Where There is Nothing Part 9

_Mr. Green._ We have come to request you to go to the public-houses, to stop the free drinks, to send the people back to their work. As for those tinkers, the law will deal with them when the police arrive.

_Thomas Ruttledge._ Oh, Paul, why have you upset the place like this?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Well, I wanted to give a little pleasure to my fellow-creatures.

_Mr. Dowler._ This seems rather a low form of pleasure.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I daresay it seems to you a little violent. But the poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.

_Mr. Algie._ But drunkenness!

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Putting his hand on the shoulders of two of the magistrates._] Have we not tried sobriety? Do you like it? I found it very dull? [_A yell from outside._] There is not one of those people outside but thinks that he is a king, that he is riding the wind. There is not one of them that would not hit the world a slap in the face. Some poet has written that exuberance is beauty, and that the roadway of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. But I forgot--you do not read the poets.

_Mr. Dowler._ What we want to know is, are you going to send the people back to their work?

_Paul Ruttledge._ Oh, work is such a little thing in comparison with experience. Think what it is to them to have their imagination like a blazing tar-barrel for a whole week. Work could never bring them such blessedness as that.

_Mr. Dowler._ Everyone knows there is no more valuable blessing than work.

_Mr. Algie._ Idleness is the curse of this country.

_Paul Ruttledge._ I am prejudiced, for I have always been an idler.

Doubtless, the poor must work. It was, no doubt, of them you were speaking. Yet, doesn't the Church say, doesn't it describe heaven as a place where saints and angels only sing and hold branches and wander about hand in hand. That must be changed. We must teach the poor to think work a thing fit for heaven, a blessed thing. I'll tell you what we'll do, Dowler. Will you subscribe, and you, and you, and we'll send lecturers about with magic lanterns showing heaven as it should be, the saints with spades and hammers in their hands and everybody working. The poor might learn to think more of work then. Will you join in that scheme, Dowler?

_Mr. Dowler._ I think you'd better leave these subjects alone. It is obvious you have cut yourself off from both religion and society.

_Mr. Green._ The world could not go on without work.

_Paul Ruttledge._ The world could not go on without work! The world could not go on without work! I must think about it. [_Gets up on bin._]

Why should the world go on? Perhaps the Christian teacher came to bring it to an end. Let us send messengers everywhere to tell the people to stop working, and then the world may come to an end. He spoke of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Perhaps it would be a good thing to end these one by one.

_Colonel Lawley._ Come away out of this. He has gone mad.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Ah! I thought that would scare them.

_Mr. Joyce._ I wish, Paul, you would come back and live like a Christian.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Like a Christian?

_Mr. Joyce._ Come away, there's no use stopping here any longer.

_Paul Ruttledge._ [_Sternly._] Wait, I have something to say to that.

[_To_ CHARLIE WARD.] Do not let anyone leave this place.

[Tinkers _close together at the door_.

_Mr. Green._ [_To_ Tinkers.] This is nonsense. Let me through.

[Tinker _spreads out his arms before him_.

_Paul Ruttledge._ You have come into a different kingdom now; the old kingdom of the people of the roads, the houseless people. We call ourselves tinkers, and you are going to put us on our trial if you can.

You call yourselves Christians and we will put you on your trial first.

I will put the world on its trial, and myself of yesterday. [_To a_ Boy.] Run out, Johneen, keep a watch, and tell us when the train is coming. Sabina, that rope; we will set these gentlemen on those barrels.

[Tinkers _take hold of them_.

_Colonel Lawley._ Keep your hands off me, you drunken scoundrel!

[_Strikes at_ CHARLIE WARD, _but_ Tinkers _seize his arms behind_.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Tie all their hands behind them.

_Mr. Dowler._ We'd better give in, there's no saying how many more of them there are.

_Mr. Algie._ I'll be quiet, the odds are too great against us.

_Mr. Green._ The police will soon be here; we may as well stay quietly.

_Paddy c.o.c.kfight._ Here, give it to me, I'll put a good twist in it.

Don't be afraid, sir, it's not about your neck I'm putting it----. There now, sit quiet and easy, and you won't feel it at all.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Are all their hands tied? Now then, heave them up on to the barrels.

[_Slight scuffle, during which all are put on the barrels in a semicircle._

_Paul Ruttledge._ Ah! yes, you are on my barrels now; last time I saw you, you were on your own dunghill. Let me see, is there anyone here who can write?

_Charlie Ward._ n.o.body.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Never mind, you can keep count on your fingers. The rest must sit down and behave themselves as befits a court. They say they are living like Christians. Let us see.

_Thomas Ruttledge._ Oh, Paul, don't make such a fool of yourself.

_Paul Ruttledge._ The point is not wisdom or folly, but the Christian life.

_Mr. Dowler._ Don't answer him, Thomas. Let us preserve our dignity.

_Mr. Algie._ Yes, let us keep a dignified att.i.tude--we won't answer these ruffians at all.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Respect the court! [_Turns to Colonel Lawley._] You have served your Queen and country in the field, and now you are a colonel of militia.

_Colonel Lawley._ Well, what is there to be ashamed of in that? Answer me that, now.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Yet there is an old saying about turning the other cheek, an old saying, a saying so impossible that the world has never been able to get it out of its mind. You have helped to enlist men for the army, I think? Some of them have fought in the late war, and you have even sent some of your own militia there.

_Colonel Lawley._ If I did I'm proud of it.

_Paul Ruttledge._ Did they think it was a just war?

_Colonel Lawley._ That was not their business. They had taken the Queen's pay. They would have disgraced themselves if they had not gone.