The Freelands Part 26

"Is it right to fan this flame? Do you think any good end is being served?" Waiting for her answer, he found himself gazing at the ghost of dark down on her upper lip, wondering that he had never noticed it before.

Very low, as if to herself, she said:

"I would kill myself to-day if I didn't believe that tyranny and injustice must end."

"In our time?"

"Perhaps not."

"Are you content to go on working for an Utopia that you will never see?"

"While our laborers are treated and housed more like dogs than human beings, while the best life under the sun--because life on the soil might be the best life--is despised and starved, and made the plaything of people's tongues, neither I nor mine are going to rest."

The admiration she inspired in Felix at that moment was mingled with a kind of pity. He said impressively:

"Do you know the forces you are up against? Have you looked into the unfathomable heart of this trouble? Understood the tug of the towns, the call of money to money; grasped the destructive restlessness of modern life; the abysmal selfishness of people when you threaten their interests; the age-long apathy of those you want to help? Have you grasped all these?"

"And more!"

Felix held out his hand. "Then," he said, "you are truly brave!"

She shook her head.

"It got bitten into me very young. I was brought up in the Highlands among the crofters in their worst days. In some ways the people here are not so badly off, but they're still slaves."

"Except that they can go to Canada if they want, and save old England."

She flushed. "I hate irony."

Felix looked at her with ever-increasing interest; she certainly was of the kind that could be relied on to make trouble.

"Ah!" he murmured. "Don't forget that when we can no longer smile we can only swell and burst. It IS some consolation to reflect that by the time we've determined to do something really effectual for the ploughmen of England there'll be no ploughmen left!"

"I cannot smile at that."

And, studying her face, Felix thought, 'You're right there! You'll get no help from humor.'...

Early that afternoon, with Nedda between them, Felix and his nephew were speeding toward Transham.

The little town--a hamlet when Edmund Moreton dropped the E from his name and put up the works which Stanley had so much enlarged--had monopolized by now the hill on which it stood. Living entirely on its ploughs, it yet had but little of the true look of a British factory town, having been for the most part built since ideas came into fas.h.i.+on.

With its red roofs and chimneys, it was only moderately ugly, and here and there an old white, timbered house still testified to the fact that it had once been country. On this fine Sunday afternoon the population were in the streets, and presented all that long narrow-headedness, that twist and distortion of feature, that perfect absence of beauty in face, figure, and dress, which is the glory of the Briton who has been for three generations in a town. 'And my great-grandfather'--thought Felix--'did all this! G.o.d rest his soul!'

At a rather new church on the very top they halted, and went in to inspect the Morton memorials. There they were, in dedicated corners.

'Edmund and his wife Catherine'--'Charles Edmund and his wife Florence'--'Maurice Edmund and his wife Dorothy.' Clara had set her foot down against 'Stanley and his wife Clara' being in the fourth; her soul was above ploughs, and she, of course, intended to be buried at Becket, as Clara, dowager Lady Freeland, for her efforts in regard to the land.

Felix, who had a tendency to note how things affected other people, watched Derek's inspection of these memorials and marked that they excited in him no tendency to ribaldry. The boy, indeed, could hardly be expected to see in them what Felix saw--an epitome of the great, perhaps fatal, change that had befallen his native country; a record of the beginning of that far-back fever, whose course ran ever faster, which had emptied country into town and slowly, surely, changed the whole spirit of life. When Edmund Moreton, about 1780, took the infection disseminated by the development of machinery, and left the farming of his acres to make money, that thing was done which they were all now talking about trying to undo, with their cries of: "Back to the land!

Back to peace and sanity in the shade of the elms! Back to the simple and patriarchal state of feeling which old doc.u.ments disclose. Back to a time before these little squashed heads and bodies and features jutted every which way; before there were long squashed streets of gray houses; long squashed chimneys emitting smoke-blight; long squashed rows of graves; and long squashed columns of the daily papers. Back to well-fed countrymen who could not read, with Common rights, and a kindly feeling for old 'Moretons,' who had a kindly feeling for them!" Back to all that? A dream! Sirs! A dream! There was nothing for it now, but--progress! Progress! On with the dance! Let engines rip, and the little, squash-headed fellows with them! Commerce, literature, religion, science, politics, all taking a hand; what a glorious chance had money, ugliness, and ill will! Such were the reflections of Felix before the bra.s.s tablet:

"IN LOVING MEMORY OF EDMUND MORTON AND HIS DEVOTED WIFE CATHERINE.

AT REST IN THE LORD. A.D., 1816."

