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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Third Section 3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book one, chapter three, section three of In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings or in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Lewis
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  Speaker 1: In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter three, Section three. It was three days
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  Speaker 1: after this, on Wednesday, that is to say, that the
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  Speaker 1: first of those sinister outbreaks occurred that ended in the
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  Speaker 1: bloody affair of Peacock Grove and the flooding out of
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  Speaker 1: the entire line of the Swathinglea Collieries. It was the
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  Speaker 1: only one of these disturbances I was destined to see,
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  Speaker 1: and at most a mere trivial preliminary of that struggle.
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  Speaker 1: The accounts that have been written of this affair vary
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  Speaker 1: very widely. To read them is to realize the extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: carelessness of truth that dishonored the press of those latter days.
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  Speaker 1: In my bureau, I have several files of the daily
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  Speaker 1: papers of the old time. I collected them as a
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  Speaker 1: matter of fact, and three or four of about that
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  Speaker 1: date I have just this moment taken out and looked
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  Speaker 1: through to refresh my impressions of what I saw. They
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  Speaker 1: lie before me, queer, shriveled and credible things. The cheap
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  Speaker 1: paper has already become brittle and brown and split along
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  Speaker 1: the creases, the ink faded or smeared, and I have
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  Speaker 1: to handle them with the utmost care when I glance
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  Speaker 1: along their raging headlines as I sit here in this
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  Speaker 1: serene place. Their quality throughout their arrangement, their tone, their
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  Speaker 1: arguments and exhortations read as though they came from drugged
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  Speaker 1: and drunken men. They give one the effect of faded
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  Speaker 1: bawling of screams and shouts heard faintly in a little gramophone.
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  Speaker 1: It is only on Monday I find, and buried deep
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  Speaker 1: below the war news, that these publications contained any intimation
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  Speaker 1: that unusual happenings were forward in Clayton, and swathingly what
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  Speaker 1: I saw was towards evening I had been learning to
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  Speaker 1: shoot with my new possession. I had walked out with
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  Speaker 1: it four or five miles across a patch of Morland
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  Speaker 1: and down to a secluded little coppice full of bluebells,
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  Speaker 1: halfway along the high road between Leet and Stafford. Here
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  Speaker 1: I had spent the afternoon experimenting and practicing with careful
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  Speaker 1: deliberation and grim persistence. I had brought an old tipeframe
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  Speaker 1: of cane with me that folded and unfolded, and each
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  Speaker 1: shothold I made I marked and numbered to compare with
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  Speaker 1: my other endeavors. At last I was satisfied that I
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  Speaker 1: could hit a playing card at thirty paces nine times
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  Speaker 1: out of ten. The light was getting too bad for
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  Speaker 1: me to see my penciled bullseye, and in that state
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  Speaker 1: of quiet moodiness that sometimes comes with hunger to passionate men,
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  Speaker 1: I returned by the way of Swathinglely towards my own.
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  Speaker 1: The road I followed came down between banks of wretched
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  Speaker 1: looking working men's houses in close packed rows on either side,
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  Speaker 1: and took upon itself the role of Swathingley High Street,
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  Speaker 1: where at a lamp in a pillar box the steam
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  Speaker 1: trams began. So far that dirty hot way had been
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  Speaker 1: unusually quiet and empty, but beyond the corner were the
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  Speaker 1: first group of beer shops clustered. It became populous. It
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  Speaker 1: was very quiet still, even the children were a little inactive,
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  Speaker 1: but there were a lot of people standing dispersedly in
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  Speaker 1: little groups and with a general direction toward the gates
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  Speaker 1: of the bank Burden Coalpit. The place was being picketed,
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  Speaker 1: although at that time the miners were still nominally at
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  Speaker 1: work and the conference between the Masters and men still
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  Speaker 1: in session at Clayton Town Hall. But one of the
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  Speaker 1: men employed at the Bantock Burden Pit, Jack Briscoe, was
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  Speaker 1: a socialist, and he had distinguished himself by a violent
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  Speaker 1: letter upon the crisis to the leading socialist paper in England,
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  Speaker 1: The Clarion, in which he had adventured among the motives
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  Speaker 1: of Lord Redcar. The publication of this had been followed
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  Speaker 1: by instant dismissal. Lord Redcar wrote a day or so
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  Speaker 1: later to the Times. I have that Times, I have
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  Speaker 1: all the London papers of the last month before the change.
