Haworth's/Chapter XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SETTLING AN ACCOUNT.
It was not until the week following that Haworth returned, and then he came without having given any previous warning of his intention. Ffrench, sitting in his office in a rather dejected mood one morning, was startled by his entering with even less than his usual small ceremony.
"My dear Haworth," he exclaimed. "Is it possible!"
His first intention had been to hold out his hand, but he did not do so. In fact he sat down again a little suddenly and uneasily. Haworth sat down too, confronting him squarely.
"What have you been up to?" he demanded. "What is this row about?"
"About!" echoed Ffrench. "It's the most extraordinary combination of nonsense and misunderstanding I ever heard of in my life. How it arose there is no knowing. The fellows are mad "
"Aye," angrily, "mad enow, but you can't stop 'em now they've got agate. It's a devilish lookout for us. I've heard it all over the country, and the more you say agen it the worse it is. They're set on it all through Lancashire that there's a plot agen 'em, and they're fur fettlin' it their own fashion."
"You—you don't think it will be worse for us?" his partner suggested weakly. "It's struck me that—in the end—it mightn't be a bad thing—that it would change the direction of their mood."
"Wait until the end comes. It's not here yet. Tell me how it happened."
Upon the whole, Mr. Ffrench made a good story of it. He depicted the anxieties and dangers of the occasion very graphically. He had lost a good deal of his enthusiasm on the subject of the uncultivated virtues and sturdy determination of the manufacturing laboring classes, and he was always fluent, as has been before mentioned. He was very fluent now, and especially so in describing the incident of his daughter's presenting herself to the mob and the result of her daring.
"She might have lost her life," he said at one point. "It was an insane thing to have done—an insane thing. She surprised them at first, but she could not hold them in check after Murdoch came. She will bear the mark of the stone for many a day."
"They threw a stone, blast 'em, did they?" said Haworth, setting his teeth.
"Yes—but not at her. Perhaps they would hardly have dared that after all. It was thrown at Murdoch."
"And he stepped out of the way?"
"Oh no. He did not see the man raise his arm, but she did, and was too much alarmed to reflect, I suppose—and—in fact threw herself before him."
He moved back disturbedly the next instant. Haworth burst forth with a string of oaths. The veins stood out like cords on his forehead; he ground his teeth. When the outbreak was over he asked an embarrassing question.
"Where were you?"
"I?"—with some uncertainty of tone." I—had not gone out. I—I did not wish to infuriate them. It seemed to me that that—that—a great deal depended upon their not being infuriated."
"Aye," said Haworth, "a good deal."
He asked a good many questions Ffrench did not quite understand. He seemed in a questioning humor and went over the ground step by step. He asked what the mob had said and done and even how they had looked.
"It's a bad lookout for Murdoch," he said. "They'll have a spite again' him. They're lyin' quiet a bit now, because it's safest, but they'll carry their spite."
At Ffrench's invitation he went up to the house with him to dinner. As they passed into the grounds, Murdoch passed out. He was walking quickly and scarcely seemed to see them until Ffrench spoke.
"It's a queer time of day for him to be here," said Haworth, when he was gone.
Ffrench's reply held a touch of embarrassment.
"He is not usually here so early," he said. "He has probably been doing some little errand for Rachel."
The truth was that he had been with her for an hour, and that, on seeing Haworth coming down the road with her father, she had sent him away.
"I want to be alone when he comes," she had said.
And when Murdoch said "Why?" she had answered, "Because it will be easier."
When they came in, she was sitting with the right side of her face toward them. They could see nothing of the mark upon her left temple. It was not a large mark nor a disfiguring one, but there were traces of its presence in her pallor. She did not rise, and would have kept this side of her face out of view, but Haworth came and took his seat before her. It would not have been easy for her to move or change her position—and he looked directly at the significant little bruise. His glance turned upon it again and again as he talked to her or her father; if it wandered off it came back and rested there. During dinner she felt that, place herself as she would, in a few seconds she would be conscious again that he had baffled her. For the first time in his experience, it was he who had the advantage.
But when they returned to the parlor she held herself in check. She placed herself opposite to him and turned her face toward him, and let him look without flinching. It was as if suddenly she wished that he should see, and had a secret defiant reason for the wish. It seemed a long evening, but she did not lose an inch of ground after this. When he was going away she rose and stood before him. Her father had gone to the other end of the room, and was fussing unnecessarily over some memoranda. As they waited together, Haworth took his last look at the mark upon her temple.
"If it had been me you wore it for," he said, "I'd have had my hands on the throat of the chap that did it before now. It wasn't me, but I'll find him and pay him for it yet, by George!"
She had no time to answer him. Her father came toward them with the papers in his hands. Haworth listened to his wordy explanation without moving a line of his face. He did not hear it, and Ffrench was dimly aware of the fact.
About half an hour after, the door of the bar-parlor of the "Who'd ha' Thowt it" was flung open.
"Where's Briarley?" a voice demanded. "Send him out here. I want him—Haworth."
Mr. Briarley arose in even more than his usual trepidation. He looked from side to side, quaking.
"Wheer is he?" he asked.
Haworth stood on the threshold.
"Here," he answered. "Come out!"
Mr. Briarley obeyed. At the door Haworth collared him and led him down the sanded passage and into the road outside.
A few yards from the house there was a pump. He piloted him to it and set him against it, and began to swear at him fluently.
"You blasted scoundrel!" he said. "You let it out, did you?"
Mr. Briarley was covered with confusion as with a garment.
"I'm a misforchnit chap as is all us i' trouble," he said. "Theer's summat i' ivverythin' I lay hond on as seems to go agen me. I dunnot see how it is. Happen theer's summat i' me a-bein' a dom'd foo', or happen it's nowt but misforchin. Sararann——"
Haworth stopped him by swearing again, something more sulphurously than before—so sulphurously, indeed, that Mr. Briarley listened with eyes distended and mouth agape.
