The Case of Richard Meynell Part 30

And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady in black entered the garden.

"Mother," cried Mary, in amazement.

Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter to Meynell. Then she hurried to the Rector.

"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terrible thing has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accident to the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut up in the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looks dangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--some one, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people will listen to you."

Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask as command. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries.

Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, each recognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at once swallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed to carry him back with them toward the colliery.

Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at her in anxiety, dreading the physical strain for one, of late, so frail.

"Mother darling!--ought you?"

Catharine took no heed whatever of the question.

"It is the women who are so terrible," she said in a low voice, as they hurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned to Cradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half an hour, there may be hope."

They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached the top of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottom of this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed and engine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within the enclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line of police surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stood the manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and his bare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separated from the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threatening and vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up the hill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled, furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened forms of the miners.

"They'll have 'im out," said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, my G.o.d!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yo mind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury did let 'im off, more shame to them! An' now they say as how he signalled for 'em to bring up the men from the Albert pit afore he'd made sure as the cage in the Victory pit was clear!"

"Explain to me, please," said Mary, touching the woman's arm.

Half a dozen turned eagerly upon her.

"Why, you see, miss, as the two cages is like buckets in a well--the yan goes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knock away to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver so much as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was the catches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'

the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' the other rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wor nearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, you unnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put on t'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottom i' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knows yet--They're getten of 'em up now."

And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through the crowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that they might see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came from below, and in the colliery yard there could be seen a gruesome sight; four stretchers, borne by colliers, their burdens covered from view.

Beside them were groups of women and children and in front of them the crowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding and surrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation.

As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up her arm, and heard her cry out in a voice harsh and hideous with excitement:

"Let 'im as murdered them pay for't! What's t' good o' crowner's juries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"

Deep murmurs answered her.

"And it's this same Jenkins," said another fierce voice, "as had a sight to do wi' bringin' them blacklegs down here, in the strike, last autumn.

He's been a great man sense, has Jenkins, wi' the masters; but he sha'n't murder our husbinds and sons for us, while he's loafin' round an' playin'

the lord--not he! Have they got 'un safe?"

"Aye, he's in the pay-house safe enough," shouted another--a man. "An' if them as is defendin' of 'un won't give 'un up, there's ways o' makin'

them."

The procession of the dead approached--all the men baring their heads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a young half-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clinging to her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that was being dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they both joined the procession.

As they did so, there was a shout from below.

Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who had shown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clambered up on the bank to look and came back to her.

"They've beaten 'un back, miss," he said in her ear. "They've got the surface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there's anybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is time as the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' the women is like devils."

On went the procession into the village, leaving the fight behind them.

In Mary's heart, as she was pushed and pressed onward, burnt the memory of Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowd in front of him.

There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main street the procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those broken bodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save to straighten the poor limbs, to wash the coal dust from the strong faces, and cover all with the white linen of death. But the living--the crushed, stricken living--taxed every energy of heart and mind. Catharine, recognized at once by the doctors as a pillar of help, shrank from no office and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them to Mary, and they were presently separated.

Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room of one of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody in Miners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to the windows.

"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them.

The news pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddest half an hour before felt the relief of it.

Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering at intervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from them would drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, what had happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only just in time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector had been struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters would have set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were in search.

The narrator's story was broken by a howl--

"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, the street filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escorting the banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, hunted creature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by the police, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise.

Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the right of them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the left temple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived Mary Elsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself to sleep in her arms.

Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way for him, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with a friendly and remorseful eagerness.

"It's all over," he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. An unpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters last year. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; they all think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--a piece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catch it hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If he hadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown him down the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"

He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneath the rough bandage was bleeding afresh.

"It makes me feel a bit faint," he said with annoyance; "and there is so much to do!"

"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, who had just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's wallet which had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence an antiseptic dressing and some bandaging.

Meynell sat down by the table, s.h.i.+vering a little from shock and strain, while she ministered to him. One of the women near brought him brandy; and Catharine deftly cleaned and dressed the wound. Mary looked on, handing what was necessary to her mother, and in spite of herself, a ray of strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day.

In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother could be heard through the thin flooring.

"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much for you."

She looked at him gently.

"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let me."

He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to Mary:

"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice when I come down."

He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard between.

Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she was in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother and Meynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.