The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet Part 7

BLANCO. I didnt steal it. I distrained on it for what you owed me. I thought it was yours. I was a fool to think that you owned anything but other people's property. You laid your hands on everything father and mother had when they died. I never asked you for a fair share. I never asked you for all the money I'd lent you from time to time. I asked you for mother's old necklace with the hair locket in it. You wouldn't give me that: you wouldn't give me anything. So as you refused me my due I took it, just to give you a lesson.

ELDER DANIELS. Why didnt you take the necklace if you must steal something? They wouldnt have hanged you for that.

BLANCO. Perhaps I'd rather be hanged for stealing a horse than let off for a d.a.m.ned piece of sentimentality.

ELDER DANIELS. Oh, Blanco, Blanco: spiritual pride has been your ruin.

If youd only done like me, youd be a free and respectable man this day instead of laying there with a rope round your neck.

BLANCO [turning on him] Done like you! What do you mean? Drink like you, eh? Well, Ive done some of that lately. I see things.

ELDER DANIELS. Too late, Blanco: too late. [Convulsively] Oh, why didnt you drink as I used to? Why didnt you drink as I was led to by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it up? It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man; and it was the want of it that spoiled yours. Tell me this. Did I ever get drunk when I was working?

BLANCO. No; but then you never worked when you had money enough to get drunk.

ELDER DANIELS. That just shews the wisdom of Providence and the Lord's mercy. G.o.d fulfils himself in many ways: ways we little think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against his Word. When does the Devil catch hold of a man? Not when he's working and not when he's drunk; but when he's idle and sober. Our own natures tell us to drink when we have nothing else to do. Look at you and me! When we'd both earned a pocketful of money, what did we do? Went on the spree, naturally. But I was humble minded. I did as the rest did. I gave my money in at the drink-shop; and I said, "Fire me out when I have drunk it all up." Did you ever see me sober while it lasted?

BLANCO. No; and you looked so disgusting that I wonder it didn't set me against drink for the rest of my life.

ELDER DANIELS. That was your spiritual pride, Blanco. You never reflected that when I was drunk I was in a state of innocence.

Temptations and bad company and evil thoughts pa.s.sed by me like the summer wind as you might say: I was too drunk to notice them. When the money was gone, and they fired me out, I was fired out like gold out of the furnace, with my character unspoiled and unspotted; and when I went back to work, the work kept me steady. Can you say as much, Blanco?

Did your holidays leave your character unspoiled? Oh, no, no. It was theatres: it was gambling: it was evil company, it was reading in vain romances: it was women, Blanco, women: it was wrong thoughts and gnawing discontent. It ended in your becoming a rambler and a gambler: it is going to end this evening on the gallows tree. Oh, what a lesson against spiritual pride! Oh, what a--[Blanco throws his hat at him].

BLANCO. Stow it, Boozy. Sling it. Cut it. Cheese it. Shut up. "Shake not the dying sinner's hand."

ELDER DANIELS. Aye: there you go, with your sc.r.a.ps of l.u.s.tful poetry.

But you cant deny what I tell you. Why, do you think I would put my soul in peril by selling drink if I thought it did no good, as them silly temperance reformers make out, flying in the face of the natural tastes implanted in us all for a good purpose? Not if I was to starve for it to-morrow. But I know better. I tell you, Blanco, what keeps America to-day the purest of the nations is that when she's not working she's too drunk to hear the voice of the tempter.

BLANCO. Dont deceive yourself, Boozy. You sell drink because you make a bigger profit out of it than you can by selling tea. And you gave up drink yourself because when you got that fit at Edwardstown the doctor told you youd die the next time; and that frightened you off it.

ELDER DANIELS [fervently] Oh thank G.o.d selling drink pays me! And thank G.o.d he sent me that fit as a warning that my drinking time was past and gone, and that he needed me for another service!

BLANCO. Take care, Boozy. He hasnt finished with you yet. He always has a trick up His sleeve--

ELDER DANIELS. Oh, is that the way to speak of the ruler of the universe--the great and almighty G.o.d?

BLANCO. He's a sly one. He's a mean one. He lies low for you. He plays cat and mouse with you. He lets you run loose until you think youre shut of him; and then, when you least expect it, he's got you.

ELDER DANIELS. Speak more respectful, Blanco--more reverent.

BLANCO [springing up and coming at him] Reverent! Who taught you your reverent cant? Not your Bible. It says He cometh like a thief in the night--aye, like a thief--a horse-thief--

ELDER DANIELS [shocked] Oh!

