Ernie, who appeared with his head bandaged, admitted his mistake.
"Went to pass the time o day with my brother," he said. "And all he done was to lean out of the window and crash the crockery down on the roof o me head. Did upset me a bit, I admit."
"He meant murder all right," was Alf's testimony2, sullenly3 given. "He knows that."
Joe corroborated4 Ernie's statement.
He had been in the Saffrons on Saturday afternoon and had seen Ernie coming down the hill from Old Town. Having a message to give him he had started to meet him. Ernie had gone up the steps of his brother's house; and as he did so, Alf had leaned out of the upper window and thrown a jug5 down on his brother.
Alf's solicitor6 cross-examined the engineer at some length.
"What were you doing on the Saffrons?"
"Watching the football."
"You were watching the football; and yet you saw Caspar coming down Church Street?"
"I did."
"I suggest that you did nothing of the sort; and that you only appeared on the scene at the last moment."
"Well," retorted Joe, good-humouredly. "A don't blame you for that. It's what you're paid to suggest."
A witness who was to have given evidence for Alf did not appear; and the Bench agreed without retiring. Neither of the brothers had been up before the magistrates before and both were let off with a caution, Ernie having to pay costs.
"Your tongue's altogether too long, Alfred Caspar," said Mr. Pigott, the Chairman, and added—quite unjudicially—"always was. And you're altogether too free with your fists, Ernest Caspar."
Ernie left the court rejoicing; for he knew he had escaped lightly. Outside he waited to thank his friend for his support.
"Comin up along?" he coaxed7.
"Nay8, ma lad," retorted the engineer with the touch of brutality9 which not seldom now marked his intercourse10 with the other. "You must face the missus alone. Reck'n A've done enough for one morning."
Ern went off down Saffrons Road in the direction of Old Town, crest-fallen as is the man whose little cocoon11 of self-defensive humbug12 has suddenly been cleft13 by a steel blade.
Joe marched away down Grove14 Road. Alf caught him up. The little chauffeur15 was smiling that curds-and-whey smile of his.
"Say, Burt!—you aren't half a liar16, are you?" he whispered.
Joe grinned genially17.
"The Church can't have it all to herself," he said. "Leave a few of the lies to the laity18."
Ern trudged19 back from the Town Hall, across Saffrons Croft, to the Moot20, in unenviable mood; for he was afraid, and he had cause.
Ruth was who standing21 in the door came stalking to meet him, holding little Alice by the hand.
Ern slouched up with that admixture of bluff22, lordly insouciance23, and aggrieved24 innocence25 that is the honoured defence of dog and man alike on such occasions.
"You've done us," she said almost vengefully.
"What are I done then?" asked the accused, feigning26 abrupt27 indignation.
Ruth dismissed the child, and turned on Ernie.
"Got us turn into the street—me and my babies," she answered, splendidly indignant. "A chap's been round arter the house, while you was up before the beaks28 settlin whether you were for Lewes Gaol29 or not. Says Alf's let it him a week from Saraday, and we got to go. I wouldn't let him in."
"Ah," said Ernie stubbornly, "don't you worry. Alf's got to give us notice first. And he daren't do that."
Ruth was not to be appeased30.
"Why daren't he, then?" she asked.
"I'll tell you for why," answered Ernie. "He's goin up before the Watch Committee come Thursday to get his licence for his blessed Touring Syndicate. We've friends on that Committee, good friends—Mr. Pigott, and the Colonel, not to say Mr. Geddes; and Alf knaws it. He ain't goin to do anythink to annoy them just now. Knaws too much, Alf do."
Ruth was not convinced.
"We got no friends," she said sullenly. "We shall lose em all over this. O course we shall, and I don't blame em. A fair disgrace on both of you, I call it. You're lucky not to have to do a stretch. And as to Alf, they've sack him from sidesman over it, and he'll never forgive us."
They were walking slowly back to the cottage, the man hang-dog, the woman cold.
Outside the door she paused.
