Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Bealby Chapter 7 - The Battle of Crayminster Part One

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Bealby Chapter 7 - The Battle of Crayminster Part One · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter seven of Bilby a Holiday. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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Speaker 1: by Tracy Duckett. Bilby a Holiday by H. G. Wells,
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Speaker 1: Chapter seven, The Battle of Crayminster, Part one. Bilby was
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Speaker 1: beginning to realize that running away from one situation and
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Speaker 1: setting up for oneself is not so easy and simple
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Speaker 1: a thing as it had appeared during those first days
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Speaker 1: with the caravan. Three things he perceived had arisen to
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Speaker 1: pursue him. Two that followed in the daylight, the law
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Speaker 1: and the tramp, and a third that came back at twilight,
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Speaker 1: the terror of the darkness, and within there was a
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Speaker 1: hollow faintness, for the afternoon was far advanced, and he
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Speaker 1: was extremely hungry. He had dozed away the early afternoon
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Speaker 1: in the weedy corner of a wood, but for his hunger,
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Speaker 1: I think he would have a voided Crayminster. Within a
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Speaker 1: mile of that place, he had come upon the missing
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Speaker 1: notice again, stuck to the end of a barn. He
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Speaker 1: had passed it askance, and then with a sudden inspiration,
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Speaker 1: returned and tore it down somehow with the daylight, his
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Speaker 1: idea of turning King's evidence against the tramp had weakened.
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Speaker 1: He no longer felt sure. Mustn't one wait and be
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Speaker 1: asked first to turn King's evidence? Suppose they said he
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Speaker 1: had merely confessed the Craminster Street had a picturesque nutritious look.
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Speaker 1: Half Way down it was the White Heart with cyclist
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Speaker 1: club signs on its walls and geraniums, over a white porch,
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Speaker 1: and beyond a house being built and already at the
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Speaker 1: roofing pitch. To the right was a baker's shop, diffusing
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Speaker 1: a delicious suggestion of buns and cake, and to the
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Speaker 1: left a little comfortable sweet stuff window and a glimpse
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Speaker 1: of tables and a board teas tea. He resolved to
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Speaker 1: break into his ninepence boldly and generously. Very likely they
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Speaker 1: would boil him an egg for a penny or so. Yet,
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Speaker 1: on the other hand, if he just had three or
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Speaker 1: four buns, soft new buns. He hovered towards the baker's
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Speaker 1: shop and stopped short that bill was in the window.
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Speaker 1: He wheeled about sharply and went into the sweet stuff
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Speaker 1: shop and found a table with a white cloth, and
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Speaker 1: a motherly little woman in a large cap tea. He
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Speaker 1: could have an egg and some thick bread and butter
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Speaker 1: and a cup of tea for fivepence. He sat down
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Speaker 1: respectfully to await her preparations, but he was uneasy. He
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Speaker 1: knew quite well that she would ask him questions. For
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Speaker 1: that he was prepared, he said. He was walking from
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Speaker 1: his home in London to some port to save the fare.
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Speaker 1: But you're so dirty, said the motherly little woman. I
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Speaker 1: sent my luggage by post, ma'am, and I lost my
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Speaker 1: way and didn't get it. And I don't much mind, ma'am,
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Speaker 1: if you don't not washing all that, he thought he
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Speaker 1: did quite neatly. But he wished there was not that
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Speaker 1: bill in the baker's window opposite, and he wished he
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Speaker 1: hadn't quite such a hunted feeling. A faint claustrophobia affected him.
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Speaker 1: He felt the shop might be a trap. He would
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Speaker 1: be glad to get into the open again. Was there
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Speaker 1: a way out behind if, for example, a policeman blocked
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Speaker 1: the door. He hovered to the entrance while his egg
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Speaker 1: was boiling, And then when he saw a large, fat
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Speaker 1: baker surveying the world with an afternoon placidity upon his face.
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Speaker 1: He went back and sat by the table. He wondered
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Speaker 1: if the baker had noted him he had finished his egg.
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Speaker 1: He was drinking his tea with appreciative noises when he
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Speaker 1: discovered that the baker had noted him. Bilby's eyes, at
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Speaker 1: first inanely open above the tilting teacup, were suddenly riveted
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Speaker 1: on something that was going on in the baker's window.
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Speaker 1: From where he sat, he could see that detestable bill,
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Speaker 1: and then, slowly feeling about for it, he beheld a
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Speaker 1: hand in a flowery sleeve. The bill was drawn up
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Speaker 1: and vad, and then behind a glass shelf a fancy
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Speaker 1: bread and a glass shelf of buns, something pink and
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Speaker 1: indistinct began to move jerkily. It was a human face,
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Speaker 1: and it was trying to peer into the little refreshment
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Speaker 1: shop that sheltered Bilby. Bilby's soul went faint. He had
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Speaker 1: one inadequate idea. Might I go out? He said, by
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Speaker 1: your back way? There isn't a back way, said the
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Speaker 1: motherly little woman. There's a yard, if I might, said Bilby,
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Speaker 1: and was out in it no way at all, high
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Speaker 1: walls on every side he was back like a shot
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Speaker 1: in the shop. And now the baker was half way
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Speaker 1: across the road. Fivepence, said Bilby, and gave the little
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Speaker 1: old woman sixpence. Here, she cried, take your penny. He
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Speaker 1: did not wait. He darted out of the door. The
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Speaker 1: baker was all over the way of escape. He extended
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Speaker 1: arms that seemed abnormally long, and with a weak cry,
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Speaker 1: Bilby found himself trapped. Trapped, but not hopelessly. He knew
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Speaker 1: how to do it. He had done it in milder
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Speaker 1: forms before, but now he did it with all his being.
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Speaker 1: Under the diaphragm of the baker smoked Bielby's hard little head,
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Speaker 1: and instantly he was away, running up the quiet, sunny street. Man,
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Speaker 1: when he assumed the erect attitude, made a hostage of
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Speaker 1: his belly. It is a proverb among the pastoral Berbers
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Speaker 1: of the Atlas Mountains that the man who extends his
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Speaker 1: arms in front of an angry ram is a fool.
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Speaker 1: It seemed probable to Bielby that he would get away
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Speaker 1: up the street. The baker was engaged in elaborately falling backward,
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Speaker 1: making the most of sitting down in the road, and
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Speaker 1: the wind had been knocked out of him so that
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Speaker 1: he could not shout. He emitted stop ham in large whispers.