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  Speaker 1: The man was paid off and kicked out. Any self
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  Speaker 1: respecting employer would do the same. The thing had happened overnight,
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  Speaker 1: and the men did not at once take a clear
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  Speaker 1: line upon what was after all a very intricate and
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  Speaker 1: debatable occasion. But they came out in a sort of
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  Speaker 1: semi official strike from all of Lord Redcar's collieries beyond
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  Speaker 1: the canal that beset swathingly. They did so without formal notice,
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  Speaker 1: committing a breach of contract by this sudden secession. But
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  Speaker 1: in the long labor struggles of the old days, the
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  Speaker 1: workers were constantly putting themselves in the wrong and committing
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  Speaker 1: the illegalities through that overpowering cravings for dramatic promptness two
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  Speaker 1: uneducated minds. All the men had not come out of
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  Speaker 1: the Bantok burden Pitt. Something was wrong there and indecision,
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  Speaker 1: if nothing else. The mine was still working, and there
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  Speaker 1: was a rumor that men from Durham had been held
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  Speaker 1: in readiness by Lord Redcar and were already in the mind.
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  Speaker 1: Now it is absolutely impossible to ascertain certainly how things
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  Speaker 1: stood at that time. The newspapers say this and that,
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  Speaker 1: but nothing trustworthy remains. I believe I should have gone
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  Speaker 1: striding athwart the dark stage of that stagnant industrial drama
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  Speaker 1: without asking a question if Lord Redcar had not chance
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  Speaker 1: to come upon the scene about the same time as
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  Speaker 1: myself and incontinently end its stagnation. He had promised that
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  Speaker 1: if the men wanted to struggle, he would put up
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  Speaker 1: the best fire they had ever had, And he had
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  Speaker 1: been active all that afternoon in meeting the quarrel halfway
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  Speaker 1: and preparing as conspicuously as possible for the scratch force
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  Speaker 1: of black legs, as we call them, who where he said,
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  Speaker 1: and we believed to replace the strikers in his pits.
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  Speaker 1: I was an eyewitness of the whole of the affair
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  Speaker 1: outside the bantock burden pit, and I do not know
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  Speaker 1: what happened. Picture to yourself how the thing came to me.
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  Speaker 1: I was descending a steep, cobbled excavated road between banked
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  Speaker 1: up footways, perhaps six feet high, upon which, in a
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  Speaker 1: monotonous series opened the living room doors of rows of
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  Speaker 1: dark low cottages. The perspective of squat blue slate roofs
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  Speaker 1: and clustering chimneys. Drifted downwards towards the irregular open space
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  Speaker 1: before the colliery, a space covered with coally wheel scarred mud,
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  Speaker 1: with a patch of weedy dumps to the left, and
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  Speaker 1: the colliery gates to the right, beyond the high street
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  Speaker 1: with shops. Resumed again in good earnest, and went on,
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  Speaker 1: And the lines of the steam tramway that stretched out
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  Speaker 1: from before my feet and were here shining and acutely
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  Speaker 1: visible with reflected skylight, and here lost in a shadow,
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  Speaker 1: took up for one acute moment the greasy yellow irradiation
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  Speaker 1: of a newly let gas lamp. As they vanished round
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  Speaker 1: the bend. Beyond spread a darkling marsh of homes, an
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  Speaker 1: infinitude of little smoking hovels, and emergent meager churches, public houses,
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  Speaker 1: board schools, and other buildings. Amidst the prevailing chimneys of
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  Speaker 1: swathingleas to the light, very clear and relatively high, the
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  Speaker 1: Bantock Burden pitmouth was marked by a gaunt lattice bearing
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  Speaker 1: a great black wheel, very sharp and distinct in the twilight,
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  Speaker 1: and beyond, in an irregular perspective, were others following the
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  Speaker 1: lie of the seams. The general effect as one came
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  Speaker 1: down the hill was of a dark, compressed life beneath
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  Speaker 1: a very high and wide and luminous evening sky, against
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  Speaker 1: which these pit wheels rose. And ruling the calm, spaciousness
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  Speaker 1: of that heaven was the great Comet, now green, white
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  Speaker 1: and wonderful for all who had eyes to see. The
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  Speaker 1: fainting afterglow of the sunset threw up all the contours
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  Speaker 1: and skyline to the west, and the Comet rose eastward
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  Speaker 1: out of the pouring tumult of smoke from Bladden's forges.
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  Speaker 1: The moon had still to rise. By this time, the
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  Speaker 1: comet had begun to assume the cloud like form, still
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  Speaker 1: familiar through the medium of a thousand photographs and sketches.