From the church they went about their proper business, to interview a Mr. Pogram, of the firm of Pogram & Collet, solicitors, in whose hands the interests of many citizens of Transham and the country round were almost securely deposited. He occupied, curiously enough, the house where Edmund Morton himself had lived, conducting his works on the one hand and the squirearchy of the parish on the other. Incorporated now into the line of a long, loose street, it still stood rather apart from its neighbors, behind some large shrubs and trees of the holmoak variety.

Mr. Pogram, who was finis.h.i.+ng his Sunday after-lunch cigar, was a short, clean-shaved man with strong cheeks and those rather l.u.s.tful gray-blue eyes which accompany a st.u.r.dy figure. He rose when they were introduced, and, uncrossing his fat little thighs, asked what he could do for them.

Felix propounded the story of the arrest, so far as might be, in words of one syllable, avoiding the sentimental aspect of the question, and finding it hard to be on the side of disorder, as any modern writer might. There was something, however, about Mr. Pogram that rea.s.sured him. The small fellow looked a fighter--looked as if he would sympathize with Tryst's want of a woman about him. The tusky but soft-hearted little brute kept nodding his round, spa.r.s.ely covered head while he listened, exuding a smell of lavender-water, cigars, and gutta-percha.

When Felix ceased he said, rather dryly:

"Sir Gerald Malloring? Yes. Sir Gerald's country agents, I rather think, are Messrs. Porter of Worcester. Quite so."

And a conviction that Mr. Pogram thought they should have been Messrs.

Pogram & Collet of Transham confirmed in Felix the feeling that they had come to the right man.

"I gather," Mr. Pogram said, and he looked at Nedda with a glance from which he obviously tried to remove all earthly desires, "that you, sir, and your nephew wish to go and see the man. Mrs. Pogram will be delighted to show Miss Freeland our garden. Your great-grandfather, sir, on the mother's side, lived in this house. Delighted to meet you; often heard of your books; Mrs. Pogram has read one--let me see--'The Bannister,' was it?"

"'The Bal.u.s.trade,'" Felix answered gently.

Mr. Pogram rang the bell. "Quite so," he said. "a.s.sizes are just over so that he can't come up for trial till August or September; pity--great pity! Bail in cases of arson--for a laborer, very doubtful! Ask your mistress to come, please."

There entered a faded rose of a woman on whom Mr. Pogram in his time had evidently made a great impression. A vista of two or three little Pograms behind her was hastily removed by the maid. And they all went into the garden.

"Through here," said Mr. Pogram, coming to a side door in the garden wall, "we can make a short cut to the police station. As we go along I shall ask you one or two blunt questions." And he thrust out his under lip:

"For instance, what's your interest in this matter?"

Before Felix could answer, Derek had broken in:

"My uncle has come out of kindness. It's my affair, sir. The man has been tyrannously treated."

Mr. Pogram c.o.c.ked his eye. "Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt! He's not confessed, I understand?"

"No; but--"

Mr. Pogram laid a finger on his lips.

"Never say die; that's what we're here for. So," he went on, "you're a rebel; Socialist, perhaps. Dear me! Well, we're all of us something, nowadays--I'm a humanitarian myself. Often say to Mrs.

Pogram--humanity's the thing in this age--and so it is! Well, now, what line shall we take?" And he rubbed his hands. "Shall we have a try at once to upset what evidence they've got? We should want a strong alibi. Our friends here will commit if they can--n.o.body likes arson. I understand he was sleeping in your cottage. His room, now? Was it on the ground floor?"

"Yes; but--"

Mr. Pogram frowned, as who should say: Ah! Be careful! "He had better reserve his defence and give us time to turn round," he said rather shortly.

They had arrived at the police station and after a little parley were ushered into the presence of Tryst.

The big laborer was sitting on the stool in his cell, leaning back against the wall, his hands loose and open at his sides. His gaze pa.s.sed at once from Felix and Mr. Pogram, who were in advance, to Derek; and the dumb soul seemed suddenly to look through, as one may see all there is of spirit in a dog reach out to its master. This was the first time Felix had seen him who had caused already so much anxiety, and that broad, almost brutal face, with the yearning fidelity in its tragic eyes, made a powerful impression on him. It was the sort of face one did not forget and might be glad of not remembering in dreams. What had put this yearning spirit into so gross a frame, destroying its solid coherence? Why could not Tryst have been left by nature just a beer-loving serf, devoid of grief for his dead wife, devoid of longing for the nearest he could get to her again, devoid of susceptibility to this young man's influence? And the thought of all that was before the mute creature, sitting there in heavy, hopeless patience, stung Felix's heart so that he could hardly bear to look him in the face.