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Speaker 1: Away ahead, there were only three builder's men sitting under
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Speaker 1: the wall beyond the white Hart, consuming tea out of
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Speaker 1: their tea cans. But the boy who was trimming the
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Speaker 1: top of the tall privy hedge outside the dock, saw
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Speaker 1: the assault of the baker and incontinently uttered the shout
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Speaker 1: that the baker could not also. He fell off his
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Speaker 1: steps with great alacrity and started in pursuit of Bilby.
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Speaker 1: A young man from anywhere, perhaps the grocer's shop also
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Speaker 1: started for Bilby, but the workmen were slow to rise
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Speaker 1: to the occasion. Bilby could have got past them. And then, abruptly,
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Speaker 1: at the foot of the street ahead the tramp came
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Speaker 1: into view, a battered, disconcerting figure. His straw colored hat,
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Speaker 1: which had recently been wetted and dried in the sun,
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Speaker 1: was a swaying mop. The sight of Bielby seemed to
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Speaker 1: rouse him from some disagreeable meditations. He grasped the situation
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Speaker 1: with a terrible quickness, regardless of the wisdom of the
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Speaker 1: pastoral berbers. He extended his arms and stood prepared to
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Speaker 1: intercept Bilby thought, at the rate of a hundred thoughts
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Speaker 1: to the minute. He darted sideways and was up the
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Speaker 1: ladder and among the beams and rafters of the unfinished
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Speaker 1: roof before the pursuit had more than begun. Here come off,
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Speaker 1: that cried the foreman builder, only now joining in the
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Speaker 1: hunt with any sincerity. He came across the road while
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Speaker 1: Bielby regarded him wickedly from the rafters above. Then, as
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Speaker 1: the good man made to assend, Bilby got him neatly
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Speaker 1: on the hat. It was a buller hat with a tile.
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Speaker 1: This checked the advance. There was a disposition to draw
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Speaker 1: a little off and look up at Bilby. One of
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Speaker 1: the younger builders from the opposite sidewalk got him very
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Speaker 1: neatly in the ribs with a stone, But two other
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Speaker 1: shots went wide, and Bialby shifted to a more covered
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Speaker 1: position behind the chimney stack. From here, however, he had
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Speaker 1: a much less effective command of the ladder, and he
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Speaker 1: perceived that his tenure of the new house was not
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Speaker 1: likely to be a long one. Below men parleyed, who
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Speaker 1: is he asked the foreman builder, where'd he come from?
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Speaker 1: He's a brasted little thief, said the tramp. He's one
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Speaker 1: of the worst characters on the road. The baker was
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Speaker 1: recovering his voice. Now there's a reward out for him, said,
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Speaker 1: and he butted me in the stomach. How much reward,
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Speaker 1: asked the foreman Builder. Five pound for the man who
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Speaker 1: catches him. Here, cried the foreman Builder, in an arresting voice,
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Speaker 1: to the tramp, just stand away from that ladder. Whatever
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Speaker 1: else Bilby might or might not be, one thing was
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Speaker 1: very clear about him, and that was that he was
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Speaker 1: a fugitive. And the instinct of humanity is to pursue fugitives.
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Speaker 1: Man is a hunting animal. Inquiry into the justice of
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Speaker 1: a case is an altogether later accretion to his complex nature.
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Speaker 1: And that is why, whatever you are, or whatever you do,
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Speaker 1: you should never let people get you on the run.
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Speaker 1: There is a joy in the mere fact of hunting.
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Speaker 1: The sight of a scarlet coat and a hound will
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Speaker 1: brighten a whole village. And now Craminster was rousing itself
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Speaker 1: like a sleeper who wakes to sunshine and gay music.
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Speaker 1: People were looking out of windows and coming out of shops.
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Speaker 1: A policeman appeared, heard the baker's simple story. A brisk
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Speaker 1: hatless young man in a white apron and with a
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Speaker 1: pencil behind his ear, became prominent. Bielby, peeping over the
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Speaker 1: ridge of the roof, looked a thoroughly dirty and unpleasant
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Speaker 1: little creature to all these people. The only spark of
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Speaker 1: human sympathy for him below was in the heart of
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Speaker 1: the little old woman in the cab who had given
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Speaker 1: him his breakfast. She surveyed the roof of the new
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Speaker 1: house from the door of her shop. She hoped Bielby
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Speaker 1: wouldn't hurt himself up there, and she held his penny
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Speaker 1: change clutched in her hand in her apron pocket, with
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Speaker 1: a vague idea that perhaps presently, if he ran past,
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Speaker 1: she could very quickly give it him. Part two. Considerable
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Speaker 1: delay in delivering the assault on the house was caused
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Speaker 1: by the foreman's insistence that he alone should ascend the
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Speaker 1: latter to capture Bielby. He was one of those regular
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Speaker 1: featured men with large heads who seemed to have inflexible backbones.
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Speaker 1: He was large and fair and full, with a Swedish
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Speaker 1: chest voice, and in all his movements authority and deliberate.
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Speaker 1: Whenever he made to ascend, he discovered that people were
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Speaker 1: straying into his building, and he had to stop and
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Speaker 1: direct his men how to order them off. Inside his
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Speaker 1: large head, he was trying to arrange everybody to cut
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Speaker 1: off Bilby's line of retreat without risking that anybody but
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Speaker 1: himself should capture the fugitive. It was none too easy,
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Speaker 1: and it knitted his brows. Meanwhile, Bilby was able to
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Speaker 1: reconnoiter the adjacent properties and to conceive plans for a
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Speaker 1: possible line of escape. He also got a few tiles
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Speaker 1: handy against when the rush up the ladder came. At
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Speaker 1: the same time, two of the younger workmen were investigating
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Speaker 1: the possibility of getting at him from inside the house.
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Speaker 1: There was still no staircase, but there were ways of clamoring.
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Speaker 1: They had heard about the reward, and they knew that
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Speaker 1: they must do this before the foreman realized their purpose,
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Speaker 1: and this a little retarded them. In their pockets, they
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Speaker 1: had a number of stones ammunition in reserve if it
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Speaker 1: came again to throwing. Bilby was no longer fatigue nor depressed.
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Speaker 1: Anxiety for the future was lost in the excitement of
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Speaker 1: the present, and his heart told him that come what might.
