Furze the Cruel Part 45

"He did," shouted the grocer, but in a less fiery manner, because he was impressed by the simple countryman. "He told us he'd given you every penny."

"I'll not believe it of him, not till he stands before me, and I hear him say it."

"If you ain't got the blooming oof, who has?" cried the vulgar little chairman.

"Judge for yourself," Pendoggat answered. "Here am I, a poor man, scratching a bit of moor for my living, and pressed so hard that I've just had to sell my beasts, and now I'm selling most of my furniture to meet a debt. I've a letter in my pocket making me an offer, and you can see it if you like. There's the minister living comfortable, and married, gentlemen, married since this business started and since the money came."

"I always wondered what he had to marry on," the grocer muttered.

"Go and ask him. Tell him I'll meet him face to face and answer him word for word. I know nothing about mining. If you put a bit of nickel and a bit of tin before me I couldn't tell one from the other. Stay a bit and I'll come with you. It's near chapel time," said Pendoggat, righteous in his indignation. "I'll meet him in the chapel and answer him there."

"What about that sample you gave me when I came down before? Knocked it off the wall, you did, before me, and that was nickel, for I had it a.n.a.lysed, and paid the chap five bob for doing it."

Pendoggat looked confused and did not have an answer ready. He kicked his boot against the gatepost, and turned away, shaking his head.

"Got him there," muttered the jam-maker.

"Well, I'll tell you," said Pendoggat roughly. "I wouldn't have said a word if the minister had played fair, but if it's true he's gone against me to save himself I'll tell you. He gave me that bit of stuff and told me what I was to do with it. I didn't know what it was, and I don't know now. I did what I was told to do, and got an extra ten s.h.i.+llings for doing it."

The grocer and his friend looked at one another, and the uncle muttered something about the nephew which Eli would have wept to hear. Some one had uttered particularly gross lies to him, and he had an idea Pendoggat was telling the truth. The grocer and jam-maker were men easily deceived by a smooth manner; and Pendoggat's story had impressed them far more than Pezzack's, just because the countryman had a straightforward confession, while the minister rambled and spoke foolishly.

"Gave him ten bob for doing it," whispered the jam-maker, nudging the grocer.

"I'm ready to come with you, gentlemen," said Pendoggat.

It was nearly dark, and by the time they reached the village the chapel doors would be open. Pendoggat knew he must get away that night because he was afraid of Annie. He had struck her at last, and she had been at the liquor ever since. He could hear her screaming in the house; she might get hold of his gun and blaze at him during the night. It was going to be clear and frosty, a good night for a long walk, and the notes were packed away in his pocket. There was only one duty remaining--the unmasking of Pezzack, who apparently had been trying to blacken his character. Annie would quiet down when she found herself alone. She would not follow him, or give information against him; and if she did the one thing he could outwit her, and if she did the other it would go hard with her. "I'll come with you, gentlemen," he repeated.

"The soul that sinneth it shall die. That's a true saying, and it comes from the true word."

"What about my blooming money, though?" muttered the grocer; while his friend was wondering whether an extra halfpenny on jam would recoup him for his losses.

They met no one as they crossed the smoky stretch of moor. It was going to be a hard night, and already the peat felt as unyielding as granite.

The grocer slapped his arms across his unwieldy chest, and said it was "a bit parky" in his vulgar way, and longed for his snug jerry-built villa; while his friend agreed that Dartmoor was a place of horror and great darkness, and wished himself back in his gas-scented factory superintending the transformation of carrots into marmalade. They walked in single file along a narrow pony track, Pendoggat leading with his eyes upon his boots.

Pezzack was in the chapel when the little party arrived. He was whiter than ever, not altogether with cold, though Ebenezer was like a damp cave by the sea, but with nervousness, with fear of his rotund uncle and dread of the mysterious Pendoggat. He did not know even then whether Pendoggat was his friend or his enemy. He could not explain the fit of madness which had come upon the man that night they had left the chapel together, and had made him use his wretched self so shamefully; but then he could explain nothing, not even a simple text of Scripture. He could only bleat and flounder, and tumble about hurting himself; but he was still a happy man, he told himself. Partner Pendoggat was a rough creature, almost a brute sometimes, but he would not desert him when the pinch came.