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  Speaker 1: At first it had been an almost telescopic spect It
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  Speaker 1: had brightened to the dimensions of the greatest star in
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  Speaker 1: the heavens. It had still grown hour by hour in
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  Speaker 1: its incredibly swift, its noiseless and inevitable rush upon our earth,
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  Speaker 1: until it had equaled and surpassed the Moon. Now it
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  Speaker 1: was the most splendid thing this sky of Earth has
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  Speaker 1: ever held. I have never seen a photograph that gave
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  Speaker 1: a proper idea of it. Never, at any time did
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  Speaker 1: it assume the conventional tailed outline comments are supposed to have.
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  Speaker 1: Astronomers talked of its double tale, one preceding it and
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  Speaker 1: one trailing behind it, but these were foreshortened to nothing,
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  Speaker 1: so that it had rather the form of a bellying
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  Speaker 1: puff of luminous smoke with an intenser, brighter heart. It
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  Speaker 1: rose a hot yellow color, and only began to show
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  Speaker 1: its distinctive greenness when it was clear of the mist
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  Speaker 1: of the evening. It compelled attention for a space for
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  Speaker 1: all my earthly concentration of mind, I could but stare
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  Speaker 1: at it for a moment, with a vague anticipation that,
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  Speaker 1: after all, in some way so strange and glorious an
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  Speaker 1: object must have significance, could not possibly be a matter
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  Speaker 1: of absolute indifference to the schemes and values of my life.
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  Speaker 1: But how I thought of parload. I thought of the
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  Speaker 1: panic and uneasiness that was spreading in this very matter,
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  Speaker 1: and the assurances of scientific men that the thing weighed
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  Speaker 1: so little, at the utmost, a few hundred tons of
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  Speaker 1: thinly diffused gas and dust, that even were it to
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  Speaker 1: smite this earth fully, nothing could possibly ensue. And after all,
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  Speaker 1: said I, what earthly significance has anyone found in the stars.
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  Speaker 1: Then as one still descended the houses and buildings rose
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  Speaker 1: up the presence of those watching groups of people, the
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  Speaker 1: tension of the situation, and one forgot the sky. Preoccupied
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  Speaker 1: with myself and with my dark dream about Nettie and
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  Speaker 1: my honor, I threaded my course through the stagnating threat
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  Speaker 1: of this gathering, and was caught unawares when suddenly the
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  Speaker 1: whole scene flashed into drama. The attention of everyone swung
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  Speaker 1: around with an irresistible magnetism towards the high street and
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  Speaker 1: caught me as a rush of water might catch a
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  Speaker 1: wisp of hay. Abruptly, the whole crowd was sounding one note.
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  Speaker 1: It was not a word. It was a sound that
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  Speaker 1: mingled threat and protest, something between a prolonged awe and oo. Then,
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  Speaker 1: with a hoarse intensity of anger, came a low, heavy booing,
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  Speaker 1: a note stupidly expressive of animal savagery. Too, said Lord
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  Speaker 1: Redcar's automobile, and a ridiculous repartee too too. One heard
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  Speaker 1: it whizzing and throbbing as the crowd obliged it to
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  Speaker 1: slow down. Everybody seemed in motion towards the colliery gates.
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  Speaker 1: I too, with the others, I heard a shout through
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  Speaker 1: the dark figures about me. I saw the motor car
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  Speaker 1: stop and move forward again, and had a glimpse of
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  Speaker 1: something wry on the ground. It was alleged afterwards that
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  Speaker 1: Lord Redcar was driving, and that he quite deliberately knocked
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  Speaker 1: down a little boy who would not get out of
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  Speaker 1: his way. It is asserted with equal confidence that the
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  Speaker 1: boy was a man who tried to pass across the
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  Speaker 1: front of the motor car as it came slowly through
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  Speaker 1: the crowd, who escaped by a hair's breath, and then
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  Speaker 1: slipped on the tram rail and fell down. I have
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  Speaker 1: both accounts set forth under screaming headlines in two of
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  Speaker 1: these serene newspapers upon my desk. No one could ever
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  Speaker 1: ascertain the truth. Indeed, in such a blind tumult of passion,
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  Speaker 1: could there be any truth. There was a rush forward,
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  Speaker 1: the horn of the car sounded. Everything swayed violently to
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  Speaker 1: the right for perhaps ten yards or so, and then
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  Speaker 1: there was a report like a pistol shot. For a moment,
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  Speaker 1: everyone seemed un un away, a woman carrying a shawl
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  Speaker 1: wrapped child blundered into me and sent me reeling back.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone thought of firearms, but as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 1: something had gone wrong with the motor what in those
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  Speaker 1: old fashioned contrivances was called a backfire. A thin puff
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  Speaker 1: of bluish smoke hung in the air behind the thing.
