304 



The Review of Reviews. 



Septemttr 1, 190S. 



was so intent upon it as to be insensible to the stir- 

 ring things that were happening in the streets 

 through which I went seeking the means to effect 

 my purpose. They were full of raurmurings ; the 

 whole region of the Four Towns scowled lowering 

 from its narrow doors. The ordinary, healthy flow 

 of people going to work, people going about their 

 business, was chilled and checked. Numbers of men 

 stood about the streets in knots and groups, as 

 corpuscles gather and catch in the bloodvessels in 

 the opening stages of inflammation. . The women 

 looked haggard and worried. The ironworkers had 

 refused the proposed reduction of their wages, and 

 the lockout had begun. They were already at 

 " play." The Conciliation Board was doing its best 

 to keep the coal miners and masters from a breach, 

 but young Lord Redcar, the greatest of our coal 

 owners and landlord of all Swathinglea and half 

 Clayton, was taking a fine, upstanding attitude that 

 made the breach inevitable. He was a handsome 

 young man, a gallant young man ; his pride revolted 

 at the idea of being dictated to by a " lot of bally 

 miners,'' and he meant, he said, to make a figtt for 

 it. The world had treated him sumptuously from 

 his earliest years; the shares in the cormnon stock 

 of five thousand people had gone to pay for his 

 handsome upbringing, and large, romantic, expen- 

 sive ambitions filled his generously-nurtured mind. 

 He had early distinguished himself at Oxford by 

 his scornful attitude towards democracy. There was 

 something that appealed to the imagination in his 

 fine antagonism to the crowd — on the one hand, 

 was the brilliant young nobleman, picturesquely 

 alone ; on the other, the ugly, inexpensive multitude, 

 dressed inelegantly in slop clothes, under-educated, 

 underfed, envious, base and with a wicked disin- 

 clination for work and a wicked apperite for the 

 good things it could so rarely get. For common 

 imaginative purposes one left out the policeman 

 from the design, the stalwart policeman protecting 

 his lordship, and ignored the fact that while Lord 

 Redcar had his hands immediately and legally on 

 the workmen's shelter and bread, they could touch 

 him to the skin only by some violent breach of 

 the law. 



He lived at Lowchester House, five miles or so 

 beyond Checkshill ; but partly to show how little he 

 cared for his antagonists, and partly no doubt to 

 keep himself in touch with the negotiations that 

 were still going on, he was visible almost ever}' day 

 in and about the Four Towns, driving that big 

 motor car of his that could take him six"ty miles an 

 hour. The English passion for fair play one might 

 have thought sufficient to rob this bold procedure 

 of any dangerous possibilities, but he did not go 

 altogether free from insult, and on one occasion, 

 at least, an intoxicated Irish woman shook her fist 

 at him. 



A dark, quiet crowd, that was greater each day, 

 a crowd more than half women, brooded, as a cloud 



will sometimes brood permanently upon a mountain 

 crest, in the market place outside the Clayton town- 

 hall, where the conference was held. . . . 



I considered myself justified in regarding Lord 

 Redoar's passing automobile with a special animosity 

 because of the leaks in our roof. 



We held our little house on lease ; the owner 

 was a mean, saving old man named Pettigrew, who 

 lived in a villa adorned with plaster images of dogs 

 and goats, at Overcastle, and in spite of our specific 

 agreement he would do no repairs for us at all. 

 He rested secure in my mother's timidity. Once, 

 long ago, she had been behindhand with her rent, 

 with half of her quarter's rent, and he had ex- 

 tended the days of grace a month ; her sense that 

 some day she might need the same mercy again 

 made her his abject slave. She was afraid even to 

 ask that he should cause the roof to be mended 

 for fear he might take offence. But one night the 

 rain poured in on her bed and gave her a cold, 

 and stained and soaked her poor old patchwork 

 counterpane. Then she got me to compose an ex- 

 cessively polite letter to old Pettigrew, begging him 

 as a favour to perform his legal obligations. It 

 was part of the general imbecility of those days 

 that such one-sided law as existed was a profound 

 myster}' to the common people, its provisions impos- 

 sible to ascertain, its machinery impossible to set 

 in motion. Instead of the clearly written code, the 

 lucid statements of rules and principles that are now 

 at the service of everyone, the law was the muddled 

 secret of the legal profession. Poor people, over- 

 worked people, had constantly to submit to petty 

 wrongs because of the intolerable uncertainty not 

 only of law but of cost, and of the demands upon 

 time and energy proceedings might take. There 

 was indeed no justice for anyone too poor to com- 

 mand a good solicitor's deference and loyalty ; there 

 was nothing but rough police protection and the 

 magistrates' grudging or eccentric advice for the 

 mass of the population. The civil law, in particular, 

 was a mysterious, upper-class weapon, and I can 

 imagine no injustice that would have been sufficient 

 to induce my poor old mother to appeal to it. 



All this begins to sound incredible. I can only 

 assure you that it was so. 



But I, when I learnt that old Pettigrew had been 

 do\yn to tell my mother all about his rheumatism, 

 to inspect the roof, and to allege that nothing was 

 needed, gave way to my most frequent emotion in 

 those days, a burning indignation, and took the mat- 

 ter into my own hands. I wrote and asked him, 

 with a withering air of technicality, to have the roof 

 repaired " as per agreement." and added, " if not 

 done in one week from now we shall be obliged 

 to take proceedings." I had not mentioned this high 

 line of conduct to my mother at first, and so when 

 old Pettigrew came down in a state of great agita- 

 tion with my letter in his hand, she was almost 

 equally agitated. 



