Part 70 (1/2)
”When I am dead, and years shall pa.s.s, The scythe will cut the darnel gra.s.s Now and again for decency, Where we forgotten people lie.
O'er ancient graves the living tread With great impertinence on the dead.
”When I am dead, all I have done Must vanish, like the evening sun.
My book about the bells may stay Behind me for a fleeting day; But will not very oft be read By anybody when I'm dead.”
She stopped and smiled with her eyes full of tears.
”I had meant to write another verse,” he explained, ”but I put it off and it's too late now. Such as it is, it is yours. Does it seem to you to be interesting?”
”It's very interesting indeed, and very beautiful. I shall always value it as my greatest treasure.”
”Read it to your children,” he said, ”and if the opportunity occurs, take them sometimes to see my grave. The spot is long chosen. Let there be no gardening upon it out of good heart but bad taste. I should wish it left largely to Nature. There will be daisies for your babies to pick. I forget the text I selected. It's in my will.”
He bade her good-bye more tenderly than usual, as though he knew that he would never see her again, and the next morning Bridetown heard that the old man had died in his sleep. The people felt sorry, for he left no enemies, and his many kindly thoughts and deeds were remembered for a little while.
CHAPTER XIX
NEW WORK FOR ABEL
With a swift weaver's knot John Best mended the flying yarn. Then he turned from a novice at the Gill Spinner and listened, not very patiently, to one who interrupted his lesson.
”It's rather a doubtful thing that you should always be about the place now you've left it, Levi,” he said to Mr. Baggs. ”It would be better judgment and more decent on your part if you kept away.”
”You may think so,” answered the hackler, ”but I do not. And until the figure of my pension is settled, I shall come and go and take no denial.”
”It is settled. He don't change. He's said you shall have ten s.h.i.+llings a week and no more, so that it will be.”
”And what if I decline to take ten s.h.i.+llings a week, after fifty years of work in his beastly Mill?”
”Then you can do the other thing and go without. You want it both ways, you do.”
”I want justice--no more. Common justice, I suppose, can be got in Dorset as elsewhere. I ought to have had a high testimonial when I left this blasted place--a proper presentation for all to see, and a public feed and a purse of sovereigns at the least.”
”That's what I mean when I say you can't have it both ways,” answered Mr. Best. ”To be nice and pick words and consider your feelings is waste of time, so I tell you that you can't grizzle and grumble and find fault with everything and everybody for fifty years, and then expect people to bow down and wors.h.i.+p you and collect a purse of gold when you retire. If we flew any flags about you, it would be because we'd got rid of you.
Mister Ironsyde don't like you, and why should he? You've always been up against the employer and you've never lost a chance to poison the minds of the employed. There's no good will in you and never was, and where you could hang us up in the Mill and make difficulties without getting yourself into trouble, you've always took great pleasure in so doing.
Did you ever pull with me, or anybody, if you could help it? Never. You pulled against. You'd often have liked to treat us like the hemp and tear us to pieces on your rougher's hackle. And how does such a man expect anybody to care about him? There was no reason why you should have had a pension at all, in my opinion. You've been blessed with good health and no family, and you've never spent a s.h.i.+lling on another fellow creature in your life. Therefore, it's more than justice that you get ten s.h.i.+llings, and not less as you seem to think.”
Mr. Baggs glowered at John during this harangue. His was the steadfast att.i.tude of the egoist, who sees all life in terms of his own interest alone.
”We've got to fight for ourselves in this world since there's none other to fight for us,” he said, ”and, of course, you take his side. You've licked Ironsyde boots all your life, and nothing an Ironsyde can do is wrong. But I might have known the man that's done the wickedness he's done, and deserts his child and let his only son work on the land, wouldn't meet me fair. There's no honour or honesty in the creature, but if he thinks I'm going to take this slight without lifting my voice against it, he's wrong. To leave the works and sneak out of 'em unmourned and without a bit of talk and a testimonial was shameful enough; but ten s.h.i.+lling a week--no! The country shall ring about that and he'll find his credit shaken. 'Tis enough to lose him his election to Parliament, and I hope it will do so.”
Best stared.
”You're a cracked old fool, and not a spark of proper pride or grat.i.tude in you. Feeling like that, I wonder you dare touch his money; but you're the sort who would take gifts with one hand and stab the giver with the other. I hope he'll change his mind yet and give you no pension at all.”
Levi, rather impressed with this unusual display of feeling from the foreman, growled a little longer, then went his way; while in John there arose a determination to prevent Mr. Baggs from visiting the scene of his old activities. At present force of habit drew the old man to spend half his time here; and now, when Best had returned to the Gill Spinner, Levi prowled off to his old theatre of work, entered the hackling shop and criticised the new hackler. His successor was young and stood in awe of him at first; but awe was not a quality the veteran inspired for long. Already Joe Ash began to grow restive under Levi's criticisms, and dimly to feel that the old hackler was better away. To-day Mr. Baggs allowed the resentment awakened by Best's criticisms to take shape in offensive comments at the expense of his young successor. He was of that order of beings who, when kicked, rests not until he has kicked somebody again.
But to-day the evil star of Mr. Baggs was in ascendant, and when he told the youth that he wasted half his strength and had evidently been taught his business by a fool, Levi was called to suffer a spirited retort. Joe Ash came from the Midlands; his vocabulary was wider than that of Mr.