Chapter VIII: Book III: The Elder Children (3)

Rye platforms, instead of being confined to arguments on herrings and sprats, rang unusually with matters of national import. The free education of the poor was then a vital question, which Reuben and his party opposed with all their might. Educated labourers meant higher wages and a loss of that submissive temper which resulted in so many hours' ill-paid work. Here the Bardons waxed eloquent, but Backfield, helped by Ditch of Totease, who could speak quite well if put through his paces beforehand, drew such a picture of the ruin which would attend an educated democracy, that the voice of Flightshot, always too carefully modulated to be effective, was silenced.

As usual the local printing-presses worked hard over pamphlets and posters, and as a Rye election was nothing if not personal, Reuben was soon enlightened as to the Radical opinion of him. Posters of a startlingly intimate and insulting nature began to appear about the town; a few were displayed in Peasmarsh, and some were actually found on the walls of his own barns.

"Bribed, stolen, or strayed, an Ugly Gorilla, answering to the name
of Ben. The animal may be distinguished by his filthy habits,
associates frequently with swine and like hogs, delights in rolling
in manure, and is often to be found in Ditches. Is remarkable for
his unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he treats with
shocking unkindness. The animal has likewise a propensity for
boasting and lies. The Gorilla's temper is dreadfully bad,
horribly vicious, and fearfully vindictive. A reward of Five Pounds
will be given by Jothan True Blue, chairman of the Poor Man's Big
Loaf Association, to any Blue Lamb who may find this Odious
Creature, as his one object while at large is to steal the Poor
Man's Loaf. He would also take, if he could, the Poor Man's Vote,
and confine the Poor Man's Children to the dirt and ignorance in
which he himself wallows, being unable to read or write, and was
once heard to ask the Cringing Colonel, his keeper, what was the
meaning of Tory Principle and Purity' on his election banners. We
too would like to know."

Reuben tore the posters down whenever he found them, but this kind of attack did not humiliate him as the old pitying curiosity had done. He was not lowered in his own esteem. On the contrary, he enjoyed the fame which Radical hate conferred on him. There was no doubt about Odiam's importance now.

The Tories were not to be beaten in invective, and posted Rye with enquiries after the Rabid Hybrid or Crazy Captain:

"The habits of this loathsome creature are so revolting that all
who have beheld them turn from them in horror and disgust. It is
afflicted with a dirty disease called Gladstone Fever, and in its
delirium barks horribly 'Educate! Educate!'"

Much more was written in this strain on both sides, and Colonel MacDonald hired a band of youths to parade the streets singing:

"Conservatives, 'tis all serene--
MacDonald for ever! Long live the Queen!"

or:

"The people of Rye now they all seem to say
That MacDonald's the man who will carry the sway,
Triumphant he'll drive old MacKinnon away--
For MacDonald's the man for the people!"

Reuben did not care much for these doings; they were, he thought, a mere appeal to scum, and he preferred to give his mind to weightier things. He organised meetings in the furthest hamlets of the district, and managed to stir up the interest of the farmers to such a pitch that it soon looked as if the Tory candidate would carry all before him. MacKinnon could not open his mouth on the platform without shouts of: "Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter!" or "What's the use of a big loaf if we've got no money to buy it with?"

The Radicals began to quake for their victory. Speakers were sent for from London, but could not even get a hearing, owing to the enemy's supplies of bad eggs. Meetings were everywhere broken up in disorder, and the Captain was reported to have said that the Liberal party ought to offer a knighthood to anyone who would poison Backfield's beer.

§ 18.

So time passed till within a week of polling day. The feeling in the district grew more and more tense--no prominent member of either party could appear in Rye streets without being insulted by somebody on the opposite side. Meetings were orgies of abuse and violence, but whereas the Radical meetings were invariably broken up in disorder by their opponents, interruptions at Tory meetings resulted only in the interrupters themselves being kicked out. For the first time it looked as if a Conservative would be returned for Rye, and the Colonel knew he owed his success to Backfield's agricultural party.

