Section 6
I was, of course, too footsore to walk back to Clayton, but I hada shilling and a penny in my pocket for the train between Checkshilland Two-Mile Stone, and that much of the distance I proposed todo in the train. And when I got ready to go, Nettie amazed me bywaking up to the most remarkable solicitude for me. I must, shesaid, go by the road. It was altogether too dark for the short wayto the lodge gates.
I pointed out that it was moonlight. "With the comet thrown in,"said old Stuart.
"No," she insisted, "you MUST go by the road."
I still disputed.
She was standing near me. "To please ME," she urged, in a quickundertone, and with a persuasive look that puzzled me. Even in themoment I asked myself why should this please her?
I might have agreed had she not followed that up with, "The holliesby the shrubbery are as dark as pitch. And there's the deer-hounds."
"I'm not afraid of the dark," said I. "Nor of the deer-hounds,either."
"But those dogs! Supposing one was loose!"
That was a girl's argument, a girl who still had to understand thatfear is an overt argument only for her own sex. I thought too ofthose grisly lank brutes straining at their chains and the chorusthey could make of a night when they heard belated footsteps alongthe edge of the Killing Wood, and the thought banished my wish toplease her. Like most imaginative natures I was acutely capable ofdreads and retreats, and constantly occupied with their suppressionand concealment, and to refuse the short cut when it might appearthat I did it on account of half a dozen almost certainly chaineddogs was impossible.
So I set off in spite of her, feeling valiant and glad to beso easily brave, but a little sorry that she should think herselfcrossed by me.
A thin cloud veiled the moon, and the way under the beeches wasdark and indistinct. I was not so preoccupied with my love-affairsas to neglect what I will confess was always my custom at nightacross that wild and lonely park. I made myself a club by fasteninga big flint to one end of my twisted handkerchief and tying theother about my wrist, and with this in my pocket, went on comforted.
And it chanced that as I emerged from the hollies by the cornerof the shrubbery I was startled to come unexpectedly upon a youngman in evening dress smoking a cigar.
I was walking on turf, so that the sound I made was slight. Hestood clear in the moonlight, his cigar glowed like a blood-redstar, and it did not occur to me at the time that I advanced towardshim almost invisibly in an impenetrable shadow.
"Hullo," he cried, with a sort of amiable challenge. "I'm herefirst!"
I came out into the light. "Who cares if you are?" said I.
I had jumped at once to an interpretation of his words. I knew thatthere was an intermittent dispute between the House people and thevillager public about the use of this track, and it is needless tosay where my sympathies fell in that dispute.
"Eh?" he cried in surprise.
"Thought I would run away, I suppose," said I, and came close upto him.
All my enormous hatred of his class had flared up at the sight ofhis costume, at the fancied challenge of his words. I knew him. Hewas Edward Verrall, son of the man who owned not only this greatestate but more than half of Rawdon's pot-bank, and who had interestsand possessions, collieries and rents, all over the district ofthe Four Towns. He was a gallant youngster, people said, and veryclever. Young as he was there was talk of parliament for him; he hadbeen a great success at the university, and he was being sedulouslypopularized among us. He took with a light confidence, as a matterof course, advantages that I would have faced the rack to get, andI firmly believed myself a better man than he. He was, as he stoodthere, a concentrated figure of all that filled me with bitterness.One day he had stopped in a motor outside our house, and I rememberthe thrill of rage with which I had noted the dutiful admirationin my mother's eyes as she peered through her blind at him. "That'syoung Mr. Verrall," she said. "They say he's very clever."
"They would," I answered. "Damn them and him!"
But that is by the way.
He was clearly astonished to find himself face to face with a man.His note changed.
"Who the devil are YOU?" he asked.
My retort was the cheap expedient of re-echoing, "Who the devilare you?"
"WELL," he said.
"I'm coming along this path if I like," I said. "See? It's a publicpath--just as this used to be public land. You've stolen the land--youand yours, and now you want to steal the right of way. You'llask us to get off the face of the earth next. I sha'n't oblige.See?"
I was shorter and I suppose a couple of years younger than he, butI had the improvised club in my pocket gripped ready, and I wouldhave fought with him very cheerfully. But he fell a step backwardas I came toward him.
"Socialist, I presume?" he said, alert and quiet and with thefaintest note of badinage.
"One of many."
"We're all socialists nowadays," he remarked philosophically, "andI haven't the faintest intention of disputing your right of way."
"You'd better not," I said.
"No!"
"No."
He replaced his cigar, and there was a brief pause. "Catching atrain?" he threw out.
It seemed absurd not to answer. "Yes," I said shortly.
He said it was a pleasant evening for a walk.
I hovered for a moment and there was my path before me, and hestood aside. There seemed nothing to do but go on. "Good night,"said he, as that intention took effect.
I growled a surly good-night.
I felt like a bombshell of swearing that must presently burst withsome violence as I went on my silent way. He had so completely gotthe best of our encounter.