Pilbeam attended to his skins.
“I must go,” said Syson.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Then I give you ‘To our vast and varying fortunes.’“ He lifted his hand in pledge.
“‘To our vast and varying fortunes,’“ she answered gravely, and speaking in cold tones.
“Arthur!” she said.
The keeper pretended not to hear. Syson, watching keenly, began to smile. The woman drew herself up.
“Arthur!” she said again, with a curious upward inflection, which warned the two men that her soul was trembling on a dangerous crisis.
The keeper slowly put down his tool and came to her.
“Yes,” he said.
“I wanted to introduce you,” she said, trembling.
“I’ve met him a’ready,” said the keeper.
“Have you? It is Addy, Mr Syson, whom you know about. — This is Arthur, Mr Pilbeam,” she added, turning to Syson. The latter held out his hand to the keeper, and they shook hands in silence.
“I’m glad to have met you,” said Syson. “We drop our correspondence, Hilda?”
“Why need we?” she asked.
The two men stood at a loss.
“Is there no need?” said Syson.
Still she was silent.
“It is as you will,” she said.
They went all three together down the gloomy path.
“‘Qu’il était bleu, le ciel, et grand l’espoir,’“ quoted Syson, not knowing what to say.
“What do you mean?” she said. “Besides, we can’t walk in our wild oats — we never sowed any.”
Syson looked at her. He was startled to see his young love, his nun, his Botticelli angel, so revealed. It was he who had been the fool. He and she were more separate than any two strangers could be. She only wanted to keep up a correspondence with him — and he, of course, wanted it kept up, so that he could write to her, like Dante to some Beatrice who had never existed save in the man’s own brain.
At the bottom of the path she left him. He went along with the keeper, towards the open, towards the gate that closed on the wood. The two men walked almost like friends. They did not broach the subject of their thoughts.
Instead of going straight to the high-road gate, Syson went along the wood’s edge, where the brook spread out in a little bog, and under the alder trees, among the reeds, great yellow stools and bosses of marigolds shone. Threads of brown water trickled by, touched with gold from the flowers. Suddenly there was a blue flash in the air, as a kingfisher passed.
Syson was extraordinarily moved. He climbed the bank to the gorse bushes, whose sparks of blossom had not yet gathered into a flame. Lying on the dry brown turf, he discovered sprigs of tiny purple milkwort and pink spots of lousewort. What a wonderful world it was — marvellous, for ever new. He felt as if it were underground, like the fields of monotone hell, notwithstanding. Inside his breast was a pain like a wound. He remembered the poem of William Morris, where in the Chapel of Lyonesse a knight lay wounded, with the truncheon of a spear deep in his breast, lying always as dead, yet did not die, while day after day the coloured sunlight dipped from the painted window across the chancel, and passed away. He knew now it never had been true, that which was between him and her, not for a moment. The truth had stood apart all the time.
Syson turned over. The air was full of the sound of larks, as if the sunshine above were condensing and falling in a shower. Amid this bright sound, voices sounded small and distinct.
“But if he’s married, an’ quite willing to drop it off, what has ter against it?” said the man’s voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I want to be alone.”
Syson looked through the bushes. Hilda was standing in the wood, near the gate. The man was in the field, loitering by the hedge, and playing with the bees as they settled on the white bramble flowers.
There was silence for a while, in which Syson imagined her will among the brightness of the larks. Suddenly the keeper exclaimed “Ah!” and swore. He was gripping at the sleeve of his coat, near the shoulder. Then he pulled off his jacket, threw it on the ground, and absorbedly rolled up his shirt sleeve right to the shoulder.
“Ah!” he said vindictively, as he picked out the bee and flung it away. He twisted his fine, bright arm, peering awkwardly over his shoulder.
“What is it?” asked Hilda.
“A bee — crawled up my sleeve,” he answered.
“Come here to me,” she said.
The keeper went to her, like a sulky boy. She took his arm in her hands.
“Here it is — and the sting left in — poor bee!”
