The Obstacle Race Part 65

"You!" said d.i.c.k.

There was a moment's silence, then Saltash began to laugh. "My dear chap, you don't really think that! You'd like to--but you can't!"

d.i.c.k looked at him, thin-lipped, uncompromising, silent.

"You actually do?" questioned Saltash. "You really think I care a twopenny d.a.m.n what anybody thinks about you or anyone else under the sun?

I say, don't be an a.s.s, Green, whatever else you are! It's too tiring for all concerned. If you really want to know who is responsible--"

"Well?" said d.i.c.k.

"Well," Saltash sent a cloud of smoke upwards, "look a bit nearer home, man! Haven't you got--a brother somewhere?"

d.i.c.k gave a sudden start. "I have not!" he said sternly.

Saltash nodded. "Ah! Well, I imagine Yardley knows him if you don't. He is the traitor in the camp, and he's out to trip you if he can." He laughed again with careless humour. "I don't know why I should give you the tip. It is not my custom to heap coals of fire. Pray excuse them on this occasion! I suppose you are quite determined to take _Juliette_ to the meeting to-night?"

"I am quite determined to go," said Juliet quietly, as she came down the stairs. "Will you have anything, Charles? No? Then let us start! It is getting late. You are driving yourself?"

He threw open the door for her with a deep bow. "I always drive myself, _Juliette_, and--I always get there," he said.

Her faint laugh floated back to d.i.c.k as he followed them out.

CHAPTER VII

FLIGHT

It was a dumb and sullen crowd that d.i.c.k Green faced that night in the great barn on the slope of High Shale.

A rough platform had been erected at one end of the place and this, with the deal table and lamp and one or two chairs, was all that went to the furnis.h.i.+ng of his a.s.sembly-room. The men stood in a close crowd like herded cattle, and the atmosphere of the place was heavy with the reek of humanity and coa.r.s.e tobacco-smoke. There was a door at each end, but the night was still and dark and there was little air beyond the vague chill of a creeping sea-mist.

d.i.c.k, entering at the door at the platform end of the building instead of pa.s.sing straight up through the crowd as was his custom, was aware of a curious influence at work from the first moment--an influence adverse if not directly hostile that reached him he knew not how. He heard a vague murmur as Juliet and Saltash followed him, and sharply he turned and drew Juliet to his side. In that instant he realized that she was the only woman in the place.

He faced the crowd, his hand upon her arm. "Well, men," he said, his words clean-cut and ready, "so you've left your wives behind, have you? I on the contrary have brought mine, and she has promised to give you a song."

The mutter died. Some youths at the back started applause, which spread, though somewhat half-heartedly, through the crowd, and for a s.p.a.ce the ugly feeling died down.

"We'll get to business," said d.i.c.k, and took out his banjo.

The concert began, Ashcott came up on to the platform and under cover of d.i.c.k's jangling ragtime spoke in a low voice and urgently to Saltash.

The latter heard him with a laugh and a careless grimace, but a little later he leaned towards Juliet who sat behind the table and touched her un.o.btrusively. She looked round at him almost with reluctance, and he whispered to her in rapid French.

She listened to him with raised brows, and then shook her head with a smile. "No, of course not! I am going to sing to them directly. I am here to help--not to make things worse."

He shrugged his shoulders and said no more. In a few minutes d.i.c.k's cheery banjo thrummed into silence and he turned round.

"Are you ready?" he said to Juliet.

She rose and came forward, tall and graceful, bearing the unmistakable stamp of high-breeding in every delicate movement. She might have been on the platform of a London concert-hall as she faced her audience under the shadowing hat.

They stared at her open-mouthed, spellbound, awed by the quiet dignity of her. And in the hush that fell before her, Juliet began to sing.

Her voice was low, highly trained, exquisitely soft. She sang an old English ballad with a throbbing sweetness that held her hearers with its charm. And behind her d.i.c.k leaned against the table with his banjo and very softly accompanied her.

His face was in shadow also as he bent over the instrument. Not once throughout the song did he look up.

When she ended, there came that involuntary pause which is the highest tribute that can be paid by any audience, and then such a thunder of applause as shook the building. Saltash stepped forward to hand her back to her chair, but the men in front of her yelled so hoa.r.s.e a protest that, laughing, he retired.

And Juliet sang again and again, thrilling the rough crowd as d.i.c.k had never thrilled them, choosing such old-world melodies as reach the hearts of all. Saltash watched her with keen appreciation on his ugly face. He was an accomplished musician himself. But d.i.c.k with his banjo, though he responded unerringly to every shade of feeling in the beautiful voice, never raised his head.

It was he who at last came forward and led Juliet back to her chair, but by that time the temper of the men had completely changed. They shouted good-humoured comments to him and bandied jokes among themselves. The whole atmosphere of the place had altered. The heavy sullenness had pa.s.sed like a thunder-cloud, and Ashcott no longer smoked his pipe in the doorway with an air of gloomy foreboding.

d.i.c.k laid aside his banjo and came to the front of the platform. There was absolute confidence in his bearing, a vital strength that imparted a mastery that yet was largely compounded of comrades.h.i.+p.

He began to speak without effort--as a man speaks to his friends.

"I have something to say to you chaps," he said, "and I hope you will hear me out fairly, even though it may not be the sort of thing you like to listen to. I think you know that I care a good deal about your welfare, and I am doing my level best to secure a decent future for you.

