CHAPTER XIII
THE RETURN OF THE FATHER AND THE LAST OF THE RANTAN
YES, there he sat, there could be no doubt about it—he sat in his wooden chair upon one side of the hearth, a wan, blear-eyed, crouching, shivering specimen, too visibly in a condition of tipsiness. Annie had been used to her father in every stage of drink, and could see at once at what phase he had arrived, a state of virtue and moral indignation, ready to be maudlin at the first opportunity. At a little distance, with pale, indignant looks, though not near each other, sat his wife and son—Jenny upright, silent, her lips stern and compressed, a strange expression for her timid face to wear. She did not draw close to Nat, nor he to her, rather they preferred to remain obviously apart—it was evident that if she was divided from her husband she was also for some reason separated from her son. Indeed there had been a painful scene that morning; as Annie, on her part, had good cause to know, though the religious excitement that she had since experienced had driven the scene of the morning from her mind. She stood by the door now, uncertain what to do, her pulses quivering, and her face aflame.
‘It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?—er—er—?’ cried Rob to her, addressing her as a stranger who had come into the house, ‘it’s a nice, good thing I should come into my dwellin’, an’ be welcomed i’ this way by my wife an’ son. There’s my wife she wo-ant kiss me for all I ask her to—she’s too good for me, happen—’ and here for a while he cried—‘or it’s like as she’s doin’ what she don’ want me to know, an’ is ashamed when an honest man comes ho-am.’
‘You needn’t go tellin’ your vile, wicked thoughts,’ cried Jenny, absolutely excited into speech; ‘or think as there’s any one at’ll believe ye, when ye set for to take away my character. Ye’ve been my disgrace an’ shame sin’ we were wed; an’ t’ boy, he’ll be like ye, it is like enough—if ye’d set about to train him and correct him, there might a bin some chance for him, but now there’s none.’
‘There ye go!—ye’re on at my trainin’ an’ correctin’,’ burst out Nat, his young face afire with rage and shame; ‘ye’d set my father upon me if ye could—but I can’t have t’ strap now, I’m too old for that.’
And Rob faltered with tears that t’ boy had a fine spirit—he was his boy, an’ was not t’ mother’s son.
‘Come an’ kiss me, Nat—come an’ kiss me,’ he whimpered, ‘t’ mother she haven’t no heart for either on us—she’ll be tellin’ me as I am in drink, it’s like; when I haven’t not touched a drop sin’ I was here. But ye will kiss me—an’ then ye’ll come wi’ me—an’ we’ll make our fortunes, an’ get away fro’ here.’
‘Go an’ kiss your father, Nat,’ said Jenny, slowly and coldly—and the boy got up from his chair, but then stood still, for even the sense of his mother’s scorn was not sufficient to induce him to go near his father. He stood still, trembling and troubled, without being able to decide to which side to turn, to the wrath and righteousness in his mother’s eyes, or the unalluring vice that asked for an embrace. His hesitation had a voice more plain than words, and Rob’s sense of injury found a new direction.
‘Do ye think as ye’ll go to disobey me, ye little d—d scoundrel?’ cried the father’s wrath; ‘I’ll teach ye, an’ leather ye, an’ shew yer mother too as I’m goin’ to be master, whatever she may say. Ye dare to come near me! I’ll know how to teach ye; ye give me t’ cha-ance, an’ I’ll make use on it.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ answered Nat, with resolution, and he did indeed take one step towards his father; but in an instant, with a little cry of terror, poor Jenny rushed forward and threw herself between. She was not always ready to forgive her son, even when such forgiveness might have brought him to her feet; but she was ready to be struck in his stead at any moment, even whilst not forgiving him—that is a mother’s love. Rob did raise his hand; but confused by a change of victims, he let it drop, and fell once more into tears—he whimpered that it was a strange thing for a man to come back, and not find that his ‘people were proud to meet wi’ him.’
Proud to meet with him!—the shivering, drunken wretch, crouching over the fire in the home that he disgraced, the words might even have been considered ludicrous, as if any family could by possibility be proud of him! But in the midst of the silence into which his words had fallen, whilst Jenny sat upright and rigid, still and pale, whilst Annie stood quivering, trembling, by the door, and Nat, still angry, had almost broken down into tears—whilst the members of the little family were all miserable, convulsed, absorbed in the private woes in which the outside world is lost—it was at that instant that there echoed in the distance a clang which, to three of the four, was a too familiar sound. The last night had come—the greatest night of all! and the village Rantan was on its way again.
‘Good be with us! what’s that?’ cried Rob, who was so much startled, that for the moment the shock almost sobered him; the more so as he saw in the faces of his family an unmistakeable evidence that the noise concerned himself. A sudden remembrance of the Rantan frolics, in which he had joined himself when a younger, better man, a sudden horror of shame and indignation rushed down upon him, and for a moment choked his breath. He sat silent, panting, the excitement of drink in his eyes, at that moment almost like the dark, handsome suitor who had wooed pretty Jenny in her girlish days. And now the clamour had turned into the lane, and they could hear the hooting and laughing of the lads—Rob could hear his own name in shouts, groans, and hisses, accompanied by such opprobrious titles as village wit could furnish. It was too much; the small amount of reason he had left combined with his drunkenness to urge him to resist; with a sudden, fierce movement, he flung himself from his seat, and rushed to the door, which he banged behind his back. The sound of the clamour was increased and yet interrupted by the noise of the different tumult which now broke upon its course—the noise of a scuffle, of blows, of hasty warfare, a confusion of steps and voices .... then, a fall.
And in an instant, overcome by a sudden terror that would not allow even her pride to keep her still, poor Jenny flung the door open as wide as it would go, and stood before her adversaries on the threshold of her house. She stood there, a slight figure in the summer evening light, and the respect in which she was always held imposed a silence that was deep and universal, and that fell on the motley crowd with a sudden calm. They had another and graver cause for silence; a fear of consequences was rising in their hearts, for there in the lane, a prostrate, motionless figure, a young man lay with his head in pools of blood.
‘Ye needn’t fear, missus,’ cried our old acquaintance Bill, recovering first from the panic of the crowd; ‘there’s not so much harm done as ye might go to think; these young uns are tough, and he’ll get up again. It is Tim Nicol—poor Tim, as ye know well—he’d come down to try an’ turn t’ lads away—an’ Rob he supposed he was doin’ harm, it’s like, for he caught up a clatch o’ wood, an’ made at him. Ye’ll let him be brought into your house for a bit; Rob has got off, an’ he’s not like to come back.’
They lifted the prostrate figure gently, and carried it into Jenny Salter’s home; whilst she stood there, silent, pallid, unresisting, as one who has been too much stunned with grief to move. The whole Rantan was in confusion in the lane, the grotesque banners were lowered, the clanging pans were silenced, the lads were gathered in terror-stricken groups, appalled at the consequences of their fun. No one noticed that from the back-door of the cottage an unseen figure had fled into the fields—it was Annie, with wrath and terror in her heart, escaping from this fresh misery in her life. Alas! the poor child—and alas! for such poor children who find their incentives to evil within the shelter of their homes.
The Rantan was scattered, dispersed to right and left, its members escaped almost in silence through the streets; there was no bonfire, no concluding ceremony, there had never been a Rantan come to such an end before. Yet it may be that after all it had accomplished more than previous Rantans had done, for issues and sequences are not to be calculated by the careless hands that set such trains on fire. As the corn ripened slowly to its harvest-time, the echoes of that summer evening may have been working still.