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Speaker 1: Getting on to the roof was an extraordinarily good dodge,
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Speaker 1: and if only he could bring off a certain jump
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Speaker 1: he had in mind. There were other Dodges in the
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Speaker 1: village street. An informal assembly of leading citizens, a little
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Speaker 1: recovered now from their first nervousness about flying, Tiles discussed
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Speaker 1: the problem of Bielby. There was Mumby, the draper and
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Speaker 1: vegetarian with the bass voice, and the big black beard.
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Speaker 1: He advocated the fire engine. He was one of the
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Speaker 1: volunteer fire Brigade, and never so happy as when he
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Speaker 1: was wearing his helmet. He had come out of his
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Speaker 1: shop at the shouting shocks. The butcher and his boy
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Speaker 1: were also in the street. Shock's yard, with its heap
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Speaker 1: of manure and fodder, bounded the new house on the
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Speaker 1: left Ramel the vett emerged from the billiard room of
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Speaker 1: the White Hart, and, with his head a little on
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Speaker 1: one side, was watching Bilby in replying attentively to the Baker,
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Speaker 1: who was asking him a number of questions that struck
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Speaker 1: him as irrelevant. Althoughhy Hart people were in the street,
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Speaker 1: I suppose mister Rummel, said the baker. There's a mort
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Speaker 1: of dangerous things in a man's belly round about his stomach,
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Speaker 1: Tiles said, mister Ramel, loose bricks. It wouldn't do if
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Speaker 1: he started dropping those I was saying, Mister Rammel said
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Speaker 1: the baker, after a pause for digestion. Is a man
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Speaker 1: likely to be injured badly by a blow in his stomach?
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Speaker 1: Mister Ramel stared at him for a moment with unresponsive eyes.
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Speaker 1: More likely to get you in the head, he said.
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Speaker 1: And then here, what's that fool of a carpenter going
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Speaker 1: to do. The tramp was hovering on the outskirts of
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Speaker 1: the group of besiegers, vindictive but dispirited. He had been
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Speaker 1: brought to from his fit and given a shilling by
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Speaker 1: the old gentleman, but he was dreadfully wet between his shirt.
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Speaker 1: He wore a shirt under three waistcoats and a coat
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Speaker 1: and his skin. Because the old Gentleman's method of revival
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Speaker 1: had been to syrene him suddenly with cold water, it
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Speaker 1: had made him weep with astonishment and misery. Now he
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Speaker 1: saw no advantage claiming Bilby publicly. His part, he felt
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Speaker 1: was rather awaiting one. What he had to say to
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Speaker 1: Bilby could be best said without the assistance of a
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Speaker 1: third person, and he wanted to understand more of this
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Speaker 1: talk about a reward. If there was a reward out
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Speaker 1: for Bilby, that's not a bad dodge, said Ramel, changing
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Speaker 1: his opinion of the foreman. Suddenly, as that individual began
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Speaker 1: his ascent of the ladder with a brick lader's had
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Speaker 1: carried shield wise above his head. He went up with
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Speaker 1: difficulty and slowly because of the extreme care he took
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Speaker 1: to keep his head protected. But no tiles came. Bilby
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Speaker 1: had discovered a more dangerous attack developing inside the house,
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Speaker 1: and was already in retreat down the other side of
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Speaker 1: the building. He did a leap that might have hurt
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Speaker 1: him badly, taking off from the corner of the house
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Speaker 1: and jumping a good twelve feet onto a big heap
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Speaker 1: of straw in the butcher's yard. He came down on
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Speaker 1: all fours and felt a little jarred for an instant,
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Speaker 1: and then he was up again, and had scrambled up
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Speaker 1: by a heap of manure to the top of the
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Speaker 1: butcher's wall. He was over that and into McCullum's yard
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Speaker 1: next door before anyone in the front of the new
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Speaker 1: house had realized that he was in flight. Then one
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Speaker 1: of the two workmen who had been coming up inside
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Speaker 1: the house, saw him from the oblong opening that was
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Speaker 1: some day to be the upstairs bedroom window, and gave tongue.
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Speaker 1: It was thirty seconds later, and after Bielby had vanished
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Speaker 1: from the butcher's wall, that the foreman, still clinging to
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Speaker 1: his hod, appeared over the ridge of the roof. At
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Speaker 1: the workmen's shout, the policeman, who with the preventive disposition
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Speaker 1: of his profession, had hitherto been stopping anyone from coming
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Speaker 1: into the unfinished house, turned about and ran into its
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Speaker 1: brick and plaster and timber littered back yard, whereupon the
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Speaker 1: crowd in the street, realizing that the quarry had gone
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Speaker 1: away and no longer restrained, came pouring partly through the
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Speaker 1: house and partly round through the butcher's gate into his yard.
14:49
Speaker 1: Bilby had had a check. He had relied upon the
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Speaker 1: tarred felt roof of the mushroom shed of McCullum, the
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Speaker 1: tailor and breeches maker, to get him to the wall
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Speaker 1: that gave upon mister Benchaw's strawberry fields, and he had
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Speaker 1: not seen from his roof above the ramshackle glazed out
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Speaker 1: house which McCullum called his workroom, and in which four
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Speaker 1: industrious tailors were working in an easy disappeal. The roof
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Speaker 1: of the shed was the merest tarred touchwood. It had
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Speaker 1: perished as felt long ago. It collapsed under bielby. He
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Speaker 1: went down into a confusion of mushrooms and mushroom bed.
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Speaker 1: He blundered out, trailing mushrooms and spawn and rich matter.
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Speaker 1: He had a nine foot wall to negotiate, and only
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Speaker 1: escape by a hair's breadth from the clutch of a
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Speaker 1: little red slippered man who came dashing out from the workroom.
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Speaker 1: But by a happy use of the top of the
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Speaker 1: dust bin, he did just get away over the wall
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Speaker 1: in time, and the red slippered tailor, who was not
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Speaker 1: good at walls, was left struggling to imitate an assent
15:46
Speaker 1: that had looked easy enough until he came to try it.
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Speaker 1: For a moment, the little tailors struggled alone, and then
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Speaker 1: both McCullum's little domain and the butcher's yard next door,
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Speaker 1: and the little patch of space behind the new house
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Speaker 1: were violently in Jacks did with a crowd of active people,
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Speaker 1: all confusedly on the Bilby trail. Someone he never knew
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Speaker 1: who gave the little tailor a leg up, and then
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Speaker 1: his red slippers twinkled over the wall, and he was
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Speaker 1: leading the hunt into the market gardens of mister Benshaw.