The visitors did not approve of Ebenezer, and expressed themselves to that effect in disdainful whispers. It was altogether unlike the comfortable tabernacle where the grocer thanked G.o.d he was not like other men; and as for the jam-maker he was of the Anglican brood, a sidesman of his church, a distributer of hymn-books, a collector of alms, and all the ways of Nonconformity he utterly abhorred. He settled himself in an Established Church att.i.tude, in a corner with his head lolling against the wall and his legs stretched out; while the grocer adopted the devotional pose of Wesleyanism, sitting upright with his hands folded across his watch-chain and his chin upon his chest.

"Brother Pendoggat will lead in prayer," said Eli nervously.

The grocer admitted afterwards that the prayer had been strong, and had overlooked few of those weaknesses to which the flesh occasionally succ.u.mbs. He especially admired the phrase alluding to honest and respectable tradesmen who after leading a life of integrity in business were able to retire with a blessing upon their labours and devote the remainder of their lives to good works. He was surprised to find a countryman with such a keen insight into human character. Pendoggat prayed also for pastors and teachers, and especially for those shepherds who led members of their flock astray; while Pezzack grew whiter, and the grocer went on nodding his head like a ridiculous automaton. The jam-maker had wrapped himself up in his greatcoat and gone to sleep, so that he should not be defiled by listening to false doctrine. He was a prosperous man and the handful of sovereigns he had lost in "Wheal Pezzack" did not trouble him much. A few florid advertis.e.m.e.nts would bring them back again.

The service came to an end, and Pendoggat rose to address the meeting.

He asked the people to remain in their places for a few moments, and he turned to Eli, who was still at the reading-desk, and said, with his eyes upon the walls which were sweating moisture--

"You called a meeting here last summer, minister. You said you had found nickel on Dartmoor, and you wanted to start a company to work it."

"No, no," cried Eli, beginning to flap his big hands as if he was learning to fly. He had expected something was going to happen, but not this. "That is not true, Mr. Pendoggat."

"Let him talk," muttered the grocer. "Your time's coming."

"I say you called a meeting, and I came to it," Pendoggat went on.

"There are folks here to-night who came to that meeting, and they will remember what happened. You sent round a sample of nickel, and then I got up and said there was no money in the scheme, and I said I would have nothing to do with it, and I told the others they would be fools if they invested anything in it. I ask any one here to get up and say whether that is true or not."

"It was your mine, Mr. Pendoggat. It was your scheme. Oh, Mr. Pendoggat, 'ow can you talk like this, and uncle listening?" cried the miserable Eli.

Up got the old farmer, who had been present at the meeting, and said in his rambling way that Pendoggat had spoken nothing but the truth; and he added, for the benefit of the visitors, what his uncle, who had been a miner in the old days, had told him concerning the various wheals, and the water in them, and the difficulty of working them on account of that water. And when he had repeated his remarks, so that there might be no misunderstanding, the grocer sent his elbow into the jam-maker's ribs, and whispered in his deplorable phraseology that his nephew had been up to a blooming lot o' dirty tricks and no error; while the jam-maker awoke, with a curt remark about the increasing protuberance of his wife's bones, and found himself in cold lamp-lighted Ebenezer, looking at Eli's countenance which was beginning to exude moisture like the stones of the walls.

"Friends, uncle, and Mr. Pendoggat--" stammered the poor minister, trying to be oratorical; but the grocer only muttered: "Stow your gab and let the man talk."

