The older man’s face was a picture during this recital, and his eyes blazed as he turned to Inman, whose own features were almost expressionless.
“Sell me a pennorth, will he? And John Clegg could bring his-self to say that again’ a man ’at has his thousands wi’ him! I’ll give him six months notice to pay back every blessed ha’penny! I’ll see him rot afore he shall have my brass to lend to Maniwel Drake to set him on his feet. As like as not that’s what he is doing. And to have it thrown i’ one’s face ’at Maniwel wasn’t treated fair! I must say you’ve got it off very glib, young man, and’ll have turned it over i’ your mouth like a’ acid drop, I don’t doubt——”
“Mr. Briggs,” Inman interrupted quickly. “I’m Nancy’s husband, and you don’t need to be told I’m no friend of Drake’s. It’s a poor return for what I did yesterday to be bullyragged same as if I was your enemy.”
“Well, well,” said Baldwin with an impatient toss of the head; “it’s enough to make any man talk a bit wild. You’d better blow t’ whistle. It’s gone one!”
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH JOHN CLEGG IS “WANTED” AND MANIWEL ISN’T
IT was exactly a month later, towards the end of the merry month of May and within a week of Baldwin’s pay-day that news reached Mawm that John Clegg was “wanted” by the police. No merrier day had been known that year. Before the cocks awoke to their trumpeting a cuckoo had proclaimed the dawn, and had continued to obtrude its strange call upon the air that vibrated all day with the music of more melodious songsters. Curlews, black-headed gulls and lapwings, wheeling and crying as they felt the sweep of the mountain breeze, had brought life and action to the desolate moors, where the pink flowers of the bilberry washed whole tracts with sunset tints that deepened as the day advanced. One or two swallows had been seen above the river when the sun was hottest, but had soon flown south again leaving behind them the hope of summer. On every hand such stunted trees as the uplands could boast were either thick with foliage or at least bursting into leaf, and the meadows and pastures were spangled with gay spring flowers. The merry day had ended merrily; and when the sun went down to his couch in the west he flung his rich trappings to the sky which let them fall upon the mountain tops, where they lay until night cast her shadows over them.
No man from his well-padded seat in the theatre ever watched the play with keener enjoyment than Maniwel this entertainment of Nature’s providing, though his chair was the hard stone parapet of the bridge beside his cottage. All through the day his soul had responded to the call of spring, to the warm grasp of the sun. The somewhat melancholy chanting of the moor birds had quickened his pulse; had stirred up memories of youth and youth’s ambitions; and he had discussed the future with Jagger in a spirit of breezy optimism that had fired the younger man. In another week their little capital would be in their own hands—it was not so very little after all for people in a small way. With one or two necessary machines and a supply of loose cash they would soon get into their stride, after which it was just a question of steadiness and hard, good work.
Maniwel had dismissed business from his thoughts, as a man must who would enjoy the play, and was feasting his senses on the scene before him when a motor-car, easily recognisable as the squire’s, sped up the road from the valley, and a hand beckoned him to approach.
Maniwel obeyed the summons and was greeted by Mr. Harris in a voice that was lowered so that the chauffeur would not hear.