The Root of All Evil

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER VIII

  _The Commination Service_

  At five o'clock that afternoon, by mutual agreement, Jeckie Farnish soldto John Bradingham the stock and goodwill of her grocery business, and afew days later she paid in another heavy cheque to the credit of Farnishand Grice, and, at the same date, secured the alteration in the deed ofpartnership which made matters straight between her and Lucilla. Therewas something of a grim desperation in Jeckie's face as she walked outof the solicitor's office whereat this transaction had been effected;she was feeling something that she had no desire to speak of. ButLucilla felt it, too, and said it.

  "Well!" she remarked in a low tone as the two partners walked away fromthe town. "I don't know how it is with you, but I've put my last pennyinto that pit! Me and Albert's got just enough to live comfortably ontill we begin to get some returns, but I can't ever find any morecapital!"

  "No need!" said Jeckie, almost fiercely. "Wait! as I'm doing."

  She herself knew well enough that she, too, had thrown in her lastpenny; there was nothing for it now but to see the additional capitalflow out steadily, and to wait in patience until the first yieldsbrought money. In the meantime, she was not going to waste money onherself and her father. Selling most of the furniture which she hadgradually accumulated, and leaving the house behind the shop, which hadbecome an eminently comfortable dwelling, she transferred Farnish andherself to a cottage near the pit, told him that there they were goingto stop until riches came, and settled down to watch the doings of thelittle army of workers into whose pockets her money was going at expressspeed. Wait--yes, there was nothing else to do.

  There was not a man amongst all that crowd of toilers, from theexperienced managers to the chance-employed navvy, who did not knowJeckie Farnish at that stage of her career. She was at the scene ofoperations as soon as work began of a morning; she was there until thetwilight came to end the day. Here, there, everywhere she was to be metwith. Now she was with the masons who were building the cottages on herbit of land outside the Leys; now with the men who were constructing asolid road from the pit-mouth to the highway; now with the navvies whowere making the link of railway that would connect Savilestowe MainColliery with the great trunk line a mile off behind the woods; now,careless of danger and discomfort, she was down one or other of the twinshafts, feverishly eager to see how much farther their sinkers wereapproaching to the all-important regions beneath. Sometimes she hadLucilla in her wake; sometimes Albert; sometimes Farnish. But none ofthese three possessed her pertinacity and endurance; a general dailylook round satisfied each. Jeckie, when she was not in her bed orsnatching a hasty meal, was always on the spot. Her money was at stake,and it behoved her to see that she was getting full value for everypennyworth of it.

  She was not the only perpetual haunter of Savilestowe Leys at that time.The men who worked there at one or other of the diverse jobs which themaking of a coal-mine necessitates--all of them strangers to the placeuntil the new industry brought them to it--became familiar with a figurewhich was as odd and strange as that of Jeckie Farnish was grim anddetermined. Morning, noon, and night a man forever hung around the sceneof operations, a man who was not allowed to cross the line of thepremises and had more than once been turned out of them, but whom nobodyand nothing could prevent from looking over fences and through gaps inthe hedgerows and haunting the various means of ingress and egress, awild, unkempt bright-eyed man, who was always talking to himself, andwho, whenever he got the chance, talked hard and fast and vehemently toanyone he was able to lay a mental grappling-iron upon; a man with agrievance, Ben Scholes. He was always in evidence. While Jeckiepatrolled her armies within, Scholes kept his watch without; he was as aman who, having had a treasure stolen from him, knows where the thiefhas bestowed it, and henceforth takes an insane delight in watchingthief and treasure.

  The first result of Scholes's discovery that Jeckie Farnish had donehim over his forty acres of land was that he took to drink. Immediatelyafter leaving the sign of the Golden Teapot he turned in at the"Coach-and-Four," and found such comfort in drinking rum-and-water whilehe retailed his grievances to the idlers in the inn-kitchen that he wentthere again next day, and fell into the habit of tippling andgossiping--if that could be called gossiping which resolved itself intotelling and retelling the story of his woes to audiences of anythingfrom one to a dozen. Few things interest a Yorkshireman more than tohear how Jack has done Bill and how Jack contrived to accomplish it, andwhile Scholes never got any sympathy--every member of his congregationsecretly admiring Jeckie for her smartness and cleverness--he neverfailed to attract attention. There were many houses of call in thatneighbourhood; Scholes began a regular round of them; he had a tale totell which was never likely to pall on folk whose one idea was to getmoney by any means, fair or foul, and the sight of his lean face andstarveling beard at the door of parlour or kitchen was enough to arousean eager, however oft repented, invitation.

  "Nah, then, Scholes!--come thi ways in, and tell us how Jeckie Farnishdid tha' out o' thi bit o' land--here, gi' t'owd lad a drop o' rum toset his tongue agate! Ecod, shoe's t'varry devil his-self for smartnessis that theer Jecholiah! Nah, then, Scholes, get on wi' t'tale!"

