The Lord of the Sea Page 2

  IV

  THE SWOON

  Hogarth went moodily down the hillside to the Waveney, across the bridge, and home, his sleeve stained with blood.

  In the dining-room, he threw himself into an easy-chair in a gloom lit only by the fireglow, in the room above mourning a little harmonium which Margaret was playing, mixed with the sound of Loveday's voice.

  The old man said: "Richard, my boy…"

  Hogarth did not answer.

  "Richard, I have somewhat to say to you—are ye hearkening?"

  Richard, losing blood, moaned a drowsy "Yes".

  And the old Hogarth, all deaf and bedimmed, said: "I had to say it to you, and this night let it be: Richard, you are no son of mine".

  At this point Hogarth's head dropped forward: but many a time, during long years, he remembered a dream in which he had heard those words: "Richard, you are no son of mine…"

  The old Hogarth continued to ears that did not hear:

  "I have kept it from you—for I'm under a bargain with a firm of solicitors in London; but, Dick, it doesn't strike me as I am long for this world: a queer feeling I've had in this left side the last hour or two; and there's that Circular—I never heard of such a thing in all my born days. But what can we do? You'll have to wear the cap—or be turned out. Always I've said to myself, from a young man: 'Get hold of a bit of land someways as your own God's own': but I never did; the days went by and by, and it all seems no longer than an after-dinner nap in a barn on a hot harvest-day. But a bit of land—the man who has that can make all the rest work to keep him. And if they turn me out, I couldn't live, lad: the old house has got into my bones, somehow. Anyhow, I think the time is come to tell you in my own way how the thing was. No son are you of mine, Richard. Your mother, Rachel, who was a Londoner, served me an ill turn while we were sweethearting, hankering after another man—a Jew millionaire he was, she being a governess in his house; but, Richard, I couldn't give her up: I married her three months before you were born; and not a living creature knows, except, perhaps, one—perhaps one: a priest he was, called O'Hara. But that's how it was. Your father was a Jew, and your mother was a Jew, and you are a Jew, and in the under-bottom of the old grey trunk you will find a roll of papers. Are you hearkening? And don't you be ashamed of being a Jew, boy—they are the people who've got the money; and money buys land, Richard. Nor your father did not do so badly by you, either: his name was Spinoza—Sir Solomon Spinoza—"

  At that point Margaret, bearing a lamp, entered, followed by

  Loveday, and at the sight of Richard uttered a cry.

  V

  REID'S

  By noon Hogarth knew the news: his hundred and fifty at Reid's were gone; and he owed for the Michaelmas quarter—twenty-one pounds five, his only chattels of value being the thresher, not yet paid for, half a rick, seed, manure, and "the furniture". If he could realize enough for rent, he would lack capital for wages and cultivation, for Reid's had been his credit-bank.

  After dinner he stood long at a window, then twisted away, and walked to Thring, where he captained in a football match, Loveday watching his rage, his twisting waist, and then accompanying him home: but in the dining-room they found the lord-of-the-manor's bailiff; and Loveday, divining something embarrassing, took himself away.

  The same evening there were two appraisers in the house, and the bailiff, on their judgment, took possession of the chattels on the holding except some furniture, and some agricultural "fixtures". The sale was arranged for the sixth day.

  From the old Hogarth the truth could no longer be hidden…

  Two days he continued quiet in the old nook by the hearth, apparently in a kind of dotage doze; but on the third, he began to poke about, hobbled into the dairy, peered into the churn, touched the skimmer.

  "You'll have to wear the cap", Margaret heard him mutter—"or be turned out".

  As if taking farewell, he would get up, as at a sudden thought, to go to visit something. He kept murmuring: "I always said, Get a bit of land as your own, but I never did; the days went by and by…."

  Margaret, meantime, was busy, binding beds with sheets, making bundles, preparing for the flitting, with a heaving breast; till, on the fifth day, a van stood loaded with their things at the hall- door, and she, with untidy hair, was helping heave the last trunk upon the backboard, when the carman said: "Mrs. Mackenzie says, mum, the things mustn't be took to the cottage, except you pay in advance".