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Speaker 1: A collarless colleague in liss slippers and conspicuous braces followed
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Speaker 1: the policeman after he had completed the wreck of mister
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Speaker 1: McCullum's mushroom shed. Came next, and then mister McCullum, with
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Speaker 1: no sense of times and seasons, anxious to have a
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Speaker 1: discussion at once upon the question of this damage. Mister
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Speaker 1: McCollum was out of breath, and he never got further
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Speaker 1: with this projected conversation than here. This he repeated several
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Speaker 1: times as opportunity seemed to offer. The remaining tailors got
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Speaker 1: to the top of the wall more sedately with the
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Speaker 1: help of the McCullum kitchen steps, and dropped. Mister Shocks followed,
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Speaker 1: breathing hard, and then a fresh jet of humanity came,
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Speaker 1: squirting into the gardens through a gap in the fence
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Speaker 1: at the back of the building site. This was led
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Speaker 1: by the young workman who had first seen Bilby go
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Speaker 1: away hard. Behind him came Ramel the vet, the grocer's assistant,
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Speaker 1: the doctor's page boy, and less briskly, the Baker, then
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Speaker 1: the tramp than Mumby, and Shok's Boy, then a number
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Speaker 1: of other people. The seeking of Bilby had assumed the
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Speaker 1: dimensions of a hue and cry. The foreman with the
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Speaker 1: large head and the upright back was still on the
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Speaker 1: new roof. He was greatly distressed at the turn things
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Speaker 1: had taken, and shouted his claims to a major share
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Speaker 1: in the capture of Bilby, mixed with his opinions of Bilby,
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Speaker 1: and a good deal of mere swearing to a sunny
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Speaker 1: but unsympathetic sky. Part three. Mister Benshaw was a small holder,
17:36
Speaker 1: a sturdy English yeoman of the New school. He was
17:39
Speaker 1: an anti socialist, a self helper, an independent spirited man.
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Speaker 1: He had a steadily growing banking account and a plain
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Speaker 1: but sterile wife. And he was dark in complexion and
17:50
Speaker 1: so erect in his bearing as to seem a little
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Speaker 1: to lean forward. Usually he wore a sort of gray
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Speaker 1: gamekeeper's suit with brown gaiters, except on Sunday, when the
18:00
Speaker 1: coat was black. He was addicted to bowler hats that
18:03
Speaker 1: accorded ill with his large gray, gray colored face, and
18:08
Speaker 1: he was altogether a very sound strong man. His bowler
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Speaker 1: hats did but accentuate that he had no time for vanities,
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Speaker 1: even the vanity of dressing consistently. He went into the
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Speaker 1: nearest shop and just bought the cheapest hat he could.
18:22
Speaker 1: And so he got hats designed for the youthful and giddy,
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Speaker 1: hats with flighty crowns and flippant bows and amorous brims
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Speaker 1: that undulated attractively to set off flushed and foolish young faces.
18:34
Speaker 1: It made his unrelenting face look rather like the Puritans.
18:37
Speaker 1: Under the Stuart monarchy. He was a horticulturist rather than
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Speaker 1: a farmer. He had begun his career in cheap lodgings
18:44
Speaker 1: with a field of early potatoes and cabbages, supplemented by employment,
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Speaker 1: but with increased prosperity, his area of cultivation had extended
18:52
Speaker 1: and his methods intensified. He now grew considerable quantities of strawberries, raspberries, celery,
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Speaker 1: sea kale asparagus, earthly peas, late peas, and onions, and
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Speaker 1: consumed more stable manure than any other cultivator within ten
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Speaker 1: miles of Crayminster. He was beginning to send cut flowers
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Speaker 1: to London. He had half an acre of glass, and
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Speaker 1: he was rapidly extending it. He had built himself a
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Speaker 1: cottage on lines of austere economy, and a bony looking
19:19
Speaker 1: dwelling house for some of his men. He also owned
19:22
Speaker 1: a number of useful sheds, of which tar and corrugated
19:25
Speaker 1: iron were conspicuous features. His home was furnished with the
19:29
Speaker 1: utmost respectability and notably joyless. Even in a countryside where
19:33
Speaker 1: gaiety is regarded as an impossible quality and furniture, he
19:37
Speaker 1: was already in a small local way a mortgagee. Good
19:41
Speaker 1: fortune had not turned the head of mister Benshaw, nor
19:44
Speaker 1: robbed him of the feeling that he was a particularly
19:46
Speaker 1: deserving person, entitled to a preferential treatment from a country which,
19:51
Speaker 1: in his plain unsparing way, he felt that he enriched.
19:55
Speaker 1: In many ways, he thought that the country was careless
19:57
Speaker 1: of his needs, and in none more careles than in
20:00
Speaker 1: the laws relating to trespas. Across his dominions ran three
20:04
Speaker 1: foot paths, and one of these led to the public
20:07
Speaker 1: elementary school that he should have to maintain this ladder,
20:11
Speaker 1: and if he did not keep it in good order,
20:13
Speaker 1: the children spread out and made parallel tracks. Among his
20:16
Speaker 1: cultivations seemed to him a thing almost intolerably unjust. He
20:21
Speaker 1: mended it with cinders, a settling refuse which he believed
20:25
Speaker 1: and hoped to be thoroughly bad for boots, and a
20:28
Speaker 1: particularly slimy, chalky clay, and he put on a board
20:31
Speaker 1: at each end. Keep to the footpaths. Trespassers will be
20:35
Speaker 1: prosecuted by order, which he painted himself to save expense.
