Elizabeth's Campaign Part 20

Oh yes, she had been a great catch--an astonis.h.i.+ng catch--no doubt of that. All the same he was not going to be entirely governed by her! And again he thought complacently of the weak places in her scholars.h.i.+p--the very limited extent of her reading--compared to his. 'By Zeus!--[Greek: ei pot' estin]--if it weren't for that, I should never keep the whip-hand of her at all!'

She had made a forlorn attempt again, that morning, to dissuade him from the park adventure. But there he drew the line. For there really was a line, though he admitted it might be difficult to see, considering all that he was shovelling upon her. He had been very short--perhaps she would say, very rude--with her. Well, it couldn't be helped! When she saw what he was really prepared to face, she would at least respect him. And if he was shut up, she could get on with the catalogue, and keep things going.

Altogether the Squire was above himself. The tonic air and scents of the autumn, the crisp leaves underfoot, the slight frost on the ruts, helped his general intoxication. He, the supposed scholar and recluse, was about to play a part--a rattling part. The eye of England would be upon him! He already tasted the prison fare, and found it quite tolerable.

As to Desmond--

But the thought of him no sooner crossed the Squire's mind than he dismissed it. Or rather it survived far within, as a volcanic force, from which the outer froth and ferment drew half its strength. He was being forcibly dispossessed of Desmond, just as he was being forcibly dispossessed of his farms and his park; or of his money, swallowed up in monstrous income tax.

Ah, there were Dodge and Perley, the two park-keepers, one of whom lived in the White Lodge, now only a hundred yards away. Another man who was standing by them, near the park wall, looked to the Squire like Gregson, his ejected farmer. And who was that black-coated fellow coming through the small wicket-gate beside the big one? What the devil was he doing in the park? There was a permanent grievance in the Squire's mind against the various rights-of-way through his estate. Why shouldn't he be at liberty to shut out that man if he wanted to? Of course by the mere locking and barricading of the gates, as they would be locked and barricaded on the morrow, he was flouting the law. But that was a trifle. The _gates_ were his own anyway.

The black-coated man, however, instead of proceeding along the road, had now approached the group of men standing under the wall, and was talking with them. They themselves did not seem to be doing anything, although a large coil of barbed wire and a number of hurdles lay near them.

'Hullo, Dodge!'

At the Squire's voice the black-coated man withdrew a little distance to the roadway, where he stood watching. Of the three others the two old fellows, ex-keepers both of them, stood sheepishly silent, as the Squire neared them.

'Well, my men, good-morning! What have you done?' said the Squire peremptorily.

Dodge looked up.

'We've put a bit of wire on the gate, Squoire, an' fastened the latch of it up--and we've put a length or two along the top of the wall,' said the old man slowly--'an' then--' He paused.

'Then what?--what about the hurdles? I expected to find them all up by now!'

Dodge looked at Perley. And Perley, a gaunt, ugly fellow, who had been a famous hunter and trapper in his day, took off his hat and mopped his brow, before he said, in a small, cautious voice, entirely out of keeping with the rest of him:

'The treuth on it is, Squoire, we don't loike the job. We be afeard of their havin' the law on us.'

'Oh, you're afraid, are you?' said the Squire angrily. '_You_ won't stand up for your rights, anyway!'

Perley looked at his employer a little askance.

'They're not _our_ rights, if you please, Muster Mannering. We don't have nothing to say to 'un.'

'They are your rights, you foolish fellow! If this abominable Government tramples on me to-day, it'll trample on you to-morrow.'

'Mebbe, Squoire, mebbe,' said Perley mildly. 'But Dodge and I don't feel loike standing up to 'un. We was engaged to mind the roads an'

the leaves, an' a bit rabbitin', an' sich like. But this sort of job is somethin' out o' the common, Muster Mannering. We don't hold wi'

it. The County they've got a powerful big road-engine, Squoire.

They'll charge them gates to-morrow--there 'll be a terr'ble to do.

My wife, she's frightened to death. She's got a cart from Layc.o.c.ks, and she's takin' all our bit things over to her mother's. She won't stay, she says, to be blowed up, not for no one. Them Governments is terr'ble powerful, Squoire. If they was to loose a bit o' gas on us--or some o' they stuffs they put into sh.e.l.ls? Noa, Noa, Squoire'--Perley shook his head resolutely, imitated exactly by Dodge--'we'll do our dooty in them things we was engaged to do. But we're not foightin' men!'

'You needn't tell me that!' said the Squire, exasperated. 'The look of you's enough. So you refuse to barricade those gates?'

'Well, we do, Squoire,' said Perley, in a tone of forced cheerfulness.

'Yes, we do,' said Dodge slowly, copying the manner of his leader.

All this time Gregson had been standing a little apart from the rest. His face showed traces of recent drinking, his hands wandered restlessly from his coat-collar to his pockets, his clothes were shabby and torn. But when the Squire looked round him, as though invoking some one or something to aid him against these deserters, Gregson came forward.

'If you want any help, Mr. Mannering, I'm your man. I suppose these fellows'll lend a hand with carrying these things up to the gates.

