At the age of eighteen Andrew Mowbray Catterick vanished from among his kith and kin. They soon
learnt that he was gone to
From
eighteen to three-and-twenty Andrew doubtless had a hard time of it. He wrote
very seldom, and disregarded invitations to visit the old home. Such reports as
he made were of dubious complexion; that he lived was clear, but no one at Mapplebeck knew exactly how. Writing, however, on his
twenty-third birthday, the young man announced that he had secured regular
employment as a journalist in connection with two
A
couple of months elapsed without more news. Then, on an evening of September,
Andrew presented himself at his mother's door.
It
was difficult to recognise him. Not only had time converted the lanky stripling
into a tall, wiry specimen of bearded manhood, but he looked so deplorably ill
that Mrs. Catterick's first exclamation was one of
alarm. As if the journey had overtaxed him, he dropped upon the nearest chair,
and wiped moisture from his clay-coloured face. Yes, he was seedy. He had been
overdoing it. He must have a good long rest. Mother and sister straightway
devoted themselves to nursing him. The old doctor, friend of his childhood, was
called into council. Andrew talked to him with a quiet air of condescension,
yet as if grateful for the kindness with which he was surrounded.
'Sleep? Oh, my dear doctor! I haven't slept for a year
or so. Sleep is such an expensive luxury; a journalist making his way has to do
without it. Meals? Oh, I really forget. I eat now and
then, I believe. Why, yes; not long ago I dined at the National Liberal Club
with the editor of the Morning Star; so on that occasion, at all events,
I ate. But, do you know, I find a bit of anchovy toast and a glass of cognac
about the best thing, on most days. I suppose I ruined my stomach with vache enragée.'
'What
in the world is that?' asked the good doctor.
'Merely a pedantry for starvation, my dear sir. For three or four years I had
simply nothing to eat. We all go through it, you know. A friend of mine, a
novelist, says he thinks nothing of the man who hasn't starved to begin with.
At the same time I drank rather too much. What would you have? Nervous force must
be kept up somehow.'
The
doctor began to entertain a suspicion that this habit of drinking was not yet
outgrown; he privately doubted whether Andrew's state of collapse had anything
to do with excessive toil. In a day or two, however, he felt sure that his
misgivings were unjustifiable. Catterick's case
allowed of but one diagnosis: the young man had lived preposterously, but not
as a debauchee. He had worked himself like a machine, disregarding every
admonition of rebellious nature.
'And
do you imagine, Andrew, that this kind of thing will
lead to anything except the grave?'
'I
can't keep it up; that I have discovered. But so far it has paid. The editors
know me. Nowadays, doctor, a man who aims at success in any profession must be
content to take his chance between that and death. If I don't get out of the ruck, I may as well die.'
Talk
in this vein amused the old practitioner, who regarded his patient as a boy,
and studied in him the latest forms of puerile conceit. But not everyone could
listen so urbanely. Robert Holdsworth, who came over
to make the acquaintance of his future brother-in-law, had much ado to disguise
contemptuous irritation; he resented the easy patronage of Andrew's behaviour,
and half believed him a disreputable impostor. Talking privately with Bertha,
he asked why her brother had allowed so many years to pass without visiting his
relatives.
'Oh,'
replied the girl, with a laugh, 'he made a confession about that only
yesterday. His pride wouldn't let him come till he had done something that
people could talk about.'
'Andrew's
pride seems to be the great feature of his character,' Holdsworth
remarked drily. 'And what has he done? A little
anonymous journalism. I don't think that justifies his airs.'
'He
does put it on rather. But, you know, he has worked frightfully!'
'So
have a good many people.'
'Yes;
but it's a great thing to write for
Andrew
took care that his arrival at Mapplebeck should be
made known by the local paper. A short biography appeared in its columns, and
the writer expressed his deep regret that Mr. Catterick
had been ordered to abstain for the present from all literary work. He added
'This
is the penalty paid by too many of our rising journalists. The conditions of
modern journalism are terribly trying, and a young man of Mr. Catterick's distinguished ability is tempted to efforts
beyond the endurance of human nature.'
With
old acquaintances, most of whom were very sober and practical folk, Andrew made
ostentatious display of his advanced opinions. He gave the good people to
understand that Mapplebeck was a very sleepy little
place, a century or so behind the civilisation which he himself represented.