20:39
Speaker 1: When he was confined indoors by the influenza, still more
20:43
Speaker 1: unjust it would be, he felt for him to spend
20:46
Speaker 1: money upon effective fencing. And he could find no fencing
20:49
Speaker 1: cheap enough, and ugly enough, and painful enough, and impossible
20:53
Speaker 1: enough to express his feelings in the matter. Every day
20:56
Speaker 1: the children streamed to and fro, marking how his fruits
20:59
Speaker 1: ripened and his produce became more esculent, and other people
21:03
Speaker 1: pursued these tracks. Many, mister Benshaw was convinced, went to
21:07
Speaker 1: and fro through his orderly crops, who had no business whatever,
21:11
Speaker 1: no honest business, to pass that way. Either, he concluded,
21:14
Speaker 1: they did it to annoy him, or they did it
21:17
Speaker 1: to injure him. This continual invasion aroused in mister Benshaw
21:21
Speaker 1: all that stern anger against unrighteousness, latent in our race, which,
21:25
Speaker 1: more than any other single force, has made America and
21:28
Speaker 1: the Empire what they are today. Once already he had
21:32
Speaker 1: been robbed arrayed upon his raspberries, and he felt convinced
21:36
Speaker 1: that at any time he might be robbed again. He
21:39
Speaker 1: had made representations to the local authority to get the
21:42
Speaker 1: footpath closed, but in Vain they'd defended themselves with the
21:45
Speaker 1: paltry excuse that the children would then have to go
21:48
Speaker 1: nearly a mile round to the school. It was not
21:51
Speaker 1: only the tyranny of these footpaths that offended mister Benshaw's
21:54
Speaker 1: highly developed sense of individual liberty. All round his rather
21:58
Speaker 1: straggling dominions, his neighbors displayed an ungenerous indisposition to maintain
22:03
Speaker 1: their fences to his satisfaction in one or two places,
22:06
Speaker 1: in abandonment of his clear rights in the matter. He had,
22:09
Speaker 1: at his own expense, supplemented these laxed defenses with light
22:13
Speaker 1: barbed wire defenses. But it was not a very satisfactory
22:17
Speaker 1: sort of barbed wire. He wanted barbed wire with extra
22:20
Speaker 1: spurs like a fighting cock. He wanted barbed wire that
22:23
Speaker 1: would start out after nightfall and attack pastors by this
22:27
Speaker 1: boundary trouble was universal in a way. It was worse
22:30
Speaker 1: than the footpaths, which after all only affected the cage
22:33
Speaker 1: fields where his strawberries grew. Except for the yard and
22:37
Speaker 1: garden walls of McCullum and Shocks, and that side, there
22:41
Speaker 1: was not really a satisfactory foot of enclosure all round
22:44
Speaker 1: mister Benshaw. On the one side, rats and people's dogs
22:47
Speaker 1: and scratching cats came in. On the other side rabbits.
22:51
Speaker 1: The rabbits were intolerable, and recently there had been a
22:54
Speaker 1: rise of nearly thirty percent in the price of wire netting.
22:57
Speaker 1: Mister Benshaw wanted to hurt rabbits. Did not want simply
23:01
Speaker 1: to kill them. He wanted so to kill them as
23:04
Speaker 1: to put the fear of death into the burrows. He
23:07
Speaker 1: wanted to kill them so that scared little furry survivors,
23:10
Speaker 1: with their tails as white as ghosts, would go lollopine
23:13
Speaker 1: home and say, I say, you chaps, we'd better shift
23:17
Speaker 1: out of this. We're up against a strong, determined man.
23:20
Speaker 1: I have made this lengthy statement of mister Benshaw's economic
23:24
Speaker 1: and moral difficulties in order that the reader should understand
23:27
Speaker 1: the peculiar tension that already existed upon this side of Crayminster.
23:32
Speaker 1: It has been necessary to do so now, because in
23:34
Speaker 1: a few seconds there will be no further opportunity for
23:37
Speaker 1: such preparations. There had been trouble, I may add, very
23:40
Speaker 1: hastily about the shooting of mister Benshaw's gun. A shower
23:44
Speaker 1: of small shot had fallen out of the twilight upon
23:47
Speaker 1: the umbrella and basket of old Missus Frobisher, And only
23:50
Speaker 1: a week ago, an unsympathetic bench, after a hearing of
23:53
Speaker 1: over an hour, and in the face of overwhelming evidence,
23:56
Speaker 1: had refused to convict little Lucy Mumby, aged eleven, of
24:00
Speaker 1: stealing fruit from mister Benshaw's fields. She had been caught
24:04
Speaker 1: red handed at the very moment that Bilby was butting
24:07
Speaker 1: the baker in the stomach. Mister Benshaw was just emerging
24:11
Speaker 1: from his austere cottage after a wholesome but inexpensive high
24:15
Speaker 1: tea in which he had finished up two left over
24:17
Speaker 1: cold sausages, and he was considering very deeply the financial
24:21
Speaker 1: side of a furious black fence that he had at
24:24
Speaker 1: last decided should pen in the school children from further depredations.
24:29
Speaker 1: It should be of splintery, tarred, deal and high, with
24:32
Speaker 1: well pointed tops studded with sharp nails. And he believed
24:36
Speaker 1: that by making the path only two feet wide, a
24:38
Speaker 1: real saving of ground for cultivation might be made, and
24:41
Speaker 1: a very considerable discomfort for the public arranged to compensate
24:45
Speaker 1: for his initial expense. The thought of a narrow lane
24:48
Speaker 1: which would in winter be characterized by an excessive slimness,
24:52
Speaker 1: and from which there would be no lateral escape, was
24:55
Speaker 1: pleasing to a mine by no means, absolutely restricted to
24:58
Speaker 1: considerations of pounds, shillings and pence. In his hand after
25:03
Speaker 1: his custom he carried a hoe on the handle of
25:05
Speaker 1: which feet we remarked, so that it was available not
25:08
Speaker 1: only for destroying the casual weed, but also for purposes
25:11
Speaker 1: of measurement. With this he now checked his estimate, and
25:14
Speaker 1: found that here he would reclaim as much as three
25:17
Speaker 1: feet of trodden waist, here a full too. Absorbed in
25:21
Speaker 1: these calculations he heeded little the growth of a certain
25:24
Speaker 1: clamor from the backs of the houses bordering on the
25:27
Speaker 1: high Street. It did not appear to concern him, and
25:30
Speaker 1: mister Benshaw made it almost ostentatiously his rule to mind
25:34
Speaker 1: his own business his eyes remained fixed on the lumpy, dusty,
25:37
Speaker 1: sun baked track that, with an intelligent foresight he saw
25:40
Speaker 1: already transformed into a deterrent slew of despond for the young.
25:45
Speaker 1: Then quite suddenly the shouting took on a new note.
25:49
Speaker 1: He glanced over his shoulder, almost involuntarily, and discovered that,
25:52
Speaker 1: after all, this uproar was his business, amazingly his business.
