As I approached, the sound of voices smote my ears.
I stopped. I could hear Beale speaking. Then came the rich notes of Vickers, the butcher. Then Beale again. Then Dawlish the grocer. Then a chorus.
The storm had burst, and in my absence.
I blushed for myself. I was in command, and I had deserted the fort in time of need. What must the faithful Hired Man be thinking of me? Probably he placed me, as he had placed Ukridge, in the ragged ranks of those who have Shot the Moon.
Fortunately, having just come from the professor’s I was in the costume which of all my wardrobe was most calculated to impress. To a casual observer I should probably suggest wealth and respectability. I stopped for a moment to cool myself, for, as is my habit when pleased with life, I had been walking fast; then opened the gate and strode in, trying to look as opulent as possible.
It was an animated scene that met my eyes. In the middle of the lawn stood the devoted Beale, a little more flushed than I had seen him hitherto, parleying with a burly and excited young man without a coat. Grouped round the pair were some dozen men, young, middle-aged, and old, all talking their hardest. I could distinguish nothing of what they were saying. I noticed that Beale’s left cheekbone was a little discoloured, and there was a hard, dogged expression on his face. He, too, was in his shirt-sleeves.
My entry created no sensation. Nobody, apparently, had heard the latch click, and nobody had caught sight of me. Their eyes were fixed on the young man and Beale. I stood at the gate, and watched them.
There seemed to have been trouble already. Looking more closely, I perceived sitting on the grass apart a second young man. His face was obscured by a dirty pocket handkerchief, with which he dabbed tenderly at his features. Every now and then the shirt-sleeved young man flung his hand towards him with an indignant gesture, talking hard the while. It did not need a preternaturally keen observer to deduce what had happened. Beale must have fallen out with the young man who was sitting on the grass and smitten him; and now his friend had taken up the quarrel
“Now this,” I said to myself, “is rather interesting. Here, in this one farm, we have the only three known methods of dealing with duns. Beale is evidently an exponent of the violent method. Ukridge is an apostle of Evasion. I shall try Conciliation. I wonder which of us will be the most successful.”
Meanwhile, not to spoil Beale’s efforts by allowing him too little scope for experiment, I refrained from making my presence known, and continued to stand by the gate, an interested spectator.
Things were evidently moving now. The young man’s gestures became more vigorous. The dogged look on Beale’s face deepened. The comments of the Ring increased in point and pungency.
“What did you hit him for, then?”
The question was put, always the same words and with the same air of quiet triumph, at intervals of thirty seconds by a little man in a snuff-coloured suit with a purple tie. Nobody ever answered him, or appeared to listen to him, but he seemed each time to think that he had clinched the matter and cornered his opponent.
Other voices chimed in.
“You hit him, Charlie. Go on. You hit him.”
“We’ll have the law.”
“Go on, Charlie.”
Flushed with the favour of the many-headed, Charlie now proceeded from threats to action. His right fist swung round suddenly. But Beale was on the alert. He ducked sharply, and the next moment Charlie was sitting on the ground beside his fallen friend. A hush fell on the Ring, and the little man in the purple tie was left repeating his formula without support.
I advanced. It seemed to me that the time had come to be conciliatory. Charlie was struggling to his feet, obviously anxious for a second round, and Beale was getting into position once more. In another five minutes conciliation would be out of the question.
“What’s all this?” I said.
I may mention here that I do not propose to inflict dialect upon the reader. If he had borne with my narrative thus far, I look on him as a friend, and feel that he deserves consideration. I may not have brought out the fact with sufficient emphasis in the foregoing pages, but nevertheless I protest that I have a conscience. Not so much as a “thiccy” shall he find.
My advent caused a stir. Excited men left Beale, and rallied round me. Charlie, rising to his feet, found himself dethroned from his position of Man of the Moment, and stood blinking at the setting sun and opening and shutting his mouth. There was a buzz of conversation.
“Don’t all speak at once, please,” I said. “I can’t possibly follow what you say. Perhaps you will tell me what you want?”
I singled out a short, stout man in grey. He wore the largest whiskers ever seen on human face.
“It’s like this, sir. We all of us want to know where we are.”
“I can tell you that,” I said, “you’re on our lawn, and I should be much obliged if you would stop digging your heels into it.”
This was not, I suppose, Conciliation in the strictest and best sense of the word; but the thing had to be said. It is the duty of every good citizen to do his best to score off men with whiskers.
“You don’t understand me, sir,” he said excitedly. “When I said we didn’t know where we were, it was a manner of speaking. We want to know how we stand.”
“On your heels,” I replied gently, “as I pointed out before.”
“I am Brass, sir, of Axminster. My account with Mr. Ukridge is ten pounds eight shillings and fourpence. I want to know—”
The whole strength of the company now joined in.
“You know me, Mr. Garnet. Appleby, in the High—” (Voice lost in the general roar).
“ … and eightpence.”
“My account with Mr. Uk …”
“ … settle …”
“I represent Bodger …”
A diversion occurred at this point. Charlie, who had long been eyeing Beale sourly, dashed at him with swinging fists, and was knocked down again. The whole trend of the meeting altered once more, Conciliation became a drug. Violence was what the public wanted. Beale had three fights in rapid succession. I was helpless. Instinct prompted me to join the fray; but prudence told me that such a course would be fatal.
At last, in a lull, I managed to catch the Hired Retainer by the arm, as he drew back from the prostrate form of his latest victim. “Drop it, Beale,” I whispered hotly, “drop it. We shall never manage these people if you knock them about. Go indoors, and stay there while I talk to them.”
“Mr. Garnet, sir,” said he, the light of battle dying out of his eyes, “it’s ‘ard. It’s cruel ‘ard. I ain’t ‘ad a turn-up, not to /call/ a turn-up, since I’ve been a time-expired man. I ain’t hitting of ‘em, Mr. Garnet, sir, not hard I ain’t. That there first one of ‘em he played me dirty, hittin’ at me when I wasn’t looking. They can’t say as I started it.”
“That’s all right, Beale,” I said soothingly. “I know it wasn’t your fault, and I know it’s hard on you to have to stop, but I wish you would go indoors. I must talk to these men, and we shan’t have a moment’s peace while you’re here. Cut along.”
“Very well, sir. But it’s ‘ard. Mayn’t I ‘ave just one go at that Charlie, Mr. Garnet?” he asked wistfully.
“No, no. Go in.”
“And if they goes for you, sir, and tries to wipe the face off you?”
“They won’t, they won’t. If they do, I’ll shout for you.”
He went reluctantly into the house, and I turned again to my audience.