Chapter XVIII
GENTLEMEN AT ANDERBY
"Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of Harvest-home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter-storms begin...."
Mr. Coast, who filled the double rôle of schoolmaster and organist at Anderby, attacked the opening hymn of the Harvest Thanksgiving Service with such violence that he whirled the congregation along on an avalanche of discordant sound. The efforts of Miss Taylor, who led the lady sopranos in the choir, availed nothing, though she quavered gallantly half a beat behind, hoping that her vocal energy might counteract his instrumental zeal. But Mr. Coast did not care.
He had almost reached the limit of exasperation. In the most placid of humours, he would have found it somewhat disconcerting to play harvest hymns with a barley whisker tickling the back of his neck. Even if Mrs. Willerby was rejoicing in the end of the strike, she might have decorated the organ loft with greater discretion and less exuberance. The scent of geraniums, which Coast abominated, was mingled with an odour of rotting apples, damp prayer books and perspiring humanity from the choir stalls below. Together they involved him in a nightmare of discomfort.
"Wheat and tares therein are sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown...."
Precious little joy about it! A record of nothing but failure piled on failure, humiliation on humiliation. Of course, knowing his luck, he ought never to have expected the strike to be anything but a fiasco. After he had taken all the trouble to get Hunting down from Manchester, after he had gone himself night after night to sit in the beer-stifled atmosphere of the Flying Fox, trying to drive a little common sense into the bucolic obstinacy of those cursed villagers, wasn't it just his luck that that fool Rossitur should come down and spoil things?
"Grant, O Lord of life, that we
Holy grain and pure may be...."
Oh, damn! He ought to have played piano there! Well, as if it mattered! As if anything mattered very much, when he could see through the mirror that hung before him Mary Robson standing erect and triumphant in the front pew. It was all very well for her to sing hymns when the harvest was gathered in and the men were going back to work next Monday, and her husband had kept well in spite of the gloomy prognostications of the villagers. Well, she had scored again for the twentieth time—and he had to sit on Mrs. Cox's best vegetable-marrow and play the tunes for hymns that celebrated his defeat.
That fool Rossitur deserved smothering. He did really. Just when things were going rather well, what business had he to come down and tell the men that after the farmers had compromised by offering £3 a week the strike had gone on long enough for economic purposes, and that its protraction was merely the result of personal enmity?
All that talk about justice and disinterested co-operation was sentimental nonsense. If he told the truth, Rossitur would have acknowledged that the Northern Clarion paid him to advertise it among the labouring classes. Any extension of "progress" implied increased circulation for his paper.
"But the fruitful ears to store
In Thy garner evermore...."
And, anyway, it had not been as though he, Coast, had done anything outrageous. A word here and a hint there to the men, warning them against premature compliance with a barely concealed tyranny.... Rossitur himself might have done the same. Supposing Coast did dislike the Robsons, to refrain from performing an obvious social duty because its performance exposed him to the charge of personal enmity would have been nothing short of cowardice. Of that, at least, he was certain.
He pulled out the stops for the final crescendo. The congregation abandoned all genteel restraint, and unburdened its accumulation of emotion in a flood of exultant song. It was pleasant to know that in spite of apprehensions this business of unions and strikes and progress made very little difference after all. There had been a good deal of talk by the bridge on Saturday nights, and several superfluous pints of beer had been drunk over heated political discussions, and for six weeks a few wives had knitted their brows over unreplenished purses; but all that was over now, and Mr. Slater in a clean white surplice was encouraging the wicked man to turn away from his wickedness, as though there had never been any unprecedented scenes in the back yard of the Wold Farm, and no queer speechifyings by a black haired man called Hunting, and a red haired man called Rossitur.
On the whole, Anderby was pleased with itself. Foreman from the Wold Farm and Ezra Dawson, who only deserted the seclusion of the Primitives once a year to climb the hill for the harvest festival, propped their foreheads on their hands and praised the Almighty for His estimable promptitude in restoring order to the village. Violet, wearing a new silk blouse, almost twisted her neck, in her effort to catch Fred Stephens's eye where he stood, white surpliced and chastened in the choir stalls, no longer an enemy of respectability, but a very nice young man with whom anyone might be seen walking out after service. Bert Armstrong flung out his chest and boomed the hymns with tremendous relish. Really, everything was about as satisfactory as it well could be. Some people, of course, did not seem very pleased, but then fellows like Waite never were satisfied about anything. In other parts of the world, strikes might lead to permanent hostilities and riots, and general discomfort. It merely confirmed the conviction of Anderby's superiority to the rest of the world, to realize how quickly and easily it recovered from this decease of industrial enterprise.