25:57
Speaker 1: His mouth assumed a Cromwellian fierceness, his grip tightened on
26:01
Speaker 1: his hoe, that anyone should dare, but it was impossible.
26:05
Speaker 1: His dominions were being invaded with a peculiar boldness and violence.
26:10
Speaker 1: Ahead of everyone else, and running with wild wavings of
26:14
Speaker 1: the arms across his strawberries, was a small and very
26:17
Speaker 1: dirty little boy. He impressed mister Benshaw merely as a pioneer.
26:21
Speaker 1: Some thirty yards behind him was a little collarless, short
26:25
Speaker 1: sleeved man in red slippers, running with great effrontery. And
26:28
Speaker 1: behind him another still more denuded lunatic, also in list
26:32
Speaker 1: slippers and with braces, braces of inconceivable levity, and Nan
26:37
Speaker 1: Wiggs the policeman, hotly followed by mister mc cullum, then
26:41
Speaker 1: more distraught tailors and shocks the butcher. But a louder
26:45
Speaker 1: shout heralded the main attack, and mister Benshaw turned his
26:49
Speaker 1: eyes already they were slightly bloodshot eyes to the right,
26:52
Speaker 1: and saw pouring through the broken hedge a disorderly crowd Rammel,
26:57
Speaker 1: whom he had counted, his friend, the grocer's assis, the
27:00
Speaker 1: doctor's boy, some strangers Mumby. At the sight of Mumby,
27:04
Speaker 1: mister Benshaw leaped at the conclusion. He saw it. All
27:08
Speaker 1: the whole place was rising against him. They were asserting
27:12
Speaker 1: some infernal new right of way. Mumby Mumby had got
27:17
Speaker 1: them to do it. All the fruits of fifteen years
27:19
Speaker 1: of toil, all the care and accumulation of mister Benshaw's prime,
27:23
Speaker 1: were to be trampled and torn to please a draper's spite.
27:27
Speaker 1: Sturdy yeomen as mister Benshaw was, he resolved instantly to
27:31
Speaker 1: fight for his liberties. One moment, he paused to blow
27:34
Speaker 1: the powerful police whistle he carried in his pocket, and
27:37
Speaker 1: then rushed forward in the direction of the hated Mumby,
27:40
Speaker 1: the leader of trespassers, the parent and a better and
27:43
Speaker 1: defender of the criminal Lucy. He took the hurrying panting
27:47
Speaker 1: man almost unawares, and with one wild sweep of the
27:51
Speaker 1: hoe felled him to the earth. Then he staggered about
27:54
Speaker 1: and smote again, but not quite in time to get
27:57
Speaker 1: the head of mister Rammel. This whistle, he cared maraied,
28:00
Speaker 1: was part of a systematic campaign he had developed against
28:03
Speaker 1: trespassers and fruit stealers. He and each of his assistants
28:07
Speaker 1: carried one, and at the first shrill note it was
28:10
Speaker 1: his rule, everyone seized on every weapon that was handy
28:13
Speaker 1: and ran to pursue and capture all. His assistants were
28:17
Speaker 1: extraordinarily prompt and responding to these alarms, which were often
28:20
Speaker 1: the only break in long days of strenuous and strenuously
28:24
Speaker 1: directed toil. So now, with an astonishing promptitude and animated faces,
28:30
Speaker 1: men appeared from sheds and greenhouses and distant patches of culture,
28:34
Speaker 1: hastening to the assistance of their dour employer. It says
28:38
Speaker 1: much for the amiable relations that existed between employers and
28:41
Speaker 1: employed in those days before syndicalism became the creed of
28:44
Speaker 1: the younger workers that they did hurry to his assistance.
28:48
Speaker 1: But many rapid things were to happen before they came
28:50
Speaker 1: into action. For first, a strange excitement seized upon the tramp.
28:55
Speaker 1: A fantastic, delusive sense of social rehabilitation took possession of
28:59
Speaker 1: his soul. Here he was pitted against a formidable, whole
29:02
Speaker 1: wielding man who, for some inscrutable reason, was resolved to
29:06
Speaker 1: cover the retreat of Bilby. And all the world, it seemed,
29:09
Speaker 1: was with the tramp and against this hole wielder. All
29:12
Speaker 1: the tremendous forces of human society against which the Tramp
29:16
Speaker 1: had struggled for so many years, whose power he knew
29:19
Speaker 1: and feared as only the outlaw ken had suddenly come
29:22
Speaker 1: into line with him. Across the strawberries to the right,
29:25
Speaker 1: there was even a policeman hastening to join the majority,
29:29
Speaker 1: a policeman closely followed by a tradesman of the blackest,
29:32
Speaker 1: most respectable quality. The tramp had a vision of himself
29:36
Speaker 1: as a respectable man heroically leading respectable people against outcasts.
29:41
Speaker 1: He dashed the lank hair from his eyes, waved his
29:44
Speaker 1: arms laterally, and then with a loud, strange cry, flung
29:48
Speaker 1: himself towards mister Benshaw. Two pairs of superimposed coat tails
29:52
Speaker 1: flat behind him, and then the whole whistled through the air,
29:56
Speaker 1: and the tramp fell to the ground like a sack.
29:58
Speaker 1: But now Shock's boy had had grasped his opportunity. He
30:02
Speaker 1: had been working discreetly round behind mister Benshaw, and as
30:05
Speaker 1: the host smote, he leapt upon that hero's back and
30:08
Speaker 1: seized him about the neck with both arms and bore
30:11
Speaker 1: him staggering to the ground. And Raimel, equally quick and
30:15
Speaker 1: used to the tackling of formidable creatures, had snatched and
30:18
Speaker 1: twisted away the hoe and grappled mister Benshaw almost before
30:21
Speaker 1: he was down. The first of mister Benshaw's helpers to
30:24
Speaker 1: reach the fray found the issue decided, his master held
30:28
Speaker 1: down conclusively, and a growing circle trampling down a wide
30:31
Speaker 1: area of strawberry plants about the panting group. Mister Mumby,
30:35
Speaker 1: more frightened than hurt, was already sitting up. But the tramp,
30:38
Speaker 1: with a glowing wound upon his cheekbone and an expression
30:41
Speaker 1: of astonishment in his face, lay low and pawed the earth.
