His brows puckered. His eyes concentrated. His somewhat brutal jaw squared itself. His face had become impassioned and earnest all of a sudden. It had been coarse and rather stupid before; now a certain eagerness of purpose gave it sharpness. He began to talk with vehemence, making crude, forceful gestures, thrashing the air with his arms, bringing down his clenched right-fist into the open palm of his left-hand when a remark called for emphasis. His thick throat swelled above the red knotted handkerchief which took the place of a collar. He spoke with a kind of savage anger. He mauled his audience with brutal eloquence. His way of talking was ignorant. He was displeasing, yet compelling. There were fifteen minutes until the train started. I watched him with cynicism as a diversion from my thoughts.
“Brothers and sisters,” he shouted, “we are ’ere met in the sight of h’Almighty Gawd. It was ’im as brought us together. Yer didn’t know that when yer started out this starlit h’evenin’ for yer walk. It was ’im as sent me ’ere ter tell yer this evenin’ that the wages o’ sin is death. I know wot h’I’m a-saying of, for I was once a sinner. But blessed be Gawd, ’e ’as saved me and washed me white h’in ’is son’s precious blood. ’E can do that for you ter-night, an ’e sent me’ere ter tell yer.”
Some of the Cornish Methodists, in Ransby for the herring season, began to warm to the orator’s enthusiasm. They urged him to further fervor by ejaculating texts and crying, “Amen!”
“Blessed be ’is name!”
“Glory!” etc.
The man sank his voice from the roaring monotone in which he had started. “The wages o’ sin is death,” he repeated. “Oh, my friends, h’I speak as a dyin’ man to dyin’ men. Yer carn’t h’escape them wages nohow. The fool ’as said in ’is ’eart, ‘There ain’t no Gawd.’ ’Ave you said that? Wot’ll yer say when yer ’ave ter take the wages? Now yer say, ‘No one’s lookin’. They’ll never find out. H’everyone’s as bad as I h’am, only they doan’t let me know it. I’ll h’injoy myself. There ain’t no Gawd.’ I tells yer, my friends, yer wrong. ’E’s a-watchin’ yer now, lookin’ down from them blessed stars. ’E looks inter yer ’eart and sees the sin yer a-meditatin’ and a-planning. ’E knows the wages yer’ll ’ave ter take for it. ’E sees the conserquences. And the conserquences is death. Death ter self-respec’! Death ter ’uman h’affection! Death ter the woman and children yer love! Death ter ’ope and purity! Damnation ter yer soul! ’Ave yer thought o’ that? Death! Death! Death!”
He hissed the words, speaking slower and slower. His voice died away in an awestruck whisper. In the pause that followed, the quiet was broken by a shrill laugh. All heads turned. On the outskirts of the crowd stood “Lady Halloway.” She had evidently been drinking. A foolish smile played about her mouth. Her lips were swollen. She mimicked the evangelist in a hoarse, cracked voice, “Death! Death! Death!”
I signed to Vi. Going first, carrying Dorrie in my arms, I commenced to force a passage. We had become wedged against the wall. Our going caused a ripple of disturbance. Attention was distracted from “Lady Halloway” to ourselves. She turned her glazed eyes on us. Stupid with drink, she did not recognize me at first. I had to pass beneath the lantern quite near her. As the light struck across my face, she saw who I was. “’E’s got another gal,” she tittered so all could hear her. “It’s easy come and easy go-a. Love ’ere ter-day and thar ter-morrer. Good-evenin’, Sir Dante Cardover, that is ter be. And ’oo’s yer noo sweet-’art? Is she as pretty h’as me? Let a poor gal ’ave a look at ’er.”
I pushed by her roughly. She would have followed, but some of the crowd restrained her. She made a grab at Vi. I could hear Vi’s dress rending. “So I ain’t good ’nough!” she shouted. “I ain’t good ’nough for yer! And ’oo are you ter despise me, I’d like ter h’arsk?”
She said a lot more, but her voice was drowned in a protesting clamor. I turned my head as I crossed the station-yard. Beneath the evangelist’s lantern I saw her arms tossing. Her hair had broken loose. Her eyes followed us. I entered the station and saw no more. Not until we had slipped through the barrier on to the platform did we slacken. Even while loathing her for her display of bestiality, my grandmother’s words came back to me, “She was as nice and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby, until that rascal, Lord Halloway, ruined her.”