The Parson O' Dumford Part 10

"But it's the Missus come," said Banks, and he peeped through a crack.

"Open the gates, open the gates," cried a dozen voices.

"I don't think you need fear now," said the vicar; "the disturbance is over for the present."

"Fear! I'm not afraid," snarled Richard; "but I won't have those scoundrels in here."

"I'll see as no one else comes in," said Harry, getting up like a small edition of Goliath; and he stood on one side of the wicket gate, while Banks opened it and admitted Mrs Glaire, with Eve Pelly, who looked ghastly pale.

Several men tried to follow, but the gate was forced to by the united efforts of Harry and the foreman, when there arose a savage yell; but this was drowned by some one proposing once more "Three cheers for the Missus!" and they were given with the greatest gusto, while the next minute twenty heads appeared above the wall and gates, to which some of the rioters had climbed.

"Oh, Richard, my son, what have you been doing?" cried Mrs Glaire, taking his hand, while Eve Pelly went up and clung to his arm, gazing tremblingly in his bleeding face and at his disordered apparel.

"There, get away," cried Richard, impatiently, shaking himself free.

"What have I been doing? What have those scoundrels been doing, you mean?"

He applied his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth, looking at the white cambric again and again, as he saw that it was stained, and turning very pale and sick, so that he seated himself on a rough mould.

"d.i.c.k, dear d.i.c.k, are you much hurt?" whispered Eve, going to him again in spite of his repulse, and laying her pretty little hand on his shoulder.

"Hurt? Yes, horribly," he cried, in a pettish way. "You see I am.

Don't touch me. Go for the doctor somebody."

He looked round with a ghastly face, and it was evident that he was going to faint.

"Run, pray run for Mr Purley," cried Mrs Glaire.

"I'll go," cried Eve, eagerly.

"I don't think there is any necessity," said the vicar, quietly. "Can you get some brandy, my man?" he continued, to Banks. "No, stay, I have my flask."

He poured out some spirit into the cup, and Richard Glaire drank it at a draught, getting up directly after, and shaking his fist at the men on the wall.

"You cowards!" he cried. "I'll be even with you for this."

A yell from the wall, followed by another from the crowd, was the response, when Mr Selwood turned to Mrs Glaire.

"If you have any influence with him get him inside somewhere, or we shall have a fresh disturbance."

"Yes, yes," cried the anxious mother, catching her son's arm. "Come into the counting-house, d.i.c.k. Go with him, Eve. Take him in, and I'll speak to the men."

"I'm not afraid of the brutal ruffians," cried Richard, shrilly. "I'll not go, I'll--"

Here there was a menacing shout from the wall, and a disposition shown by some of the men to leap down; a movement which had such an effect on Richard Glaire that he allowed his cousin to lead him into a building some twenty yards away, the vicar's eyes following them as they went.

"I'll speak to the men now," said the little lady. "Banks, you may open the gates; they won't hurt me."

"Not they, ma'am," said the st.u.r.dy foreman, looking with admiration at the self-contained little body, as, hastily wiping a tear or two from her eyes, she prepared to encounter the workmen.

Before the gates could be opened, however, an amba.s.sador in the person of Eve Pelly arrived from Richard.

"Not open the gates, child?" exclaimed Mrs Glaire.

"No, aunt, dear, Richard says it would not be safe for you and me, now the men are so excited."

For a few minutes Mrs Glaire forgot the deference she always rendered to "my son!" and, reading the message in its true light, she exclaimed angrily--

"Eve, child, go and tell my son that there are the strong lock and bolts on the door that his father had placed there after we were besieged by the workmen ten years ago, and he can lock himself in if he is afraid."

The Reverend Murray Selwood, who heard all this, drew in his breath with a low hissing noise, as if he were in pain, on seeing the action taken by the fair bearer of Richard Glaire's message.

"Aunt, dear," she whispered, clinging to Mrs Glaire, "don't send me back like that--it will hurt poor d.i.c.k's feelings."

"Go and say what you like, then, child," cried Mrs Glaire, pettishly.

"Yes, you are right, Eve: don't say it."

"And you will not open the gates, aunt, dear?"

"Are you afraid of the men, Eve?"

"I, aunt? Oh, no," said the young girl, smiling. "They would not hurt me."

"I should just like to see any one among 'em as would," put in Harry, the big hammerman, giving his s.h.i.+rt sleeve a tighter roll, as if preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden. "We should make him sore, shouldn't we, Tom Podmore, lad?"

"Oh, n.o.body wouldn't hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here," said Tom, gruffly. And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little--a movement imitated by his followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.

Volume 1, Chapter VII.

MRS GLAIRE'S SPEECH.

"It's all raight, lads," roared Harry, in a voice of thunder. "Three cheers for Missus Glaire!"

The cheers were given l.u.s.tily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.

"Stop, stop!" he cried; "it isn't all raight yet. I want to know whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and righteous demands 'corded to us. What I want to know is--"

"Stop a moment, Simeon Slee," said Mrs Glaire, quickly; and a dead silence fell on the crowd, as her clear, sharp voice was heard. "When I was young, I was taught to look a home first. Now, tell me this--before you began to put matters straight for others, did you make things right at home?"

There was a laugh ran through the crowd at this; but shaken, not daunted, the orator exclaimed--

"Oh, come, that wean't do for me, Mrs Glaire, ma'am--that's begging of the question. What I want to know is--"

"And what I want to know is," cried Mrs Glaire, interrupting, "whether, before you came out here leading these men into mischief, you provided your poor wife with a dinner?"

"Hear, hear,"--"That's a good one,"--"Come down, Sim,"--"The Missus is too much for ye!" were amongst the shouts that arose on all sides, mingled with roars of laughter; and Sim Slee's defeat was completed by Harry, the big hammerman, who, incited thereto by Banks, shouted--

"Three more cheers for the Missus!" These were given, and three more, and three more after that, the workmen forgetting for the time being the object they had in view in the defeat of Simeon Slee, who, vainly trying to make himself heard from the hill of old metal, was finally pulled down and lost in the crowd, while now, in a trembling voice, Mrs Glaire said--

"My men, I can't tell you how sorry I am to find you fighting against the people who supply you with the work by which you live."