Читать книгу Delilah of the Snows - Harold Bindloss - Страница 9

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The afternoon was clear and cool, but bright sunlight filled a glade among the towering pines which creep close up to the western outskirts of Vancouver City. They are very old and great of girth, and though here and there a path or carriage drive has been hewn through the strip of primeval wilderness the municipal authorities have been wise enough to attempt no improvement upon what nature has done for them, and Stanley Park remains a pleasance whose equal very few cities possess. It is scented ambrosially with the odours of balsam and cedar; deep silence fills the dim avenues between the colonnades of towering trunks; and from every opening one looks out upon blue water and coldly gleaming snow.

On the afternoon in question the stillness was rudely broken by a murmur of voices, unmodulated and sharp with an intonation which sounds especially out of place in the wilderness, though it is heard there often enough, from the redwoods of Oregon to where Alaskan pines spring from ten feet of snow. A crowd of people were scattered about the glade, and while some were dressed in "store clothes" and a few in coarse blue jean the eyes of all were turned towards the stump of a great cedar, sawn off a man's height above the ground, which formed a natural platform for a speaker whose address had astonished most of them. Ingleby and Leger lay a little apart from the rest, where the sunlight fell faintly warm upon the withered needles, while Hetty was seated near them upon a fallen fir, displeasure in her eyes and her lips set together. Her eyebrows also seemed unusually straight, as they often did when she was angry, and that gave to her delicately pretty face a curious appearance of severity one would scarcely have expected to find there. She was dressed tastefully, for she earned a sufficiency as a boarding-house waitress.

Ingleby, who lay nearest her, looked up at her with a little smile.

"You would make rather a striking picture just now, Hetty," he said. "That is a most attractive frown. I don't know where you got it, but taken together with your attitude it's—I can't think of a better comparison—almost Roman."

Hetty glanced at him sharply. Her education had not been very comprehensive, and she scarcely understood the allusion; but Ingleby, who had made it at random, was nevertheless in a measure right, for there is a recurrent type of feminine beauty, not exactly common, but to be met with among women of her station in the north of England, while they are young at least, which approaches the classical. Hetty might have posed just then as a virgin sitting with turned-down thumb.

"Well," she said, "I'm vexed with you and Tom, as well as with that man. I wish he hadn't come now when we are nice and comfortable and you are both earning good wages—at least when the steamers come in."

Ingleby shook his head reproachfully. "You have spoiled it," he said. "Hasn't she, Tom? A young woman who frowns in that imperial fashion talking of wages!"

Leger only laughed as, turning over among the fir-needles, he filled his pipe again; but Hetty was still a trifle angry.

"Of course, I don't understand you," she said. "I never do, but it's a good thing I've more sense than either of you. Now, you know what came of listening to speeches of that kind in England, and you're doing the same thing again. I've no sympathy with that man. Everybody has enough to eat and looks contented and comfortable. Why does he come here worrying them?"

Leger smiled. "I'm not sure that the contentment of ignorance is the blessing some people would like us to believe. You see, when one doesn't know what he's entitled to he's apt to be satisfied with a good deal less, while when men like Hall Sewell point out that you don't get half as much as you ought to you are apt to believe them."

Ingleby laughed, though, as Sewell's writings had stirred him to intense appreciation, even in England, he was not altogether pleased with the little twinkle in his comrade's eyes. He was quick to fire with enthusiasm, while it occurred to him that Leger was a trifle too addicted to looking at both sides of a question, and occasionally admitting the weak points of his own case with dry good-humour. He had also a shrewd suspicion that Leger was a cleverer man than himself.

"Well," he said, looking at Hetty, "if you are content to carry plates to saw-mill hands and wharf-labourers, it's more than I am to see you do so."

"Why shouldn't I?" and Hetty, who flashed a covert glance at him, noticed the tinge of heightened colour in his face and was not displeased at it. "They are all of them very civil to me, and the one who can get nothing to do as a doctor——"

"Oh, yes!" said Ingleby curtly, "I've noticed his confounded assurance. Every time I see you going round with his dinner I feel I'd like to poison him."

Leger looked up again with the twinkle in his eyes showing plainer still.

"You haven't answered her, and I'm not sure you can," he said. "She put the whole thing in a nutshell when she asked—why shouldn't she."

