THE STORYTELLER

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14820, 7 December 1921, Page 8

THE STORYTELLER

THE Vengeance of Isaac Jesson. (By C. Edwardes). CHAPTER I, Brains wire not Isaac Jcsson's strong poinij but he hoped he was as good a Christian as most, even under the trial of his adversity. His mother not only hoped, but believed it. His father, on the other hand, rallied him about what he termed his 'whimperin' looks'—'goin' up an' down as if yo'd a lemon in yo'r mouth! That's not the way to keep a lass. Sing merry'. however yo' feci. Let her think yo' Cornwall right out for her. Yo'd be licked, certain; but there's no iellin' if yo' wouldna get her back. They like to sec the colour of yo'r blood, ; do the wimmen. They'm riddles all — my owd wench with the rest.' They were a well-contrasted pair, Isaac's father and mother; and though his mother's nature was as a rule uppermost in him, there were times when Isaac fancied his father's rougher rules of life might be Hie better to follow. If he had been a stone and a half heavier litis devil of doubt would have prevailed in him already upon one occasion—the time when Blake Mitchell overtook liirn at the pitsidc and said lie had decided to bid against him for Lizzie Fnriev. Ihe Cornishman was no sneak. Whit he wanted, he said, was a clear tindtrslanding. He could forgive Lizzie and Isaac their times together uclwj he came to Fackerly. They .veren t (married, and he had taken a rare fancy to her; that was enough for him to go upon, and Isaac might put the information in his dinner-basin and digest it with his meat. Isaac bore this challenge almost calmly. All he said to the great Cornishman was this —'You're a pretty sort of chap! 1 And all the Cornishman thought it necessary to retort was this—'l'm considered so by the girls in my part, I tell you.' His [booming laugh was as exasperating as the words themselves. Lizzie surrendered to the Cornishman with a promptitude that seemed to turn the world upside-down for Isaac. Her blue eyes were the most precious things in the Black Country to Isaac; and though he knew full well that they would be dust some day. he worshipped them. If bewildered him that a proper-minded, modest girl, with a God-fearing mother of her own, should in a week or two behave like a wanton. And it was no consolation to him to be told by her that she couldn't help it. 'Not help it! After all these months! I've took you to the seaside, and bought you things, and said you loved mc often enough'!' Isaac was not a romantic figure like the Cornishman. but lie was impressive When he said this. Lizzie gazed at him and began to cry. 'I love you still, Isaac,' she eobbed. That also was no consolation when ft transpired that she was afraid she loved Mitchell also. She didn't know what she did, she confessed in another minule, with the tears in her eyes. "Isaac was to forget her—that was the-only sure thing she knew. This was one of his attempts to regain his old footing with her, and the others,T3vore equally futile. It was true that Mitchell had not yet wholly replaced him in Lizzie's life. They did not openly walk out together. But Lizzie's' father liked him and welcomed Turn to evening pipe-smokes in his garden—that garden with the high elderberry-hedge beneath which Isaac. had enjoyed so many happy hours with Lizzie. Farley seemed to have turned against Isaac. He said Lizzie must be allowed lo please herself. Isaac tried some clumsy arguments on him. What did any.one know about Mitchell! Why didn't he stay in his own part of England and dig for tin There wasn't another; Cornishman in Fackerly, and like as ; not he was a rogue hiding from somebody. But /Farley wouldn't listen to such talk. Time enough, he said, to go into Mitchell's pedigree; and meanwhile Isaac would be well advised to fry to cam as good money as the Cornishman. Mrs Farley was still well disposed toward him, but could do little for him in the. jj circumstances. Her husband was a etiainmaker in a small way, and before marrying him she had worked in his factory, hammering side by side with other girls and their parents. This bare-armed sweating wasn't Ihe kind of thing Lizzie liked to remember. A better education and certain instincts, about which she knew/nothing except that Ihey were there in her. also restrained her from opening her heart to