Coast sat in the parlour, his head on his hands, his elbows on the table. He knew that there was something at the back of his memory which would console him, if only this cursed pain would stop for a moment and let him think. Ah! He rose unsteadily and went to the table in the window. On a woollen mat, in the shade of an aspidistra plant, lay a copy of the Northern Clarion. He spread it on the table before him. Slowly he re-read an already familiar article, repeating softly the words, as though he found consolation in them. Rossitur, of course, was a fool. He had known that after half an hour's conversation with him. Enthusiasm was all very well; but enthusiasm totally detached from common sense was about as useful as a bell without a clapper. Why, the man didn't know what he was talking about. He wanted to turn the whole world into a sort of socialistic Sunday School with every one singing "Oh happy band of pilgrims" to the tune of the "Red Flag." Of flesh and blood and men with passionate and petty jealousies, with magnificent desires and sordid greeds, he knew nothing.
Still, even fools were sometimes useful.
Pictures chased each other through his mind. Mrs. Robson standing more like a stuffed duchess and handing Bert Armstrong's young woman a plated toast-rack. She thought there was no one like her in the whole East Riding; Mrs. Robson, sitting in that room, saying "The Field is mine. I will not sell"; Mrs. Robson walking down the village street, raising up and putting down whomsoever she would, acting deputy God.
How would she like one day to discover that she was only a cog in a worn-out economic machine? Now that chap, Hunting, talked sense. An agricultural labourer's union would soon show Mrs. Robson her place in society. Hunting seemed a practical chap. No nonsense about him. Said what he meant. He'd know just how to deal with a woman like Mrs. Robson.
Coast, holding one hand to his aching head, drew towards him a sheet of note-paper and dipped his pen in the inkpot. There was no ink. What on earth was the use of marrying a wife who never filled the inkpots? He wasted ten minutes groping about on shelves and cupboards before he found a sixpenny bottle behind Mrs. Coast's workbasket.
It was nearly four o'clock when he finally began his letter.
"To W. Hunting, Esq.,
Organizing Secretary of the Farm Labourers' Union. Northern Branch.
"Dear Sir...."
Two days later David sat in a small but comfortable eating-house in Manchester. He was combining, without marked success, the complicated operations of disintegrating a particularly tough piece of steak and composing the final sentence of his article for next week's Clarion. There was a smudge of ink on his nose, because his fountain pen always leaked, and a similar smudge of gravy on his cuff, but he was happily absorbed and quite annoyed when some one touched his arm and summoned his attention. Looking up, he saw a dark cadaverous person, in an aggressively ready-made suit, who inquired, with a pronounced Manchester accent, whether he was Mr. Rossitur who wrote for the Clarion.