She picked out the sting, put her mouth to his arm, and sucked away the drop of poison. As she looked at the red mark her mouth had made, and at his arm, she said, laughing:
“That is the reddest kiss you will ever have.”
When Syson next looked up, at the sound of voices, he saw in the shadow the keeper with his mouth on the throat of his beloved, whose head was thrown back, and whose hair had fallen, so that one rough rope of dark brown hair hung across his bare arm.
“No,” the woman answered. “I am not upset because he’s gone. You won’t understand . . .”
Syson could not distinguish what the man said. Hilda replied, clear and distinct:
“You know I love you. He has gone quite out of my life — don’t trouble about him . . .” He kissed her, murmuring. She laughed hollowly.
“Yes,” she said, indulgent. “We will be married, we will be married. But not just yet.” He spoke to her again. Syson heard nothing for a time. Then she said:
“You must go home, now, dear — you will get no sleep.”
Again was heard the murmur of the keeper’s voice, troubled by fear and passion.
“But why should we be married at once?” she said. “What more would you have, by being married? It is most beautiful as it is.”
At last he pulled on his coat and departed. She stood at the gate, not watching him, but looking over the sunny country.
When at last she had gone, Syson also departed, going back to town.
STRIKE-PAY
Strike-money is paid in the Primitive Methodist Chapel. The crier was round quite early on Wednesday morning to say that paying would begin at ten o’clock.
The Primitive Methodist Chapel is a big barn of a place, built, designed, and paid for by the colliers themselves. But it threatened to fall down from its first form, so that a professional architect had to be hired at last to pull the place together.
It stands in the Square. Forty years ago, when Bryan and Wentworth opened their pits, they put up the “squares” of miners’ dwellings. They are two great quadrangles of houses, enclosing a barren stretch of ground, littered with broken pots and rubbish, which forms a square, a great, sloping, lumpy playground for the children, a drying-ground for many women’s washing.
Wednesday is still wash-day with some women. As the men clustered round the Chapel, they heard the thud-thud-thud of many pouches, women pounding away at the wash-tub with a wooden pestle. In the Square the white clothes were waving in the wind from a maze of clothes-lines, and here and there women were pegging out, calling to the miners, or to the children who dodged under the flapping sheets.
Ben Townsend, the Union agent, has a bad way of paying. He takes the men in order of his round, and calls them by name. A big, oratorical man with a grey beard, he sat at the table in the Primitive school-room, calling name after name. The room was crowded with colliers, and a great group pushed up outside. There was much confusion. Ben dodged from the Scargill Street list to the Queen Street. For this Queen Street men were not prepared. They were not to the fore.
“Joseph Grooby — Joseph Grooby! Now, Joe, where are you?”
“Hold on a bit, Sorry!” cried Joe from outside. “I’m shovin’ up.”
There was a great noise from the men.
“I’m takin’ Queen Street. All you Queen Street men sh
ould be ready. Here you are, Joe,” said the Union agent loudly.
“Five children!” said Joe, counting the money suspiciously.
“That’s right, I think,” came the mouthing voice. “Fifteen shillings, is it not?”
“A bob a kid,” said the collier.
“Thomas Sedgwick — How are you, Tom? Missis better?”
“Ay, ‘er’s shapin’ nicely. Tha’rt hard at work to-day, Ben.” This was sarcasm on the idleness of a man who had given up the pit to become a Union agent.
“Yes. I rose at four to fetch the money.”
“Dunna hurt thysen,” was the retort, and the men laughed.
“No — John Merfin!”
But the colliers, tired with waiting, excited by the strike spirit, began to rag. Merfin was young and dandiacal. He was choir-master at the Wesleyan Chapel.
“Does your collar cut, John?” asked a sarcastic voice out of the crowd.
“Hymn Number Nine.
‘Diddle-diddle dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his best suit on,’“
came the solemn announcement.
Mr. Merfin, his white cuffs down to his knuckles, picked up his half-sovereign, and walked away loftily.
“Sam Coutts!” cried the paymaster.
“Now, lad, reckon it up,” shouted the voice of the crowd, delighted.