Mr. Coast, it is true, differed from the majority in his appreciation of Mr. Rossitur's intervention. The village could see how throughout the service he had sat huddled on the organ seat, chewing the ends of his moustache. Well, of course, being the chief supporter of the union, even if you couldn't be recognized officially because you weren't an agricultural labourer, it must be rather trying to have your public aspirations checked at their outset.
The sermon was over and the last hymn announced. From the choir stalls, an arm reached out and tapped Coast on the shoulder. He turned irritably. A slip of paper was thrust into his hand. He read the note scrawled on it by the vicar with increasing indignation:
"Dear Coast,
"Would you kindly manage not to go quite so fast with the hymns? I'm sure it's very gratifying to see you know them so well, but the choir cannot keep pace with you.
"Yours,
"E. C. Slater."
Well, of all the outrageous impertinence! Coast crumpled it savagely into a ball, and turned to the organ. "We plough the fields, and scatter" moaned like a funeral dirge, with long-drawn wails at the end of every line.
The congregation clumped out of church, and stood about the churchyard in scattered groups of threes and fours. Coast began to collect his music with trembling fingers. His head ached intolerably, and he laboured under a strange delusion that the whole village was laughing at him. Every one knew that he had urged the continuance of the strike. Every one would know soon enough that the vicar sent him insulting notes across the choir stalls.
The sexton began to extinguish the candles on the altar, but Mrs. Robson still sat in her pew, gazing dreamily before her.
Coast had mislaid the manuscript page of music that fitted in to his psalter, containing the chants for festival psalms. Striking a match he groped among the shadows on the floor.
"Mr. Coast," the vicar's dry voice summoned him from below the seat.
He sat up suddenly, knocking his already aching head on the side of the keyboard.
"Well?"
The vicar was annoyed. "When I send you a note with a suggestion like that, Mr. Coast, there is really no need to caricature my criticism—No? That hymn, that last hymn, it was disgraceful—really quite spoilt, yes, quite spoilt!"
"You asked to have it slow. I gave you what you asked," snapped Coast, shutting up the keyboard with a bang.
"I don't think that is quite the spirit—not quite the spirit—for you to adopt, Mr. Coast. Irreverent work sets a bad example."
"Well, I don't think there was any need for you to use my pupils to pass your instructions along. At least you might have folded the paper. Half the choir were sniggering—making a fool of me before the boys and then expect the discipline of the school to be good."
"Well, really, when you will play hymns as though they were polkas yes, polkas, you must not expect me to refrain from some remark. Another time, please play more suitably. Good evening."
As the vicar passed the front pew, Coast saw him pause.
That damned woman had heard everything then—heard him scolded like a schoolboy by that fool Slater. It was too much.
"Well, well, Mrs. Robson"—Coast could guess just how the Vicar rubbed his bloodless little hands—"I think we have some cause for rejoicing this year—hah? A most trying business, satisfactorily over."
"Yes," said Mary. Her weary voice sounded remote and toneless in the shadowed church.
"I think we may congratulate you and Mr. Robson—very disinterested behaviour, very. Quite right that you should have stood out for the sake of the small farmers—quite. I was talking to Mrs. Armstrong to-day. She said what a help you and your husband had been to Albert. Very commendable."
Mrs. Robson made no reply.
"I hope your husband has not suffered from the anxiety. Is he strong again?"
"I think he will be all right now if he takes care."
"Quite so, no more strains. But there, you look after him so well."
"I do what I can, but I can't stop the wind blowing."
"Ah—of course. We are all in the hands of God's providence. No more talk about your retiring from farming, I hope?"
"Why, where ever did you hear that rumour?"
"I believe your husband said something about it one day at the parish meeting."
"Oh, I think not. You've made a mistake. He must have meant something else. We shan't retire for years, if ever we do at all—and I don't see why we should. We both hate town life."
"Of course, of course. I thought perhaps that after your husband's stroke he might find farming a little strenuous after this unfortunate affair." The vicar coughed discreetly.
"Oh well, now that it's over, I don't suppose we shall have much more bother."
Didn't she, indeed! Coast on the organ seat smiled bitterly. He could picture in the darkness Mrs. Robson's smile of smug self-satisfaction.
"Of course—in your hands—sure to be all right. Very capable. Very."
They moved away together down the aisle. The sexton limped round the church like a great bat, extinguishing lights and covering brass work with baize hoods.
"Shall I leave the key to you, Mr. Coast?" he queried.
"Please."
Then he, too, went. The schoolmaster sat alone. "I don't suppose we shall have much more bother...." Bother about the playing field, bother about the brassocking holiday, bother about taking Jack Greenwood from school before his time, bother about the strike.... All conveniently settled, with the least possible discomfort to herself, Mary Robson. How nice. How truly obliging of the Almighty to arrange the world so manifestly for her advantage!
