In the Days of the Comet

It was three days after this—­on Wednesday, that is to say—­that the first of those sinister outbreaks occurred that ended in the bloody affair of Peacock Grove and the flooding out of the entire line of the Swathinglea collieries.  It was the only one of these disturbances I was destined to see, and at most a mere trivial preliminary of that struggle.

The accounts that have been written of this affair vary very widely.  To read them is to realize the extraordinary carelessness of truth that dishonored the press of those latter days.  In my bureau I have several files of the daily papers of the old time—­I collected them, as a matter of fact—­and three or four of about that date I have just this moment taken out and looked through to refresh my impression of what I saw.  They lie before me—­queer, shriveled, incredible things; the cheap paper has already become brittle and brown and split along the creases, the ink faded or smeared, and I have to handle them with the utmost care when I glance among their raging headlines.  As I sit here in this serene place, their quality throughout, their arrangement, their tone, their arguments and exhortations, read as though they came from drugged and drunken men.  They give one the effect of faded bawling, of screams and shouts heard faintly in a little gramophone. . . .  It is only on Monday I find, and buried deep below the war news, that these publications contain any intimation that unusual happenings were forward in Clayton and Swathinglea.

What I saw was towards evening.  I had been learning to shoot with my new possession.  I had walked out with it four or five miles across a patch of moorland and down to a secluded little coppice full of blue-bells, halfway along the high-road between Leet and Stafford.  Here I had spent the afternoon, experimenting and practising with careful deliberation and grim persistence.  I had brought an old kite-frame of cane with me, that folded and unfolded, and each shot-hole I made I marked and numbered to compare with my other endeavors.  At last I was satisfied that I could hit a playing-card at thirty paces nine times out of ten; the light was getting too bad for me to see my penciled bull’s-eye, and in that state of quiet moodiness that sometimes comes with hunger to passionate men, I returned by the way of Swathinglea towards my home.

The road I followed came down between banks of wretched-looking working-men’s houses, in close-packed rows on either side, and took upon itself the role of Swathinglea High Street, where, at a lamp and a pillar-box, the steam-trams began.  So far that dirty hot way had been unusually quiet and empty, but beyond the corner, where the first group of beershops clustered, it became populous.  It was very quiet still, even the children were a little inactive, but there were a lot of people standing dispersedly in little groups, and with a general direction towards the gates of the Bantock Burden coalpit.

The place was being picketed, although at that time the miners were still nominally at work, and the conferences between masters and men still in session at Clayton Town Hall.  But one of the men employed at the Bantock Burden pit, Jack Briscoe, was a socialist, and he had distinguished himself by a violent letter upon the crisis to the leading socialistic paper in England, The Clarion, in which he had adventured among the motives of Lord Redcar.  The publication of this had been followed by instant dismissal.  As Lord Redcar wrote a day or so later to the Times—­I have that Times, I have all the London papers of the last month before the Change—­

“The man was paid off and kicked out.  Any self-respecting employer would do the same.”  The thing had happened overnight, and the men did not at once take a clear line upon what was, after all, a very intricate and debatable occasion.  But they came out in a sort of semiofficial strike from all Lord Redcar’s collieries beyond the canal that besets Swathinglea.  They did so without formal notice, committing a breach of contract by this sudden cessation.  But in the long labor struggles of the old days the workers were constantly putting themselves in the wrong and committing illegalities through that overpowering craving for dramatic promptness natural to uneducated minds.

All the men had not come out of the Bantock Burden pit.  Something was wrong there, an indecision if nothing else; the mine was still working, and there was a rumor that men from Durham had been held in readiness by Lord Redcar, and were already in the mine.  Now, it is absolutely impossible to ascertain certainly how things stood at that time.  The newspapers say this and that, but nothing trustworthy remains.

I believe I should have gone striding athwart the dark stage of that stagnant industrial drama without asking a question, if Lord Redcar had not chanced to come upon the scene about the same time as myself and incontinently end its stagnation.

He had promised that if the men wanted a struggle he would put up the best fight they had ever had, and he had been active all that afternoon in meeting the quarrel half way, and preparing as conspicuously as possible for the scratch force of “blacklegs”—­as we called them—­who were, he said and we believed, to replace the strikers in his pits.