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  Speaker 1: The majority of the people staggered back in disorderly fashion,
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  Speaker 1: and left a clear space about the struggle that centered
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  Speaker 1: upon the motor cart. The man or a boy who
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  Speaker 1: had fallen was lying on the ground with no one
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  Speaker 1: near him, a black lump, an extended arm, and two
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  Speaker 1: sprawling feet. The motor car stopped, and its three occupants
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  Speaker 1: were standing up. Six or seven black figures surrounded the
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  Speaker 1: car and appeared to be holding on to it, as
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  Speaker 1: if to prevent it from starting again. One it was Mitchell,
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  Speaker 1: a well known labor leader, argued in fierce, slow tone
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  Speaker 1: with Lord Redcar. I could not hear anything they said.
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  Speaker 1: I was not near enough. Behind me. The colliery gates
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  Speaker 1: were open, and there was a sense of help coming
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  Speaker 1: to the motor car from that direction. There was an
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  Speaker 1: unoccupied muddy space for fifty yards perhaps between car and gate,
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  Speaker 1: and then the wheels and head of the pit rose
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  Speaker 1: black against the sky. I was one of a rude,
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  Speaker 1: semicircle of people that hung, as yet indetermined in action
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  Speaker 1: about this dispute. It was natural, I suppose that my
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  Speaker 1: fingers should close upon the revolver in my pocket. I
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  Speaker 1: advanced with the vaguest intentions in the world, and not
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  Speaker 1: so quickly but that several men hurried past me to
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  Speaker 1: join the little knot holding up the car. Lord Redcar,
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  Speaker 1: in his big furry overcoat, towered up over the group
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  Speaker 1: about him. His gestures were free and threatened, and his
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  Speaker 1: voice loud. He made a fine figure there. I must admit.
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  Speaker 1: He was a big, fair, handsome young man with a
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  Speaker 1: fine tenor voice and an instinct for gallant effect. My
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  Speaker 1: eyes were drawn to him at first wholly. He seemed
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  Speaker 1: to symbol, a triumphant symbol of all that the theory
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  Speaker 1: of aristocracy claims, of all that filled my soul with resentment.
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  Speaker 1: His chauffeur set crouchs together, peering at the crowd under
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  Speaker 1: his lordship's arm. But Mitchell showed as a sturdy figure also,
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  Speaker 1: and his voice was firm and loud. You've hurt that, lad,
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  Speaker 1: said Mitchell, over and over again. You wait here till
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  Speaker 1: you see if he's hurt. I'll wait here or not
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  Speaker 1: as I please, said red Car. And to the chauffeur, here,
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  Speaker 1: get down and look at it. You better not get down,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: said Mitchell, and the chauffeur stood bent and hesitating on
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  Speaker 1: the step. The man on the back seat stood up,
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  Speaker 1: leant forward, and spoke to Lord Redcar, And for the
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  Speaker 1: first time my attention was drawn to him. It was
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  Speaker 1: young Verral, his handsome face shone clear and fine in
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  Speaker 1: the green pallor of the commet. I ceased to hear
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  Speaker 1: the quarrel that was raising the voices of Mitchell and
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  Speaker 1: Lord Redcar. This new fact sent them spinning into the background.
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  Speaker 1: Young Verral, it was my own purpose coming to meet
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  Speaker 1: me half way. There was to be a fight here.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed certain to come to a scuffle, and here
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  Speaker 1: we were. What was I to do? I thought, very swiftly.
