Demos

Mr. Wyvern was on the point of referring to his private reasons for befriending Adela, but checked himself.

‘What I made no secret of approving was their substitution of human relations between employer and employed for the detestable “nexus of cash payment,” as Carlyle calls it. That is only a return to the good old order, and it seems to me that it becomes more impossible every day. Thus far I am with the Socialists, in that I denounce the commercial class, the bourgeois, the capitalists—call them what you will—as the supremely maleficent. They hold us at their mercy, and their mercy is nought. Monstrously hypocritical, they cry for progress when they mean increased opportunities of swelling their own purses at the expense of those they employ, and of those they serve; vulgar to the core, they exalt a gross ideal of well-being, and stink in their prosperity. The very poor and the uncommercial wealthy alike suffer from them; the intellect of the country is poisoned by their influence. They it is who indeed are oppressors; they grow rich on the toil of poor girls in London garrets and of men who perish prematurely to support their children. I won’t talk of these people; I should lose my calm views of things and use language too much like this of the “Fiery Cross.”’

Hubert was thoughtful.

‘What is before us?’ he murmured.

‘Evil; of that I am but too firmly assured. Progress will have its way, and its path will be a path of bitterness. A pillar of dark cloud leads it by day, and of terrible fire by night. I do not say that the promised land may not lie ahead of its guiding, but woe is me for the desert first to be traversed! Two vices are growing among us to dread proportions—indifference and hatred: the one will let poverty anguish at its door, the other will hound on the vassal against his lord. Papers like the “Fiery Cross,” even though such a man as Westlake edit them, serve the cause of hatred; they preach, by implication at all events, the childish theory of the equality of men, and seek to make discontented a whole class which only needs regular employment on the old conditions to be perfectly satisfied.’

‘Westlake says here that they have no right to be satisfied.’

‘I know. It is one of the huge fallacies of the time; it comes of the worship of progress. I am content with the fact that, even in our bad day, as a class they are satisfied. No, these reforms address themselves to the wrong people; they begin at the wrong end. Let us raise our voices, if we feel impelled to do so at all, for the old simple Christian rules, and do our best to get the educated by the ears. I have my opinion about the clergy; I will leave you to guess it.’

‘Have you any belief in the possibility of this revolution they threaten?’

‘None whatever. Changes will come about, but not of these men’s making or devising. And for the simple reason that they are not sincere. I put aside an educated enthusiast such as Westlake. The proletarian Socialists do not believe what they say, and therefore they are so violent in saying it. They are not themselves of pure and exalted character; they cannot ennoble others. If the movement continue we shall see miserable examples of weakness led astray by popularity, of despicable qualities aping greatness.’

He paused somewhat abruptly, for he was thinking of Mutimer, and did not wish to make the application too obvious. Hubert restrained a smile.

They parted shortly after, but not till Hubert had put one more question.

‘Do you, or do you not, approve of what I am doing down in the valley?’

Mr. Wyvern thought a moment, and replied gravely:

‘You being yourself, I approve it heartily. It will gladden my eyes to see the grass growing when spring comes round.’

He shook Hubert’s hand affectionately and left him.

CHAPTER XXX

We must concern ourselves for a little with the affairs of our old acquaintance, Daniel Dabbs.

Daniel’s disillusionment with regard to Richard Mutimer did not affect his regularity of attendance at the Socialist lectures, in most things a typical English mechanic, he was especially so in his relation to the extreme politics of which he declared himself a supporter. He became a Socialist because his friend Dick was one; when that was no longer a reason, he numbered himself among the followers of Comrade Roodhouse—first as a sort of angry protest, against Mutimer’s private treachery, then again because he had got into the habit of listening to inflammatory discourses every Sunday night, and on the whole found it a pleasant way of passing the evening. He enjoyed the oratory of Messrs. Cowes and Cullen; he liked to shout ‘Hear, hear!’ and to stamp when there was general applause; it affected him with an agreeable sensation, much like that which follows upon a good meal, to hear himself pitied as a hard-working, ill-used fellow, and the frequent allusion to his noble qualities sweetly flattered him. When he went, home to the public-house after a lively debate, and described the proceedings to his brother Nicholas, he always ended by declaring that it was ‘as good as a play.’

