Part 33 (1/2)

”Let him go,” said the others.

Tom did not heed their talk, but directed his steps towards uncle Rougeant's farm-house.

He opened the door, walked straight in, and seated himself in a chair near the long bare table, without saying a word to his uncle.

The latter was in a dreadful state of mental excitement. He was walking up and down the room with his hands thrust deeply into his trousers' pockets, uttering execrations, blaming everyone and everything. He was so occupied with his ravings that he only cast a glance at his nephew, who stood, or rather sat, wondering what the d.i.c.kens his uncle was about.

”Ah, this generation,” said the farmer, ”this generation is a ma.s.s of spoilt and pampered dolls”--he was thinking of his daughter--”they only think about running here and there; paying visits to friends, taking tea with cousins, or walks with dressed-up mashers.

”They do not care if they leave a poor old devil”--the appellation was appropriate enough--”all alone, with not even a dog to keep him company or a cat which he could kick; off they go, dressed in the garments for which you have paid out of your own pockets; ay, and for which you have toiled and perspired----”

”You're quite right, uncle,” came from Tom.

The farmer gave a sudden start. He had altogether forgotten his nephew's presence. He went on:--”People are as proud as if they were all of blood royal. Even the poorest women, one sees pa.s.s in the afternoon with perambulators in which sleeps some little urchin who, mayhap, is brought up nearly all on the charity of saving people like me.

”It's a curse to have to pay taxes for this vermin. I say it's a downright injustice to make us, who attach ten times more value to a penny than they do, pay for the education of their brats.

”Ah! in my time, in the good old time, which is alas, gone for ever, we, the respectable people, were rolled about in clumsy little wooden carts, and the children of the labourers were carried in their mother's arms and placed between two bundles of ferns, while their mother went about her work. For, poor women went to work in those days. Ay! they had to do it or starve. But now, what do we see? These labourers' wives with servants.”

He stamped, his foot impatiently. ”And when they are dest.i.tute and homeless from sheer want of foresight, they are kept and fed out of the taxes which come out of our pockets. So-called civilisation and education are ruining the present generation.”

”That's where you're right, uncle,” interposed his nephew.

Mr. Rougeant went on: ”Farmers' sons do not want to work now. Every one rails at manual labour. If this state of things goes on, the island will soon be a ma.s.s of ruined and dissipated human beings.

The honourable people who have a pedigree they can boast of, are mixing with foreigners, whom no one knows whence they have sprung from. If you drink a gla.s.s of cider now a days, you are termed a drunkard by a lot of tea-drinkers, teetotalers and----.”

”A gla.s.s of cider would do good, one is thirsty this weather,”

interrupted Tom, who, although half asleep, had caught the word cider.

Without even casting a glance at his nephew, so absorbed was he, the farmer continued: ”One hears nothing but bicycle-bells. These bicycles are the greatest nuisance yet invented. I am surprised that people rack their brains in order to invent such worthless rubbish.

Every one must have a bicycle. There may not be any bread in the house, the children may not be able to go to school or the wife to church for want of a decent pair of boots, but, 'I will have a bicycle.' And then, it is so very easy to have one, there's the hire system. Another curse of civilisation that is ruining the poor man.

If our peasantry knew how to put by for a rainy day, like the French country-folk do, we should not have so many applications for relief, our hospitals would well nigh be empty.”

”_Vere dia_, uncle.”

”Poor people now are not half so polite as they used to be when I was young. They call each other Mess. instead of Mait., and they style their superiors Mait. when they ought to say Mess.

”The insolent rogues, they only have a smooth tongue when they come to beg. People may say what they like, foolish men may talk about the State establis.h.i.+ng scholars.h.i.+ps, for the talented poor; let them work. I have worked all my life, and hard too, and here I am, better than any of them.”

”Educate them with the States' revenue. Indeed! Bring them up like gentlemen, for them to laugh at you later on, to look down upon you as if you were so much stubble.”

”That's what they like. Give young people a few pence to rattle in their trousers' pockets, a collar, cuffs, a sixpenny signet ring on the little finger, a nickel-silver mounted cane and a pair of gloves, and there they go, not caring a fillip whether their parents have toiled and struggled to rise to their present position, ignoring the necessity of thrift, a happy-go-lucky generation. And then, at the end of it all, a deep chasm, into which they will all fall headlong; an immense pyre that will consume all their vanities and profligacies.”

”They deserve to be burnt, indeed they do, uncle.”

”Someone was even talking of establis.h.i.+ng a public library here.