  Now Margaret stood at a loss; but in a minute went bustling, deciding to go to Loveday, not without twinges of reluctance: for Loveday, with instinctive delicacy, had lately kept from the farm; and to Margaret, whose point of view was different, the words "false friends" had occurred.

  Passing through an alley of the forest, she was met by a man—a park-keeper of Frankl's—a German Jew, who had once handed her a note from Frankl. And he, on seeing her, said: "Here have I a letter for your brother".

  "Who from?" she asked.

  "That may I not say".

  When he handed her an envelope rather stuffed with papers, she went on her flurried way; and soon Loveday was bowing before her in his sitting-room at Priddlestone.

  "You will be surprised to see me, Mr. Loveday," said she, panting.

  "A little surprised, but most awfully glad, too. Is all well?"

  "Oh, far from that, I'm afraid. But I haven't got any time—and, oh my, I don't know how to say it,—but to be frank with you—could you lend Richard two pounds—?"

  Loveday coloured to the roots of his hair.

  He could not tell her: "Open that envelope in your hand", for that would have meant that it was he who had sent the £50 it contained; and he had now only one sixpence in Priddlestone.

  "That is", she said—"if it is not an inconvenience to you—"

  He could find no words. Some fifteen minutes before, having enclosed the notes, he had descended to the bar to get mine host to find him a messenger, and direct the envelope—for Hogarth knew his handwriting. Mine host was not there—his wife could not write: but she had pointed out the Jewish park-keeper sipping beer; so Loveday had had the man upstairs, had made him write the address, and had bribed him to deliver the envelope with a mum tongue.

  "I'm afraid I've taken a great liberty—" she said, shrinking at his silence.

  Then he spoke: "Oh, liberty!—but—really—I'm quite broke myself—!"

  "Then, good-afternoon to you", said she: "I am very sorry—but you will excuse the liberty, won't you—?"

  In the forest she began to cry, covering her eyes, moaning: "Why, how could he be so mean? And I who loved that young man with all my heart, God knows—!"

  Her eyes searched the ground for two sovereigns. Then she happened to look at the envelope: and instantly was interested. "Why, it is the Jew's hand!" she thought, for the letters were angular in the German manner, making a general similarity with Frankl's writing.

  Curiosity overcame her: she opened, and saw…

  "Oh, well, this is generous though, after all!" she exclaimed.

  And now she ran, coming out from mossy path upon wide forest-road: and there, taking promenade, was Frankl, quite near, with phylacteried left arm.

  "Why, sweetheart…" said he.

  She stopped before him. "Well, you can call me what you like for the time being", said she, laughing rather hysterically; "for I am most grateful to you for your generous present to my brother, Mr. Frankl!"

  She had still no suspicion of Richard's visit of chastisement to the

  Hall!

  "Now, what do you mean?" said Frankl.

  "Why, you might guess that I know your handwriting by this time!" she said coquettishly, and held out the notes and the envelope.

  His eyes twinkled; he meditated; he had, more than ever, need of her; and he said: "Well, you are as 'cute as they make them!"

  "But instead of sending us this, which I am not at all sure that Richard will touch, why couldn't you pay it to yourself, and not turn us out—"


  "I let business take its course: and afterwards I do my charity. But it wasn't for your brother, you know, that I sent it—but for you".

  "I must be running—"

  When she reached the farm, she gave the carman a secret glimpse of the notes, while Hogarth, who was now there, went to seek the old Hogarth, for whom a nest had been made among the furniture in the cart.

  He was found above-stairs in an empty room, searching the floor for something.

  "Come, sir", said Hogarth, and led him step by step.

  But as the old man passed the threshold, he fell flat on the slabs of the porch, striking his forehead, printing a stain there.

  And the next day, the day of the sale, he still lay in the old chamber, on the ancient bed, dead.

  VI

  "PEARSON'S WEEKLY"

  "Rose Cottage" was without roses: but had a good-sized "garden" at the back; and here Hogarth soon had a shed nailed together, with bellows, anvil, sledges, rasps, setts, drifts, and so on, making a little smithy.