"After the meeting we stopped behind, and you told me you were going to run the mine, and you asked me in this place if I would be your manager," Pendoggat went on. "I said I would if there wasn't any risk, and then you told me you could get the money from friends, from your uncle in Bromley--"

Eli cut him off with wailings. It was his peculiarity to be unable to speak with coherence when he was excited. He could only gasp and stammer: "It's not true. It's the other way about. I never 'ad nothing to do with it. You are telling 'orrid, shameful lies, Mr. Pendoggat;"

but the grocer muttered audibly: "A dirty rascal," while the jam-maker muttered something about penal servitude which made him smile.

"You told me you had an uncle retired from business," said Pendoggat. "A simple old chap you called him, an old fool who would believe anything."

The grocer began to splutter like a squib, while his companion laughed beneath his hand, pleased to hear his friend's weaknesses clearly indicated; and Eli, losing all self-control, came tumbling from the desk and sprawled at his relation's feet, sobbing like the weak fool he was, and saying: "Oh, Mr. Pendoggat, 'ow can you talk so shameful? Oh, uncle, I never did."

The people behind were standing up and pressing forward, shocked to discover that their minister had been standing on such feet of clay.

Pendoggat looked at his watch and smiled. He had judged Pezzack accurately; the weak fool was in his hands. The grocer, scarlet to the tip of his nose, caught his nephew by the neck, shook him, and, forgetting everything but his own losses desecrated the chapel by his mercenary shouts: "Where's my money, you rascal? Give me back my money, every penny of it, or I'll turn you out of house and home, and make a beggar of you."

"I 'aven't got it, uncle. I never 'ad a penny of it. I 'anded it over as fast as it come to Mr. Pendoggat, and he 'ave got it now."

This was literally true, as the money was in Pendoggat's pocket, but the grocer had formed his own impressions and these were entirely unfavourable to Eli. He went on shaking his nephew, while the jam-maker in moving his foot kicked the bankrupt, and found the operation so soothing to his nerves that he repeated the act with intention.

"I ain't got none o' the money. I gave it 'im, and he's been keeping wife and me. I thought he was my friend. He've a shook me by the 'and many a time, and we've been like brothers. I didn't never call you a simple old chap, uncle. I love you and respect you. I've always tried to do my duty, and my wife's expecting, uncle."

"You married on my money. Don't tell me you didn't. 'Twas a trick of yours to get married. If you don't pay it back, I'll turn you out, you and your wife, into the street. I'll get a bit of my own back that way, sure as I'm a Christian."

"Ask Jeconiah," sobbed Eli. "I've 'ad no secrets from her. She'll tell you I 'aven't touched a penny of your money 'cept what Mr. Pendoggat gave us."

The jam-maker kicked again, finding a softer spot, and muttered something about one being as bad as the other, and that if he couldn't find a more likely story he had better keep his mouth shut.

Pendoggat stepped forward, took the wretched man by the shoulders, making him shudder, and asked reproachfully: "Why did you tell these gentlemen I have the money?"

"G.o.d 'elp you, Mr. Pendoggat," moaned Eli. "You have used me for your own ends, and now you turn against me. I don't understand it. 'Tis cruelty that pa.s.ses understanding. I will just wait and 'ope. If I am not cleared now I shall be some day, I shall be when we stand together before the judgment seat of G.o.d. There will be no money there, Mr.

Pendoggat, nothing that corrupteth or maketh a lie, only justice and mercy, and I won't be the one to suffer then."

Had the grocer been less angry he must have been impressed by his nephew's earnestness. As it was he pushed him aside and said--

"I'll get my own back. Pay us our money, or you go to prison. I'll give you till to-morrow, and if I don't have it before evening I'll get a warrant out."

"Oh, 'elp me, Mr. Pendoggat. 'Elp me in the name of friends.h.i.+p, for my poor wife's sake," sobbed Eli.

"I'll forgive you," Pendoggat muttered. "I don't bear you any ill-feeling. Here's my hand on it."

But Eli wanted no more grasps of good fellows.h.i.+p. He buried his big hands between his knees, and put his simple head down, and wept like a child.