"All I know is this," she said. "If you're out again through your own fault I'm done with it, and I'll tell you straight what I shall do, Ern."
She was very quiet.
"What then?"
"I shall leave you with your children and go away with mine." She stood with heaving bosom31, immensely moved. "I ca-a'nt keep the lot. But I can keep one. And you know which one that'll be."
Ernie, the colour of dew, went indoors without a word.
The rumour32 that Alf had been dismissed from his position as sidesman at St. Michael's, owing to the incident in the Goffs, was not entirely33 true, but there was something in it.
The Archdeacon had his faults, but there was no more zealous34 guardian35 of the fair fame of the Church and all things appertaining to her.
Alf's appearance before the magistrates was discussed at the weekly conference of the staff at the Rectory.
Both Mr. Spink and Bobby Chislehurst were present. The former stoutly36 defended his protégé, and the Archdeacon heard him out. Then he turned to Bobby.
"What d'you say, Chislehurst?" he asked.
Bobby, in fact, could say little.
Ernie had no scruples37 whatever in suggesting what was untrue to the magistrates, who when on the Bench at all events were officials, and to be treated accordingly, but he would never lie to a man who had won his heart. He had, therefore, in answer to the Cherub's request given an unvarnished account of what had occurred. Bobby now repeated it reluctantly, but without modification38.
"Exactly," said Mr. Spink. "There's not a tittle of evidence that Alfred really did say what he's accused of saying. And he denies it, point-blank."
"I think I'd better see him," said the Archdeacon.
Alf came, sore and sulking.
Mottled and sour of eye, he stood before the Archdeacon who flicked39 the lid of his snuff-box, and asked whether he had indeed made the remark attributed to him.
"I never said nothing of the sort," answered Alf warmly, almost rudely. "Is it likely? me own sister-in-law and all! See here!" He produced his rent-book. "I'm her landlord. She's months behind. See for yourself! Any other man only me'd have turned her out weeks ago. But, of course, she takes advantage. She would. She's that sort. I never said a word against her."
"And there is plenty you could say," chimed in Mr. Spink, who had escorted his friend.
"Maybe there is," muttered Alf.
The Archdeacon made a grimace40. In the matter of sex indeed if in no other, he was and always had been a genuine aristocrat—sensitive, refined, fastidious.
"Two of them get soaking together in the Star," continued Alf. "Then they start telling each other dirty stories and quarrellin. Ern believes it all and comes and makes a fuss. Mr. Pigott's chairman on the Bench. Course he lays it all on me—Mr. Pigott would. Ern can't do no wrong in his eyes—never could. Won't listen to reason and blames me along of him—because I'm a Churchman. See, he's never forgiven me leaving the Chapel41, Mr. Pigott hasn't; and that's the whole story."
It was a good card to play; and it did its work.
"It's a cleah case to my mind of more sinned against than sinning," said the Archdeacon with a genuinely kind smile. "You had bad luck, Caspar—but a good friend." He shook hands with both young men. "I wish you well and offer you my sympathy. I think you should go and have a word of explanation with our friend, Mr. Pigott, though."
"Yes, sir," said Alf. "I'm goin now. I couldn't let it rest there."
Alf went straight on to interview the erring42 chairman in the little villa43 in Victoria Drive.
The latter, summing up his old pupil with shrewd blue eye in which there was a hint of battle, refused to discuss the case or his judgment44.
"What's done is done," he said. "The law's the law and there's no goin back on it. You were lucky to get off so light; that's my notion of it."
Alf stood before him, hang-dog and resentful.
"He'll kill me one of these days," he muttered. "Little better than a bloody45 murderer."
There was a moment's pause, marked by a snort from Mr. Pigott.
Then the jolly, cosy46 man, with his trim white beard and neat little paunch, rose and opened the window with some ostentation47.
