Lord of the Sea
Page 17
XVII
OLD TOM'S LETTER
The fate of Bates filled Hogarth's mind with a gloom so funereal, thatnow his strength, his great patience, all but succumbed.
One evening, while his broom lay stuck out under the notch of hiscell-door in order that Warder Black might count him, he took his tinknife, and began to scratch over the hills and valleys of his corrugatedwall some shining letters:
VEN
He was now, after long reflection, convinced that he was the victim ofa plot of Baruch Frankl's: yet in his heart was little rancour againstFrankl, nor, when he wrote his "V E N", was he thinking specially ofFrankl--hardly knew of whom, or what. It may have been of the system ofthings which had given to Frankl such vast powers over him; but, the "N"finished, he pshawed at himself, and threw the knife down. If somethingwas wrong, he knew not at all how to right it, supposing the world hadbeen his to guide.
But a simple incident was destined to transform his mood--a letter fromold Tom Bates, the father of Fred.
And as hitherto we have seen him passive, bearing his weight of painwith patience, after that letter we shall find him in action.
Old Bates' letter was handed him three weeks after the scratching of hisvague "VEN".
"DERE MISTER HOGARTH:
"thise fu lines is to ast you how you er getn on, and can you giv a poreold feller ane noos ov that godfussakn sun ov mine hopn they ma find youas they leave me at present wich i av the lumbeigo vere Bad and no Gothe doctor ses bob wot you no was in the ninth lansers he dide comenhome so ive only fred left out of the ate. I rote to im fore munthsagorne, but no anser, no doubt becos i cum to london soon arter, so nomore at present from
"Yours trule,
"TOM BATES".
The old fellow, Hogarth saw, did not know of Fred's fate: Fred, the lastof eight. He would find it hard to answer that letter.
When "beds down" was called, his head was still full of one thought: oldTom Bates; and he could not sleep; heard the bell ring for the changeof warders; the vast silence of the prison's night; and still his brainrevolved old Tom.
The stealthy slipper of the night-warder passed and re-passed. Anon aclick of metal on metal, and the bull's-eye searched him.
Suddenly he remembered that visit to the forge at Thring, and thepresent of herrings which old Tom in his guernsey, had brought.
"Here--take 'em--they're yours", old Tom had said.
He had just then, he remembered, been on the point of going into thecottage to examine his guns, when the old man came, and stopped him--afatal, appointed thing, apparently. Had he actually gone, he would havefound the guns vanished, and would never have been condemned....
And what was it that the old man had said about fish, and fishermen, andthe sea?
He bent his brow to it, and finally remembered: "The day's work of afisherman gives him enough fish to live on all the week, and he couldlie round idling the other six days, if he chose; only anybody can'tlive on nothing but fish all the time".
Was it true? Yes! He remembered facts of Yarmouth....
But since true, it was--strange.
Was the sea, then, a more productive element for men to work in than theland? No, that was absurd: the land, in the nature of things, was moreproductive.
Then, why could not _all_ men procure an easy superfluity by one day'swork, as the fisher could, if he chose to live naked in a cave, eatingfish alone? In that case the fisher could change some of his day's-workfish for the shore people's day's-work things, and so all have a varietyas well as superabundance.
At the interest of this question, he leapt from his hammock, peeringinto that thing, and his fleet feet were away, running after the truthwith that rapt abandonment that had characterized his hunting andfootball. This was clear: that there was some difference between landand sea as working-grounds for men. Shore people, like a shoemaker, didnot have for themselves enough shoes from even five, or six, days' workon which to live in plenty for a week: and hence would take nothing lessthan an enormous quantity of the fisher's fish in exchange for a pair ofshoes, making him, too, poor as themselves. But since land work wasas productive as sea work, and far more so, it could only be that theshoemaker did not get for himself all the shoes which he made, as thefisher got for himself all the fish which he caught: some power tookfrom shore people a large part of what they made, a power which did notexist on the sea. That much was sure.
What was this power, this inherent difference?
He could think of no inherent difference except this: that shore workerspaid rent for land--directly and indirectly--in a million subtle ways;but fishers paid none for the sea.
So, then, if shore folk paid no rent, they would have a still greatersuperfluity of shoes, etc., from one day's labour in six than thefish-rich fisher?
So it seemed. So it _was_--as with savages. He started! But one minute'sreflection showed him that it was in the very nature of the shore to payrent: because one piece of land was better than another--City land, forinstance--and those working on the better must pay for that benefit.Civilized land, therefore, was bound to pay rent.
So that the shore people could never have the easy superfluity of thefish-rich fisher--because land was bound to pay rent? And the fishermust buy the shore things so dear with his easy-got fish, toiling, he,too, all the week--because land was bound to pay rent?
The wretchedness of Man, then, was a Law?
Hogarth, confronted by a wall, groaned, and while his body was cold, hisbrow rolled with sweat, he feeling himself on the brink of some truthprofound as the roots of the mountains....
"Land was bound to pay rent": he reached that point; and there remained.
"But suppose the workers on shore paid the rent _among themselves_....?"
At last those words: and he gave out a shout which begat mouths of echothrough the galleries of Colmoor.
"If the workers on shore paid rent among one another"--then theywould--on the whole--be in the very position of the fish-rich workerson sea, who paid no rent at all, the nation--as a whole--living on itscountry rent-free: England English, America American, as the sea human:and our race might then begin to think, to live!
It seemed too sublime--and divine--to be true! Again, point by point, hewent over his reasoning with prying eye; and, on coming back to the sameconclusion, hugged himself, moaning. At last--he knew.
And away now with the dullness and lowness! That blithe andhand-clapping day! Good-bye, Colmoor! the daily massacre, the shame andcare. Men could begin--if in a baby way at first--to think, to see, tosing, to live.
He saw, indeed, that that would hardly have been fair business if he,for example, had paid his rent to the English Nation instead of toFrankl, Frankl having bought Lagden with money earned. But he thoughtthat Frankl would hardly be slow to resign that rent, if once he wasshown....
But if Frankl _was_ slow--what then?
The oblong of ribbed glass over his flap-table showed a greyness ofmorning, as he asked himself that thing.
In that case--Frankl could be argued with.
But if he still refused?
Then the question could be gone into as to whether that which is goodfor forty millions, though apparently bad for Frankl, is not _fortymillion times_ more just than unjust, goodness being justice; also, asto which had the primary right to England, Frankl or the English.
But if he still refused?
Suddenly Hogarth giggled--his first laugh in Colmoor.
_That_ could be arranged....
For him, Hogarth, the great fact was this: that he saw light. Into thathumble cell the rays of Heaven had blazed.
After standing motionless a long time, he dropped to his knees, and "O,Thou, Thou", he said....
An hour later, when asked by an orderly if he wished to see doctor orgovernor, he replied: "The Governor".