"Let's hear what you know about th' thing," Haworth ended.
Mr. Briarley shut his mouth. He would have kept it shut if he had dared.
"I dunnot know nowt," he answered, with patient mendacity. "I wur na wi' em."
"You know plenty," said Haworth. "Out with it, if you don't want to get yourself into trouble. Who was the chap that threw the stone?"
"I—I dunnot know."
"If you don't tell me," said Haworth, through his clenched teeth, "it'll be worse for you. It was you I let the truth slip to; you were the first chap that heard it, and you were the first chap that started the row and egged it on."
"I did na egg it on," protested Mr. Briarley. "It did na need no eggin' on. They pounced on it like cats on a bird. I did na mean to tell 'em owt about it. I'm a dom'd foo'. I'm th' dom'dest foo' fro here to Dillup."
"Aye," said Haworth, sardonically, "that's like enow. Who was the chap that threw the stone?"
He returned to the charge so swiftly and with such fell determination that Mr. Briarley began fairly to whimper.
"I dare na tell," he said. "They'd mak' quick work o' me if they fun me out."
"Who was it?" persisted Haworth. "They'll make quicker work of you at the 'Old Bailey,' if you don't."
Mr. Briarley turned his disreputable, battered cap round and round in his nervous hands. He was mortally afraid of Haworth.
"A man's getten to think o' his family," he argued. "If he dunnot think o' hissen, he raun think o' his family. I've getten a mortal big un—twelve on 'em an' Sararann, as ud be left on th' world if owt wur to happen twelve on 'em as ud be left wi'out no one to stand by 'em an' pervide fur 'em. Theer's nowt a fam'ly misses so mich as th' head. The head should na run no risks. It's th' head's duty to tak' care o' hissen an' keep o' th' safe soide."
"Who threw the stone?" said Haworth.
Mr. Briarley gave him one cowed glance and broke down.
"It wur Tummas Reddy," he burst forth helplessly. "Lord ha' mercy on me!"
"Where is he?"
"He's i' theer," jerking his cap toward the bar-room, "an' I'm i' th' worst mess I ivver wur i' i' my loife. I'm fettlit now, by th' Lord Harry!"
"Which way does he go home?"
"Straight along the road here, if I mun get up to my neck—an'—an' be dom'd to him! if I may tak' th' liberty."
"Settle yourself to stand here till he comes out, and then tell me which is him."
"Eh!"
"When he comes out say the word, and stay here till he does. I've got a bit o' summat to settle with him."
"Will ta—will ta promise tha will na let out who did it? If tha does, th' buryin' club'll ha' brass to pay out afore a week's over."
"You're safe enow," Haworth answered, "if you'll keep your mouth shut. They'll hear nowt from me."
A gleam of hope—a faint one—illumined Mr. Briarley's countenance.
"I would na ha' no objections to tha settlin' wi' him," he said. "I ha' not nowt agen that. He's a chap as I am na fond on, an' he's gotten more cheek than belongs to him. I'd ha' settled wi' him mysen if I had na been a fam'ly man. Ha'in' a fam'ly to think on howds a man back. Theer—I hear 'em comin' now. Would yo,'" in some hurry, "ha' owt agen me gettin' behind th' pump?"
"Get behind it," answered Haworth, "and be damned to you!"
He got behind it with alacrity, and, as it was not a large pump, was driven by necessity to narrowing himself to its compass, as it were, and taking up very little room. Haworth himself drew back somewhat, and yet kept within hearing.
Four or five men came out and went their different ways, and Mr. Briarley made no sign; but as the sixth, a powerful, clumsy fellow, passed, he uttered a cautious "Theer he is!"
Haworth did not stir. It was a dark, cloudy night, and he was far enough from the road to be safe from discovery. The man went on at a leisurely pace.
Mr. Briarley re-appeared, breathing shortly.
"I mun go whoam," he said. "Sararann——" and scarcely waiting for Haworth's signal of dismissal, he departed as if he had been shot from a string-bow, and fled forth into the shadows.
Mr. Reddy went at a leisurely pace, as has been before observed. He usually went at a leisurely pace when he was on his way home. He was a "bad lot" altogether, and his home was a squalid place, and his wife more frequently than not had a black eye or a bruised face, and was haggard with hunger and full of miserable plaints and reproaches. Consequently he did not approach the scenes of his domestic joys with any haste.
He was in a worse humor than usual to-night from various causes, the chief one, perhaps, being that he had only had enough spirituous liquor to make him savage and to cause him to enliven his way with blasphemy.
Suddenly, however, at the corner of a lane which crossed the road he paused. He heard behind him the sound of heavy feet nearing him with a quick tramp which somehow presented to his mind the idea of a purpose, and for some reason, not exactly clear to himself, he turned about and waited.
"Who's that theer?" he asked.
"It's me," he was answered. "Stand up and take thy thrashing my lad."
The next instant he was struggling in the darkness with an assailant, and the air was hot with oaths, and they were writhing together and panting, and striking blinding blows. Sometimes it was one man and then the other who was uppermost, but at last it was Haworth, and he had his man in his grasp.
"This is because you hit the wrong mark, my lad," he said. "Because luck went agen you, and because it's gone agen me."
"When he had done Mr. Reddy lay beaten into seeming insensibility. He had sworn and gnashed his teeth and beaten back in vain.
"Who is it, by——?" he panted. "Who is it?"
"It's Haworth," he was answered. "Jem Haworth, my lad."
And he was left there lying in the dark while Haworth walked away, his heavy breathing a living presence in the air until he was gone.