I haven't accomplished very much at present, but I'm sticking to it, and I believe I shall win out some day. It won't be my fault if I don't, and I hope it won't be yours. What?" as a murmur broke out in the background. "Oh, shut up, please, till I've done, then if anyone wants to talk he shall have his chance. It might be your fault if I failed because I'm counting on you to back me up in a legal and orderly way.

And if you don't, well, I'm knocked out for good and all. For I'm no strike-leader, and any man who strikes can go to blazes so far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't lift a finger to stop him going or to get him out when there; in fact it's the best place for him. No, boys, listen! Wait till I've done! A strike is a deadly thing. It's like a spreading poison in this country, and the beastly root of it is just selfishness. It will choke the very life out of the nation if it isn't stopped. It's a weapon that no self-respecting man should smirch his hands with. I know very well there are heaps of reforms needed, heaps of abuses to be stopped, but you don't cure evil with evil. You're only feeding the monster that will devour you in the end, and you're feeding him with human sacrifice moreover. Have you ever thought of that? And another thing! Do you ever look ahead--right ahead--beyond your own personal wants and grievances? Do you ever ask yourselves if strikes and violence are going to bring forth justice and equity? Do you ever work the thing out to its proper values--see it as it really is? This continual striving for money, for power,--this overthrowing of all established control--do you call it a fight for liberty by any chance? I tell you, men, that it's a struggle for the most hideous slavery that ever disfigured this earth. This perpetual fight for self will end in self-destruction. It always does. It's the law of creation. The thing that strikes rebounds upon the striker. The man who deliberately injures another injures himself tenfold more seriously. Isn't there something in the Bible about he who takes the sword perishes with the sword? That's justice--G.o.d's justice--and there's no getting away from that. You can overthrow every inst.i.tution that was ever made, but you will never set up in its place a Government that will bring again the order you have destroyed. You can pull the Empire to pieces with dissensions and conspiracies, but--once down--you will never build it up again.

"Grievances? Yes, of course you have grievances--heaps of 'em. Who hasn't. And you've a right to try for better conditions. But in heaven's name, don't strike for them! Don't turn the whole world upside down because you want something you can't get! Be sportsmen and play a decent game! Stick to the rules and you may win! I tell you I'm fighting for you--I'm fighting hard. And I shan't rest so long as I have a decent crowd to fight for. But if you're going to follow the rotten example of the fellows who sacrifice the whole community to their own beastly greed--who strike like a herd of sheep because a few d.a.m.ned traitors urge 'em to it--who fling duty and honour to the winds on the chance of grabbing a little worldly advantage--in short, if you're not going to observe the rules of the game, I've done with the whole show.

"That's the position, men, and I want you to get hold of it, see it as it really is. Nothing on this earth worth having was ever gained by disloyalty. Think it out for yourselves! Don't be led by the nose by a parcel of agitators! Give the matter your own sane and deliberate thought! Form your own conclusions! Throw off this tyranny of other men's notions, and be free! If only every man in the kingdom would take this line and think for himself instead of giving his blind allegiance to a power that is out to ruin the nation, there would pretty soon be such a strike against strikes as would kill 'em outright. They're a hindrance to civilization and a curse to the world at large. They are selfishness incarnate and a stumbling-block to all national progress. And if there's any pride of race in you, any sense of an Englishman's honour, any desire for the nation's welfare (which is at a pretty low ebb just now) join with me and do your level best to cast out this evil thing!"

He ended as he had begun with clear and spontaneous appeal to the higher instincts of his hearers. He knew them well, knew their weakness and their strength; and he knew his own power over them and wielded it with unfailing confidence.

The hard-breathing silence that succeeded his words dismayed him not at all. He waited quite calmly for the question he had checked at the outset.

It came very gruffly from a burly miner immediately in front of him.

"It's all very well," the man said. "But how are we to get our rights any other way?"

"Oh, you'll get 'em all right," d.i.c.k made answer. "This isn't an age of serfdom. You won't be downtrodden to that extent. You stick to your guns and have a little patience! Things are not standing still. State your grievances--if they're bad enough--and then give the owners a chance! But don't forget that there's got to be give and take between you! If you want fair play and consideration from the owners, you must give them the same. Don't forget that you sink or swim together! If you ruin them you ruin yourselves. Disloyalty means disruption, all the world over. So play the game like men!"

It was at this point that Ashcott touched him on the shoulder with a muttered word that made him turn sharply.

"What? Who?"

"Mr. Ivor Yardley!" the manager muttered uneasily. "He's waiting to speak to you--says he'll address the men if you'll allow him. Think it's safe?"

d.i.c.k frowned. "Of course it's safe! Where is he? Wait! I'll speak to him first. I'll get my wife to sing again while I do it." He turned round to Juliet sitting at the table behind him and bent to speak to her. "Can you give them another song--to fill in time? I've got to speak to a man outside." His eyes travelled swiftly on the words to the open doorway where a tall man, wearing a motor-mask and a leather coat, stood waiting.

Juliet's look followed his. She stood up quickly. "d.i.c.k! Who is it?"

Something in her voice brought his eyes back to her in sudden close scrutiny. For that instant he forgot the crowd of men and the need of the moment, forgot the man who waited in the background whom he had desired so urgently to see, forgot the whole world in the wide-eyed terror of her look.