The Weavers | Page 8

not speak when I am moved? Ye have struck swiftly; I will
draw the arrow slowly from the wound. But, in truth, ye had good right
to wound. Naught but kindness have I had among you all; and I will
answer. Straightly have I lived since my birth. Yet betimes a torturing
unrest of mind was used to come upon me as I watched the world
around us. I saw men generous to their kind, industrious and brave,
beloved by their fellows; and I have seen these same men drink and
dance and give themselves to coarse, rough play like young dogs in a
kennel. Yet, too, I have seen dark things done in drink--the cheerful
made morose, the gentle violent. What was the temptation? What the
secret? Was it but the low craving of the flesh, or was it some primitive

unrest, or craving of the soul, which, clouded and baffled by time and
labour and the wear of life, by this means was given the witched
medicament--a false freedom, a thrilling forgetfulness? In ancient days
the high, the humane, in search of cure for poison, poisoned themselves,
and then applied the antidote. He hath little knowledge and less pity for
sin who has never sinned. The day came when all these things which
other men did in my sight I did--openly. I drank with them in the
taverns--twice I drank. I met a lass in the way. I kissed her. I sat beside
her at the roadside and she told me her brief, sad, evil story. One she
had loved had left her. She was going to London. I gave her what
money I had--"
"And thy watch," said a whispering voice from the Elders' bench.
"Even so. And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow."
"There were those who saw," said the shrill voice from the bench.
"They saw what I have said--no more. I had never tasted spirits in my
life. I had never kissed a woman's lips. Till then I had never struck my
fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove
the lass in sorrow into the homeless world. I did not choose to fight; but
when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl's sake to follow and
bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
hat, and there I laid him in the dust."
"No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave," observed the shrill
Elder.
"In truth I hit hard," was the quiet reply.
"How came thee expert with thy fists?" asked Elder Fairley, with the
shadow of a smile.
"A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball,
and an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the
lime-kiln on the hill. He was once a sailor and a fighting man."

A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders. They
were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.
"While yet my father"--he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever
been taught to call his father--"shared the great business at Heddington,
and the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some small
duties, as is well known. But that ceased, and there was little to do.
Sports are forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because
the mind had no labour. The world of work has thickened round us
beyond the hills. The great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can
see on yonder crests; but we slumber and sleep."
"Enough, enough," said a voice from among the women. "Thee has a
friend gone to London--thee knows the way. It leads from the
cross-roads!"
Faith Claridge, who had listened to David's speech, her heart panting,
her clear grey eyes--she had her mother's eyes--fixed benignly on him,
turned to the quarter whence the voice came. Seeing who it was--a
widow who, with no demureness, had tried without avail to bring Luke
Claridge to her--her lips pressed together in a bitter smile, and she said
to her nephew clearly:
"Patience Spielman hath little hope of thee, David. Hope hath died in
her."
A faint, prim smile passed across the faces of all present, for all knew
Faith's allusion, and it relieved the tension of the past half-hour. From
the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers.
His voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to
sudden quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence,
not so much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to the
man behind it. His personal force was remarkable. Quiet and pale