Paigles’s farm was bought at last, and more than half the parish with it; the last fee was paid and the deeds were locked in the strongroom at the bank. Then, when the time came to sell up Paigles, old Hoddy lowered his rent instead. And as to the other tenants, he discovered a way of grinding their faces against platters and quart pots, giving them and their families the most enormous dinner, in three barns, that Cock-a-Bevis Hill had ever looked down on.
It was in the merriment that followed this dinner that the transactions began that revealed the sole drawback to Hoddy’s extraordinary bargain. For in his sudden revulsion from misanthropy and misogyny he conceived an almost exaggerated opinion of the attractions of his tenant’s daughters and sisters, and, in some cases, of their aunts and mothers. Nor did it stop there, for as the days went and the news of his wealth and amiability spread and multiplied old Hoddy found himself involved in such a complication of entanglements, that there was nothing for it but once again to call in the aid of the Witham attorney, by whose arts, and the payment of a good deal of money, actions for breach were compromised, bigamy averted, and safety found in the end by marriage with an active and respectable widow.
But these things came to a head later, and in any case they have little to do with the story. Meantime, the iron-strapped box stood in the corner of Luke Hoddy’s keeping-room, full of compressed hate, waiting for the devil to come and fetch it.
Now the report of old Hoddy’s sudden wealth went about among the good folk of those parts, and not among the good folk only. It reached also two vagabond thieves, tramping through Witham from Springfield gaol, after a narrow squeak for their necks at the assizes; and this was not the first time they had cheated the gallows. They turned aside from the main road because of the rumors, for a feeble old man of great wealth, living alone in a cottage of two rooms, offered singular attractions to their inquiring natures.
They came to Cock-a-Bevis Hill, and learned enough to make them very hopeful; and that night they took a lantern and two bludgeons, and lifted old Hoddy’s simple latch with neither noise nor trouble. Old Hoddy was snoring sturdily in the other room, but though they had come willing to stop his snore for ever, they checked at the sight of the iron-bound box in the corner. It stood very notable among the poor furniture about it, and here, they were well assured, was the best the place could yield, the end of their desires—the treasure chest. So they left old Hoddy to his snore, and carried the box quietly out, and up the breezy slope of Cocka-Bevis Hill under the stars. In a sheltered hollow near the top they set it down, and pried it open with a chisel; and that was the end of both of them.
In the morning Paigles’s horseman found them lying dead in the hollow, contorted and black—something like men struck by lightning; and the box lay by them, plain and empty.
When Luke Hoddy learned the news in the morning he looked up the hill and at the clouds, and saw that the breeze held steady from the west, as it had done the day before; and he knew that all his hate had been carried away on the winds from off the earth. It had saved the hangman a double turn, and that was all it had done, good or bad; what became of it nobody could ever tell, though since the wind was from the west, some of it may have fallen in Germany.
But the Owner of the Box was sadly vexed, as you would guess. Nevertheless he dissembled his anger, and as soon as he heard of his misfortune (which he did by means of which I know nothing) he came to old Hoddy, polite as ever, with the idea of reducing his bad debt as far as possible. He went cautiously to work, being out of confidence with himself in the county of Essex, and remembering his ancient defeat at Barn Hall—of which I may tell another time. “Well, Mr. Hoddy,” he said, “we’ve had a little misfortune. It’s no fault of yours, of course, and I shall make some very special arrangements for the guilty parties. But to prove my perfect and continued confidence in yourself, I’ve come to do business again, on very exceptional terms. I’m ready to enter into that other little transaction at which you hinted during our last interview. As I said then, it’s a thing I rarely do, in spite of vulgar opinion to the contrary; but in your case, on old and respected customer, I’m willing to stretch a point. You’ve found me treat you very well in our first deal, and I don’t want to drop the connection. What do you say?”
Because, you see, now that all Hoddy’s hate was quite gone, Hoddy himself was such a very different person that he was a very desirable bargain, and the devil was ready to buy him forthwith.
Old Hoddy chuckled deep and long. “It do seem to me,” he said, “as you’d do better in the shires; I count you make a poor trade in Essex. At Dedham an’ Snoreham they be too wide awake for ’ee, an’ too clever at Little Witham; you’d starve at Pinchpoles, an’ you can’t fob’em at fobbing. But a shire man allus was a fool, an’ I count you’d do better right over across the Lea, at Much Hadham. What you’re at now is to buy me, eh?”