Then suddenly the unexpected happened. At the end of one of Reuben's most successful meetings in Iden Schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired person, whom nobody knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true that the Scott's Float toll-gate was on Colonel MacDonald's estate, and if so, what use did he make of the tolls? He was answered by being flung into the street, but afterwards the Conservative tenant of Loose Farm on the Marsh remarked to Reuben that it was "a hemmed ark'ard question."

Reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for Protection and a restricted franchise, scarcely thought twice about the toll-gate, till the next day a huge poster appeared all over the district:

"MACDONALD'S GATE"

"Sing ye who will of Love, or War, or Wine,
Of mantling Cups, Bright Eyes, or deeds of Might--
A theme unsung by other harps is mine--
I sing a Gate--a novel subject quite.

O Tolls! ye do afflict us all--a bore!
E'en when by Law imposed on evil slight!
Who has not loaded ye with curses sore
When in this Coat of Proof enveloped tight?

Therefore to what is Law I say 'content'--
But for a Private Man to raise a toll,
To stop the public, tax them, circumvent,
Moves me to passion I can scarce control,
Makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul."

Hitherto any verse that had been written in the controversy had been meant for street singing, and turned out in the less serious moments of politicians who certainly were not poets. But "MacDonald's Gate" impressed the multitude as something altogether different. The sounding periods and the number of capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very highest order, and its prominent position throughout the town soon resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing the Scott's Float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had thought much about.

The Tories were a little disconcerted--the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private venture and rhymed it so effectively.

Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being made in prose, none of the Tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his own ground. Also there was not very much to be said, as it was impossible to deny the Scott's Float toll-gate. So the writers confined themselves to sneering at the Radical poet's versification, and hinting that Captain MacKinnon had done many worse things than own a toll-gate, and that all the money the Colonel had from his went to the upkeep of his land, a statement which deceived nobody.

The next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this time in flaming red letters:

"If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover--
You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate
Where a Toll they will charge at no moderate rate.

Oh why is a Gate stuck across at this Spot?
Is the Colonel so poor or so grasping--or what?
'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in,
To swell out the purse where his Thousands are laying.

Awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of Rye!
Let the banner of freedom float gaily on high,
Throw your bonds to the winds, ye Electors--for know
That he who'd be free must himself strike the Blow."

Thenceforward the whole character of the election was changed. The Poor Man's Loaf was forgotten as completely as the wheat-tax which should make the farmer rich. Six-pound householders became as uninteresting as anybody else who had not a vote. Nobody cared a damn whether the poor were educated at the nation's expense or not. The conflict raged blindly, furiously, degradingly round the Scott's Float toll-gate.

No one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else. If at meetings Reuben tried to introduce Protection or the Franchise, he was silenced even by his own party. The Scott's Float toll-gate became as important as the Sluice or the Brede River or the Landgate Clock had been in other elections, and nothing, no matter of what national importance, could stand against it.

Reuben cursed the base trucksters who had brought it forward, and he cursed the scummy versifier who was its laureate--whose verses appeared daily on six-foot hoardings, and were sung by drunken Radicals to drown his speeches. No one knew who the Radical poet was, for his party kept him a mystery, fearful, no doubt, lest he should be bribed by the other side. Some said that he was a London journalist, sent down in despair by the Liberals at head-quarters. If so they must have congratulated themselves on their forlorn hope, for the tide of events changed completely.

The worst of that toll-gate was that the Conservatives could never explain it away. They printed posters, they printed handbills, they attempted verse, they made speeches, they protested their disinterestedness, they even tried to represent the abomination as a philanthropic concern, but all their efforts failed. They quickly began to lose ground. It was the Conservative instead of the Liberal meetings that were broken up in disorder. Colonel MacDonald was howled down, and Reuben came home every evening his clothes spattered with rotten eggs.

§ 19.

