disgrace that afflicted him as the attitude of people towards it—the Bardons with their regrets and apologies, the small fry with their wonder and cheap blame. What filled him with rage and disgust beyond all else was the thought that some people imagined that Robert had disgraced Odiam—as if a fool like Robert, with his tinpot misdoings, had it in his power to disgrace a farm like Odiam! This idea maddened him at times, and he went to absurd lengths to show men how little he cared. Yet everywhere he seemed to see pity leering out of eyes, he seemed to see lips inaudibly forming the words: "poor fellow"—"what a blow for his schemes!"—"how about the farm?—now he'll lie low for a bit."
This was all the worse to bear, as now, for the first time, he began seriously to dread a rival. The only farm in the district which could compete with Odiam was Grandturzel, but that had been held back by the indifference of its owner, old Realf. Early in the March of '65 old Realf died, and was succeeded by his son, Henry Realf, whom rumour spoke of as a promising and ambitious young man. Skill and ambition could do even more with Grandturzel than they could with Odiam, for the former had the freehold of forty acres of Boarzell. Reuben had always counted on being able to buy these some day from old Realf, but now he expected his son to cling to them. There would be two farms fighting for Boarzell, and Grandturzel would have the start.
All the more reason, therefore, that Odiam should stand high in men's respect. Now, of all times, Reuben could not afford to be looked upon with contempt or pity. He must show everyone how little he cared about his family disgrace, and do everything he could to bring himself more prominently into the social and agricultural life of the district.
For the first time since his father's death he gave suppers at Odiam; once more he spent money on French wines which nobody wanted to drink, and worked his mother and daughters to tears making puddings and pies. He bought a new gig—a smart turnout, with a sleek, well-bred horse between the shafts—and he refused to let Harry fiddle any more at Fairs and weddings; it was prestige rather than profit that he wanted now.
In May people began to talk of a general election; the death of Palmerston and the defeat of Gladstone's Reform Bill made it inevitable. Early in June Parliament was dissolved, and Rye electors were confronted with the postered virtues and vices of Captain MacKinnon (Radical) and Colonel MacDonald (Conservative).
Reuben had not hitherto had much truck with politics. He had played the part of a convinced and conscientious Tory, both at home and in the public-house; and every evening his daughter Tilly had read him the paper, as Naomi had used to do. But he had never done more at an election than record his vote, he had never openly identified himself with the political life of the district. Now it struck him that if he took a prominent part in this election it would do much to show his indifference to the recent catastrophe, besides giving him a certain standing as a politician, and thus bestowing glory and dignity on Odiam.
The local Tories would be glad enough of his support, for he was important, if not popular, in the neighbourhood, and had always been known as a man who took an intelligent interest in his country's affairs.
Not that Rye elections had ever been much concerned with national events. Borough had always been a bigger word than country on those occasions. It was the question of the Harbour rather than the Ballot which had sent up Captain Curteis in 1832, while later contests had centred round the navigation of the Brede River, the new Sluice at Scott's Float, or the Landgate clock. Reuben, however, cared little for these petty town affairs. His chief concern was the restoration of the tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of imported malt and hops. He hated and dreaded Gladstone's "free breakfast table," which he felt would mean the ruin of agriculture in England. He would like to concentrate country Toryism into an organised opposition of Free Trade, and his wounded pride found balm in the thought of founding a local agricultural party of which he would be the inspirer and head.
Reuben began to attend the Tory candidate's meetings. Colonel MacDonald was not a local man, any more than Captain MacKinnon, but he had some property in the neighbourhood, down on the marsh by Becket's House. Like the other candidate, he had spent the last month or so in posting himself in local affairs, and came to Rye prepared, as he said, "to fight the election on herrings and sprats."
However, at his first meeting, held at Guldeford Barn, he was surprised to find a strong agricultural element in the audience. He was questioned on his attitude towards the wheat tax and towards the enfranchisement of six-pound householders. The fact was that for a fortnight previously Reuben had been working up public opinion in the Cocks, and also in the London Trader, the Rye tavern he used on market-days. He had managed to convince the two bars that their salvation lay in taxing wheat, malt, and hops, and in suppressing with a heavy hand those upstarts whom Radical sentimentalists wanted at all costs to educate and enfranchise.
Reuben could speak convincingly, and his extraordinary agricultural success gave weight to his words. If not liked, he was admired and envied. He was "a fellow who knew what he was doing," and could be trusted in important matters of welfare. In a word, he achieved his object and made himself head of an Agricultural Party, large enough to be of importance to either candidate.