I was an eye-witness of the whole of the affair outside the Bantock Burden pit, and—­I do not know what happened.

Picture to yourself how the thing came to me.

I was descending a steep, cobbled, excavated road between banked-up footways, perhaps six feet high, upon which, in a monotonous series, opened the living room doors of rows of dark, low cottages.  The perspective of squat blue slate roofs and clustering chimneys drifted downward towards the irregular open space before the colliery—­a space covered with coaly, wheel-scarred mud, with a patch of weedy dump to the left and the colliery gates to the right.  Beyond, the High Street with shops resumed again in good earnest and went on, and the lines of the steam-tramway that started out from before my feet, and were here shining and acutely visible with reflected skylight and here lost in a shadow, took up for one acute moment the greasy yellow irradiation of a newly lit gaslamp as they vanished round the bend.  Beyond, spread a darkling marsh of homes, an infinitude of little smoking hovels, and emergent, meager churches, public-houses, board schools, and other buildings amidst the prevailing chimneys of Swathinglea.  To the right, very clear and relatively high, the Bantock Burden pit-mouth was marked by a gaunt lattice bearing a great black wheel, very sharp and distinct in the twilight, and beyond, in an irregular perspective, were others following the lie of the seams.  The general effect, as one came down the hill, was of a dark compressed life beneath a very high and wide and luminous evening sky, against which these pit-wheels rose.  And ruling the calm spaciousness of that heaven was the great comet, now green-white, and wonderful for all who had eyes to see.

The fading afterglow of the sunset threw up all the contours and skyline to the west, and the comet rose eastward out of the pouring tumult of smoke from Bladden’s forges.  The moon had still to rise.

By this time the comet had begun to assume the cloudlike form still familiar through the medium of a thousand photographs and sketches.  At first it had been an almost telescopic speck; it had brightened to the dimensions of the greatest star in the heavens; it had still grown, hour by hour, in its incredibly swift, its noiseless and inevitable rush upon our earth, until it had equaled and surpassed the moon.  Now it was the most splendid thing this sky of earth has ever held.  I have never seen a photograph that gave a proper idea of it.  Never at any time did it assume the conventional tailed outline, comets are supposed to have.  Astronomers talked of its double tail, one preceding it and one trailing behind it, but these were foreshortened to nothing, so that it had rather the form of a bellying puff of luminous smoke with an intenser, brighter heart.  It rose a hot yellow color, and only began to show its distinctive greenness when it was clear of the mists of the evening.

It compelled attention for a space.  For all my earthly concentration of mind, I could but stare at it for a moment with a vague anticipation that, after all, in some way so strange and glorious an object must have significance, could not possibly be a matter of absolute indifference to the scheme and values of my life.

But how?

I thought of Parload.  I thought of the panic and uneasiness that was spreading in this very matter, and the assurances of scientific men that the thing weighed so little—­at the utmost a few hundred tons of thinly diffused gas and dust—­that even were it to smite this earth fully, nothing could possibly ensue.  And, after all, said I, what earthly significance has any one found in the stars?

Then, as one still descended, the houses and buildings rose up, the presence of those watching groups of people, the tension of the situation; and one forgot the sky.

Preoccupied with myself and with my dark dream about Nettie and my honor, I threaded my course through the stagnating threat of this gathering, and was caught unawares, when suddenly the whole scene flashed into drama. . . .

The attention of every one swung round with an irresistible magnetism towards the High Street, and caught me as a rush of waters might catch a wisp of hay.  Abruptly the whole crowd was sounding one note.  It was not a word, it was a sound that mingled threat and protest, something between a prolonged “Ah!” and “Ugh!” Then with a hoarse intensity of anger came a low heavy booing, “Boo! boo—­oo!” a note stupidly expressive of animal savagery.  “Toot, toot!” said Lord Redcar’s automobile in ridiculous repartee.  “Toot, toot!” One heard it whizzing and throbbing as the crowd obliged it to slow down.

Everybody seemed in motion towards the colliery gates, I, too, with the others.