Polling day broke gloomily on Rye Tories. The country voters were brought into town at the Candidates' expense, having received according to custom printed notices that the Colonel, or the Captain, "would endeavour to ensure to every elector access to the poll free from every sort of insult."

In Rye bells were ringing and bands were playing, and the town looked quite strange with huge crowds surging through its grass-grown streets, which were, moreover, blocked with every kind of trap, gig, cart, and wain. About three hundred special constables had been enrolled for the occasion, and it was likely that they would be needed, for all the public-houses had been thrown open by the candidates.

In the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense throng was packing itself, jostling and shoving, and--Reuben saw to his dismay as he drove up to the London Trader--showing strong Radical tendencies. Several Conservative banners waved from the windows of the public-house--"MacDonald the Farmer's Friend"--"MacDonald and Protection"--"Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter"--"Ratepayers! beware of Radical pickpockets." These had all been prepared at the beginning of the contest. The Radical banners bore but one device--"The Scott's Float Toll-gate." It waved everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in the streets was immediately seized and broken, the bearer being made to suffer so horribly for his convictions, that soon nobody could be found to carry one.

Every now and then the crowd would break into the latest rhymings of MacKinnon's poet:

"Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
The Tories."

Reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked him. Soon a vast struggle was raging round the hustings, as the voters fought their way through fists and sticks, often emerging--especially the Conservatives--with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite ruined by garbage. The special constables were useless, for their own feelings betrayed them, and unluckily even in their ranks the Radicals predominated. The state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for Captain MacKinnon and only eleven for Colonel MacDonald.

Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general hubbub. One of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical cause, and Conservative Speakers were soon a sight to behold. When Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "Ben the Gorilla! Stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest. Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and MacDonald to pull him away.

At twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the Captain and sixty-five for the Colonel. The Tories were getting desperate--they threw into the crowd handbills wet from the printers, declaring that MacDonald's toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected. But the crowd only sang derisively:

"Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
The Tories."

At three o'clock the poll stood at two hundred and twelve and eighty-three. Then came the close--Captain MacKinnon elected by a majority of sixty-nine.

Loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken mass in the market-place.

"Hurray for MacKinnon!--Down with the Tollkeepers!"

In the Court-house the beaten Conservatives heard the shouts and turned fiercely--on one another.

"It's that hemmed gëate of yourn--lost everything!" cried Reuben.

"By God, it's not my gate--it's your wheat."

"My wheat!--wot d'you mean, sir?"

"I mean that, thanks to you, we wasted about three weeks talking to those damned fools about a matter they don't care twopence about. You worked up a false interest, and the result is, that when anything that really touches them is brought forward, the whole campaign drops to pieces."

"It's unaccountable easy to put the blame on me, when it's your hemmed gëate----"

"I tell you, sir, it's your damned wheat----"

"And your damned son!" furiously cried Ditch of Totease.

"My son!"--Reuben swung round on the men who had once rallied under his leadership, but now stood scowling at him and muttering to themselves. "My son!"

"Yes," said Coalbran of Doozes, "you know as well as us as how it wur your Albert wrote them verses about the gëate, wot have bust up everything."

"You're a liar!" cried Reuben.

"You dare miscall me," and the two men, mad with private hate and public humiliation, flew at each other's throats.

Ditch and the Colonel pulled them apart.

"Hang it all, Coalbran, we don't know it's his son. But we do know it's his wheat. Good God, sir--if only you'd kept your confounded self out of politics----"

Reuben did not wait to hear more. He pushed his way out of the room and downstairs to where his trap was waiting. The crowd surged round him as he climbed into it. An egg burst against his ear, and the filthy yolk ran down his cheek to mingle with the spatter of blood on his neck and shirt-front.

"Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla! Give him tar and feathers!"

Reuben struck his horse with the whip, and the animal sprang forward. A man who had been trying to climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly trampled on. Reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with the abuse which had once been his badge of pride, but now in the hour of defeat smote him with a sick sense of impotence and degradation. "Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla!"