Ingleby was silent, but he fidgeted, and Leger grinned.

"Don't you find it a little difficult to cling to aristocratic prejudices—though I don't know how you became possessed of them—and believe in democratic theories at the same time?" he said. "One would fancy they were bound to run up against each other occasionally."

Just then an urchin with a satchel on his back came along.

"Hall Sewell's latest speeches," he said. "Fourth edition of 'The New Brotherhood' and 'The Grip of Capital.'"

"Give me them all," said Ingleby. "How much do you want?"

"A quarter," said the lad, handing him several flimsy pamphlets, and while Hetty glanced at him severely Leger laughed.

"Twenty-five cents!" he said. "It would have purchased a packet of caramels for Hetty."

"We might manage both," said Ingleby. "I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier, Hetty. But you haven't yet told me your opinion of the man himself."

Hetty glanced at the man upon the fire-stump. He was dressed as a workman in blue jean, which seemed to her a piece of affectation, since when workmen of that city take their recreation they usually do so attired in excellent clothing; but he had a lithe, well-proportioned figure, and it became him, though neither his face, which was bronzed by exposure, nor his hands were quite in keeping with it. It was a forceful face, with keen, dark eyes in it, but the mouth was hidden by the long moustache. Hall Sewell was, in his own sphere, a famous man whose printed speeches had been read with appreciation in Europe, and he had not long ago played a leading part in a great labour dispute. He had just finished speaking and another man was somewhat apologetically addressing the assembled populace.

Hetty, who surveyed him critically, shook her head. "If you buy me any sweets now I'll throw them away," she said. "Well, he's a good-looking man."

"Oh," said Ingleby. "He's good-looking! Can't you get beyond that, Hetty?"

Hetty pursed her lips up reflectively. "Well, why shouldn't he be? It's a pleasure to see a man of that kind. There are so few of them. Still, I'll try to go a little further. Of course, he's clever. At least, everybody says so, but there's something wanting. I think he's weak."

"Weak!" said Ingleby indignantly. "You're wide of the mark this time, Hetty. I've read every line he has had printed, and any one could feel the uncompromising strength in it. They've put him in prison and tried to buy him, but nothing could keep a man of that kind from delivering his message."

Hetty still pursed her lips up, and when she spoke again she somewhat astonished Ingleby.

"If I were a little cleverer and richer I think that I could. That is, of course, if I wanted to," she said.

Leger looked up with a little whimsical smile. "I hope she isn't right, but she now and then blunders upon a truth that is hidden from our wisdom. Delilah is, after all, a type, you see, and one can't help a fancy that she has figured even more often than is recorded in history. Go on, Hetty."

Hetty put her head on one side. "I never could remember very much history; but that man's vain, vainer than most of you," she said. "A girl above him who pretended to believe in him could twist him round her finger."

"Above him?" said Ingleby.

Hetty looked at him curiously. "Yes. You know what everybody means by that, and it's generally a girl of that kind that men with your notions fall in love with. It's because you want so much more than is good for you that you have such notions."

"Considering that she is a girl and by no means clever, Hetty's reflections occasionally, at least, display an astonishing comprehension," said Leger. "I really don't mind admitting it, though I am her brother."

Ingleby said nothing, though he felt uncomfortable. He was fond of Hetty in a brotherly fashion, but as he had never supposed her to be indued with any intellect worth mentioning, her occasional flashes of penetration were almost disconcerting. The last one was certainly so, for there were two people of diametrically opposed opinions whom he respected above all others: one was Hall Sewell the reformer, and the other Major Coulthurst's daughter. He was glad of the opportunity for changing the subject when the man who had been speaking stopped a moment and looked at the crowd.

"I guess I'm through, and you have been patient, boys," he said. "Hall will be quite willing to answer any reasonable questions. I'll get down."

There was a little good-humoured laughter, and a man who stood forward turned to the assembly.

"Everybody knows Jake Townson, and there's no wickedness in him. He's a harmless crank," he said. "What I want to ask Hall Sewell is who's paying him to go round making trouble among people who have no use for it or him? It's a straight question."

There was a little growl of disgust as well as sardonic laughter, and while one or two angry men moved towards the speaker the man with the dark eyes stood up suddenly.

