Furze the Cruel

by John Trevena

"This is an appalling catostrophe, Mr. Pendoggat." Eli often blundered over long words, never having learnt derivations. "The most excruciating catostrophe I can remember. I am feeling like chaff scattered by the wind."

He was trying to rebuke Pendoggat. He was too much in awe of him to speak more bitterly. Besides, he was a good Christian, and Eli never lost sight of that fact, knowing that as a minister it was his duty not to revile his fellow-creatures more than was necessary.

Pendoggat stood under a cold lamp, which cast a cold light upon his black head, and his eyes were upon his boots. Eli stumbled against a chair, and in trying to regain his balance fell against his companion, causing him to lose control over himself for an instant. He struck out his arm and sent Pezzack sprawling among the chairs like an ash-faggot, a prospect of long black coat and big flat boots. Eli did not mind tumbling, because he was used to it, not having been endowed with much sense of gravity. He went about on a bicycle, and was constantly falling off, and cutting fantastic figures in the air, between Brentor and Bridestowe. But just then he had an idea that brute force had been used against him. Pendoggat had struck him, not like the righteous who smite in friendly reproof, but like the heathen who rage together furiously. "Why did you strike me, Mr. Pendoggat?" he muttered, dragging himself to a sitting posture upon a chair and looking whiter than ever. "You cast me aside like a potter's vessel. Your precious palm might have broke my 'ead."

"Why can't you stand up, man?" said Pendoggat amicably. "You fell against my arm where I pinched it this morning in the linny door. I couldn't help pushing you away, and maybe I pushed harder than I meant, for you hurt me. You tumbled over your own feet. Not hurt, are ye?"

"Yes, Mr. Pendoggat," whispered Eli. It was so silent in that dreary chapel that the least sound was audible. "Not 'ere, not in my body, but in my 'eart; not by the push you gave me, but by the words you 'ave spoken. I stood up to-night, and I spoke like a fool, and I felt like a fool. I was doing the work that you gave me to do, Mr. Pendoggat, and you spoke against me."

Eli was growing bold. He had scraped some skin from his leg, and the smart gave him courage. He was feeling bitter also, and life seemed to be a failure just then. There was nothing for it but to grub along and preach the Gospel in poverty, a very laudable existence, but equally unsatisfying. He was waking from a golden dream to discover himself in the cold, just as Brightly dreamed of mythical Jerusalem and remained upon the dungheap. A little more of such treatment and Eli might have developed a tendency towards chronic misanthropy.

Pendoggat was amused. He realised that the minister was really suffering, both in body and mind. Eli was like some wretched rabbit in the iron jaws of a trap; and Pendoggat was the one who had set the trap, and was standing over it, able to let the creature out, and intending to do so, but not until a fair amount of suffering had been exacted. Pezzack was as much in his power as the rabbit in the hands of the trapper. He was weak and Pendoggat was strong. Eli was a poor stunted thing grown in a London back yard; Pendoggat was a tough moorland growth.

"I reckon you did speak like a fool," he said, while Eli wondered what he was looking at: himself, the floor, or the granite wall with its little beads of moisture glistening in the lamplight. "You put it to them all wrong. If I hadn't stood up they might have got it into their heads you were trying to trick 'em. You spoke all the time as if you didn't know what you were talking about. You're a good preacher, Pezzack, though not outspoken enough, but you're no good at business. You wouldn't make a living outside the pulpit."

Eli was crushed again. His anger had departed, and he was nursing his leg and his sorrows patiently. He believed that Pendoggat, with all his roughness, was a man in whom he could trust. The commoner did not come with a smooth smile, canting to his face, then departing to play him false. He behaved like the honest rugged man he was; giving him a rough grasp of the hand, pushing him off harshly when he hurt him, telling him plainly of his faults, chiding him for his folly, speaking that which was in his mind. Eli thought he knew something about human nature, and that knowledge convinced him that if he should refuse to follow Pendoggat he would lose his best friend. Pendoggat might behave like a bear; but there was nothing of the bear about him except the skin.

"I was doing my best. I said all I could, but I know my words must 'ave sounded poor and foolish," he said mournfully. "Now it's all over, and I must write to Jeconiah, and tell her we can't be married just yet. It is a cruel blow, but the things of this world, Mr. Pendoggat, are but as dross. The moth corrupteth, and the worm nibbleth, and we are shadows which pass away and come not again." Eli shivered and subsided. He was mournful, and the interior of Ebenezer was as cold as an ice-house.