“At a great price, Mr. Hoddy; a noble sum!”
Old Hoddy chuckled again. “Very kind, I’m sure. ’Fore I lost my hate I’d ha’ talked it over longways, but ready meat’s my victual. D’ye know the stile at the bottom o’ t’ hill?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if ye go over that an’ keep along by t’ hedge, you come to anoather. Know that?”
“Perfectly.”
“Other side o’ that there’s a ditch.”
“Just so.”
“An’ a meddy with a tree in the middle—oak. D’ye know the oak too?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you went along down there now, arl alone, an’ ran round that there oak, who’d you be a-chasin’?”
“Myself.”
Old Hoddy guffawed loud and long, with his thumb against his nose. “Go on then!” he said. “That’s my opinion, too!”
THE RODD STREET REVOLUTION
First published in The Strand Magazine, Jun 1908
I
I have told the tale of the Red Cow Anarchist group in another place, and at another time; indeed I am startled to remember that it was fourteen years ago. As a fact the credit of that tale, if it has any, is due to my disreputable friend, Snorkey Timms, who told it me, as he told me others. He it was who first discovered Sotcher, the founder and victim of the Red Cow Group, and he it was who told me also this other tale of an earlier group of Sotcher’s founding.
Teddy Mills, it would seem, was a shoemaker, who lived and worked in a very small house in Rodd Street, Bethnal Green—a very small street, which could only be reached by making several turns and twists through and out of other streets nearly as small. The little house had once been one of a row of country cottages, and the row even now carried some vague air of blighted ruralism, because of the muddy strips of front garden, which many tumbling children shared with many lank cats and a few very desperate scarlet runners on strings.
Teddy Mills, small, bristly and wild of eye, was Sotcher’s newest convert. As a jobbing shoemaker, in accordance with the mysterious laws which make all jobbing shoemakers swarthy and ill-shaved and politically rebellious, Teddy Mills was promising material, and Sotcher, lank, greasy and unwashed, fresh from the Anarchist Club in Berners Street, Shadwell, fastened on him at once. For, indeed, Teddy Mills made good material in other respects than that of his native readiness to join in the abuse and overthrow of whomsoever he might suspect of superiority, in fortune or qualities, over himself; for one thing, he had good work, and consequently money which might be cadged.
On the other hand, Teddy Mills had a wife, who was very intractable material indeed. Sotcher’s impassioned teachings, received with enthusiasm by Teddy Mills, brought from Mrs. Mills no better tribute than a sniff of contempt; and the lady’s opinion of Sotcher himself, wholly unfavorable, she expressed with much freedom and no politeness. And so it came about that, from the day of Sotcher’s appearance, things went less smoothly in the Mills household. Teddy Mills’s time soon seemed to be divided between listeni
ng to Sotcher and quarrelling with Mrs. Mills, so that very little was left for mere business, and the making and mending of shoes became more and more a theory of yesterday and tomorrow, and less and less a practice of today.
“Well,” Mrs. Mills would say, appearing suddenly with a red face and tucked-up skirts after a day’s washing, “I’ve done my day’s work, ’cept clearin’ up. ’Ow much ’a’ you done?”
“I’ve done more’n you think,” her husband would reply, with evasive dignity.
“Yes, that you ’ave, if you’ve done anythink but sit an’ jaw along o’ that dirty greasy spongin’ thief Sotcher. I ’card ’im. I ’card ’im tellin’ you to do away with the p’lice. You’d look fine doin’ away with the p’lice, you would! You’ll do away with me, if there’s much more of it! ‘Ow long am I to keep this place goin’ like this?”
“When the social revolution comes,” Teddy Mills explained, “we sha’n’t neither of us ’ave to work more’n an hour or two a day, ’cos everybody’ll ’ave to work.”
“An hour or two! Ho! An’ ’ow’s this place to be kep’ clean an’ food cooked an’ all in an hour or two! But p’raps a woman’s work don’t count. An hour or two, says you! An’ ’ow’ll your dear friend Sotcher like it, I wonder? A ’ole hour! Did ’e ever do an hour’s work in ’is life?”