her mother. Thus'' matters stood on the Sunday eveningin July when Isaac started for chapel as usual, and in Hampton Street saw Lizzie and the Cornishman coming towards him from a side-street. II was the. first public demonstration of his loss. He stopped as if he were gliied. land waited for them. Lizzie wore a green dress and a white liat, and her cheeks went first red and then as while as her hat. The Cornishman was in knickerbockers, with the dust of a cycle-ride upon his i shoes. He came alon? wilh a smile. First a nod. and then the smile, which broadened as Ihey approached. Isaac dropped his hymn-honk and let if lie. The Cornishman picked it up for him. 'Good evenins, Isaac,' whispered Lizzie, with downcast eyes, as she moved by quickly. But the Cornishman stayed behind. 'Man. what's- amiss?' lie exclaimed, clapping Isaac on the shoulder. 'You look as if —■ The bells of two churches were ringing, and Hie sun was on the windows of Isaac's own chapel a liille wayahead. Churchgoers and young folks in their Sunday finery were spread about the street. Isaac, of all Fackerly men, ought to have realised Ihe day and Ihe hour. Bui this last straw of humiliation- was too much for him. Stepping back, he struck the Cornishman in the face with such force that he staggered; but he didn't fall, and he was soon wiping his nose and apparently more inclined lo grin than retaliate. A press of people seemed to surround them immediately. And there stood .Isaac, quivering and glaring, while Jhe. Gornishman told the folks to go about-thoir own business. 'Are you drunk, lad?' asked a gentleman in black, pushing through the throng and laying a hand upon Isaac. 'Not much,' cried Isaac, turning upon him. 'Not likely. I'd do it again, t' • The Cornishman broke in wilh a laugh. II believe you would, old chap,' he said. —' You give him his book, sir. He'd chuck it in my face, I reckon.— And you kids, get a move on.' He swept some of (be youngsters away 'with him. and then Isaac found himself taken in hand by the gentleman in black. He could see the Cornishman in front, still attending to his nose. He had caught up Lizzie, whose.

' head was bent as if she were trying to hide her face. It didn't matter what she was doing. Isaac knew that he was completely out of her life now—and deserved to be. 'Some quarrel, I suppose, and you forgot yourself I'm glad you were not in liquor,' said Isaac's companion with the best of intentions. 'l'm a teetotaller, as it happens,' said Isaac, sullenly. 'That's well. That's a lit Hung to be. What was it about, then? Some misunderstanding, no doubt. My dear lad, "Vengeance,'" you know, "is mine, saith the —' " But they were now near the chapel, and Isaac had had enough of such simple talk. He snatched at his hymn Look. 'Thanks. I know all about that,' he said. 'I can find texts for myself when I want them. Much obliged.' He slunk up the steps to the gallery, and to his scat in a corner. And there he first knelt, and then sat until the service began; and rose and sat and knelt afterwards, just like the others; and noticed no one, and didn't care who noticed him, or what anyone thought about him. And the sermon was nothing to him, and he put his twopence in the dish and went home with machine-like regularity and indifference. The one lliing that stuck in his mind was Mitchell and Lizzie being together in public. The words 'Vengeance is mine,' played round that memory' like lightning from a thundercloud. They echoed and echoed in him. But lie begged to differ from the sentiment they proclaimed. The 'vengeance' in his case should not be left to the Lord. He had given the Cornishman something to go on with: but it was nothing to what he would do. They were so used at home to his moroscness that of late neither Ills father nor mother saw anything exceptional in it. He made a fair supper, strolled out afterwards, and then went to bed with a gruff "Good-night' to his mother. His father liked to end his Sundays with more lively associates than he found a! home. And as he lay in bed Isaac raked himself for information how to get lcv»I with the Cornishman. That ordinary stand-up fight suggested by his father weeks ago had no attraction for him. CHAPTER 11. The Perk's Hole, Mine was two miles from Fackerly, and Isaac's mother made a little ceremony about seeing him off to it the next morning. He might have suspected something from her unwonted tenderness before that took place. When he came downstairs witli a 'Good morning' as gruff as ln's previous 'Good-night,' she opened her arms to him. Embraces were not common coin in the house, and Isaac submitted to this one awkwardly. 