Mr. Coutts was a straight-backed ne’er-do-well. He looked at his twelve shillings sheepishly.
“Another two-bob — he had twins a-Monday night — get thy money, Sam, tha’s earned it — tha’s addled it, Sam; dunna go be-out it. Let him ha’ the two bob for ‘is twins, mister,” came the clamour from the men around.
Sam Coutts stood grinning awkwardly.
“You should ha’ given us notice, Sam,” said the paymaster suavely. “We can make it all right for you next week — ”
“Nay, nay, nay,” shouted a voice. “Pay on delivery — the goods is there right enough.”
“Get thy money, Sam, tha’s addled it,” became the universal cry, and the Union agent had to hand over another florin, to prevent a disturbance. Sam Coutts grinned with satisfaction.
“Good shot, Sam,” the men exclaimed.
“Ephraim Wharmby,” shouted the pay-man.
A lad came forward.
“Gi’ him sixpence for what’s on t’road,” said a sly voice.
“Nay, nay,” replied Ben Townsend; “pay on delivery.”
There was a roar of laughter. The miners were in high spirits.
In the town they stood about in gangs, talking and laughing. Many sat on their heels in the market-place. In and out of the public-houses they went, and on every bar the half-sovereigns clicked.
“Comin’ ter Nottingham wi’ us, Ephraim?” said Sam Coutts to the slender, pale young fellow of about twenty-two.
“I’m non walkin’ that far of a gleamy day like this.”
“He has na got the strength,” said somebody, and a laugh went up.
“How’s that?” asked another pertinent voice.
“He’s a married man, mind yer,” said Chris Smitheringale, “an’ it ta’es a bit o’ keepin’ up.”
The youth was teased in this manner for some time.
“Come on ter Nottingham wi’s; tha’ll be safe for a bit,” said Coutts.
A gang set off, although it was only eleven o’clock. It was a nine-mile walk. The road was crowded with colliers travelling on foot to see the match between Notts and Aston Villa. In Ephraim’s gang were Sam Coutts, with his fine shoulders and his extra florin, Chris Smitheringale, fat and smiling, and John Wharmby, a remarkable man, tall, erect as a soldier, black-haired and proud; he could play any musical instrument, he declared.
“I can play owt from a comb up’ards. If there’s music to be got outer a thing, I back I’ll get it. No matter what shape or form of instrument you set before me, it doesn’t signify if I nivir clapped eyes on it before, I’s warrant I’ll have a tune out of it in five minutes.”
He beguiled the first two miles so. It was true, he had caused a sensation by introducing the mandoline into the townlet, filling the hearts of his fellow-colliers with pride as he sat on the platform in evening dress, a fine soldierly man, bowing his black head, and scratching the mewing mandoline with hands that had only to grasp the “instrument” to crush it entirely.
Chris stood a can round at the “White Bull” at Gilt Brook. John Wharmby took his turn at Kimberley top.
“We wunna drink again,” they decided, “till we’re at Cinder Hill. We’ll non stop i’ Nuttall.”
They swung along the high-road under the budding trees. In Nuttall churchyard the crocuses blazed with yellow at the brim of the balanced, black yews. White and purple crocuses dipt up over the graves, as if the churchyard were bursting out in tiny tongues of flame.
“Sithee,” said Ephraim, who was an ostler down pit, “sithee, here comes the Colonel. Sithee at his ‘osses how they pick their toes up, the beauties!”
The Colonel drove past the men, who took no notice of him.
“Hast heard, Sorry,” said Sam, “as they’re com’n out i’ Germany, by the thousand, an’ begun riotin’?”
“An’ comin’ out i’ France simbitar,” cried Chris.
The men all gave a chuckle.
“Sorry,” shouted John Wharmby, much elated, “we oughtna ter go back under a twenty per cent rise.”
“We should get it,” said Chris.
“An’ easy! They can do nowt bi-out us, we’n on’y ter stop out long enough.”
“I’m willin’,” said Sam, and there was a laugh. The colliers looked at one another. A thrill went through them as if an electric current passed.
