Red Pottage Part 19

Gresley started and signed to d.i.c.k, but d.i.c.k did not notice. "Bad liquor is at the root of half the drunkenness I know. I don't suppose there are many publicans here to-night, for this meeting isn't quite in their line; and if there are, they can't have come expecting compliments. But if you fellows think you get good liquor at the publics round here, I tell you you are jolly well mistaken."

"Hear! hear!" shouted several voices.

"I've been in the course of the last week to most of the public-houses in Southminster and Westhope and Warpington to see what sort of stuff they sold, and upon my soul, gentlemen, if I settled in Warpington I'd, I'd"--d.i.c.k hesitated for a simile strong enough--"I'd turn teetotaler until I left it again, rather than swallow the snake poison they serve out to you."

There was a general laugh, in the midst of which Mr. Gresley, whose complexion had deepened, sprang to his feet and endeavored to attract d.i.c.k's attention, but d.i.c.k saw nothing but his audience. Mr. Gresley began to speak in his high, "singsong" voice.

"My young friend," he said, "has mistaken the object of this meeting. In short I must--"

"Not a bit," said d.i.c.k--"not a bit; but if the people have had enough of me I'll take your chair while you have another innings."

In a moment the room was in an uproar.

Shouts of "No, no," "Go on," "Let him speak."

In the tumult Mr. Gresley's voice, instead of being the solo, became but as one instrument--albeit a trombone--in an orchestra.

"But I thoroughly agree with the gentlemen who spoke before me," said d.i.c.k, when peace was restored. "Total abstinence is a long chalk below temperance, but it's better than drunkenness any day. And if a man can't get on without three-finger nips, let him take the pledge. There are one or two here to-night who would be the better for it. But, to my thinking, total abstinence is like a water mattress. It is good for a sick man, and it's good for a man with a weak will, which is another kind of illness. But temperance is for those who are in health. There is a text in the Bible about wine making glad the heart of man. That's a good text, and one to go on. As often as not texts are like bags, and a man crams all his own rubbish into them, and expects you to take them together. There are some men, who ought to know better, who actually get out of that text by saying the Bible means unfermented liquor"--Mr.

Gresley became purple. "Does it? Then how about the other place where we hear of new wine bursting old bottles. What makes them burst?

Fermentation, of course, as every village idiot knows. No, I take it when the Bible says wine it means wine. Wine's fermented liquor, and what's unfermented liquor? Nothing but 'pop.'"

d.i.c.k p.r.o.nounced the last word with profound contempt, which was met with enthusiastic applause.

"My last word to you, gentlemen," continued d.i.c.k, "is, keep in mind two points: first, look out for an honest publican, if there is such an article, who will buy only the best liquor from the best sources, and is not bound by the breweries to sell any stuff they send along. Join together, and make it hot for a bound publican. Kick him out, even if he is the Squire's butler." Mr. Pratt's complexion became apoplectic. "And the second point is, Remember some men have heads and some haven't. It is no use for a lame man entering for a hurdle-race. A strong man can take his whack--if it's with his food--and it will do him good, while a weak man can't hang up his hat alter the first smile."

A storm of applause followed, which was perhaps all the heartier by reason of the furious face of Mr. Gresley. d.i.c.k was clapped continuously as he descended the platform and slowly left the room, feeling in his pockets for his tobacco-pouch. A squad of young men creaked out after him, and others followed by twos and threes, so that the mellifluous voice of Mr. Pratt was comparatively lost, who, disregarding his position as chairman, now rose to pour oil--of which, in manner alone, he had always a large supply--on the troubled waters. Mr. Pratt had felt a difficulty in interrupting a member of a county family, which with the eye of faith he plainly perceived d.i.c.k to be, and at the same time a guest of "Newhaven's." The Pratts experienced in the rare moments of their intercourse with the Newhavens some of that sublime awe, that subdued rapture, which others experience in cathedrals. Mr. Pratt had also taken a momentary pleasure in the defeat of Mr. Gresley, who did not pay him the deference which he considered due to him and his "seat."

Mr. Pratt always expected that the Vicar should, by reason of his small income, take the position of a sort of upper servant of the Squire; and he had seen so many instances of this happy state of things that he was perpetually nettled by Mr. Gresley's "independent" att.i.tude; while Mr.

Gresley was equally irritated by "the impatience of clerical control"

and shepherding which Mr. Pratt, his largest and woolliest sheep, too frequently evinced.

As the chairman benignly expressed his approval of both views, and toned down each to meet the other, the attention of the audience wandered to the occasional laughs and cheers which came from the school play-ground.

And when, a few minutes later, Rachel emerged with the stream, she saw d.i.c.k standing under the solitary lamp-post speaking earnestly to a little crowd of youths and men. The laughter had ceased. Their crestfallen appearance spoke for itself.

"Well, good-night, lads," said d.i.c.k, cordially, raising his cap to them, and he rejoined Rachel and Hester at the gate.