He read the ‘Tocsin,’ that is to say, he glanced his eye up and down the columns and paused wherever he caught words such as ‘villains,’ ‘titled scoundrels,’ ‘vampires,’ and so on. The expositions of doctrine he passed over; anything in the nature of reasoning muddled him. From hearing them incessantly repeated he knew the root theories of Socialism, and could himself hold forth on such texts as ‘the community of the means of production’ with considerable fluency and vehemence; but in very fact he concerned himself as little with economic reforms as with the principles of high art, and had as little genuine belief in the promised revolution as in the immortality of his own soul. Had he been called upon to suffer in any way for the ‘cause of the people,’ it would speedily have been demonstrated of what metal his enthusiasm was made.

But there came a different kind of test. In the winter which followed upon Mutimer’s downfall, Nicholas Dabbs fell ill and died. He was married but had no children, and his wife had been separated from him for several years. His brother Daniel found himself in flourishing circumstances, with a public-house which brought in profits of forty pounds a week It goes without saying that Daniel forthwith abandoned his daily labour and installed himself behind the bar. The position suited him admirably; with a barmaid and a potman at his orders (he paid them no penny more than the market rate), he stood about in his shirt sleeves and gossiped from morn to midnight with such of his friends as had leisure (and money) to spend in the temple of Bacchus. From the day that saw him a licensed victualler he ceased to attend the Socialist meetings; it was, of course, a sufficient explanation to point to the fact that he could not be in two places at the same time, for Sunday evening is a season of brisk business in the liquor trade. At first he was reticent on the subject of his old convictions, but by degrees he found it possible to achieve the true innkeeper’s art, and speak freely in a way which could offend none of his customers. And he believed himself every bit as downright and sincere as he had ever been.

Comfortably established on a capitalist basis, his future assured because it depended upon the signal vice of his class, it one day occurred to Daniel that he ought to take to himself a helpmeet, a partner of his joys and sorrows. He had thought of it from time to time during the past year, but only in a vague way; he had even directed his eyes to the woman who might perchance be the one most suitable, though with anything but assurance of his success if he seriously endeavoured to obtain her. Long ago he had ceased to trouble himself about his first love; with characteristic acceptance of the accomplished fact, he never really imagined that Alice Mutimer, after she became an heiress, could listen to his wooing, and, to do him justice, he appreciated the delicacy of his position, if he should continue to press his suit. It cost him not a little suffering altogether to abandon his hopes, for the Princess had captivated him, and if he could have made her his wife he would—for at least twelve months—have been a proud and exultant man. But all that was over; Daniel was heart-free, when he again began to occupy himself with womankind; it was a very different person towards whom he found himself attracted. This was Emma Vine.

After that chance meeting with Mrs. Clay in the omnibus he lost sight of the sisters for a while, but one day Kate came to the public-house and desired to see him. She was in great misery. Emma had fallen ill, gravely ill, and Kate had no money to pay a doctor. The people in the house, where she lodged were urging her to send for the parish doctor, but that was an extremity to be avoided as long as a single hope remained. She had come to borrow a few shillings> in order that she might take Emma in a cab to the hospital; perhaps they would receive her as an in-patient. Daniel put his hand in his pocket. He did more; though on the point of returning from breakfast to his work, he sacrificed the morning to accompany Mrs. Clay and help her to get the sick girl to the hospital. Fortunately it was found possible to give her a bed; Emma remained in the hospital for seven weeks.

Daniel was not hasty in forming attachments. During the seven weeks he called three or four times to inquire of Mrs. Clay what progress her sister was making, but when Emma came home again, and resumed her usual work, he seemed to have no further interest in her. At length Kate came to the public-house one Saturday night and wished to pay back half the loan. Daniel shook his head. ‘All right, Mrs. Clay; don’t you hurt yourself. Let it wait till you’re a bit better off.’ Nicholas was behind the bar, and when Kate had gone he asked his brother if he hadn’t observed something curious in Mrs. Clay’s behaviour. Daniel certainly had; the brothers agreed that she must have been drinking rather more than was good for her.

‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Daniel, ‘if she started with the whole o’ the money.’

Which, indeed, was a true conjecture.

Time went on, and Daniel had been six months a licensed victualler. It was summer once more, and thirsty weather. Daniel stood behind the bar in his shirt sleeves, collarless for personal ease, with a white waistcoat, and trousers of light tweed. Across his stomach, which already was more portly than in his engineering days, swayed a heavy gold chain; on one of his fingers was a demonstrative ring. His face and neck were very red; his hair, cropped extremely short, gleamed with odorous oils. You could see that he prided himself on the spotlessness of his linen; his cuffs were turned up to avoid alcoholic soilure; their vast links hung loose for better observance by customers. Daniel was a smiling and a happy man.