“Mr. Scotcher’s a speaker, I tell you, a pioneer—one as teaches the propaganda—”
“Proper what? Gander? It’s a proper goose ’e teaches when ’e comes ’ere a-preachin’ to you! With ’is free this an’ free that, an’ free drinks between whiles! I ain’t a-goin’ to stand it much longer, so I tell you! I ain’t a-goin’ to work ’ere for you an’ ’im too, on nothink. I can earn my livin’ alone, I can, an’ I will, if there ain’t a change!”
Mrs. Mills tried Sotcher with direct personal insult, but that had no better effect than to turn his unceasing discourse to the denunciation of marriage as an oppressive and inconvenient institution, which should shortly be abolished, with the police, the magistracy, and every other relic of privileged authority, temporal and spiritual. On her part, Teddy’s wife grew more urgently bitter as the days went.
And so it came to pass that one fine morning Sotcher arrived at the gate of Mills’s front garden to find Teddy standing by the post, clutching at his touzled hair perplexedly, and staring gloomily up the street.
“She’s gone,” he reported briefly.
“Gone where?” asked the visitor, gazing up the street also, and seeing nothing.
“I dunno,” replied Teddy. “She’s hooked it, that’s all. I did a bit o’ work last night, an’ took it ’ome this mornin’; an’ when I carne back there was this on the table.”
He extended a crumpled scrap of paper, on which Sotcher read the scrawl: “Good bye, I’m agoing to work for myself now.”
“Selfishness,” commented Sotcher. “The selfishness prevailent at the present time is due to the rotten state of s’ciety an’ the oppression o’ the privileged classes. When we ’ave the social revolution, an’ free an’ absolute liberty o’ the individual, then selfishness’ll be swep’ out o’ the world.”
“Yes,” answered Teddy blankly, “but what—what am I a-goin’ to do till it is?”
“Wave aloft the banner o’ free an’ unrestricted brotherhood and liberty in the face o’ the bloated circles o’ class an’ capitalistic privilege,” replied Sotcher, with the fluency of a fresh-oiled machine.
“What?”
“‘I said we’d raise our free ’ands an’ voices in the sacred cause o’ universal anarchy an’ proudly march in the van of progress to the glorious consummation o’ the social upheaval,” Sotcher continued, knowing that one sentence meant as much as the other, and airing them, therefore, in turn.
“Yes—jesso,” replied Teddy Mills, turning his uneasy glance toward the little front door; “but what about the washin’?”
Sotcher’s eloquence was not to be turned aside. “Comrades with a glorious mission like us,” he pursued, “can’t waste time over washin’. I don’t.” The truth of this remark was visible to the naked eye. “We fix our eyes forward and up’ard, trampling under the feet of free initiative the relics of barbarous authority, an’ overthrowin’ the bloodstained temples of capitalistic monopoly!”
“Yes, I know,” responded Teddy; “but when I said washin’, I wasn’t thinkin’ so much of our washin’. She’s bin takin’ in washin’ lately, an’ earnin’ a bit, an’ I shall miss it.”
This was a more serious matter, and Sotcher paused thoughtfully. He considered the situation for a moment, and then produced a brilliant project.
“Comrade Mills!” he said, lifting and exhibiting to Teddy’s gaze the palm of a very grubby hand, “this is an ’istoric moment!”
“Is it?” asked Teddy innocently.
“It is. It’s lucky your wife’s gone, an’ so put the scheme into my ’ead. We don’t want ’er. We’ll found the first real Anarchist colony!”
“Yes?” said Teddy interrogatively.
“That ’umble ’ome o’ yours,” proceeded Sotcher, “will be ’anded down the ages on golden trumpets, an’ inscribed on the ’arts of generations to come. We’ll begin the social revolution there!”
“All right,” assented Teddy. So complete was his belief in Sotcher, that if the proposal had been to redistribute the solar system there he would have said “All right,” just the same.
“We’ll bring in one or two comrades an’ live together in the full brother’ood of anarchy, an’ give a example to the toilin’ millions about us. We’ll ’ave perfect individual freedom an’ voluntary co-operation, an’ the ’ole world’ll take a lesson by us an’ bust out in the glorious daybreak of Universal Autonomy!”