BLANCO [overhearing him] And it's true. Thats how He caught me and put my neck into the halter. To spite me because I had no use for Him--because I lived my own life in my own way, and would have no truck with His "Dont do this," and "You mustnt do that," and "Youll go to h.e.l.l if you do the other." I gave Him the go-bye and did without Him all these years. But He caught me out at last. The laugh is with Him as far as hanging me goes. [He thrusts his hands into his pockets and lounges moodily away from Daniels, to the table, where he sits facing the jury box].

ELDER DANIELS. Dont dare to put your theft on Him, man. It was the Devil tempted you to steal the horse.

BLANCO. Not a bit of it. Neither G.o.d nor Devil tempted me to take the horse: I took it on my own. He had a cleverer trick than that ready for me. [He takes his hands out of his pockets and clenches his fists].

Gos.h.!.+ When I think that I might have been safe and fifty miles away by now with that horse; and here I am waiting to be hung up and filled with lead! What came to me? What made me such a fool? Thats what I want to know. Thats the great secret.

ELDER DANIELS [at the opposite side of the table] Blanco: the great secret now is, what did you do with the horse?

BLANCO [striking the table with his fist] May my lips be blighted like my soul if ever I tell that to you or any mortal men! They may roast me alive or cut me to ribbons; but Strapper Kemp shall never have the laugh on me over that job. Let them hang me. Let them shoot. So long as they are shooting a man and not a sniveling skunk and softy, I can stand up to them and take all they can give me--game.

ELDER DANIELS. Dont be headstrong, Blanco. Whats the use? [Slyly]

They might let up on you if you put Strapper in the way of getting his brother's horse back.

BLANCO. Not they. Hanging's too big a treat for them to give up a fair chance. Ive done it myself. Ive yelled with the dirtiest of them when a man no worse than myself was swung up. Ive emptied my revolver into him, and persuaded myself that he deserved it and that I was doing justice with strong stern men. Well, my turn's come now. Let the men I yelled at and shot at look up out of h.e.l.l and see the boys yelling and shooting at me as I swing up.

ELDER DANIELS. Well, even if you want to be hanged, is that any reason why Strapper shouldn't have his horse? I tell you I'm responsible to him for it. [Bending over the table and coaxing him]. Act like a brother, Blanco: tell me what you done with it.

BLANCO [shortly, getting up and leaving the table] Never you mind what I done with it. I was done out of it. Let that be enough for you.

ELDER DANIELS [following him] Then why don't you put us on to the man that done you out of it?

BLANCO. Because he'd be too clever for you, just as he was too clever for me.

FEEMY [reddening, and disengaging her arm from Strapper's] I'm clean enough to hang you, anyway. [Going over to him threateningly]. Youre no true American man, to insult a woman like that.

BLANCO. A woman! Oh Lord! You saw me on a horse, did you?

FEEMY. Yes I did.

BLANCO. Got up early on purpose to do it, didn't you?

FEEMY. No I didn't: I stayed up late on a spree.

BLANCO. I was on a horse, was I?

FEEMY. Yes you were; and if you deny it youre a liar.

BLANCO [to Strapper] She saw a man on a horse when she was too drunk to tell which was the man and which was the horse--

FEEMY [breaking in] You lie. I wasn't drunk--at least not as drunk as that.

BLANCO [ignoring the interruption]--and you found a man without a horse.

Is a man on a horse the same as a man on foot? Yah! Take your witness away. Who's going to believe her? Shove her into the dustbin. Youve got to find that horse before you get a rope round my neck. [He turns away from her contemptuously, and sits at the table with his back to the jury box].

FEEMY [following him] I'll hang you, you dirty horse-thief; or not a man in this camp will ever get a word or a look from me again. Youre just trash: thats what you are. White trash.

BLANCO. And what are you, darling? What are you? Youre a worse danger to a town like this than ten horse-thieves.

FEEMY. Mr Kemp: will you stand by and hear me insulted in that low way?

[To Blanco, spitefully] I'll see you swung up and I'll see you cut down: I'll see you high and I'll see you low, as dangerous as I am. [He laughs]. Oh you neednt try to brazen it out. Youll look white enough before the boys are done with you.

BLANCO. You do me good. Feemy. Stay by me to the end, wont you? Hold my hand to the last; and I'll die game. [He puts out his hand: she strikes savagely at it; but he withdraws it in time and laughs at her discomfiture].

FEEMY. You--