It was early on Sunday evening; Hoxton had shaken itself from the afternoon slumber, had taken a moderate tea, and was in no two minds about the entirely agreeable way of getting through the hours till bedtime. Daniel beamed on the good thirsty souls who sought refuge under his roof from the still warm rays of the sun. Whilst seeing that no customer lacked due attention, he conversed genially with a group of his special friends. One of these had been present at a meeting held on Clerkenwell Green that morning, a meeting assembled to hear Richard Mutimer. Richard, a year having passed since his temporary eclipse, was once more prominent as a popular leader. He was addressing himself to the East End especially, and had a scheme to propound which, whatever might be its success or the opposite, kept him well before the eyes of men.

‘What’s all this ‘ere about?’ cried one of the group in an impatiently contemptuous tone. ‘I can’t see nothin’ in it myself.’

‘I can see as he wants money,’ observed another, laughing. ‘There’s a good many ways o’ gettin’ money without earnin’ it, particular if you’ve got a tongue as goes like a steam engine.’

‘I don’t think so bad of him as all that,’ said the man who had attended the meeting. ‘’Tain’t for himself as he wants the money. What do you think o’ this ‘ere job, Dan?’

‘I’ll tell you more about that in a year’s time,’ replied Dabbs, thrusting his fingers into his waistcoat pockets. ‘’Cording to Mike, we’re all goin’ to be rich before we know it. Let’s hope it’ll come true.’

He put his tongue in his cheek and let his eye circle round the group.

‘Seems to me,’ said the contemptuous man, ‘he’d better look after his own people first. Charity begins at ‘ome, eh, mates?’

‘What do you mean by that?’ inquired a voice.

‘Why, isn’t his brother—what’s his name? Bill—Jack—’

‘’Arry,’ corrected Daniel.

‘To be sure, ‘Arry; I don’t know him myself, but I ‘eard talk of him. It’s him as is doin’ his three months’ ‘ard labour.’

‘That ain’t no fault o’ Dick Mutimer’s,’ asserted the apologist. ‘He always was a bad ‘un, that ‘Arry. Why, you can say so much, Dan? No, no, I don’t ‘old with a man’s bein’ cried down cause he’s got a brother as disgraces himself. It was Dick as got him his place, an’ a good place it was. It wasn’t Dick as put him up to thievin’, I suppose?’

‘No, no, that’s right enough,’ said Dabbs. ‘Let a man be judged by his own sayin’s and doin’s. There’s queer stories about Dick Mutimer himself, but—was it Scotch or Irish, Mike?’

Mike had planted his glass on the counter in a manner suggesting replenishment.

‘Now that’s what I call a cruel question!’ cried Mike humorously. ‘The man as doesn’t stick to his country, I don’t think much of him.’

The humour was not remarkable, but it caused a roar of laughter to go up.

‘Now what I want to know,’ exclaimed one, returning to the main subject, ‘is where Mutimer gets his money to live on. He does no work, we know that much.’

‘He told us all about that this mornin’,’ replied the authority. ‘He has friends as keeps him goin’, that’s all. As far as I can make out it’s a sort o’ subscription.’

‘Now, there you are!’ put in Daniel with half a sneer. ‘I don’t call that Socialism. Let a man support himself by his own work, then he’s got a right to say what he likes. No, no, we know what Socialism means, eh, Tom?’

The man appealed to answered with a laugh.

‘Well, blest if I do, Dan! There’s so many kinds o’ Socialism nowadays. Which lot does he pretend to belong to? There’s the “Fiery Cross,” and there’s Roodhouse with his “Tocsin,” and now I s’pose Dick’ll be startin’ another paper of his own.’

‘No, no,’ replied Mutimer’s supporter. ‘He holds by the “Fiery Cross” still, so he said this mornin’. I’ve no opinion o’ Roodhouse myself. He makes a deal o’ noise, but I can’t ‘see as he does anything.’

‘You won’t catch Dick Mutimer sidin’ with Roodhouse,’ remarked Daniel with a wink. ‘That’s an old story, eh, Tom?’

Thus the talk went on, and the sale of beverages kept pace with it. About eight o’clock the barmaid informed Daniel that Mrs. Clay wished to see him. Kate had entered the house by the private door, and was sitting in the bar-parlour. Daniel went to her at once.