They'll not risk their precious skins much by doing that!'

Perley and Dodge replied with alacrity that so far they would gladly oblige the Squire, and they began to shoulder the hurdles.

It was at that moment that the Squire caught the eye of the black-coated man, who had been observing the whole proceedings from about ten yards off. The expression of the eye roused in Mannering an itching desire to lay immediate hands on its possessor. He strode up to him.

'I don't know, sir, why you stand there, looking on at things that are no business of yours,' he said angrily. 'If you want to know your way anywhere, one of my men here will show you.'

'Oh, thank you,' said the other tranquilly. 'I know my way perfectly.' He held up an ordnance map, which he carried in his hand. 'I'm an engineer. I come from London, and I'm bound for a job at Crewe. But I'm very fond of country walking when the weather's good. I've walked about a good bit of England, in my time, but this part is a bit I don't know. So, as I had two days' holiday, I thought I'd have a look at your place on the road. And as you are aware, Mr. Mannering'--he pointed to the map--'this is a right-of-way, and you can't turn me out.'

'All the same, sir, you are on my property,' said the Squire hotly, 'and a right-of-way only means a right of pa.s.sing through. I should be much obliged if you would hurry yourself a little.'

The other laughed. He was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all his movements alert and decided.

'It's not often one sees such a typical bit of feudalism as this,'

he said, without the smallest embarra.s.sment, pointing to the old men, the gates, the hurdles, which Gregson was now placing in position, and finally the Squire himself. 'I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. It's as good as a play. You're fighting the County Agricultural War Committee, I understand from these old fellows, because they want a bit of your park to grow more food?'

'Well, sir, and how does it matter to you?'

'Oh, it matters a great deal,' said the other, smiling. 'I want to be able to tell my grandchildren--when I get 'em--that I once saw this kind of thing. They'll never believe me. For in their day, you see, there'll be no squires, and no parks. The land 'll be the people's, and all this kind of thing--_your_ gates, _your_ servants, _your_ fine house, _your_ game-coverts, and all the rest of it--will be like a bit of history out of Noah's Ark.'

The Squire looked at him attentively.

'You're a queer kind of chap,' he said, half contemptuously. 'I suppose you're one of those revolutionary fellows the papers talk about?'

'That's it. Only there are a good many of us. When the time comes,'

he nodded pleasantly, 'we shall know how to deal with you.'

'It'll take a good deal longer than you think,' said the Squire coolly; 'unless indeed you borrow the chap from Russia who's invented the machine for cutting off five hundred heads at once, by electricity. That might hasten matters a little!'

He had by now entirely recovered his chaffing, reckless temper, and was half enjoying the encounter.

'Oh, not so long,' said the other. 'You're just pa.s.sing a Franchise Bill that will astonish you when you see the results! You perhaps may just live it out--yes, you may die peaceably in that house yonder. But your son, if you have one--that'll be another pair of boots!'

'You and your pals would be much better employed in stopping this accursed war than in talking revolutionary drivel like that,' said the Squire, with energy.

'Oh ho! so you want to stop the war?' said the other, lifting his eyebrows. 'I should like to know why.'

The Squire went off at once into one of his usual tirades as to 'slavery' and 'liberty.' 'You're made to work, or fight!

w.i.l.l.y-nilly. That man's turned out of his farm--w.i.l.l.y-nilly. I'm made to turn him out--w.i.l.l.y-nilly. The common law of England's trampled under foot. What's worth it? Nothing!'

The Squire's thin countenance glowed fanatically. With his arms akimbo he stood towering over the younger man, his white hair glistening in the sun.

The other smiled, as he looked his a.s.sailant up and down.

'Who's the revolutionist now?' he said quietly. 'What's the war cost _you_, Mr. Mannering, compared to what it's cost me and my pals?

This is the first holiday I've had for three years. Twice I've dropped like dead in the shop--strained heart, says the doctor. No time to eat!--no time to sleep!--come out for an hour, wolf some brandy down and go back again, and then they tell you you're a drunken brute! "Sh.e.l.ls and guns!" says the Government--"more sh.e.l.ls!--more guns!--deliver the goods!" And we've delivered 'em. My two brothers are dead in France. I shall be "combed" out directly, and a "sniper" will get me, perhaps, three days after I get to the trenches, as he did my young brother. What then? Oh, I know, there's some of us--the young lads mostly--who've got out of hand, and 'll give the Government trouble perhaps before they've done. Who can wonder, when you see the beastly towns they come out of, and the life they were reared in! And _none of us_ are going to stand profiteering, and broken pledges, and that kind of thing!'--a sudden note of pa.s.sion rushed into the man's voice. 'But after all, when all's said and done, this is _England_!' he turned with a fine, unconscious gesture to the woods and green s.p.a.ces behind him, and the blue distances of plain--'and we're _Englishmen_--and it's touch and go whether England's going to come out or go under; and if we can't pay the Huns for what they've done in Belgium--what they've done in France!--what they've done to our men on the sea!--well, it's a devil's world!--and I'd sooner be quit of it, it don't matter how!'