He was free of them at last, galloping down the Landgate hill towards Rye Foreign.

"I'm hemmed," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "if I ever touch their dirty politics again--from this day forward--so help me God!"

§ 20.

On reaching Odiam, Reuben did not go into the kitchen where his children were gathered, expectant and curious. He went straight upstairs. Caro, who caught a glimpse of him in the passage, ran away in terror--he looked so dreadful, his face all dabbled with blood and yolk of egg.

He went up to Albert's room. He had furiously given Ditch the lie in the Courthouse, but he had never trusted his son, and the accusation had poured over him a flood of shame which could be quelled only by its proof or its refutation. If Albert's guilt were proved--which Reuben, now bathing in this luminous shame, saw was quite probable--then he knew what to do to clean the smirch off Odiam; if, on the other hand, his innocence were established, then he would punish those swine who threw mud at him and his farm.

Albert slept in one of the attics with Jemmy and Pete. Reuben had no intention of meeting him till he had something to confront him with, for he was pretty sure that the boy would lie to him. He began turning the room topsy-turvy, and had soon found in a drawer a heap of papers scrawled over with writing. It was unlucky that he could not read, for he could not even tell whether the handwriting were Albert's--these might be some letters he had received. Suddenly, however, a word caught his eye which he had seen a hundred times on hoardings, letters, bills, and other documents--MacKinnon. He could trace it out quite clearly. What had Albert to do with MacKinnon? Reuben clenched the papers together in his fist, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Albert was not there. All the better! Reuben strode up to Tilly, unaware of how terrible he looked with the traces of his battle not yet washed from his face, and banged the papers down in front of her.

"Wot's all this?"

Tilly was frightened.

"It's--it's only poetry, fäather."

"Read me some of it."

"It's only Albert's."

"That's why I want to hear wot it's about. You read it."

Tilly began to read in a faltering voice:

"If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover--
You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate...."

Reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped the paper with a little cry.

"It's true, then! Oh Lard! it's true!"

"Wot, fäather?"

"Them's Albert's verses right enough?"

"Yes, fäather, but----"

"Fetch him here."

Tilly was more frightened than ever. She had never heard anything about the great Gate controversy, and could not understand why Reuben was so angry with Albert. The verses seemed to her quite harmless, they were not even about love. However, she could not disobey her father, so she ran and fetched Albert out of the corn-chamber, begging him to be careful what he said, "fur fäather's unaccountable vrothered to-night about something."

"How did the Election go?"

"I never asked."

"Oh, you gals! Well, I expect that's wot's the matter. The Liberal's got in."

"But why should that mäake fäather angry wud you?"

Albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he invariably did before an encounter with Reuben, in spite of the fact that these always ended most ingloriously as far as he was concerned.

"He's bin reading some poetry of yours, Bertie," continued his sister, "and he's justabout dreadful, all his clöathes tore about, and a nasty mess of blood and yaller stuff on his face."

Albert suddenly began to look uneasy.

"Oh Lard! perhaps I'd better bolt fur it.--No, I'll square him out. You'll stand by me, Tilly?"

"Yes, but döan't mäake him angry--he might beat you."

Bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which was, however, soundly based on precedent, and he entered the kitchen with something very like a swagger.

Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite of the mess he was in.

"Well," he said slowly, "well--MacKinnon's hound!"

Albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table, and blenched.

Reuben walked up to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him as a dog might shake a rabbit.

"You hemmed, scummy, lousy Radical!"

Albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and teeth were rattling about inside his head. The rest of the family hunched together by the door, the boys gaping idiotically, the girls in tears.

"Well, wot've you got to say fur yourself before I kick you round the table?"

"I'll write wot I please, surelye," growled Albert, trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger.

"Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this house--and out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of you!"

"Fäather!" cried Tilly.