'l'll put on my bonnet and go down Ihe road with you a step, lad," said his mother. Isaac tossed off his coffee, took up his can and basin, and was ready. It came out when they were in the sunshine. 'lsaac, lad,' she began, 'don't be getting into any more trouble with Blake Mitchell. Don't ye now.' 'Ail!' said lie sharply; 'so it's all over the town, is it?' 'Promise me, lad,' his mother continued. ,'Your father's gone to taik to Mitchell himself.' 'Lot of good that'll do,' sneered Isaac. 'Don't frighten yourself. We shan't any of us die before our time — that's what we're taught, anyhow, by some.' Then he changed his tone. The pleading touch of his mother's hand seemed to work upon him, and he managed to smile. 'lt's all right,' he added. 'lt wasn't the thing to do, was it—hitting him like that, Sunday and all? I got kind of bounced into it. , I'll forget the pair of them. There's j others beside Lizzie Farley in the world, and don't you come any farther.' They stopped. 'That's my true boy!' said Mrs .lesson, though a little doubtfully. 'Seems like it, anyway,' said he, still forcing his smile. 'Wait a week j and you'll se e Mitchell and me as thick as spring onions in a bed. So long, < molhcr.' He swung o n with no smile j', at all and an increased sense of smart. | As thick as onions in a lied! Not much! No| very much! And as for wanting any other girl to take Lizzie's I . place in his heart—not likely. He ] didn't feel as if he had a heart. The ] only thing he wanted was revenge. He reached the pit in this frame Of j mind, making a bee-line of the last ( half-mile, past shining pools in the j hollows, and crushing the large-eyed • daisies in the coarse grass on the shaleheaps. It was never a pretty land- ] scape, but the July brightness did what ! ] iL could for it this day. And the sky ] was as blue as it ever was round ( Fackerly. Mr Griffin, fhe manager, hailed him j | from the - engine-house. 'You'll have j ; to be here to-night, Jesson,' he told j him. j t 'Very well,' said Isaac. 'lt's all one i | lo me.' ! | 'You and Peters, I think.' ! i As it chanced Peters himself then I | came up, heard the same news, and j i joined Isaac in a bud humour about it. I l 'My old woman's in bed, and she'll i ' not 'fancy my being away,' he t grumbled. 'But Griffin's so queer! If i you (ell him a thing like that he'll just ' say something funny, and you're no -t better off.' , ' ' When (hey were in the skip Peters | i grumbled all the way down. 'Anythin' 1 wrong wilh you?' he asked at length. | 'No. What should there be?' said ' Isaac. 'Ah, you're right,' said Peters. ( 'When I was a bachelor I'd no trouble l either, except when I backed a wrong j I un. You're no horse-racer, though, i arc you ?' i 'No,' said Isaac; 'but there's other wrong uns besides horses.' 'Eh! how's that?' Peters wished to know. Explanation was not vouchsafed him. The skinp grounded and Isaac stepped , out. His immediate thought was of j Ihe Cornishman and his desire to get j. Jl him. But Ihe opportunity was with- I held. Things were slack in Ihe mine, I and it didn't surprise Isaac fo hear from | . Davis, a truck hoy, that Mitchell wasn't coming Hint day. Saint Monday j . made strong appeal to men of the j . Gornishman's stamp. One lliing gratified Isaac. No one j seemed to know about last night; j . otherwise it would haw been flunur in j his face forthwith. The little, darkworld of Perk's Hole would have had | . much to say about it, and Isaac could \ imagine its laughter and subsequent | j prophecies about a fight with Cornish- i man Mitchell. I He shouldered his pick and strode I away down the right gallery. Perk's was not an up-to-date mine, wilh cut- I tings roomy enough for a dogcart, and electric lights in all its arteries. The old style of work went on by Davylamps. His colleague was a deaf man named ' Bates, and he was glad of that also. ', They exchanged few words, which left more play for his thoughts. It was pick, pick, until (he afternoon, with that music and the .rumbling of the trolleys as accompaniment to his thoughts.