“All right,” said Teddy, again.
II
SOTCHER invited the co-operation of two more comrades, and he did not bring them from the Anarchist Club. Four he judged a convenient total number, since the house had four rooms, and he did not bring the two new comrades from the club, because he knew the club of old. There they were all talkers as fluent as himself, and not listeners. Sotcher wanted listeners. It was for that reason—partly—that he sallied forth “spreading the light;” for that, and because the Anarchist Club was the very worst place he knew for borrowing in.
So he brought fresh material. He brought one Billy Snider, a furtive person with an elusive squint and a curious property of looking smaller than he really was, though he was not large at best. Billy Snider, it seemed, was an “individual expropriator” for years in the matter of private property he had been putting Anarchistic principles into practice without knowing it, and the bloated bourgeois called him a thief. He had derived a great deal of consolation and surprise from the discovery, drawn from Sotcher’s discourse, that he was in reality a pioneer of human regeneration, working to an heroic purpose.
Sotcher also brought a certain Joe Budd, a very large man of much muscular development, with a face like knotted timber and a black eye that was sometimes the right and sometimes the left, and occasionally double, but always there. Mr. Budd was not understood to be partial to any particular profession, and the beer required for his sustenance had hitherto been chiefly contributed by friends who preferred to see him in a good temper. Sotcher had laid his account with care, for if Teddy Mills would work at his trade and Billy Snider “expropriate” out of doors for the benefit of the community, while Joe Budd kept off inconvenient interference, and terrorized such persons as broker’s men, then Sotcher, for his part, was ready to supply all the talk the enterprise might require.
It was a great occasion for Sotcher, when the four assembled that evening, and he for the first time addressed a group that was all his own.
“Comrades!” he cried, with a sweep of the arm that might have included a thousand, “we are ’ere to open, to inaugurate, or as I may say to begin, the Social Revoluti
on! In this ’ere ’umble ’ome we are to set rollin’ the ball that shall pave the way for the up’eaval of ’umanity, and, spreadin’ its wings to the uttermost ends of the earth, write its name in letters of fire across the ’eavens! The only law an’ order for free men is Anarchy! We shall live ’ere, comrades, in perfeck freedom under a brotherly compact that won’t bind nobody. We shall set a example o’ free life, with no law an’ no authority, as ’ll open the eyes o’ the toilin’ proletariat an’ stir them to copy our noble proceedin’s, an’ go on to overthrow the p’lice an’ the gover’ment, an’ the water-rates an’ all the disgustin’ machinery of organized oppression!”
“’Ear, ’ear!” cried Teddy Mills.
“Our watchword shall be liberty, an’ down with privilege an’ monopoly. What is liberty, my comrades? Is it magistrates, an’ prisons, an’ p’lice at the corner of every street?”
“No!” interjected Billy Snider fervently.
“It is not, comrades. The police is the protector of the real criminals, the plunderin’ so-called upper classes! Stands to reason no honest man would want pertectin’ by p’lice. P’lice is brute force—the brute force as the privileged classes is ’edged theirselves in with; paid myrmidons makin’ slaves o’ the people. We don’t want no myrmidons, do we?” (“No!” again from Billy). “O’ course not. We’d disdain to be seen speakin’ to ’em. Very well, then, what does anybody else want with ’em? What but privilege an’ monopoly? We will break down all privilege an’ monopoly! Our comrade ’ere, our comrade Billy Snider, has been breakin’ down monopolies for years. Not on a grand scale, p’raps, but wherever ’e could in a small way, an’ ’e’s suffered for it. In fact ’e’s not long out from six months for breakin’ down some bloated capitalist’s monopoly of a gold watch an’ chain. It’s property as is the real robbery, an’ all expropriators are our brothers. We now begin the social revolution, comrades. Liberty for all, voluntary co-operation, free initiative, free contrack, subject to perpetual change an’ revision, do what you like an’ take what you want—them’s our principles, an’ our only law is that there is no laws. I ’ave ’ere a box which will ’old the money of the community, an’ I begin by offerin’ it to comrade Mills, who will ’ave the honor o’ bein’ the first to give up ’is private ownership, an’ placin’ whatever money ’e ’as in the funds of the group.”
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 159