Occasionally he met with blunt answers, but they moved him only to a smile.
People might say of him what they liked, if only they recognised his enormous
advance in the interval since he disappeared from Mapplebeck.
'Ah!
poor old Robertson! I must have a talk with him. And
Tom Gerard has three children? Amazing! It passes my comprehension how a fellow
of any brains -- and Tom had brains -- can handicap himself in that way.
Men don't marry nowadays -- not till they have arrived.'
But
about this time the local mind began to be occupied with a question which
ultimately proved of national concern. Throughout the mining districts there
was talk of an impending coal strike. Catterick,
whose recuperative powers had soon overcome the grave symptoms of his disorder,
amused himself with walking about the neighbourhood and holding converse with
pitmen; whence it naturally came to pass that he one day found himself haranguing a coaly group, to whom he expounded the
principles of modern industrial liberty. He came home in an excited state of
mind, and from the hearthrug repeated to his mother and sister the oration he
had publicly delivered.
'I
think it very wrong to go talking in that way,' declared Mrs. Catterick. 'You may make a deal of trouble.'
'Very
likely,' Andrew replied, with modest allusion to his powers as an agitator.
'You
have no business to encourage these men to strike,' exclaimed his sister. 'And
what will our friends say if they hear of it?'
The
suggestion confirmed Andrew in a resolve. A strike there undoubtedly would be,
sooner or later, and how could he more profitably occupy his leisure than in
helping to bring it about? The public eye would at once be fixed on him; with
care and skill he might achieve more than local distinction, and the
journalistic matter thus supplied to him would be all in the way of business.
A
mile or so beyond Mapplebeck was a colliers' hamlet
known as Pit Row; it consisted literally of a row of cottages set on the black
soil hard by a coal-pit -- grimy little boxes, all built precisely alike, with
a plot of sorry garden in front of each, and behind them the walled back-yards,
where shirts and petticoats flapped in sooty air. Andrew decided to open his
campaign at Pit Row. Thither he went on a Sunday morning, and inquired for Sam
Dollop, a collier whose acquaintance he had made in casual talk on the road.
Sam was a local firebrand, and it flattered him to be associated with a
gentleman from
He
had not long to wait for the public effect of these proceedings. Respectable Mapplebeck talked indignantly of his reckless and wicked
meddling with troubles in which he had no concern. Mrs. Catterick's
friends came to condole with her, knowing how strongly she disapproved of her
son's politics. Andrew himself was stopped in the street by an old gentleman,
who asked him severely what his good father would have thought of such doings,
and advised him, if he must needs be working mischief,
to go and speechify elsewhere. The town's one
newspaper, which called itself 'independent,' and tried to please everyone,
came out with an article vaguely deprecating the interference of outsiders in
industrial disputes. Andrew replied in a long letter, printed the following
week, wherein he justified himself on high grounds, economical and moral: it
was the duty, he maintained, of all enlightened men to use these opportunities
for a protest against the grinding tyranny of the present social system. He had
deliberately taken off his coat, and was going to work with a full sense of the
responsibilities he incurred. He might mention that he had carefully inquired
into the state of the mining population in this district, and the results of
his inquiries would shortly be made public in one of the leading organs of
advanced opinion.
His
'facile pen,' as the local paper would have called it, knocked off a couple of
sensational reports, which presently appeared in a
Meanwhile
Mr. Robert Holdsworth viewed with keen annoyance the
pranks of his future relative. This prudent young man by no means relished the
thought of celebrating his marriage with Miss Catterick
at a moment when Andrew was incurring the odium of all well-to-do people in the
district. He came over to talk plainly of the matter; and Bertha, distressed by
his grave representations, was driven to propose that their wedding should be
put off till the next year.
'It's
no use saying anything to Andrew; he is really very selfish. I think mother
ought to tell him that we can't have him here any longer.'
'So
do I,' replied Holdsworth
emphatically. 'His behaviour is simply monstrous. Your mother will feel the
effects of it for long enough.'