After his dinner he strolled shaftwards as far as the shed where tools and other articles were stored. No one was in it, and Isaac wanted nothing- out of it. But he swung' his lamp about the little place and discovered that a certain chest in the corner was not locked, as it should have been. The devil was on him in a moment, and he 1 was soon out again with a dynamite cartridge and a detonator in his ; trousers-pocket. Give him his open- • ing witli things like these and the Cornisliruan should soon have no leg to stand upon. With a night of fettling in prospect, ho was free for the rest, of the day. lie might have gone home again until the evening, hut he chose to stay where he was. Peters volunteered to tell his mother about the night duty and bring him his supper. Peters went up, still ' grumbling, and Isaac sulked in his corner with deaf Bates. The gloom suited his thoughts and the tragic trifles in his pocket. These last, moreover, made him careful of his movements. The day dragged on until it was time for Bates to go. 'Got sunimat on your mind, havne't you, mate?' Bates asked on the point of departure. Wot me I' shouted Isaac. 'l'm all right.' 'Well, good-night, then. And you're the quietest chap out of a cemetery, all right or all wrong. Siltin' moodyin' like a hen on her eggs, too!' Bates went off chuckling, and Isaac continued to sit. Soon the sounds of the mine gave place to its silences. By twos and threes the others all left it. The ponies in their stables, and only these, broke the deathly stillness with their intermittent shufflings. Isaac bestirred himself. The loneliness got on his nerves—that and his thoughts. Peters was a long while in returning. Memories of Lizzie, terribly fond memories, came upon him, and he tramped up and down trying to strangle them. That tired him. and presently he entered the shed and was asleep in a minute or two. Ho didn't hear the skip bring him his companion for the night. He heard nothing, indeed, until a hand touched his shoulder, and he opened his eyes upon the Cornishman. Mitchell's white teeth wci'c tlic first details of him that his eyes rested on. He had splendid teeth, which showed well in a smile. 'Had enough now." asked the Cornisman good-humoredly as Isaac sprang up. 'I wouldn't wake you before. Never saw a chap look so done in his sicep. It's shaping for one.' Isaac stammered and stared. The words. 'What brings you'—came from' him thickly. 'Peter's wife's siek,' exclaimed the Griffin. A hit of a joke, 1 call it—you and me down here alone like this. I reckoned you'd start; but see he.re, .lesson, don't you go getting off your tracks. I hear you no malice for yesterday. I'd have done it myself in your place. Let's get this night through and we'll slart belter. Wet our whistles together up above, and —What did you say?' 'I say I'll be struck dead first!' Isaac, hissed. The Gornishman shrugged his shoulders and laughed. 'Think it's so had as (hat, do you?' he said lightly. 'Well, then, you shall. It'll square us a hit for what you done to my nose. Like to kill me, wouldn't you? Don't be a fool, Jesson. I'm going into No. ;i. There's some faulty propping there, I'm told. Go on dreaming. I'll say nothing. And your supper's on Hie table.' Taking his lamp again, the Cornishman whistled himself off. His whistling grew fainter and fainter, and then all was silent as before. Many minutes passed, and still Isaac didn't touch his supper. He stared at the familiar knotting of the white cloth. There was a slip of paper tucked into the knot, and though he guessed it was a line from his mother he didn't stir for it. His fingers felt the explosives in his pocket. These and his immense hatred of the Cornishman absorbed him. If he could catch Mitchell sleeping, as Mitchell had caught him, he might easily blow him to atoms. As for the collateral risks, what cared he? At length he got up and slipped into the corridor. He trembled from head to foot under the strain of his pas- '. sions staggered indeed, as If he were really drunk this lime. ; And then, all at once, something happened. i There was a thud, followed by a ! shout from the Cornishman, and a i dribble of lesser noises. The whole ' mine seemed to vibrate. , '.lesson i Jesson! Come quick!' i This cry shattered the recurring < silences, and darling for his lamp, I Isaac ran for the No. 3 gallery on the ' left ' , )

All was black here, but the Cornishman continued to call. Forgetting everything except that a male was in peril, Isaac, shouted forward lo him, 'Coming! Coming!' He found Mitchell more than halfburied. The roof above that faultyprop had collapsed, and by wonderful luck the Cornishman had fallen ho/id outwards. The weight on his loins and legs was crushing, but he fried to laugh as he grabbed with his hands and said that he was a deader. 'Not you i' retorted Isaac, after a rapid survey of the situation. Off came his coat . and he *et to work. He foiled as never before. lie dislodged blocks of real which at another time he couldn't have stirred. The Cornishman did all the talking, and that but feebly. Now and then he groaned. Tin going, lad!' he whispered'towards the end of Isaac's exertions; and then indeed Isaac had something to say. 'You're coming out—that's what you're doing!' lie cried. A. little later he got the Cornishman under the arms and slowlv dragged him free. 'There you are!' he gasped as be dropped by the side of his enemv 'Didn't I say so?' The Cornishman, however was now quite silent, There was life in him but it. was at a low ebb; and all efforts to bring his senses back were useless. (To be continued next Wednesday).