When d.i.c.k and Rachel had departed on their bicycles, and when the deputation, after a frugal supper, had retired to rest, and when the drawing-room door was shut, then, and not till then, did Mr. Gresley give vent to his feelings.

"And he would not stop," he repeated over and over again almost in hysterics, when the total-abstinence hose of his wrath had been turned on d.i.c.k until every reservoir of abuse was exhausted. "I signed to him; I spoke to him. You saw me speak to him, Minna, and he would not stop."

Hester experienced that sudden emotion which may result either in tears or laughter at the cruel anguish brought upon her brother by the momentary experience of what he so ruthlessly inflicted.

"He talked me down," said Mr. Gresley, his voice shaking. "He opposed me in my own school-room. Of course, I blame myself for asking him to speak. I ought to have inquired into his principles more thoroughly, but he took me in entirely by saying one thing in this room and the exact opposite on the platform."

"I thought his views were the same in both places," said Hester, "and, at the time, I admired you for asking him to speak, considering he is a vine-grower."

"A what?" almost shrieked Mr. Gresley.

"A vine-grower. Surely you know he has one of the largest vineyards in South Australia?"

For a moment Mr. Gresley was bereft of speech.

"And you knew this and kept silence," he said at last, while Mrs.

Gresley looked reproachfully, but without surprise, at her sister-in-law.

"Certainly. What was there to speak about? I thought you knew."

"I never heard it till this instant. That quite accounts for his views.

He wants to push his own wines. Of course, drunkenness is working for his interests. I understand it all now. He has undone the work of years by that speech for the sake of booking a few orders. It is contemptible.

I trust, Hester, he is not a particular friend of yours, for I shall feel it my duty to speak very strongly to him if he comes again."

But d.i.c.k did not appear again. He was off and away before the terrors of the Church could be brought to bear on him.

But his memory remained green at Warpington.

"They do say," said Abel to Hester a few days later, planting his spade on the ground, and slowly sc.r.a.ping off upon it the clay from his nailed boots, "as that Muster Vernon gave 'em a dusting in the school-yard as they won't forget in a hurry. He said he could not speak out before the women folk, but he was noways nesh to pick his words onst he was outside. Barnes said as his tongue 'ud 'ave raised blisters on a hedge stake. But he had a way with him for all that. There was a deal of talk about him at market last Wednesday, and Jones and Peg is just silly to go back to Australy with 'im. I ain't sure," continued Abel, closing the conversation by a vigorous thrust of his spade into the earth, "as one of the things that fetched 'em all most wasn't his saying that since he's been in a hot climate he knowed what it was to be tempted himself when he was a bit down on his luck or a bit up. Pratts would never have owned to that." The village always spoke of Mr. Pratt in the plural without a prefix. "I've been to a sight of temperance meetings, because," with indulgence, "master likes it, tho' I always has my gla.s.s, as is natural. But I never heard one of the speakers kind of settle to it like that. That's what the folks say; that for all he was a born gentleman he spoke to 'em as man to man, not as if we was servants or childer."

CHAPTER XIX

Le bruit est pour le fat.

La plainte est pour le sot.

L'honnete homme trompe S'en va et ne dit mot.

--M. DELANONI

"And so you cannot persuade Miss Gresley to come to us next week?" said Lord Newhaven, strolling into the dining-room at Westhope Abbey, where Rachel and d.i.c.k were sitting at a little supper-table laid for two in front of the high altar. The dining-room had formerly been the chapel, and the carved stone altar still remained under the east window.

Lord Newhaven drew up a chair, and Rachel felt vaguely relieved at his presence. He had a knack of knowing when to appear and when to efface himself.

"She can't leave her book," said Rachel.

"Her first book was very clever," said Lord Newhaven, "and, what was more, it was true. I hope for her own sake she will outgrow her love of truth, or it will make deadly enemies for her."

"And good friends," said Rachel.

"Possibly," said Lord Newhaven, looking narrowly at her, and almost obliged to believe that she had spoken without self-consciousness. "But if she outgrows all her principles, I hope, at any rate, she won't outgrow her sharp tongue. I liked her ever since she first came to this house, ten years ago, with Lady Susan Gresley. I remember saying that Captain Pratt; who called while she was here, was a 'bounder.' And Miss Gresley said she did not think he was quite a bounder, only on the boundary-line. If you knew Captain Pratt, that describes him exactly."

"I wish she had not said it," said Rachel, with a sigh. "She makes trouble for herself by saying things like that. Is Lady Newhaven in the drawing-room?"

"Yes, I heard her singing 'The Lost Chord' not ten minutes ago."

"I will go up to her," said Rachel.

"I do believe," said Lord Newhaven, when Rachel had departed, "that she has an affection for Miss Gresley."

"It is not necessary to be a detective in plain clothes to see that,"

said d.i.c.k.