30:45
Speaker 1: What do you mean, gasped mister Ramel, hitting people about
30:50
Speaker 1: with that hoe. What do you mean? Groaned mister Benshaw,
30:54
Speaker 1: running across my strawberries. We were going after that boy
31:00
Speaker 1: pounds and pounds worth of damage, mischief and wickedness. Mummy.
31:06
Speaker 1: Mister Ramel, suddenly realizing the true values of the situation,
31:10
Speaker 1: released mister Benshaw's hands and knelt up. Look here, mister Benshaw,
31:15
Speaker 1: He said, you seem to be under the impression we
31:18
Speaker 1: are trespassing. Mister Benshaw, struggling into a sitting position, was
31:22
Speaker 1: understood to inquire with some heat what mister Ramel called
31:25
Speaker 1: it Shock's boy, picked up the hat with the erotic
31:28
Speaker 1: brim and handed it to the horticulturists silently and respectfully.
31:32
Speaker 1: We were not trespassing, said mister Ramel. We were following
31:37
Speaker 1: up that boy. He was trespassing, if you like. By
31:41
Speaker 1: the bye, where is the boy? Has anyone caught him?
31:45
Speaker 1: At the question? Attention which had been focused upon mister
31:48
Speaker 1: Benshaw and his hoe came round across the field in
31:51
Speaker 1: the direction of the sunlit half acre of glass. The
31:54
Speaker 1: little tailor was visible, standing gingerly and picking up his
31:58
Speaker 1: red slippers for the third time they would come off
32:01
Speaker 1: in that loose, good soil. Everybody else had left the
32:04
Speaker 1: trail to concentrate on mister Benshaw and Bielby. Bilby was
32:08
Speaker 1: out of sight. He had escaped clean, got away. What boy,
32:14
Speaker 1: asked mister BENSHAWE ferocious little beast, who's spot us like
32:18
Speaker 1: a rat? Been committing all sorts of crimes about the country.
32:22
Speaker 1: Five pounds reward for him fruit stealing, asked mister Benshaw. Yes,
32:28
Speaker 1: said mister Rammel. Chancing it. Mister Benshaw reflected slowly. His
32:33
Speaker 1: eyes surveyed his trampled crops. Good lord, he cried, Look
32:39
Speaker 1: at those strawberries. His voice gathered violence. An that loat there,
32:45
Speaker 1: he said, Why he's lying on them. That's the brute
32:49
Speaker 1: who went for me. You got em a pretty tidy
32:52
Speaker 1: one side the head, said mc collum. The tramp rolled
32:56
Speaker 1: over on some fresh strawberries and groaned pitifully. He's hurt,
33:00
Speaker 1: said mister Mumby. The tramp flopped and lay still. Get
33:05
Speaker 1: some water, said Rammel, standing up at the word water.
33:08
Speaker 1: The tramp started convulsively, rolled over and sat up with
33:12
Speaker 1: a dazed expression. No water, he said, weakly, No more water,
33:19
Speaker 1: And then, catching mister Benshaw's eye, he got rather quickly
33:22
Speaker 1: to his feet. Everybody who wasn't already standing was getting up,
33:26
Speaker 1: and every one now was rather carefully getting himself off
33:29
Speaker 1: any strawberry plant he had chanced to find himself smashing
33:33
Speaker 1: in the excitement of the occasion. That's the man that
33:36
Speaker 1: started in on me, said mister benshaw what's he doing here?
33:40
Speaker 1: Who is he? Who are you? My man? What business
33:43
Speaker 1: have you to be careering over this field? Asked mister Rammel.
33:47
Speaker 1: I was only helping, said the tramp. Nice help, said
33:51
Speaker 1: mister benshaw. I thought that boy was a thief or something,
33:55
Speaker 1: and so you made a rush at me. I didn't exactly, sir,
33:58
Speaker 1: I thought you was helping him. You be off, anyhow,
34:01
Speaker 1: said mister Benhawe. Whatever you thought, Yes, you be off,
34:05
Speaker 1: said mister Brammel. That's the way, my man, said mister Benshawe.
34:10
Speaker 1: We haven't any jobs for you. The sooner we have
34:13
Speaker 1: you out of it, the better for everyone. Get right
34:16
Speaker 1: on to the path and keep it. And with a
34:18
Speaker 1: desolating sense of exclusion, the tramp withdrew. There's pounds an
34:22
Speaker 1: pounds worth of damage here, said mister Benshawe. This jaw
34:26
Speaker 1: will cost me a pretty penny. Look at them berries there,
34:30
Speaker 1: Why they ain't fit fer jam and all done by
34:33
Speaker 1: one confounded boy. An evil light came into mister Benshaw's eyes.
34:38
Speaker 1: You leave em to me and my chaps. If he's
34:41
Speaker 1: gone up among those sheds there, we'll settle with him anyhow.
34:45
Speaker 1: There's no reason why my fruit should be trampled worse
34:48
Speaker 1: than it has been. Fruit steeler, you say he is.
34:51
Speaker 1: They live on the country this time of year, said
34:54
Speaker 1: mister Mumby. And catch them doing a day's work picking,
34:58
Speaker 1: said mister BENSHAWE I know this sort. There's a reward
35:02
Speaker 1: of five pounds for him already, said the baker. Part four.
35:07
Speaker 1: You perceive how humanitarian motives may sometimes defeat their own end,
35:12
Speaker 1: and how little Lady Laxton's well intentioned handbills were serving
35:16
Speaker 1: to rescue Bilby. Instead, they were turning him into a
35:20
Speaker 1: scared and hunted animal. In spite of its manifest impossibility.
35:24
Speaker 1: He was convinced that the reward and this pursuit had
35:27
Speaker 1: to do with his burglary of the poultry farm, and
35:30
Speaker 1: that his capture would be but the preliminary to prison
35:34
Speaker 1: trial and sentence. His one remaining idea was to get away,
35:38
Speaker 1: but his escape across the market gardens had left him
35:41
Speaker 1: so blown and spent that he was obliged to hide
35:43
Speaker 1: up for a time in his perilous neighborhood before going on.