Andrew
was away, carrying the fiery cross. When he returned, late at night, mother and
sister united in a very strong appeal to him. Couldn't he see the
inconvenience, to say the least, that he was causing
them? If he was well enough to go about making speeches, had he not better
return to
'I
am obliged to stay here,' answered the journalist, with forbearance. 'Not only my interest, but my duty, forbids me to turn back from the
work I have undertaken. But, of course, I need not remain in this house. I
admit all you urge, and tomorrow I will look about for a
lodging.'
To
this Mrs. Catterick could not assent, and the
discussion was prolonged to an unheard-of hour. Andrew, when he understood the
difficult position in which his sister was placed, held firm to his
self-denying ordinance; he would forego the comforts of home, and lodge
somewhere in the neighbourhood. This step would declare to all and sundry that
the ladies dissociated themselves from his obnoxious principles.
And
on the morrow the change was made. Andrew felt a glow of conscious virtue; no
one could say that he had not behaved with scrupulous honour. He wrote a
touching letter to Holdsworth, explaining his
sacrifice, and enlarging upon its meritorious features. The solicitor replied
in a line or two of formal civility.
Catterick had aptitude for the work of an agitator. His
harangues were not merely fluent and spirited, they testified to a sincerity of
feeling with which the casual observer would not have credited Andrew. Himself
acquainted with hardships, he did, in fact, sympathise with the employed as
against the capitalist. His whole bent of mind engaged him to the democratic
standpoint; his interests were all in combative modernism. Robert Holdsworth, deeming him a noisy charlatan, did justice
neither to his abilities nor to the motives of his conduct; yet there was a
weak point in Andrew which the lawyer accidentally discovered, and which he
resolved to attack by an ingenious stratagem. Talking confidentially of her
brother, Bertha had mentioned that in boyhood he was anything but remarkable
for courage.
'If
there's any rioting,' she said, 'I'm quite sure he'll get out of the way. It's
a pity he can't have a good fright. He would soon find that business called him
to
Holdsworth said little, but he reflected and schemed.
A
few days after this Andrew received a letter addressed in a rude, sprawling
hand, the writing of someone who barely knew how to hold a pen. The contents
were with difficulty decipherable, but seemed to run thus:
'Mr.
Caterikk, us three chaps as made up our moind to-night to wright to yo we work at a pit and weeve
gotten wives and childer and we downt
want to see them go hungery weer
badly of as it is and we dont bileve
a strike will mak it better so us chaps as mad up oor mind to give yo fare worning if the lads about here cum out on strike yol hear from us were not thretning
yor life but well give yo
the best threshin yo iver had sens yo
was born thers three sticks redy
and ef we go to jale for it
thell be more bread fort wives and childer so look out.'
This
same morning Andrew learnt that in a neighbouring county the strike had already
begun. In a day or two great numbers of colliers would have left their work,
and all but certainly those round about Mapplebeck
would join in the movement. They were a particularly rough lot of men, and, as
he well knew, eager to try their strength with the masters. He knew equally
well that individuals among them, looking forward to short commons and fireless
hearths, secretly cursed the agencies which threw them out of employment; and
this letter from the nameless trio seemed to him an undoubtedly genuine threat.
Its very moderation (he had only to fear bruises and indignity) was an alarming
feature of the menace. For a long time he sat with the letter in his hand thinking
anxiously.
The
post-mark was Mapplebeck. Impossible to determine to
what pit these three men belonged. His mind's eye surveyed whole crowds of
grimy faces, and everywhere saw hostility in the white upturned orbs.
First
came the natural impulse to make public his danger. It
would be a proud moment. 'Behold this infamous production! Do you imagine that
a base threat such as this can for a moment shake my purpose? See, I tear it
into fragments, and scatter it to the winds!' Acquaintances in Mapplebeck would admire his scornful indifference, or, at
all events, talk the more about him. 'He receives threatening letters. Hired
ruffians have vowed to beat him within an inch of his life.' But was he
actually indifferent? When all the pitmen of the locality were idle, would he
care to walk about by-ways, or go home to his lodgings on a dark night? He
hoped to make a figure during the strike, and to send journalistic
correspondence to
Yes;
but the thrashing itself Three sturdy colliers, armed
with three big sticks, and only inclined to stop short of murder. His bones
would ache for some time, be sure of it. He had never undergone a thrashing,
not even as a boy. He had never fought; for, as his sister truly affirmed,
physical courage was not his strong point. As he thought and thought, the drops
came out upon his forehead.