  He engaged a boy; and soon John Loveday would be leaning all a forenoon at the shed door, watching the lithe ply of Hogarth's hips, and the white-hot iron gushing flushes; while Margaret, peeping, could see Loveday's slovenly ease of pose, his numberless cigarettes, and hear the rhymes of the sledges chiming.

  As to Loveday's £50, she had dared to say nothing to Richard, but kept them, intending to make up the amount already spent, and give them to Frankl. Loveday, meantime, she avoided with constant care.

  So two weeks passed, till, one day, Loveday, leaning at the forge- door, happened to say: "Are you interested in current politics? The East Norfolk division is being contested, one of the candidates, Sir Bennett Beaumont, is a friend of mine, and I was thinking that I might go to the meeting to-night, if you could come—"

  "I invite you to supper here instead".

  "Not interested?" queried Loveday.

  "Not at all. Stop—I'll show you something in which I am interested".

  He ran to a corner, picked up a Pearson's Weekly, and pointed to a paragraph headed:

  "FIVE HUNDRED-POUND NOTES!

  "FIFTY TEN-POUND NOTES!!

  "ONE HUNDRED FIVE-POUND NOTES!!!"

  —a prize for "the most intelligent" article, explaining the cause, or causes, of "the present distress and commercial crisis".

  Loveday read it smiling.

  "Ah", said he, "but who is to be the judge of 'the most intelligent' article? Pearson must himself be of the highest intelligence to decide".

  "True", said Hogarth. "But the man who offered that prize has indicated to the nation the thing which it should be doing. If I was able to form an Association to enter this competition—and why not? Stop—I will go with you—"

  So that evening they walked to Beccles, and took train for Yarmouth.

  The candidate to speak was a Mr. Moses Max, a Liberal Jew; the chair to be taken by Baruch Frankl; and in the midst of a row, the stately great men entered upon the platform and occupied it, hisses like the escape of steam mixing with "He's a jolly good fellow". Midway down the pit sat Loveday, and with him Hogarth, whose large stare ranged solemnly round and down from galleries to floor.

  Frankl sipped water, and rose, amid shouts of: "Circular!" "Caps- and-tassels!"

  He made a speech of which nothing was known, except the amiable bows, for a continual noising filled the hall; and up rose Mr. Moses Max, a stout fair Jew, whose fist struck with a regular, heavy emphasis. After ten minutes, when he began to be heard, he was saying:

  "…Sir Bennett Beaumont! Is he the sort of man you'd send to represent you? (Cries of: "Yes!") What is he?—ask yourselves the question: a fossilized Tory, a man who's about as much idea of progress as a mummy—people actually say he's got a collection of mummies in his grand fashionable mansion at Aylesham, and it's only what we should expect of him. (Cheers, and cries of: "Oh, oh!") And what has he ever done for East Norfolk? Gentlemen, you may say as you like about Jews—Jews this, and Jews that—and every man has a right to his opinion in this land of glorious Saxon liberty—but no one can deny that it's Jews who know how to make the money. (Cheers and hisses.) They know how to make it for themselves (hisses)—and, yes, they know how to make it for the nation! (Loud triumph of cheers.) That's the point—that touches the spot! (Cries of: "Oh, oh!") Righteousness, it is said, exalteth a nation: well, so do Jews—"

  "That is false", said a voice—Hogarth, who had stood up.

  The words were the signal for a shower of cheers swept by gusts of hisses; and immediately one region of the pit was seen to be a scrimmage of fisticuffs, mixed with policemen, sticks, savage faces, and bent backs; while the two galleries, craning to see, bellowed like Bashan.

  Moses Max was leaning wildly, gesticulating, with shouts; while Loveday, who had turned pale on Hogarth's rising, touched Hogarth's coat-tail, whereupon Hogarth, stooping to his ear, shouted: "We will have some fun…"

  "The paid agents of Beaumont!" now shouted Moses Max; "sent to disturb our meeting! Englishmen! will you submit to this? The nation shall hear—"

  At that point Moses Max, in his gesticulation, happening to touch a switch in the platform-rail, out glowered into darkness every light at that end of the hall: at which thing the audience was thrown into a state of boisterous lawlessness, a tumult reigning in the gloom like the constant voice of Niagara, until suddenly the platform was again lit up, and the uproar lulled.