  Scholes had no objection to telling his tale over and over again, andthere was not a pair of ears in all that neighbourhood which had notheard it; if not at first, then at second hand--nor was there a soulwhich did not feel a certain warmth in recognising Jeckie Farnish'sastuteness; Scholes himself recognised it.

  "Ye see, shoo hed me afore iver shoo come to t'house!" he would say."Knew t'coal wor theer afore iver shoo come reck'nin' to want to buy mifotty acre and mak' an orchard on't! But niver a word to me! Buyin',shoo wor, not fotty acre o' poor land, d'ye see, but what they callt'possibilities 'at ligged beneath it! T'possibilities o' untold wealth!As should ha' been mine. Nowt but a moral thief--that's what shoo is,yon Jecholiah. Clever' 'er may be--I don't say shoo isn't, but a moralthief."

  "Tha means an immoral thief," said one of his listeners.

  "I mean what I say!" retorted Scholes. "I know t'English language betternor what thou does. A moral thief!--that's what yon woman is. I appealto t'company. If ye nobbut come to consider, same as judges and juriesdoes at t'sizes, how shoo did me, ye'll see 'at, morally speakin', shoorobbed me o' my lawful rights. Ye see--for happen ye've forgotten someo' t'fine points o' t'matter, it wor i' this way----"

  Then he would tell his tale all over again, and would afterwards argueit out, detail by detail, with his audience. In that part of Yorkshirethe men are fond of hearing their own tongues, and wherever Scholeswent the companies of the inn-kitchens were converted into debatingsocieties.

  One night, Scholes, full of rum and of delight in his grievance, wenthome and found his wife dead. As he had left her quite well when he wentout in the morning, the shock sobered him, and certain affectingsentences in the Burial Service at which he was perforce present a fewdays later turned his thoughts toward religion. The truth was thatScholes, already half mad through his exaggeration of his wrongs,developed religious mania in a very sudden fashion. But no one suspectedit, and the vicar, who was something of a simpleton, believed him tohave undergone a species of conversion; Scholes, anyhow, forsook thepublic-house for the house of prayer, and was henceforth to be seen incompany of a large prayer-book at all the services, Sunday and week-day.Very close observers might have noticed that he took great pleasure inthose of the Psalms which invoke wrath and vengeance on enemies, and, ondays when the choir was not present and the service was said, manifestedinfinite delight in repeating the Psalmist's denunciation in anunnecessarily loud voice. But no one remarked anything, and if the vicarsecretly wished that his new sheep would not bleat quite so loudly, heput the excess of vocalisation down to the fact that Scholes was new tohis job and anxious to obey the directions of the Rubrics. Moreover, hereflected, the probability was that Scholes would soon tire ofattendance on the services, and would settle down to the conventionaland respectable churchmanship of most of
the folk around him.

  Scholes, however, developed his mania. He suddenly got rid of his farm,realised all that he was worth, and went to live, quite alone, in asmall cottage near the churchyard. From that time forward he divided histime between the church services and the doings on Savilestowe Leys.Whenever there was a service he was always in church--but so soon asever any service was over he was off to the end of the village, to hauntthe hedgerows and fences, and button-hole anybody who cared to hear hisstory. This went on for many an eventful month, and at last became amatter of no moment; Ben Scholes, said all the village, was a bitcracked, and if it pleased him to spend ten minutes in church, and allthe rest of the day hanging about the outskirts of Jeckie Farnish's pit,why not? But in the last months of the operations at the new pit, thefirst day of another Lent came round, and the vicar, with Scholes and acouple of old alms-women as a congregation, read the ComminationService. Scholes had never heard this before, and the vicar was somewhattaken aback at the vigour with which he responded to certainfulminations.

  "Cursed," read the vicar in unaffected and mellifluous tones, moresuited to a benediction, "cursed is he that smiteth his neighboursecretly!"

  "Amen!" responded Scholes, suddenly starting, as if a thought struckhim. "Amen!"

  "Cursed," presently continued the vicar, "is he that putteth his trustin man...."

  "Amen, amen!" said Scholes fervently. "Amen!"

  "Cursed," continued the vicar, glancing round at his respondentparishioner, and nervously hurrying forward, "are...."

  "Covetous persons, extortioners!" exclaimed Scholes, anticipatingcertain passages to come. "Amen, amen! So they are--amen!"

  Then without waiting to hear what it was that the prophet David borewitness for, he clapped his prayer-book together with a loud noise, andhurried from the church; through one of the windows the vicar saw himwalking among the tombs outside, gesticulating, and evidently talking tohimself. When the service was over, he went out to him. "I fear theservice distressed you, Scholes," he began, diffidently. "You are----"

  Scholes waved his arms abroad.

  "Nowt o' t'sort!" he exclaimed. "I wor delighted wi' it! I could like tohev that theer service read ivery Sunda'! I wor allus wantin' to mak'sure 'at a certain person 'at I could name wor cursed. An', of course,wheer theer's cursin' theer's vengeance--vengeance, vengeance!"