"First time that word's ever crossed my threshold," he said. "And I've lived in this house ten year come Michaelmas." He turned with dignity on the offender48. "Is that what they teach you in the Church of England, then, Alfred Caspar?" he asked. "It wasn't what we taught you in the Wesleyan Chapel in which you was bred. Never heard the like of it for language in all me life—never!" Before everything else in life Mr. Pigott was a strong chapel-man; and in his judgment Ern's weakness was as nothing to Alf's apostasy49.
Alf looked foolish and deprecatory.
"I didn't mean in it the swearin way," he said—"not as Ernest would have meant it. I never been in the Army meself. I only meant he'll be the end o me one of these days. Good as said he would in the Star Saturday."
Mr. Pigott turned away to hide the twinkle in his eye. He knew Alf well, and his weakness.
"He don't like you, I do believe," he admitted. "And he's a very funny fellow, Ern, when his hackle's up."
Alf's eyes blinked as they held the floor.
"And now," he said, "I suppose the Watch Committee'll not grant my licence for the Road-Touring Syndicate when it comes up afore em on Thursday. And I'll be a ruined man."
"I shouldn't be surprised," answered Mr. Pigott, who was an alderman and a great man on the Town Council.
Alf was furious. He was so furious, indeed, that he did a thing he had not done for years: he took his trouble to his mother.
"It's a regular plot," he said, "that's what it is. To get my licence stopped and ruin me. Raised the money; ordered the buses; engaged the staff and all. And then they spring this on me!—It ain't Ernie. I will say that for him. I know who's at the bottom of it."
"Who then?" asked his mother, faintly interested.
"Her Ern keeps."
Mrs. Caspar roused instantly.
"Isn't she married to him then?" she cried, peering over her spectacles.
"Is she?" sneered51 Alf. "That's all."
He leaned forward, his ugly face dreadful with a sneer50.
"Do you know where she'd be if everyone had his rights?"
"Where then?"
"Lewes Gaol."
His message delivered, he sat back with a nod to watch its effect.
"And she would be there too," continued Alf, "only for me."
"What do you mean?" Mrs. Caspar asked.
"I mean," answered Alf, "as I keep her out of prison by keepin me mouth shut." He dropped his voice. "And that ain't all. She's at it again ... Her home's a knockin-shop.... All the young men.... The police ought to interfere52.... I shall tell the Archdeacon.... A kept woman.... That chap Burt.... That's how Ern makes good.... She makes the money he spends at the Star.... And your grand-children brought up in that atmosphere!" He struck the table. "But I'm her landlord all the same; and I'll make her know it yet."
Anne Caspar was genuinely disturbed not for the sake of Ruth, but for that of the children.
"You could never turn her out!" she said—"not your own sister-in-law and four children! Look so bad and all—and you a sidesman too."
Alf snorted.
"Ah, couldn't I?" he said. "You never know what a man can do till he tries."
That evening the Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor walked over to the Manor-house to discuss Ern's latest misadventure. They found Mr. Pigott there clearly on the same errand; but the old Nonconformist rose to go with faintly exaggerated dignity on seeing his would-be enemy.
"There's only one thing'll save him now," he announced in his most dogmatic style.
"What's that?" asked Mrs. Trupp.
"H'a h'earthquake," the other answered.
When the Colonel and his wife left the Manor-house half-an-hour later there were three people walking abreast53 down the hill before them, just as there had been on a previous occasion. Now, as then, the centre of the three was Ruth. Now, as then, on her left was Joe. But on her right instead of Ern was little Alice.
The Colonel pointed54 to the three.
"I'll back Caspar all the way," said Mrs. Lewknor firmly.
"Myself," replied the Colonel shrewdly, "I'll back the winner."
Then he paused to read a placard which gave the latest news of the Ulster campaign.
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1
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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corroborated
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的过去式 ) | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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coaxed
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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cocoon
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| n.茧 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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laity
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| n.俗人；门外汉 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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moot
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| v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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insouciance
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| n.漠不关心 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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erring
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| 做错事的，错误的 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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ostentation
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| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
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48
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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apostasy
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| n.背教，脱党 | |
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50
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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51
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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53
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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