Part 20 (2/2)
toiling in grime six days, sleeping the seventh? I call that a deadly living”.
”Well, I _don't_, you see. Besides, I made, not forty, but forty-_five_ s.h.i.+llings, under the sliding-scale”.
”Yes, but no brave nation would submit one day to such petty squalors after it was shown the way to escape them”.
”There _is_ no way”, said the mechanic: ”there are the books, and the talkers; but the economic laws that govern the units like you and me are as relentless as gravitation. Don't believe anyone who talks to you about 'ways of escape'”.
”But suppose someone has a new thought?”
”There can be no new thoughts about _that_. The question has long since been exhausted”.
”Well, come ”--with sudden decision--”I will tell you a thought of my own ”. And he told.
If the English people paid the rent for England to themselves--to their government--instead of to a few Englishmen, then, by one day's labour in six, Englishmen would be much more rich in all things than a fisherman, by one day's labour in six, was rich in fish.
The expression which he awaited on the face before him was one of illuminated astonishment; but, with a chill in his nerves, he saw the workman's lips curve.
”Bah!” said the Manchester man, ”that is an exploded theory!”
_Exploded!!!_
Hogarth was rather pale.
Yet he knew that it was true....Who, then, could have been exploding the Almighty?
”Who has exploded it?”
”Been exploded again and again!” said the Manchester man; ”of all the theories of land-tenure, that is about the weakest: _I_ should know, for I've studied them all. The fact is, no change in the system of land-tenure will have the least effect upon the lot of the ma.s.ses; would only make things worse by unsettling the country--if it didn't mean a civil war”.
”I begin to see”.
Hogarth got up, walked home meditating: and suddenly blushed.
It was known! by mechanics in cocoa-rooms!--that secret thing of his secret cell. And it was not believed!
As for him, what was he now doing outside Colmoor? That question he asked himself, as he sat unsandaling his feet; and he commenced to dress himself again: but paused--would first see Loveday.
Accordingly, the next night, the two friends met at Cheyne Gardens.
And a long time they sat silent, Loveday feeding his eyes upon his friend's face, that hard, rounded brow which seemed harder, and frowned now, that gallant largeness of eye which seemed now wilder, and that manly height, which seemed Mahomet's in the Oriental dress.
”But where have you been for five weeks?” asked Loveday.
”Skulking, and thinking. But about my sister....”
”Do not ask...” said Loveday.
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