  "Don't forget, Scholes, that it has been wisely said, 'Vengeance isMine: I will repay, saith the Lord,'" answered the vicar, in his mildesttones. "You must remember----"

  "Now, then, I forget nowt!" retorted Scholes. "I know all about it. Butt'Lord mun use instruments--human instruments! Aw, it's varrycomfortin', is what ye and me read together this mornin'--varrycomfortin' to me. Cursed! 'Covetous persons'! Aw!--ye needn't go faraway to find _one_!"

  The vicar was one of those men who dislike scenes and enthusiasm, and heleft Scholes to himself, meditating among the gravestones, and went hometo tell his wife that he wished somebody would give the man a quiet hintthat loud upliftings of voice were not desirable in public worship. Butnext Sunday Scholes was not in his accustomed place--the front pew inthe south aisle--nor did he come to church again. The clauses in theCommination Service had set his crazy brain off on another tack, andfrom the day on which he heard them he forgot the temporary anaestheticwhich religious observance had brought to him, and sought out his olderand more familiar one--drink. He took to frequenting the "Brown Cow," ahostelry of less pretensions than the "Coach-and-Four," and there hewould sit for hours, quietly drinking rum and water--as inoffensive,said the landlady, as a pet lamb in a farm-house kitchen.

  For Scholes no longer talked about his grievance. He became strangelyquiescent; sharper observers than the landlady would have seen that hewas moody. He never talked to anybody at this stage, though he muttereda great deal to himself, and occasionally smiled and laughed, as if thethought of something pleased him. But one night, as he sat alone in acorner of the "Brown Cow," there came in a couple of navvies whom herecognised as workers at the hated pit, and a notion came into hismentality, which, crazy as it was rapidly becoming, yet still retainedmuch of its primitive craftiness. He treated these men to liquor; theycame to be treated again the following night, and the night after that;they and Scholes henceforth met regularly of an evening in their corner,and drank and whispered for hours at a time.

  There came a day whereon these men and Scholes no longer forgathered atthe "Brown Cow." Instead, they met at Scholes's cottage. It was a lonelyhabitation, a tumbled-down sort of place in the lee of the oldtithe-barn, and had been empty for years before Scholes took it andfurnished it with odds and ends of seating and bedding. It stood wellout of the village, and could be reached unobserved from more than onedirection. Here the two navvies with whom he had made friends at the"Brown Cow" began to come. Scholes laid in a supply of liquor for theirdelectation. And here, round a smoky lamp and a spirit bottle, the threewere wont to talk in whispers far into the night.

  Had Jeckie Farnish or Lucilla Grice known of what it was that thesethree men talked--one of them already obsessed with the belief that hewas the Lord's chosen instrument of vengeance, the other two cunninglyanxious to profit by it--neither would have slept in their beds, norfelt one moment's peace until Scholes and his companions were safelylaid by the heels. But they knew nothing; nothing, at any rate, that wasdiscomposing or threatening. Ever since the time of putting more capitalinto the concern the making of the colliery had gone on successfully andeven splendidly. The two shafts, up-cast and down-cast, had been sunkto depths of several hundreds of feet without any encountering of morethan the ordinary difficulties; the two great dangers, water and runningsand, had not presented themselves. On the surface the building of thevarious sheds and offices had proceeded rapidly; some were alreadyroofed in; in one the winding machinery and engines had been installed.The connection road was made; the link of railway finished; and on thehigh ground above the Leys three rows of ugly red-brick cottages weresteadily approaching completion. The man who made his silentcalculations that morning when Jeckie Farnish stood by him in grimsilence came to her one day with a sheepish smile on his face.

  "I was a bit out in my reckoning, Miss Farnish," he said. "But it was onthe right side! At the rate we're going at now we'll be finished, andthe pit'll be working from six to eight weeks sooner than I thought.You'd better hurry those builders on with the cottages; you'll bewanting to fill them before so long."

  Jeckie needed no admonition to hurry anything. She was speeding up allthe work as rapidly as she could, for good reasons which she kept toherself. Once more the outlay was proving greater than had beenanticipated, and she knew that if the manager's final reckoning of tenmonths from the time of her sale of the grocery business had been keptto she would have had to raise more capital. She was secretly overjoyedwhen Revis, of Heronshawe Main, drove over one day, made a carefulinspection of all that had been done, and was then being done, andcorroborated Robinson's revised opinion--the pit would be at work sixweeks sooner than she had thought.

  "And I reckon you'll be rare and glad to see the first tubs o' coalwound, my lass!" he said heartily as he drove off. "I know I was!"

  Jeckie nodded and smiled; she was too thankful for his opinion to puther feelings into words. That night she was wakeful--not from anxiety,but from satisfaction and anticipation. Two months more, and the moneythat had been sunk in that pit would be coming out of its depths again,multiplied, increased....

  In the middle of that night a brilliant flash of lurid flame followed bya roar that shook her cottage to its foundations and left it rocking,sent her headlong from her bed. And as she stood sick and trembling,grasping at the lintel of her window, she heard, in the deadly silencethat followed, a sudden outburst of the big bell of the church, pealingas if for victory.