Two Years Ago Volume I Part 42

In despair, Tom went off to Elsley Vavasour. Would he help? Would he join, as one of two householders, in making a representation to the proper authorities?

Elsley had never mixed in local matters: and if he had, he knew nothing of how to manage men, or to read an Act of Parliament; so, angry as Tom was inclined to be with him, he found it useless to quarrel with a man so utterly unpractical, who would, probably, had he been stirred into exertion, have done more harm than good.

"Only come with me, and satisfy yourself as to the existence of one of these nuisances, and then you will have grounds on which to go," said Tom, who had still hopes of making a cat's-paw of Elsley, and by his power over him, pulling the strings from behind.

Sorely against his will, Elsley went, saw, and smelt; came home again; was very unwell; and was visited nightly for a week after that by that most disgusting of all phantoms, sanitary nightmare; which some who have worked in the foul places of the earth know but too well.

Evidently his health could not stand it. There was no work to be got out of him in that direction.

"Would he write, then, and represent matters to Lord Scoutbush?"

How could he? He did not know the man; not a line had ever been exchanged between them. Their relations were so very peculiar. It would seem sheer impertinence on his part to interfere with the management of Lord Scoutbush's property. Really there was a great deal to be said, Tom felt, for poor Elsley's dislike of meddling in that quarter.

"Would Mrs. Vavasour write, then?"

"For Heaven's sake do not mention it to her. She would be so terrified about the children; she is worn out with anxiety already,"--and so forth.

Tom went back to Frank Headley.

"You see a good deal of Miss St. Just."

"I?--No--why?--what?" said poor Frank, blus.h.i.+ng.

"Only that you must make her write to her brother about this cholera."

"My dear fellow, it is such a subject for a lady to meddle with."

"It has no scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's obstinacy, or Scoutbush will go by his opinion; and tell her to keep the secret from her sister."

Frank did it, and well. Valencia was horror-struck, and wrote.

Scoutbush was away at sea, n.o.body knew where; and a full fortnight elapsed before an answer came.

"My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can do anything.

Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my hands; but copyholds and long leases, over which I have no power. If the people will complain to me of any given nuisance, I'll right it if I can; and if the doctor wants money, and sees any ways of laying it out well, he shall have what he wants, though I am very high in Queer Street just now, ma'am, having paid your bills before I left town, like a good brother: but I tell you again, I have no more power than you have, except over a few cottages, and Tardrew a.s.sured me, three weeks ago, that they were as comfortable as they ever had been."

So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Viscount. Well, there was one more chance to be tried.

Tom gave his lecture in the school-room. He showed them magnified abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appet.i.tes: he proved to them that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed eloquent, witty, sarcastic; and the net result was a general grumble.

"How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them? What business has he poking his nose down people's wells and waterb.u.t.ts?"

But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast-guard lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy-and-water, rose and declared, "that Dr. Thurnall was a very clever man; that by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, it was all as true as gospel; that the parish might have the cholera if it liked,"--and here a few expletives occurred,--"but that he'd see that the coast-guard houses were put to rights at once; for he would not have the lives of Her Majesty's servants endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for heathen savages," etc. etc.

Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great man's speech had produced an impression.

"Would he" (so he asked the lieutenant privately) "get some one to join him, and present a few of these nuisances?"

He would do anything in his contempt for "a lot of long-sh.o.r.e merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling themselves captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they wore the Queen's uniform!"

"Well, then, can't we find another householder--some cantankerous dog who don't mind a row?"

Yes, the cantankerous dog was found, in the person of Mr. John Penruddock, coal-merchant, who had quarrelled with Tardrew, because Tardrew said he gave short weight--which he very probably did--and had quarrelled also with Thomas Beer, senior, s.h.i.+pbuilder, about right of pa.s.sage through a back-yard.

Mr. Penruddock suddenly discovered that Mr. Beer kept up a dirt-heap in the said back-yard, and with virtuous indignation vowed "he'd sarve the old beggar out at last."

So far so good. The weapons of reason and righteousness having failed, Tom felt at liberty to borrow the devil's tools. Now to pack a vestry, and to nominate a local committee.

The vestry was packed; the committee nominated: of course half of them refused to act--they "didn't want to go quarrelling with their neighbours."

Tom explained to them cunningly and delicately that they would have nothing to do; that one or two (he did not say that he was the one, and the two also) would do all the work, and bear all the odium; whereon the malcontents subsided, considering it likely that, after all, nothing would be done.

Some may fancy that matters were now getting somewhat settled. Those who do so know little of the charming machinery of local governments.

One man has "summat to say,"--utterly irrelevant. Another must needs answer him with something equally irrelevant; a long chatter ensues, in spite of all cries to order and question. Soon one and another gets personal, and temper shows here and there. You would fancy that the go-ahead party try to restore order, and help business on. Not in the least. They have begun to cool a little. They are a little afraid that they have committed themselves. If people quarrel with each other, perhaps they may quarrel with them too. And they begin to be wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope of staving off the evil day, and finding some excuse for doing nothing after all. "Hear 'mun out!" ... "Vair and zoft, let ev'ry man ha' his zay!" ... "There's vary gude rason in it!" ... "I didn't think of that avore;"--and so forth; till in a quarter of an hour the whole question has to be discussed over again, through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and the miserable earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop, which will afford the whole a.s.sembly an excuse for falling on him open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes!

That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, princ.i.p.al "jowder,"

_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath.

"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less, has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows me!"

Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders, combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss. Besides, to offend one jowder was to offend all. They combined to buy the fish at any price they chose: if angered, they would combine now and then not to buy it at all.

"You old twenty per cent rascal," roared the Lieutenant, "after making a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do you want to poison 'em all with your stinking fish?"

"I say, Lieutenant," says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra fifty pounds at that moment, "fair's fair. You mind your Coastguard, and we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by charter and right; you'm not our master, and you shall know it."

"Know it?" says the Lieutenant, foaming.

"Iss; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split mun open, if I be hanged for it."

"You split my head open?"

"Iss, by--." And the old grey-bearded sea-king set his arms akimbo.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake!" cries poor Headley, "this is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is adjourned!"

"Best thing too! oughtn't never to have been called," says one and another.

And some one, as he went out, muttered something about "interloping strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates," which was answered by a--"Put 'mun in the quay pule," from Treluddra.

Tom stepped up to Treluddra instantly, "What were you so kind as to say, sir?"

Treluddra turned very pale. "I didn't say nought."

"Oh, but I a.s.sure you I heard; and I shall be most happy to jump into the quay pule this afternoon, if it will afford you the slightest amus.e.m.e.nt. Say the word, and I'll borrow a flute, and play you the Rogue's March all the while with my right hand, swimming with my left.

Now, gentlemen, one word before we part!"

"Who be you?" cries some one.