“Ay,” said Aaron. “But there's soon a limit to what I can earn.—It's like this. When you work it out, everything comes to money. Reckon it as you like, it's money on both sides. It's money we live for, and money is what our lives is worth—nothing else. Money we live for, and money we are when we're dead: that or nothing. An' it's money as is between the masters and us. There's a few educated ones got hold of one end of the rope, and all the lot of us hanging on to th' other end, an' we s'll go on pulling our guts out, time in, time out—”
“But they've got th' long end o' th' rope, th' masters has,” said Brewitt.
“For as long as one holds, the other will pull,” concluded Aaron Sisson philosophically.
“An' I'm almighty sure o' that,” said Kirk. There was a little pause.
“Yes, that's all there is in the minds of you men,” said the landlady. “But what can be done with the money, that you never think of—the education of the children, the improvement of conditions—”
“Educate the children, so that they can lay hold of the long end of the rope, instead of the short end,” said the doctor, with a little giggle.
“Ay, that's it,” said Brewitt. “I've pulled at th' short end, an' my lads may do th' same.”
“A selfish policy,” put in the landlady.
“Selfish or not, they may do it.”
“Till the crack o' doom,” said Aaron, with a glistening smile.
“Or the crack o' th' rope,” said Brewitt.
“Yes, and THEN WHAT?” cried the landlady.
“Then we all drop on our backsides,” said Kirk. There was a general laugh, and an uneasy silence.
“All I can say of you men,” said the landlady, “is that you have a narrow, selfish policy.—Instead of thinking of the children, instead of thinking of improving the world you live in—”
“We hang on, British bulldog breed,” said Brewitt. There was a general laugh.
“Yes, and little wiser than dogs, wrangling for a bone,” said the landlady.
“Are we to let t' other side run off wi' th' bone, then, while we sit on our stunts an' yowl for it?” asked Brewitt.
“No indeed. There can be wisdom in everything.—It's what you DO with the money, when you've got it,” said the landlady, “that's where the importance lies.”
“It's Missis as gets it,” said Kirk. “It doesn't stop wi' us.” “Ay, it's the wife as gets it, ninety per cent,” they all concurred.
“And who SHOULD have the money, indeed, if not your wives? They have everything to do with the money. What idea have you, but to waste it!”
“Women waste nothing—they couldn't if they tried,” said Aaron Sisson.
There was a lull for some minutes. The men were all stimulated by drink. The landlady kept them going. She herself sipped a glass of brandy—but slowly. She sat near to Sisson—and the great fierce warmth of her presence enveloped him particularly. He loved so to luxuriate, like a cat, in the presence of a violent woman. He knew that tonight she was feeling very nice to him—a female glow that came out of her to him. Sometimes when she put down her knitting, or took it up again from the bench beside him, her fingers just touched his thigh, and the fine electricity ran over his body, as if he were a cat tingling at a caress.
And yet he was not happy—nor comfortable. There was a hard, opposing core in him, that neither the whiskey nor the woman could dissolve or soothe, tonight. It remained hard, nay, became harder and more deeply antagonistic to his surroundings, every moment. He recognised it as a secret malady he suffered from: this strained, unacknowledged opposition to his surroundings, a hard core of irrational, exhausting withholding of himself. Irritating, because he still WANTED to give himself. A woman and whiskey, these were usually a remedy—and music. But lately these had begun to fail him. No, there was something in him that would not give in—neither to the whiskey, nor the woman, nor even the music. Even in the midst of his best music, it sat in the middle of him, this invisible black dog, and growled and waited, never to be cajoled. He knew of its presence—and was a little uneasy. For of course he wanted to let himself go, to feel rosy and loving and all that. But at the very thought, the black dog showed its teeth.
Still he kept the beast at bay—with all his will he kept himself as it were genial. He wanted to melt and be rosy, happy.
He sipped his whiskey with gratification, he luxuriated in the presence of the landlady, very confident of the strength of her liking for him. He glanced at her profile—that fine throw-back of her hostile head, wicked in the midst of her benevolence; that subtle, really very beautiful delicate curve of her nose, that moved him exactly like a piece of pure sound. But tonight it did not overcome him. There was a devilish little cold eye in his brain that was not taken in by what he saw.
A terrible obstinacy located itself in him. He saw the fine, rich-coloured, secretive face of the Hebrew woman, so loudly self-righteous, and so dangerous, so destructive, so lustful—and he waited for his blood to melt with passion for her. But not tonight. Tonight his innermost heart was hard and cold as ice. The very danger and lustfulness of her, which had so pricked his senses, now made him colder. He disliked her at her tricks. He saw her once too often. Her and all women. Bah, the love game! And the whiskey that was to help in the game! He had drowned himself once too often in whiskey and in love. Now he floated like a corpse in both, with a cold, hostile eye.
And at least half of his inward fume was anger because he could no longer drown. Nothing would have pleased him better than to feel his senses melting and swimming into oneness with the dark. But impossible! Cold, with a white fury inside him, he floated wide eyed and apart as a corpse. He thought of the gentle love of his first married years, and became only whiter and colder, set in more intense obstinacy. A wave of revulsion lifted him.
He became aware that he was deadly antagonistic to the landlady, that he disliked his whole circumstances. A cold, diabolical consciousness detached itself from his state of semi-intoxication.
“Is it pretty much the same out there in India?” he asked of the doctor, suddenly.
The doctor started, and attended to him on his own level.
“Probably,” he answered. “It is worse.”
“Worse!” exclaimed Aaron Sisson. “How's that?”
“Why, because, in a way the people of India have an easier time even than the people of England. Because they have no responsibility. The British Government takes the responsibility. And the people have nothing to do, except their bit of work—and talk perhaps about national rule, just for a pastime.”
“They have to earn their living?” said Sisson.
“Yes,” said the little doctor, who had lived for some years among the colliers, and become quite familiar with them. “Yes, they have to earn their living—and then no more. That's why the British Government is the worst thing possible for them. It is the worst thing possible. And not because it is a bad government. Really, it is not a bad government. It is a good one—and they know it—much better than they would make for themselves, probably. But for that reason it is so very bad.”
The little oriental laughed a queer, sniggering laugh. His eyes were very bright, dilated, completely black. He was looking into the ice-blue, pointed eyes of Aaron Sisson. They were both intoxicated—but grimly so. They looked at each other in elemental difference.
The whole room was now attending to this new conversation: which they all accepted as serious. For Aaron was considered a special man, a man of peculiar understanding, even though as a rule he said little.
“If it is a good government, doctor, how can it be so bad for the people?” said the landlady.
The