"Let him alone, boys. We don't want to use our enemies' methods, and I'm quite willing to answer him," he said. "Nobody has paid me a dollar for what I've tried to do for the cause of brotherhood and liberty, but I was offered a thousand to betray it not a month ago."

"Name the men who did it," cried somebody.

"I will," said Sewell, "when I consider the time is ripe—they may count on that, but in the meanwhile you will have to take my word for it. So far, I've been found where I was wanted—and that as our friend suggests was generally where there was trouble—but I never took five cents for reward or fee."

There was a murmur of approbation, as well as incredulity, and then a cry broke through it.

"How'd you worry along then? A man has got to live."

Sewell held his hands up, and though small and well-shaped they were scarred and brown.

"What I want—and it's very little—I can earn with the shovel and the drill. I've given your man his answer, but I'm going farther."

There was a clamour from one part of the crowd. "He's an insect. We've no use for him! Let up, Hall's talking. We're here to hear him!"

"What did I get for my pains?" said Sewell. "That's what the question comes to, and I'll tell you frankly, since, until we or our children bring in the new era, it's all that the man has to expect who believes this world can and ought to be made better. I've been ridden over by U. S. cavalry, and beaten by patrolmen's clubs. I've been hounded out of cities where I lawfully earned my bread, and sand-bagged by hired toughs. That would be a little thing if I were the only victim, but you know—you can read it in your papers almost any day—what happens to the men who have the grit to work as well as to hope for the dawn of better days for down-trodden humanity. You're to wait for it—on the other side of Jordan—your teachers say. Boys, we want it here and now, and it's coming, a little nearer every day. You have got to believe that, and when the outlook grows black get a tighter clinch upon your faith. Was it a shadow and a fancy that the men died for who went down in every struggle for the last ten years?—we needn't go back farther. Right across this prosperous continent you'll find their graves—men shot and sabred, strung to bridges and telegraph poles. Boys, we've been waiting—waiting a long while——"

He broke off abruptly, for a little, stolid park-warden and an equally unimpressed official of the Vancouver police pushed their way through the crowd.

"I guess," said the former, "you'll have to light out of this. You can't hold no meetings here."

The crowd was a Canadian one, good-humouredly tolerant, respectful of constituted authority, and, what was more to the purpose, reasonably contented with their lot. They were also, as usual, somewhat deficient in the quick enthusiasm which is common across the frontier. Had ample time been afforded him the orator might have got hold of them and impressed upon them a due comprehension of their wrongs, but a good many of them were by no means sure that they had very much to complain of as yet. Still, there were angry expostulations.

"Have you any ground for preventing my speaking here?" Sewell asked.

"Yes, sir," said the warden. "I guess we have. It's down in the park charter. You can't peddle those papers either. Call your boys in."

"The men who made those laws, as usual, made them to suit themselves."

"Well," said the warden, "I guess that don't matter now. There they are. All you have to do is to keep them, and nobody's going to worry you."

There was an embarrassing silence for a moment or two, for everybody felt the tension and realized that the position was rife with unpleasant possibilities; but the stolid warden stood eyeing the crowd unconcernedly, and, as usual, the inertia of British officialdom conquered. Sewell made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, and raised his hand.

"I'm afraid we'll have to break up, boys. There's nothing to be gained for anybody by making trouble now," he said. "If we can hire a big store of any kind I'll talk to you to-morrow."

He sprang down from the stump, the crowd melted away, and Hetty laughed as she glanced at her companions.

"That man has really a good deal more sense than some people with his notions seem to have," she said.

Ingleby shook his head at her. "You mean people who pull gates down on Sunday afternoons?" he asked. "Still, I scarcely think it was to save himself trouble he told them to go home, and nobody could have expected very much sympathy from the men who listened to him. He's wasting his time on them—they're too well fed. What do you think, Tom?"

Leger, who did not answer him for a moment, glanced thoughtfully through an opening between the stately trunks towards the far-off gleam of snow.

"This Province," he said drily, "is a tolerably big one, and from what I've heard they may want a man of his kind in the Northern ranges presently. It isn't the supinely contented who face the frost and snow there, and the Crown mining regulations don't seem to appeal to the men who stake their lives on finding a little gold. They appear to be even less pleased with those who administer them."