It was not long before he had overtures from Captain MacKinnon. The Captain had expected an easy triumph; never since it became a free borough had Rye sent a Tory to Parliament. Now he was surprised and a little alarmed to see signs of definite Tory enterprise, banded under one of the most important and successful farmers in the district. It is true that he had the Bardons on his side, but the Bardons were too gentlemanly to be useful. He would have given much to corrupt Reuben, but Flightshot, which held the only bribe that could have made him so much as turn his head, insisted on keeping pure. He tried to hold his own by appealing to the fishermen and sailors against the agriculturists—but as these in the past had made little fortunes by smuggling grain, they joined the farmers in demanding a wheat-tax.
He then turned to the small householders and shop-keepers, dazzling them with visions of Gladstone's free breakfast table—he even invited the more prominent ones to an untaxed breakfast in the Town Hall; whereat the Colonel, at Reuben's instigation, retaliated with a sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the reach of every farmer when a moderate wheat-tax no longer forced him to undersell his harvests.
Rye platforms, instead of being confined to arguments on herrings and sprats, rang unusually with matters of national import. The free education of the poor was then a vital question, which Reuben and his party opposed with all their might. Educated labourers meant higher wages and a loss of that submissive temper which resulted in so many hours' ill-paid work. Here the Bardons waxed eloquent, but Backfield, helped by Ditch of Totease, who could speak quite well if put through his paces beforehand, drew such a picture of the ruin which would attend an educated democracy, that the voice of Flightshot, always too carefully modulated to be effective, was silenced.
As usual the local printing-presses worked hard over pamphlets and posters, and as a Rye election was nothing if not personal, Reuben was soon enlightened as to the Radical opinion of him. Posters of a startlingly intimate and insulting nature began to appear about the town; a few were displayed in Peasmarsh, and some were actually found on the walls of his own barns.
"Bribed, stolen, or strayed, an Ugly Gorilla, answering to the name of Ben. The animal may be distinguished by his filthy habits, associates frequently with swine and like hogs, delights in rolling in manure, and is often to be found in Ditches. Is remarkable for his unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he treats with shocking unkindness. The animal has likewise a propensity for boasting and lies. The Gorilla's temper is dreadfully bad, horribly vicious, and fearfully vindictive. A reward of Five Pounds will be given by Jothan True Blue, chairman of the Poor Man's Big Loaf Association, to any Blue Lamb who may find this Odious Creature, as his one object while at large is to steal the Poor Man's Loaf. He would also take, if he could, the Poor Man's Vote, and confine the Poor Man's Children to the dirt and ignorance in which he himself wallows, being unable to read or write, and was once heard to ask the Cringing Colonel, his keeper, what was the meaning of Tory Principle and Purity' on his election banners. We too would like to know."
Reuben tore the posters down whenever he found them, but this kind of attack did not humiliate him as the old pitying curiosity had done. He was not lowered in his own esteem. On the contrary, he enjoyed the fame which Radical hate conferred on him. There was no doubt about Odiam's importance now.
The Tories were not to be beaten in invective, and posted Rye with enquiries after the Rabid Hybrid or Crazy Captain:
"The habits of this loathsome creature are so revolting that all who have beheld them turn from them in horror and disgust. It is afflicted with a dirty disease called Gladstone Fever, and in its delirium barks horribly 'Educate! Educate!'"
Much more was written in this strain on both sides, and Colonel MacDonald hired a band of youths to parade the streets singing:
"Conservatives, 'tis all serene— MacDonald for ever! Long live the Queen!
"or:
"The people of Rye now they all seem to say That MacDonald's the man who will carry the sway, Triumphant he'll drive old MacKinnon away— For MacDonald's the man for the people!
"
Reuben did not care much for these doings; they were, he thought, a mere appeal to scum, and he preferred to give his mind to weightier things. He organised meetings in the furthest hamlets of the district, and managed to stir up the interest of the farmers to such a pitch that it soon looked as if the Tory candidate would carry all before him. MacKinnon could not open his mouth on the platform without shouts of: "Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter!" or "What's the use of a big loaf if we've got no money to buy it with?"
The Radicals began to quake for their victory. Speakers were sent for from London, but could not even get a hearing, owing to the enemy's supplies of bad eggs. Meetings were everywhere broken up in disorder, and the Captain was reported to have said that the Liberal party ought to offer a knighthood to anyone who would poison Backfield's beer.