"Oh, damn the woman! Damn her, damn her!"
There seemed nothing more to say.
At four o'clock the following Saturday afternoon, Coast was walking up the village street on his way to visit old Mrs. Armstrong. He had finally been persuaded by the parish council to approach her about her field in the village, which Mrs. Robson had suggested might serve as a playing ground for the school children. The road was full of life that afternoon. Continually bicycle bells chimed and tinkled, and couples rode past to Hardrascliffe. The Saturday after Harvest was always a red letter day at Anderby. Even Fred Stephens, who was due to return to work with his comrades on Monday, had ingratiated himself sufficiently with the Robsons' Violet to escort her, with sheepish humility and the bait of an invitation to the Pictures, along the Hardrascliffe road.
Coast had passed the post office and the bridge, and turned into the street of straggling houses that led to the Wold Farm. A short stocky figure slouched slowly ahead of him. He recognized Eli Waite shabbier and more disconsolate than ever, walking with drooping head, an empty pipe between his teeth.
Moved by a sudden impulse to talk to some one more out of love with life than himself, Coast hailed him with an unusually genial "Good afternoon, Waite."
Geniality was hardly Coast's typical manner, so Waite turned round with some surprise. He regarded the schoolmaster as a man of good sense and perspicacity who had played a worthy part in the recent industrial crisis. The nod he gave was less sulky than usual.
"Afternoon, Mr. Coast."
"How's Ethel? Any better? Bad business for her getting ill just now. What does the doctor think of her?"
"He says she ought to get away to a warmer spot, ought not to winter at Anderby, he says. As if I was a millionaire to send 'er off in a first class carriage."
Waite spat with emphasis on the path.
"Oh dear, that's bad isn't it? What are you going to do about it?"
Coast knew that any other father in the village would have gone for help to Mary Robson, and that she would have found, among the various institutions to whose skirts she clung for the benefit of her protégés, some holiday home for a delicate child.
But there was no such simple solution for Waite's problem.
"There's nowt to do for the likes o' me but wait and let her get better if she can."
"Let me see, where are you working now?"
Waite gave him one sidelong glance and then broke forth. "I'm not working. I'm not striking neither. I've been tenting cows for Tommy Dent when he went harvesting. I tell you there are some low down things done in Anderby you'd never hear tell on."
"Oh. Been out of work since that business with Mrs. Robson?"
"Ay."
"Foolish woman, very. Ah, what's that?"
From the road towards Market Burton came a rumbling clatter. An exultant procession of small boys appeared round the corner of the hedge. Then a column of dark grey smoke rose beyond it, and finally a traction-engine lumbered into view, with its trail of thrashing-machine and elevator.
It drew up beside the Robsons' stackyard gate, where the two men were standing.
"Hello there! D'you know if Robson's foreman is anywhere about?" called the driver.
"I doan't," growled Waite, "and I don't care."
The driver turned to his companion, a mechanic seated on the foot board.
"Here, mate!" he exclaimed. "This is one of the famous strikers of Anderby, I'll be bound. Where's the Red Flag, mate? Is that your union man?" He pointed a' derisive finger at Coast. "Come on, sonny," he called to a stout urchin who gazed in rapt enthusiasm at the engine. "Where's your dad?"
"He's waitin' for you somewheres—wants to get to Hardrascliffe to-night."
"Well, fetch him along then, for I want a wash up, and a drop of supper at the Flying Fox."
Waite and Coast stood silently by the gate, while a little crowd gathered to watch the delicate operation of manœuvring the engine and its appendages into the stackyard. Foreman emerged from the Hind's house, already attired in his Sunday best. The "thrashing man" was an old friend and ally.
"Come on, come in with you," called Foreman. "I'm taking missus in tid Hardrascliffe to-night for a bit o' spree like after harvest, and she's had 'er best hat on for last hour waiting o' you. We've got light cart yoked up an' all."
"Oh, git away with you then. I'll bring in the Rolls-Royce, and drop her gently along side one o' them there stacks for a bit o' rest after the journey like. Whoa there! Back there!"
His hand on the wheel turned with amazing rapidity. The engine snorted and backed, then slowly lumbered towards the gateway, leaving the elevator in the road. There was much backing and twisting, much shouting of small boys and coupling and uncoupling of the thrashing-machine, but eventually it was through, and the engine returned for the derelict in the road.
"You've got a good yardful," remarked the mechanic. "How did you come on wi' the strike?"
"Strike? We didn't have no strike—just a few fond chaps taking a holiday through harvest like."