I heard a shout.  Through the dark figures about me I saw the motor-car stop and move forward again, and had a glimpse of something writhing on the ground.

It was alleged afterwards that Lord Redcar was driving, and that he quite deliberately knocked down a little boy who would not get out of his way.  It is asserted with equal confidence that the boy was a man who tried to pass across the front of the motor-car as it came slowly through the crowd, who escaped by a hair’s breadth, and then slipped on the tram-rail and fell down.  I have both accounts set forth, under screaming headlines, in two of these sere newspapers upon my desk.  No one could ever ascertain the truth.  Indeed, in such a blind tumult of passion, could there be any truth?

There was a rush forward, the horn of the car sounded, everything swayed violently to the right for perhaps ten yards or so, and there was a report like a pistol-shot.

For a moment every one seemed running away.  A woman, carrying a shawl-wrapped child, blundered into me, and sent me reeling back.  Every one thought of firearms, but, as a matter of fact, something had gone wrong with the motor, what in those old-fashioned contrivances was called a backfire.  A thin puff of bluish smoke hung in the air behind the thing.  The majority of the people scattered back in a disorderly fashion, and left a clear space about the struggle that centered upon the motor-car.

The man or boy who had fallen was lying on the ground with no one near him, a black lump, an extended arm and two sprawling feet.  The motor-car had stopped, and its three occupants were standing up.  Six or seven black figures surrounded the car, and appeared to be holding on to it as if to prevent it from starting again; one—­it was Mitchell, a well-known labor leader—­argued in fierce low tones with Lord Redcar.  I could not hear anything they said, I was not near enough.  Behind me the colliery gates were open, and there was a sense of help coming to the motor-car from that direction.  There was an unoccupied muddy space for fifty yards, perhaps, between car and gate, and then the wheels and head of the pit rose black against the sky.  I was one of a rude semicircle of people that hung as yet indeterminate in action about this dispute.

It was natural, I suppose, that my fingers should close upon the revolver in my pocket.

I advanced with the vaguest intentions in the world, and not so quickly but that several men hurried past me to join the little knot holding up the car.

Lord Redcar, in his big furry overcoat, towered up over the group about him; his gestures were free and threatening, and his voice loud.  He made a fine figure there, I must admit; he was a big, fair, handsome young man with a fine tenor voice and an instinct for gallant effect.  My eyes were drawn to him at first wholly.  He seemed a symbol, a triumphant symbol, of all that the theory of aristocracy claims, of all that filled my soul with resentment.  His chauffeur sat crouched together, peering at the crowd under his lordship’s arm.  But Mitchell showed as a sturdy figure also, and his voice was firm and loud.

“You’ve hurt that lad,” said Mitchell, over and over again.  “You’ll wait here till you see if he’s hurt.”

“I’ll wait here or not as I please,” said Redcar; and to the chauffeur, “Here! get down and look at it!”

“You’d better not get down,” said Mitchell; and the chauffeur stood bent and hesitating on the step.

The man on the back seat stood up, leant forward, and spoke to Lord Redcar, and for the first time my attention was drawn to him.  It was young Verrall!  His handsome face shone clear and fine in the green pallor of the comet.

I ceased to hear the quarrel that was raising the voice of Mitchell and Lord Redcar.  This new fact sent them spinning into the background.  Young Verrall!

It was my own purpose coming to meet me half way.

There was to be a fight here, it seemed certain to come to a scuffle, and here we were—­

What was I to do?  I thought very swiftly.  Unless my memory cheats me, I acted with swift decision.  My hand tightened on my revolver, and then I remembered it was unloaded.  I had thought my course out in an instant.  I turned round and pushed my way out of the angry crowd that was now surging back towards the motor-car.

It would be quiet and out of sight, I thought, among the dump heaps across the road, and there I might load unobserved. . .

A big young man striding forward with his fists clenched, halted for one second at the sight of me.

“What!” said he.  “Ain’t afraid of them, are you?”

I glanced over my shoulder and back at him, was near showing him my pistol, and the expression changed in his eyes.  He hung perplexed at me.  Then with a grunt he went on.

I heard the voices growing loud and sharp behind me.