  And now again Moses Max was prone to speak, with lifted fist; but before ever he could utter one single word, a voice was ringing through the Assembly Rooms:

  "Where was Moses when the light went out?"

  This again was Hogarth; and it ended Moses Max for that night.

  Hogarth had not sat since he had called out "That is false": his tall figure was recognized; and, with that electric spontaneity of crowds, he was straightway the leader of the meeting, men darting from their seats with waving hats, sticks, arms, and vociferous mouth, the chairman half standing, with a shivering finger directed upon Hogarth, shrieking to the police: but too late—Hogarth had brushed past Loveday's knees—was dashing for the crowded platform- steps—was picking his way, stumbling, darting up them.

  Crumpled in his hand was a Pearson's Weekly.

  Now he is to the front—near Frankl.

  "Friends! I have ventured to take the place of our friend, Moses, here—no ill-will to him—for with respect to the question before us, whether we elect Beaumont or Max, I care, I confess, little. I'm rather an Anti-Jew myself (hissing and cheers), but it strikes me that the Jews are the least of our trouble. To a man who said to me that the cause of all our evil days is the inability of England to feed these few million Jews I'd answer: "I don't know how you can be so silly!" Why, the whole human race, friends, can find room on the Isle of Wight—the earth laughs at the insignificant drawings upon her made by the small infantry called Man. Then, why do we suffer, friends? We do suffer, I suppose? I was once at Paris, and at a place called 'the Morgue' I saw exposed young men with wounded temples, and girls with dead mouths twisted, and innocent old women drowned; and there must be a biggish cry, you know, rising each night from the universal earth, accusing some hoary fault in the way men live together! What is the fault? If you ask me, I answer that I am only a common smith: I don't know: but I know this about the fault, that it is something simple, commonplace, yet deep-seated, or we should all see it; but it is hidden from us by its very ordinariness, like the sun which men seldom look at. It must be so. And shall we never find the time to think of it? Or will never some grand man, mighty as a garrison, owning eyes that know the glances of Truth, arise to see for us? Friends! but, lacking him, what shall we do to be saved?—for truly this 'civilization' of ours is a blood-washed civilization, friends, a reddish Juggernaut, you know, whose wheels cease not: so we should be prying into it, provided we be not now too hide-bound: for that's the trouble—that our thoughts grow to revolve in stodgy grooves of use-and-wont, and shun to soar beyond. Look at our Par
liament—a hurdy-gurdy turning out, age after age, a sing-song of pigmy regulations, accompanied for grum kettledrum by a musketry of suicides, and for pibroch by a European bleating of little children. We are still a million miles from civilization! For what is a civilized society? It can only be one in which the people are proud and happy! The people of Africa are happy, not proud; not civilized; the people of England have a certain pride, not a millionth part as superb as it might be, but are far from happy: far from civilized. The fact is, Man has never begun to live, but still sleeps a deep sleep. Well! let us do our best, we here! I have here a paper offering a prize to the man of us who will go to the root of our troubles, and my idea in usurping the place of our friend, Mr. Max, was to ask you to form an association with me to enter that competition. There is no reason why our association should not be large as the nation, nor why it should not spread to France and Turkey. For the thing presses, and to-morrow more of the slaughtered dead will be swarming in the mortuaries of London. Will you, then? The understanding will be this: that each man who writes his name in a note-book which will lie at Rose Cottage, Thring, or who sends his name, will devote sixty minutes each day to the problem. I happen to be in a position to use a chapel at Thring, and there I will hold a meeting—"

  At this point Frankl rose: Thring was his, his own, own, own; and now his eyes had in them that catlike blaze which characterized his rages.

  "Here, police! police!" he hissed low, "what's the use of police that don't act!" And now he raised his voice to a scream: "Jews! Shew yourselves! Don't let this man stay here…!"

  About twenty Jews leapt at the challenge; at the same time Hogarth, seeing two policemen running forward from the back, folded his arms, and cried out: "Friends! I have not finished! Don't let me be removed…"