The Empty Sack Part 33

"And when your brother called up from Paterson-let us say it was Paterson-didn't you ask him no questions at all?"

"He didn't speak to me. I wasn't at home. It was to my little sister. I understood that he rang off before she could ask him anything."

"Oh, he did, did he?" The telegraphy between the two men was renewed.

"And didn't he say nothin' about what had tuck him to a place like Paterson?"

"I think he said it was business."

"'Business,' was it? Ah, well, now! And what sort of business would that be?"

"I don't know."

"And would you tell me now if you did know?"

Jennie looked at him with clear, limpid eyes.

"I'm not sure that I would. I don't know what right you have to ask me questions as it is."

"This right." Turning back the lapel of his coat, he displayed a badge.

"We don't want to frighten you, Miss Follett, my friend and me, we don't; but if you know anything about the boy, it'll be easier in the long run both for him and for you-"

"What do you want him for?"

Lizzie's voice was so deep that it startled. On the threshold of the little entry she stood, tall, black robed, almost unearthly. At the same time Pansy, who had also come downstairs, crept toward Flynn with a low, vicious growl. Both men stumbled to their feet, awed by something in Lizzie which was more than the majesty of grief.

"Ah, now, we're sorry to disturb you, ma'am, my friend and me. We know you've had trouble, and we wouldn't be for wantin' to bring more into a house where there's enough of it already. But when things is duty, they can't be put by just because they're unpleasant-"

"Has my son been taking money from Collingham & Law's?"

The spectral voice gave force to the directness of the question.

Abandoning the hint of professional bullying he had taken toward Jennie, Flynn, with Pansy's teeth not six inches from his calf, went a pace or two toward the figure in the entry.

"Has he been takin' money, that boy of yours? Well now, and have you any reason to think so, ma'am?"

"None-apart from what I hoped."

"Momma!"

Jennie sprang to her mother, grasping her by the arm. While Jackman stood like an iron figure in the background, Flynn, always with Pansy's teeth keeping some six inches from his calf, advanced still another pace or two.

"Ah, now, that's a quare thing, ma'am, for the mother of a lad to say-that she hoped he was takin' money."

"Oh, don't mind her," Jennie pleaded. "She hasn't been just-just _right_-ever since my father died."

"I didn't think of it at first," Lizzie stated, in a lifeless voice. "I believed what he told us, that he was making money on the side. It was only latterly that I began to suspect that he wasn't; and now I hope he took it from the bank."

"But, good G.o.d! ma'am, why? Don't you know he'll be caught-and what he'll get for it?"

"Oh, he'd get that just the same, if you mean suffering and punishment and a life of misery. All I want is that he should be the first to strike. Since he's got to go down before brute power-"

"Brute power of law and order, ma'am, if you'll allow me to remind you."

She uttered a little joyless laugh.

"Law and order! You'll excuse me for laughing, won't you? I've heard so much of them-"

"And you're likely to hear a lot more, if this is the way o' things."

"Oh, I expect to. They'll do me to death, as they'll do you, and as they do everyone else. Law and order are the golden images set up for us to bow down to and wors.h.i.+p as G.o.ds; and we get the reward that's always dealt out to those who believe in falsehood."

Flynn appealed to both Jennie and Jackman.

"I never heard no one talk like that, whether dotty or sane."

"If it was real law and order," Lizzie continued, with the same pa.s.sionless intonation, "that would be another thing. But it isn't. It's faked law and order. It's a plaster on a sore, meant to hide the ugly thing and not to heal it. It's to keep bad bad by pretending that it's good-"

"Ah, but bad as it is, ma'am," Flynn began to reason, "it's better than stealin'-now, isn't it?"

But Lizzie seemed ready for him here.

"I think I've read in your Bible that the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' was given to a people among whom it was a principle that everyone should be provided for. If it happened that anyone was not provided for, there was another commandment given as to him, 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' He was to be free to take what he needed."

Flynn shook his head.

"That may be in the Bible, ma'am; but it wouldn't stand in a court o'

law."

"Of course it wouldn't; only, the court of law is nothing to me."

"It can make itself something to you, ma'am, if you don't mind my sayin'

so."

"Oh no, it can't! It can try me and sentence me and lock me up; but that's no worse than law and order are doing to me and mine every hour of the day."

"Oh, momma," Jennie pleaded, clinging to her mother's arm, "please stop-_please_!"

"I'm only warning him, darling. Law and order will bring him to grief as it does everyone else. How many did it kill in the war? Something like twelve millions, wasn't it, and could anyone ever reckon up the number of aching hearts it's left alive?"

"Yes, momma; but that kind of talk doesn't do Teddy any good."

"It does if we make it plain that he was only acting within his rights.

These people think that by pa.s.sing a law they impose a moral duty. What nonsense! I want my son to be brave enough to strike at such a theory as that. It's true that they'll strike back at him, and that they have the power to crush him-only, in the long run he'll be the victor."

Flynn looked at Jennie in sympathetic apology.

"All right now, Miss Follett. I guess my friend and me'll be goin'

along-"