“We’n on’y ter stick out, an’ we s’ll see who’s gaffer.”
“Us!” cried Sam. “Why, what can they do again’ us, if we come out all over th’ world?”
“Nowt!” said John Wharmby. “Th’ mesters is bobbin’ about like corks on a cassivoy a’ready.” There was a large natural reservoir, like a lake, near Bestwood, and this supplied the simile.
Again there passed through the men that wave of elation, quickening their pulses. They chuckled in their throats. Beyond all consciousness was this sense of battle and triumph in the hearts of the working-men at this juncture.
It was suddenly suggested at Nuttall that they should go over the fields to Bulwell, and into Nottingham that way. They went single file across the fallow, past the wood, and over the railway, where now no trains were running. Two fields away was a troop of pit ponies. Of all colours, but chiefly of red or brown, they clustered thick in the field, scarcely moving, and the two lines of trodden earth patches showed where fodder was placed down the field.
“Theer’s the pit ‘osses,” said Sam. “Let’s run ‘em.”
“It’s like a circus turned out. See them skewbawd ‘uns — seven skewbawd,” said Ephraim.
The ponies were inert, unused to freedom. Occasionally one walked round. But there they stood, two thick lines of ruddy brown and piebald and white, across the trampled field. It was a beautiful day, mild, pale blue, a “growing day”, as the men said, when there was the silence of swelling sap everywhere.
“Let’s ha’e a ride,” said Ephraim.
The younger men went up to the horses.
“Come on — co-oop, Taffy — co-oop, Ginger.”
The horses tossed away. But having got over the excitement of being above-ground, the animals were feeling dazed and rather dreary. They missed the warmth and the life of the pit. They looked as if life were a blank to them.
Ephraim and Sam caught a couple of steeds, on whose backs they went careering round, driving the rest of the sluggish herd from end to end of the field. The horses were good specimens, on the whole, and in fine condition. But they were out of their element.
Performing too clever a feat, Ephraim went rolling from his mount. He was soon up again, chasing his horse. Again he was thrown. Then the men proceeded on their way.
; They were drawing near to miserable Bulwell, when Ephraim, remembering his turn was coming to stand drinks, felt in his pocket for his beloved half-sovereign, his strike-pay. It was not there. Through all his pockets he went, his heart sinking like lead.
“Sam,” he said, “I believe I’n lost that ha’ef a sovereign.”
“Tha’s got it somewheer about thee,” said Chris.
They made him take off his coat and waistcoat. Chris examined the coat, Sam the waistcoat, whilst Ephraim searched his trousers.
“Well,” said Chris, “I’n foraged this coat, an’ it’s non theer.”
“An’ I’ll back my life as th’ on’y bit a metal on this wa’scoat is the buttons,” said Sam.
“An’ it’s non in my breeches,” said Ephraim. He took off his boots and his stockings. The half-sovereign was not there. He had not another coin in his possession.
“Well,” said Chris, “we mun go back an’ look for it.”
Back they went, four serious-hearted colliers, and searched the field, but in vain.
“Well,” said Chris, “we s’ll ha’e ter share wi’ thee, that’s a’.”
“I’m willin’,” said John Wharmby.
“An’ me,” said Sam.
“Two bob each,” said Chris.
Ephraim, who was in the depths of despair, shamefully accepted their six shillings.
In Bulwell they called in a small public-house, which had one long room with a brick floor, scrubbed benches and scrubbed tables. The central space was open. The place was full of colliers, who were drinking. There was a great deal of drinking during the strike, but not a vast amount drunk. Two men were playing skittles, and the rest were betting. The seconds sat on either side the skittle-board, holding caps of money, sixpences and coppers, the wagers of the “backers”.
Sam, Chris, and John Wharmby immediately put money on the man who had their favour. In the end Sam declared himself willing to play against the victor. He was the Bestwood champion. Chris and John Wharmby backed him heavily, and even Ephraim the Unhappy ventured sixpence.
In the end, Sam had won half a crown, with which he promptly stood drinks and bread and cheese for his comrades. At half-past one they set off again.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 605