"Oh, ay. You've got some bonny wheat here."
"Ay—and yon barley, but the thatching's bad. We missed owd Deane for that. The wet'll get in any day now. That's why maister's all on to have it thrashed an' out of way before weather breaks."
"It's fine enough now—happen a bit o' wind before morning."
"Ay. You'd better damp down the fire in yon engine o' your'n. We don't want no sparks flying about with all harvest in. There's not enough water i' t' pond to drown a cat in."
They were covering the machine now with tarpaulin, fastening everything snugly down for its sabbath's vigil. Coast stood watching them, and noticing how the stacks stood out in firm yellow blocks against the dark background of the wold. The solidarity of their bulging contour depressed him. Of what use was it to attack people who were shielded from poverty and failure by this power of possession? The backwash of progress beat in vain against the solid wall of property that sheltered them. He wondered no longer at the loud voiced communists whom he once condemned as extremists, because they would rob the rich of this destructive potency of wealth. That fellow Rossitur had been wrong as usual, when he declared that, after their taste of independence and co-operation during the strike, the men of Anderby would never be the same again. It would be just the same, the same patronage and injustice, the same complacent prosperity of people like the Robsons, the same heart-breaking rebellion of people like himself. The square grey house behind the sycamore-trees, the close packed sheaves of wheat and barley, the farm buildings astir with the sounds of pigs and horses and cattle, all these testified to the impotence of progress. Oh, the Robsons were safe!
Mike O'Flynn appeared from the stackyard gate that led to the garden of the Wold Farm. He strolled up to the little group where Foreman and the "machine man" discussed the utility of raising bags of corn by a mechanical invention, instead of swinging them over one's shoulder as in the olden days.
"What's that fellow Rossitur doing up at the house door?"
Foreman turned. "Nay, Mike, it beats me, but I expect he's gone to see Mrs. Robson."
"Mrs. Robson went into Hardrascliffe wi't t' maister this after'," said Shepherd Dawson.
"Well, 'tis no good he's after, anyway, or he'd have gone with Hunting this morning—bad cess to him! And it's glad I am that Mrs. Robson was not at home. After the trouble he's given her she'll not be wanting him again hanging round."
"You off in tid' town to-night, Mike?" asked Ezra, who found Mike's frequent tirades on the subject of David Rossitur somewhat tedious.
"Now, what should I be doing buying squeakers on the sands and going to Pictures? There's a corner seat in the Flying Fox that I'd part with for no man."
The men strolled off. The children still lingered to gaze upon the fascinating complexity of the great machine, and watch the smoke die from its funnel. Coast found that Waite was standing beside him leaning over the gateway. There was still the tiresome business of the field and old Mrs. Armstrong to be faced. He must get rid of Waite and go on with his work.
He turned to the figure at the gate.
"Well, I hope your daughter will soon recover."
"I never have no luck, and Ethel's always been a good girl."
"Oh, luck can change they say—though I doubt it."
"Luck's a lousy wench."
"She's never so queer as when she isn't luck at all, but some person who got their knife into you."
Waite looked with dawning comprehension at the schoolmaster.
"Ay," he remarked.
The wind was rising. A little whirl of dust and straw and dried leaves blew along the path at their feet.
"The wind's getting up," said Coast. He was looking now from the rounded stacks to the man at his side, and a new desire was forming in his mind.
"Ay. I doubt it'll be a blust'ry night," replied Waite.
"It's been a dry month," remarked Coast.
"Ay. Pond shows bottom, an' beck's dry."
"It would be a bad job for Robson if a spark from the engine caught on his straw."
"Ay."
"Those buildings are very near the yard, aren't they?"
"Ay."
"I believe the wind is blowing from the south too. There'll be rain soon."
"Oh, ay."
"Did you see in the paper about that stack fire at the other side of Market Burton? They don't know yet whether it was a spark from the engine or whether some one had set it on fire."
"Here, what are you driving at, Mr. Coast?"
"I—I'm driving at nothing. I don't know what you mean. Well, I must be moving. Oh, by the way, do you know that there's a talk that the Robsons may leave Anderby if anything else happens to upset Mr. Robson? He's been a bit of an invalid since his stroke."
"I hadn't heard."
"Some people wouldn't think it was a bad thing."
"Ay."
"Well, good evening."
Coast strolled on past the garden of the Wold Farm, and the Flying Fox, till he came to the Armstrongs' gate.
Then he paused. The light was fading and, beyond the stubble fields, the sky glowed red and stormy. A gust of wind brought the frail leaves which clung to the branches of a chestnut-tree whirling round him. Down in the valley, Anderby village grew dim and grey.