I hesitated, half turned towards the dispute, then set off running towards the heaps.  Some instinct told me not to be detected loading.  I was cool enough therefore to think of the aftermath of the thing I meant to do.

I looked back once again towards the swaying discussion—­or was it a fight now? and then I dropped into the hollow, knelt among the weeds, and loaded with eager trembling fingers.  I loaded one chamber, got up and went back a dozen paces, thought of possibilities, vacillated, returned and loaded all the others.  I did it slowly because I felt a little clumsy, and at the end came a moment of inspection—­had I forgotten any thing?  And then for a few seconds I crouched before I rose, resisting the first gust of reaction against my impulse.  I took thought, and for a moment that great green-white meteor overhead swam back into my conscious mind.  For the first time then I linked it clearly with all the fierce violence that had crept into human life.  I joined up that with what I meant to do.  I was going to shoot young Verrall as it were under the benediction of that green glare.

But about Nettie?

I found it impossible to think out that obvious complication.

I came up over the heap again, and walked slowly back towards the wrangle.

Of course I had to kill him. . . .

Now I would have you believe I did not want to murder young Verrall at all at that particular time.  I had not pictured such circumstances as these, I had never thought of him in connection with Lord Redcar and our black industrial world.  He was in that distant other world of Checkshill, the world of parks and gardens, the world of sunlit emotions and Nettie.  His appearance here was disconcerting.  I was taken by surprise.  I was too tired and hungry to think clearly, and the hard implication of our antagonism prevailed with me.  In the tumult of my passed emotions I had thought constantly of conflicts, confrontations, deeds of violence, and now the memory of these things took possession of me as though they were irrevocable resolutions.

There was a sharp exclamation, the shriek of a woman, and the crowd came surging back.  The fight had begun.

Lord Redcar, I believe, had jumped down from his car and felled Mitchell, and men were already running out to his assistance from the colliery gates.

I had some difficulty in shoving through the crowd; I can still remember very vividly being jammed at one time between two big men so that my arms were pinned to my sides, but all the other details are gone out of my mind until I found myself almost violently projected forward into the “scrap.”

I blundered against the corner of the motor-car, and came round it face to face with young Verrall, who was descending from the back compartment.  His face was touched with orange from the automobile’s big lamps, which conflicted with the shadows of the comet light, and distorted him oddly.  That effect lasted but an instant, but it put me out.  Then he came a step forward, and the ruddy lights and queerness vanished.

I don’t think he recognized me, but he perceived immediately I meant attacking.  He struck out at once at me a haphazard blow, and touched me on the cheek.

Instinctively I let go of the pistol, snatched my right hand out of my pocket and brought it up in a belated parry, and then let out with my left full in his chest.

It sent him staggering, and as he went back I saw recognition mingle with astonishment in his face.

“You know me, you swine,” I cried and hit again.

Then I was spinning sideways, half-stunned, with a huge lump of a fist under my jaw.  I had an impression of Lord Redcar as a great furry bulk, towering like some Homeric hero above the fray.  I went down before him—­it made him seem to rush up—­and he ignored me further.  His big flat voice counseled young Verrall—­

“Cut, Teddy!  It won’t do.  The picketa’s got i’on bahs. . . .”

Feet swayed about me, and some hobnailed miner kicked my ankle and went stumbling.  There were shouts and curses, and then everything had swept past me.  I rolled over on my face and beheld the chauffeur, young Verrall, and Lord Redcar—­the latter holding up his long skirts of fur, and making a grotesque figure—­one behind the other, in full bolt across a coldly comet-lit interval, towards the open gates of the colliery.

I raised myself up on my hands.

Young Verrall!

I had not even drawn my revolver—­I had forgotten it.  I was covered with coaly mud—­knees, elbows, shoulders, back.  I had not even drawn my revolver! . . .

A feeling of ridiculous impotence overwhelmed me.  I struggled painfully to my feet.

I hesitated for a moment towards the gates of the colliery, and then went limping homeward, thwarted, painful, confused, and ashamed.  I had not the heart nor desire to help in the wrecking and burning of Lord Redcar’s motor.