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  Speaker 1: Unless my memory cheached me, I acted with swift decision.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: My hand tightened on my revolver, and then I remembered
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  Speaker 1: it was unloaded. I had thought my course out in
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  Speaker 1: an instant. I turned round and pushed my way out
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  Speaker 1: of the angry crowd that was now surging back towards
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  Speaker 1: the motor car. It would be quiet and out of sight,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, among the dump heaps across the road, and
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  Speaker 1: there I might load. Unobserved a big young man striding
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  Speaker 1: forward with his fists clinched, halted for one second at
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  Speaker 1: the sight of me. What said He ain't afraid of them,
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  Speaker 1: are you? I glanced over my shoulder and back at him,
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  Speaker 1: was near showing him my pistol, and the expression changed
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  Speaker 1: in his eyes. He hung perplexed at me, then with
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  Speaker 1: a grunt, he went on. I heard the voices growing
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  Speaker 1: loud and sharp behind me. I hesitated, half turned towards
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  Speaker 1: the dispute, then set off running towards the heaps. Some
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: instinct told me not to be detected loading. I was
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: cool enough, therefore to think of the aftermath of the
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  Speaker 1: thing I meant to do. I looked back once again
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  Speaker 1: towards the swaying discussion or was it a fight now?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And then I dropped into the hollow, knelt among the weeds,
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  Speaker 1: and loaded, with eager, trembling fingers. I loaded one chamber,
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  Speaker 1: got up and went back a dozen paces, thought of possibilities, vacillated,
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  Speaker 1: returned and loaded all the others. I did it slowly
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: because I felt a little clumsy, And at the end
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: came a moment of inspection. Had I forgotten anything? And
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: then for a few seconds I crouched before I rose,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: resisting the first gust of reaction against my impulse. I
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: took thought, and for a moment, that great green, white
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: meteor overhead swam back into my conscious mind for the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: first time. Then I linked it clearly with all the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: fierce violence that had crept into human life. I joined
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  Speaker 1: up that with what I meant to do. I was
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: going to shoot young verrall, as it were, under the
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  Speaker 1: benediction of that green glare. But about Nettie, I found
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  Speaker 1: it impossible to think out that obvious complication. I came
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  Speaker 1: up over the heap again and walked slowly back towards
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  Speaker 1: the wrangle. Of course, I had to kill him now,
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  Speaker 1: I would have you believe I did not want to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: murder Young Viral at all. At that particular time, I
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: had not pictured such circumstances as these. I had never
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: thought of him in connection with Lord Redcar and our
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: black industrial world. He was in that distant other world
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  Speaker 1: of Checkshill, the world of parks and gardens, the world
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  Speaker 1: of sunlit emotions and Nettie. His appearance here was disconcerting.
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  Speaker 1: I was taken by surprise. I was too tired and
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  Speaker 1: hungry to think clearly, and the hard implication of our
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: antagonism prevailed with me. In the tumult of my past emotions,
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  Speaker 1: I had thought constantly of conflicts, confrontations, deeds of violence,
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  Speaker 1: and now the memory of these things took possession of me,
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  Speaker 1: as though they were irrevocable resolutions. There was a sharp exclamation,
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  Speaker 1: the shriek of a woman, and the crowd came surging back.
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  Speaker 1: The fight had begun, Lord Redcar, I believe had jumped
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: down from his car and fell to Mitchell, and men
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  Speaker 1: were already running out to his assistance from the colliery gates.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I had some difficulty in shoving through the crowd. I
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  Speaker 1: can still remember very vividly being jammed at one time
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  Speaker 1: between two big men, so that my arms were pinned
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  Speaker 1: to my sides, but all the other details are gone
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  Speaker 1: out of my mind. Until I found myself almost violently
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  Speaker 1: projected forward into the scrap. I blundered against the corner
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  Speaker 1: of the motor car and came round it face to
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: face with young Varral, who was descending from the back compartment.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: His face was touched with orange from the automobile's big lamps,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: which conflicted with the shadows of the comet light and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: distorted him oddly. That effect lasted but an instant, but
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  Speaker 1: it put me out. Then he came a step forward,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and the ruddy lights and queerness vanished. I don't think
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: he recognized me, but he perceived immediately I meant attacking.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: He struck out at once at me, a haphazard blow
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and touched me on the cheek Instinctively. I let go
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: of the pistol, snatched my right hand out of my
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: pocket and brought it up in a belated parry, and
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: then let out with my left full in his chest.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It sent him staggering, and as he went back I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: saw recognition mingle with astonishment in his face. You know me,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you swine, I cried and hit again. Then I was
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: spinning sideways, half stunned, with a huge lump of a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: fist under my jaw. I had an impression of Lord
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Redcar as a great furry bolt, towering like some Homeric
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: hero above the fray. I went down before him. It
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: made him seem to rush up, and he ignored me further.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: His big flat voice counseled, Young Verral cut teddy, it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: won't do. The picket has got yon bos feet swayed
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: about me, and some hobnailed miner kicked my ankle and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: went stumbling. There were shouts and curses, and then everything
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: had swept past me. I rolled over on my face
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and beheld the chauffeur Young Verral and Lord Redcar, the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: latter holding up his long skirts of fur and making
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a grotesque figure one behind the other in full bolt
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: across a coldly comet lit inter towards the open gates
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of the collery. I raised myself up on my hands,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Young Varral, I had not even drawn my revolver. I
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: had forgotten it. I was covered with coally mud, knees, elbows,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: shoulders back. I had not even drawn my revolver. A
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: feeling of ridiculous impudence overwhelmed me. I struggled painfully to
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: my feet. I hesitated for a moment towards the gates
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of the collery, and then went limping homeward thwarted, painful,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: confused and ashamed. I had not the heart nor desire
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to help in the wrecking and burning of Lord Redcar's motor.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: End of Book one, Chapter three, Section three