"With a rocking-chair and a piece o celery a Lancasheer lass is aw reet."
At eight, she had entered the mill, doffing1. Joe had entered the same mill at about the same age, doffing too. He worked bare-footed in the ring-room in the days when overlookers and jobbers2 carried straps3 and used them.
When he was fifteen his mother died, and his father married again.
"Thoo can fend4 for self," his step-mother told him straightway, with the fine directness of the North.
Joe packed his worldly possessions in a chequered handkerchief, especially his greatest treasure—a sixpenny book bought off a second-hand5 bookstall at infinite cost to the buyer and called The Hundred Best Thoughts. Then he crossed the common at night, falling into a ditch on the way, to find the lodging-house woman who was to be his mother for the next ten years drinking her Friday pint6 o beer. He was earning six shillings a week at the time in a bicycle-shop. Later he entered a big engineering firm and, picking up knowledge as he went along, was a first-class fitter when he was through his time.
Those were the days when George Barnes was Secretary of the Amalgamated7 Society of Engineers, and leading the great engineers' strike of the early nineties. Labour was still under the heel of Capital, but squealing8 freely. Socialism, apart from a few thinkers, was the gospel of noisy and innocuous cranks; and advanced working-men still called themselves Radicals9.
Young Joe woke up sooner than most to the fact that he was the slave of an environment that was slowly throttling10 him because it denied him opportunity to be himself—which is to say to grow. He discarded chapel11 for ever on finding that his step-mother was a regular worshipper at Little Bethel, and held in high esteem13 amongst the congregation. He read Robert Blatchford in the Clarion14, went to hear Keir Hardie, who with Joey Arch was dodging15 in and out of Parliament during those years, heralds16 of the advancing storm, and took some part in founding the local branch of the newly-formed Independent Labour Party. When his meditative17 spirit tired of the furious ragings of the Labour Movement of those early days, he would retire to the Friends' Meeting-house on the hill and ruminate18 there over the plain tablet set in the turf which marks appropriately the resting place of the greatest of modern Quakers.
The eyes of the intelligent young fitter were opening fast now; and the death of the head of his firm completed the process and gave him sight.
"Started from nothing. Left ￡200,000. Bequeathed each of his servants ￡2 for every year of service; but nothing for us as had made the money."
Joe was now a leading man in the local A.S.E. His Society recognised his work and sent him in the early years of our century to Ruskin College, Oxford19. The enemies of that institution are in the habit of saying that it spoils good mechanics to make bad Labour leaders. The original aim of the College was to take men from the pit, the mill, the shop, pour into them light and learning in the rich atmosphere of the most ancient of our Universities, and then return them whence they came to act amongst their fellows as lamps in the darkness and living witnesses of the redeeming20 power of education. The ideal, noble in itself, appealed to the public; but like many such ideals, it foundered21 on the invincible22 rock of human nature. The miners, weavers23, and engineers, who were the students, after their year amid the towers and courts of Oxford, showed little desire to return whence they came. Rather they made their newly-acquired power an instrument to enable them to evade24 the suffocating25 conditions under which they were born; and who shall blame them? They became officials in Labour Bureaux, Trade union leaders, Secretaries of Clubs, and sometimes the hangers-on of the wealthy supporters of the Movement.
Burt was a shining exception to the rule. At the end of his academic year he returned to the very bench in the very shop he had left a year before, with enlarged vision, ordered mind, increased conviction; determined26 from that position to act as Apostle to the Gentiles of the Old Gospel in its new form.
He was the not uncommon27 type of intellectual artisan of that day who held as the first article of his creed28 that no working-man ought to marry under the economic conditions that then prevailed; and that if Nature and circumstance forced him to take a wife that he was not morally justified29 in having children. This attitude involving as it inevitably30 must a levy31 on the only capital that is of enduring value to a country—its Youth—was thrust upon thoughtful workers, as Joe was never tired of pointing out, by the patriotic32 class, who refused their employees the leisure, the security, the material standards of life necessary to modern man for his full development.