For
the present he would keep this letter in his pocket, and speak of it to no one.
He
went into the town, and kept an appointment with a fellow-worker in the
bar-room of the principal hotel. 'Grand news!' exclaimed his friend, a
provincial journalist without employment. At Baker's Pits that morning a notice
was posted which would be sure to bring matters to a head: before evening the
men would all be out. They must go at once ----
Andrew
felt a chill run down his back.
'It's
a confounded nuisance!' he began blusteringly. 'I have a letter from my editor.
He wants me to go at once to the
But
the friend thought this imprudent. His own ambitions clashed somewhat with Catterick's, and he would not be sorry to see the fiery
orator depart for the
'It's
a beastly nuisance!' repeated Andrew, wondering how soon after the declaration
of a strike at Baker's Pits his bludgeon-armed foes would start on the
war-path. Perhaps this very evening would see them lying in wait for him. 'I
think I shall stay.'
He
drank a glass of whisky, but it had no effect whatever
upon his state of mind. Ah! -- he said to himself --
this was manifestly the result of nervous breakdown. He had not recovered from
his illness; he had been over-exciting himself when what he needed was repose.
Why, his limbs trembled under him! No, no; he was not such a poltroon as all
that! In reasonable health he could have faced the peril, which, after all,
might be imaginary. Those fellows would not dare to attack him -- why, it would
be as much as their lives were worth! But a dark night -- the lonely road near
his lodgings -- faces masked -- they might, perhaps, do it with impunity. Cold
sweat again started on his forehead.
And
all the time his friend was counselling him not to neglect the editor's
instructions.
'My
people at home yonder,' said Andrew with a smile,
'would be glad enough if I took myself off. Perhaps I owe it to them to make
the sacrifice. I must think it over quietly for a few minutes. You go over to
Pit Row. If I don't come presently you shall hear from me.'
He
sat in the hotel for nearly an hour, and only strangers entered. At length
appeared a shopkeeper with whom he was slightly acquainted.
'Well,
Mr. Catterick, I suppose this is a great day for you?
I hear that Baker's men have come out.'
Andrew
smiled, but could not at once reply.
'Sure
of it?' fell from his lips, when he had moistened them.
'It's
the talk in the town, at all events And I dare say you
know more about it than most people.'
Andrew
rose, nodded, and left the hotel.
He
walked quickly to his mother's house, and cast many glances about him in the
quiet suburban road which led thither. It began to rain, but he did not put up
his umbrella. Mrs. Catterick and Bertha were sitting
by the fireside, talking about the price of coals; his abrupt entrance -- for
he walked in without ringing the bell -- made them start up in apprehension.
'What
has happened? Why do you look so?'
'Nothing. I've done my work, that's all, and I'm off.'
'Oh,
thank goodness!' cried Bertha.
'You
know that the colliers are on strike everywhere? Sorry for what it'll cost you
in coals' -- he laughed noisily -- 'but you mustn't mind that. I have to rush
off to the
'Certainly.'
'Take
a cab to my lodgings, pack up all my things, leave them at the station
cloak-room and keep the receipt till I send for it. It's all I shall do to
catch my train. I thought of staying here to see the fun out, but I should rile
an important man if I declined to go. And as you two rejoice, it's just as
well. Explain to Holdsworth, will you? Sorry I
couldn't say good-bye to him. But I hope to come down for your wedding,
Bertha. Rather I didn't? Well, well, I quite understand; no harm done. You'll
have broader views some day. Good-bye! Not one minute to lose.'
And
away he sped.
In a few days Holdsworth
was at Mapplebeck. He listened with a grave smile to
the repetition of what Bertha had already told him in a letter.
'And he went off in a tremendous
hurry?'
'Hardly time to say a dozen words.
This morning he writes from
'From
'He says it was too exciting for him
-- he was falling ill again.'
Holdsworth could not feel absolutely sure that his stratagem had got rid of the firebrand. Andrew's explanations might be all true; yet he disappeared on the very day when that threatening letter must have reached him; and, what was more, on the day when the strike began at Baker's Pits. In any case an odd and amusing coincidence.
(Provided by Mitsuharu
Matsuoka, Nagoya University, Japan,
on 12 December 1997.)