So time passed till within a week of polling day. The feeling in the district grew more and more tense—no prominent member of either party could appear in Rye streets without being insulted by somebody on the opposite side. Meetings were orgies of abuse and violence, but whereas the Radical meetings were invariably broken up in disorder by their opponents, interruptions at Tory meetings resulted only in the interrupters themselves being kicked out. For the first time it looked as if a Conservative would be returned for Rye, and the Colonel knew he owed his success to Backfield's agricultural party.
Then suddenly the unexpected happened. At the end of one of Reuben's most successful meetings in Iden Schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired person, whom nobody knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true that the Scott's Float toll-gate was on Colonel MacDonald's estate, and if so, what use did he make of the tolls? He was answered by being flung into the street, but afterwards the Conservative tenant of Loose Farm on the Marsh remarked to Reuben that it was "a hemmed ark'ard question."
Reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for Protection and a restricted franchise, scarcely thought twice about the toll-gate, till the next day a huge poster appeared all over the district:
MACDONALD'S GATE
"Sing ye who will of Love, or War, or Wine, Of mantling Cups, Bright Eyes, or deeds of Might— A theme unsung by other harps is mine— I sing a Gate—a novel subject quite. O Tolls! ye do afflict us all—a bore! E'en when by Law imposed on evil slight! Who has not loaded ye with curses sore When in this Coat of Proof enveloped tight? Therefore to what is Law I say 'content'— But for a Private Man to raise a toll, To stop the public, tax them, circumvent, Moves me to passion I can scarce control, Makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul.
"Hitherto any verse that had been written in the controversy had been meant for street singing, and turned out in the less serious moments of politicians who certainly were not poets. But "MacDonald's Gate" impressed the multitude as something altogether different. The sounding periods and the number of capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very highest order, and its prominent position throughout the town soon resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing the Scott's Float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had thought much about.
The Tories were a little disconcerted—the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private venture and rhymed it so effectively.
Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being made in prose, none of the Tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his own ground. Also there was not very much to be said, as it was impossible to deny the Scott's Float toll-gate. So the writers confined themselves to sneering at the Radical poet's versification, and hinting that Captain MacKinnon had done many worse things than own a toll-gate, and that all the money the Colonel had from his went to the upkeep of his land, a statement which deceived nobody.
The next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this time in flaming red letters:
"If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over The Sluice at Scott's Float—and then drive on to Dover— You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate Where a Toll they will charge at no moderate rate. Oh why is a Gate stuck across at this Spot? Is the Colonel so poor or so grasping—or what? 'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in, To swell out the purse where his Thousands are laying. Awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of Rye! Let the banner of freedom float gaily on high, Throw your bonds to the winds, ye Electors—for know That he who'd be free must himself strike the Blow.
"Thenceforward the whole character of the election was changed. The Poor Man's Loaf was forgotten as completely as the wheat-tax which should make the farmer rich. Six-pound householders became as uninteresting as anybody else who had not a vote. Nobody cared a damn whether the poor were educated at the nation's expense or not. The conflict raged blindly, furiously, degradingly round the Scott's Float toll-gate.
No one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else. If at meetings Reuben tried to introduce Protection or the Franchise, he was silenced even by his own party. The Scott's Float toll-gate became as important as the Sluice or the Brede River or the Landgate Clock had been in other elections, and nothing, no matter of what national importance, could stand against it.
Reuben cursed the base trucksters who had brought it forward, and he cursed the scummy versifier who was its laureate—whose verses appeared daily on six-foot hoardings, and were sung by drunken Radicals to drown his speeches. No one knew who the Radical poet was, for his party kept him a mystery, fearful, no doubt, lest he should be bribed by the other side. Some said that he was a London journalist, sent down in despair by the Liberals at head-quarters. If so they must have congratulated themselves on their forlorn hope, for the tide of events changed completely.
The worst of that toll-gate was that the Conservatives could never explain it away. They printed posters, they printed handbills, they attempted verse, they made speeches, they protested their disinterestedness, they even tried to represent the abomination as a philanthropic concern, but all their efforts failed. They quickly began to lose ground. It was the Conservative instead of the Liberal meetings that were broken up in disorder. Colonel MacDonald was howled down, and Reuben came home every evening his clothes spattered with rotten eggs.