Joe practised what he preached, and was himself unmarried. Apart, indeed, from an occasional fugitive33 physical connection as a youth with some passing girl, he had never fairly encountered a woman; never sought a woman; never, certainly, heard the call that refuses to be denied, spirit calling to spirit, flesh to flesh, was never even aware of his own deep need. Women for him were still a weakness to be avoided. They were the necessaries of the feeble, an encumbrance34 to the strong. That was his view, the view of the crude boy. And he believed himself lucky to be numbered among the uncalled for he was in fact a sober fanatic35, living as selflessly for his creed as ever did those first preachers of unscientific Socialism, the Apostles and Martyrs36 of the first centuries of our era. Even in the shop he had his little class of students, pouring the milk of the word into their ears as he set their machines, and the missionary37 spirit drove him always on to fresh enterprise.
The Movement, as he always called it, was well ablaze38 by the second decade of the century in the Midlands and the North, but in the South it still only smouldered. And when Hewson and Clarke started their aeroplane department at Beachbourne, and began to build machines for the Government, Joe Burt, a first-rate mechanic, leapt at the chance offered him by the firm and crossed the Thames with his books, his brains, his big heart, to carry the Gospel of Redemption by Revolution to the men of Sussex as centuries before, his spiritual ancestor, St. Wilfrid, he too coming from the North, had done. In that strange land with its smooth-bosomed hills, its shining sea, its ca-a-ing speech, he found everything politically as he had expected. And yet it was in the despised South that he discovered the woman who was to rouse in him the fierce hunger of which till then he had been unaware39 except as an occasional crude physical need.
As on Saturday or Sunday afternoons at the time the revelation was coming to him he roamed alone, moody40 and unmated, the rogue-man, amid the round-breasted hills he often paused to mark their resemblance to the woman who was rousing in his deeps new and terrible forces of which he had previously41 been unaware. In her majestic42 strength, her laughing tranquillity43, even in her moods, grave or gay, the spirit mischievously44 playing hide-and-seek behind the smooth appearance, she was very much the daughter of the hills amid which she had been bred.
Ruth was as yet deliciously unaware of her danger. She was, indeed, unaware of any danger save that which haunts the down-sitting and up-rising of every working woman throughout the world—the abiding45 spectre of insecurity.
She liked this big man, surly and self-conscious, and encouraged his visits. Not seldom as she moved amid her cups and saucers in the back-ground of the kitchen, she would turn eye or ear to the powerful stranger with the rough eloquence46 sucking his pipe by the fire and holding forth47 to Ernie on his favourite theme. It flattered her that he who notoriously disliked women should care to come and sit in her kitchen, lifting an occasional wary48 eyelid49 as he talked to look at her. And when she caught his glance he would scowl50 like a boy detected playing truant51.
"I shan't hurt you then, Mr. Burt," she assured him with the caressing52 tenderness that is mockery.
His chin sunk on his chest.
"A'm none that sure," he growled53.
Ernie winked54 at Ruth.
"Call him Joe," he suggested. "Then hap12 he'll be less frit."
"Wilta?" asked Ruth, daintily mimicking55 the accent of her guest.
"Thoo's mockin a lad," muttered Joe, delighted and relapsing into broader Lancashire.
"Nay56, ma lad," retorted Ruth. "A dursena. A'm far ower scared."
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1
doffing
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| n.下筒，落纱v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的现在分词 ) | |
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2
jobbers
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| n.做零活的人( jobber的名词复数 )；营私舞弊者；股票经纪人；证券交易商 | |
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3
straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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4
fend
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| v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开 | |
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5
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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6
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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7
amalgamated
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| v.（使）（金属）汞齐化( amalgamate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）合并；联合；结合 | |
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8
squealing
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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9
radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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10
throttling
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| v.扼杀( throttle的现在分词 )；勒死；使窒息；压制 | |
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11
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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12
hap
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| n.运气；v.偶然发生 | |
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13
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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14
clarion
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| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
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15
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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16
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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17
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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18
ruminate
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| v.反刍；沉思 | |
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19
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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20
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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21
foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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23
weavers
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| 织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 ) | |
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24
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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25
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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26
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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27
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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28
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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29
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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30
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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31
levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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32
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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33
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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34
encumbrance
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| n.妨碍物，累赘 | |
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35
fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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36
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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37
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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38
ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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39
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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40
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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41
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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42
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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43
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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44
mischievously
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| adv.有害地；淘气地 | |
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45
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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46
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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47
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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48
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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49
eyelid
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| n.眼睑，眼皮 | |
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50
scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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51
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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52
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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53
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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54
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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55
mimicking
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的现在分词 )；酷似 | |
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56
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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