"Hold your tongue! Does anyone here think I'm going to have a Radical fur my son?--and a tedious lying traitor, too, wot helps his fäather's enemies, and busts up the purtiest election that wur ever fought at Rye. Do you say you didn't write those lousy verses wot have lost us everything?"

"No--I döan't say it. I did write 'em. But it's all your fault that I did--so you've no right to miscall me."

"My fault!"--Reuben's jaw dropped as he faced the upstart.

"Yes. You've allus treated me lik a dog, and laughed at my writing and all I wanted to do. Then chaps came along as didn't laugh, and promised me all sorts o' things if I'd write fur them."

"Wot sort o' things?"

"Mr. Hedges, the Liberal agent, promised that if I'd write fur him, he'd git me work on a London paper, and I could mäake my fortune and be free of all this."

"All wot?"

"Odiam!" shrieked Albert.

Reuben faced him with straight lips and dilated nostrils; the boy was now quivering with passion, hatred seemed to have purged him of terror.

"Yes--Odiam!" he continued, clenching his fists--"that blasted farm of yourn wot's the curse of us all. Here we're made to work, and never given a penny fur our labour--we're treated worse than the lowest farm-hands, like dogs, we are. Robert stole money to git away, and can you wonder that when I see my chance I should täake it. I'm no Radical--I döan't care one way or t'other--but when the Radicals offered me money to write verses fur 'em, I wurn't going to say 'no.' They promised to mäake my fortun, and save me from you and your old farm, which I wish was in hell."

"Stop your ranting and tell me how the hogs got you."

"I met Mr. Hedges at the pub----"

"Wur it you or him wot thought of the Scott's Float Gëate?"

"I heard of it from old Pitcher down at Loose, and I töald Hedges. I justabout----"

A terrific blow from Reuben cut him short.

§ 21.

The rest of the family had gone to bed, though scarcely to sleep. Reuben had washed the blood and filth off his face, and had stripped to his shirt, but he felt too sick and restless to lie down. He sat at his window, staring out into the dark gulf of the night.

His skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a buzzing and humming.

"Wished my farm wur in hell, dud he? He cursed my farm, dud he? The young whelp!"

He peered out into the blackness. Was that something he saw moving against the sky on the shoulder of Boarzell? It was too dark for him to make sure. Where had Albert gone? To his Radical friends, of course. They had offered to make his fortune--well, let them make it, and durn them!

Two sons were gone now. Life was hitting him hard. But he would have no traitors in his camp. Albert was his son no longer.

He bowed his head on the sill, and his throbbing brain revisualised the whole horrible day. He owed the humiliation and defeat of it all to Albert, who for the sake of money and a milk-and-water career, had betrayed Odiam's glory, and foully smirched its name.

There was no denying it--he had been basely dealt with by his elder children. Robert was in prison, Albert existed no longer except in the memory of a bitter disgrace, Richard was contemptuous, and, his father suspected, up to nothing good.... And he had looked to them all to stand and fight by his side, to feel his ambition, and share his conquest. Pete was a good lad, but what was one where there should have been four? He could not deny it--his elder children had failed him.

Something almost like a sob shook Reuben. Then, ashamed of his weakness, he raised his head, and saw that behind Boarzell the night had lifted, and a cowslip paleness was creeping into the sky. The great dark hump of the Moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs. A faint thrill stole through Reuben's tired limbs. Boarzell was always there to be loved and fought for, even if he had no heart or arm but his own. Gradually hope stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. The wind came rustling and whiffling to him over the heather, bringing him the rich damp smell of the earth he loved.

Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of morning! No degenerate sons could rob him of his Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. After all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. In future he would try no more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had tried to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his glorious enterprise, and they had all forsaken him--one for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown unworthiness. He would not trouble about the others; they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a hard master. He had been hard with the three boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. Now he would drop all that. He would cease to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they were just slaves working under his whip. He had been a fool to expect sympathy.... Boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours, seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong, Be Remorseless--Be Alone.