35:47
Speaker 1: He saw a disused looking shed in the lowest corner
35:50
Speaker 1: of the gardens behind the greenhouses, and by doubling sharply
35:54
Speaker 1: along a hedge, he got to it unseen. It was
35:57
Speaker 1: not disused, nothing in mister Benshaw's posses esh and ever
36:01
Speaker 1: was absolutely disused. But it was filled with horticultural lumber,
36:05
Speaker 1: with old calcium carbide tins, with broken wheelbarrows and damaged
36:09
Speaker 1: ladders awaiting repair, with some ragged wheeling planks and surplus
36:14
Speaker 1: rolls of roofing felt. At the back were some unhinged
36:17
Speaker 1: shed doors leaning against the wall, and between them Bilby
36:20
Speaker 1: tucked himself neatly and became still glad of any respite
36:24
Speaker 1: from the chase. He would wait for twilight and then
36:27
Speaker 1: get away across the meadows at the back, and then go.
36:30
Speaker 1: He didn't know whither, And now he had no confidence
36:33
Speaker 1: in the wild world anymore. A qualm of homesickness for
36:36
Speaker 1: the compact little gardener's cottage at Schantz came to Bilby. Why,
36:40
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, wasn't he there now he
36:43
Speaker 1: ought to have tried more at Schantz. He ought to
36:46
Speaker 1: have minded what they told him, and not have taken
36:48
Speaker 1: up a toasting fork against Thomas. Then he wouldn't now
36:51
Speaker 1: have been a hunted burglar with a reward of five
36:54
Speaker 1: pounds on his head and nothing in his pocket but
36:56
Speaker 1: threepence and a pack of greasy playing cards, a box
36:59
Speaker 1: of matches, and various objectionable sundrys, none of which were
37:03
Speaker 1: properly his own. If only he could have his time
37:07
Speaker 1: over again, Such wholesome reflections occupied his thoughts until the
37:11
Speaker 1: onset of the dusk stirred him to departure. He crept
37:15
Speaker 1: out of his hiding place and stretched his limbs, which
37:17
Speaker 1: had got very stiff, and was on the point of
37:20
Speaker 1: reconnoitering from the door of the shed when he became
37:23
Speaker 1: aware of stealthy footsteps outside. With the quickness of an animal,
37:27
Speaker 1: he shot back into his hiding place. The footsteps had
37:31
Speaker 1: halted for a long time. It seemed the unseen waited listening.
37:35
Speaker 1: Had he heard Bilby. Then someone fumbled with the door
37:38
Speaker 1: of the shed. It opened, and there was a long
37:41
Speaker 1: pause of cautious inspection. Then the unknown had shuffled into
37:46
Speaker 1: the shed and sat down on a heap of matting. Ah,
37:50
Speaker 1: said a voice the tramps. If I ever struck a
37:54
Speaker 1: left handed mascot, it was that boy, said the tramp.
37:57
Speaker 1: The little swine. For the bed part of two minutes,
38:01
Speaker 1: he went on from this mild beginning to a descriptive
38:04
Speaker 1: elaboration of Bilby. For the first time in his life,
38:07
Speaker 1: Bilby learned how unfavorable was the impression he might leave
38:10
Speaker 1: on a fellow creature's mind. Tuck even my matches, cried
38:15
Speaker 1: the tramp, and tried this statement over with variations. First,
38:18
Speaker 1: that old fool with his syringe. The tramp's voice rose
38:22
Speaker 1: in angry protest. Here's a chap dying epilepsy on your doorstep,
38:26
Speaker 1: and all you can do is to squirt cold water
38:28
Speaker 1: at him. Cold water? Why you might kill a man
38:32
Speaker 1: doing that? And then say you thought it? Bring him rand?
38:35
Speaker 1: Bring him rand? You be jolly glad I didn't stash
38:38
Speaker 1: your silly face in, you misbegotten old fool. What's a
38:43
Speaker 1: shilling for wetting a man to his skin wet through?
38:46
Speaker 1: I was running inside my shirt dripping, And then the
38:50
Speaker 1: blooming boy clears, I don't know what boys are coming too,
38:54
Speaker 1: cried the tramp. These board schools, it is, gets old
38:59
Speaker 1: of everything, can and bunks go. If I get my
39:03
Speaker 1: hands on him, I'll show 'em. I'll for some time.
39:07
Speaker 1: The tramp reveled in the details, for the most part,
39:10
Speaker 1: crudely surgical, of his vengeance upon Bielby. Then there's that
39:14
Speaker 1: dog bite. How do I know how that's going to
39:17
Speaker 1: turn at? If I get I drift phobia bloat. If
39:21
Speaker 1: I don't bite some of 'em, I drift phobia, screaming
39:25
Speaker 1: and foaming. Nice death for a man my time of life, bark.
39:31
Speaker 1: I shall bark and bite. And this is your world,
39:34
Speaker 1: said the tramp. This is the world you put people
39:37
Speaker 1: into and expect him to be happy. I'd like to
39:40
Speaker 1: bite that dough faced fool with the silly at. I'd
39:44
Speaker 1: enjoy biting him. I'd spit it out, but I'd bite
39:48
Speaker 1: it right enough, wipe in a bat with his ah
39:51
Speaker 1: g get off my ground, be off with you slash.
39:56
Speaker 1: He ought to be shut up. Where's the justice of it,
40:00
Speaker 1: shouted the tramp. Where's the right in the sense of it?
40:03
Speaker 1: What have I done that I should always get the
40:06
Speaker 1: under side? Why should I be stuck on the under side?
40:09
Speaker 1: Of everything. There's worse men than me in all sorts
40:13
Speaker 1: of positions. Judge as there are arable correctors, ministers an people.
40:19
Speaker 1: I've read about em in the papers. It's wet. Tramps
40:23
Speaker 1: are the scapegoats. Somebody's got to suffer so as the
40:26
Speaker 1: police can show a face. Gach, some o these days,
40:30
Speaker 1: I'll do sumthin. I'll do somethin. You'll drive me too
40:34
Speaker 1: far with it, I tell you. He stopped suddenly and listened.
40:37
Speaker 1: Bilby had creaked. Gach, what can one do, said the tramp.
40:42
Speaker 1: After a long interval, and then complaining more gently, the
40:46
Speaker 1: tramp began to feel about to make his simple preparations
40:49
Speaker 1: for the night. Hunt me out of this, I expect,
40:52
Speaker 1: said the tramp. And many sleeping in feather beds that
40:56
Speaker 1: ain't fit too hold a candle to men, an ordinary
41:01
Speaker 1: farthing candle and of section eleven.