ON ANOTHER FOOTING

A SOUGH of wind passed over the Fens like a long-drawn sigh. Every one who heard it listened in silence. It was repeated, and then the general comment was, 'The skating is over.'

Nor was the comment falsified by the event. The wind had veered round suddenly, without warning, to the south-west. It blew all night and sent a warm rain against the windows that faced that quarter. It covered wood and walls with dew. The ice broke up in the river, it dissolved in the dykes. The sails of the mills were again in revolution, they whirled merrily, merrily.

Zita had come upon the embankment to see the broken ice drift down the sluggish river, swept along by the wind rather than the current. There she encountered Mark Runham.

'What, you here, Cheap Jackie? No, hang it! I won't call you that. It seems impudent; but I do not mean that, you may be sure.'

'I know that, and am not offended.'

'Your name—it continually slips my memory.'

'Zita.'

'A queer sort of a name that.'

'It is not often you meet a Cheap Jack girl. They do not come thick as windmills in the flats. So it suits me to bear a queer name.'

'A queer name becomes a queer girl.'

'Thanks. I have something for you—half a pound of bird's eye.'

'What for?'

'In payment for my run on the ice.'

'I do not want payment.'

'It gave you trouble, made you hot, but it was a very great pleasure to me.'

'I won't take it.' The young fellow laughed with his merry eyes as well as with his fresh lips. 'Can you understand this, that it gave me five times as much pleasure as it did you to spin you along and see the red roses bloom in your cheeks and those dark eyes of yours twinkle as though there were Jack o' Lanterns dancing in them? Zita, it is not every day that a lad gets the chance of running a pretty girl along the ice. It is I am in debt to you. We'll square the account, anyhow.' He caught her head between his hands and gave her a kiss on her red lips. 'There is the account scored out, and a new account begun.'

'That is not fair!' exclaimed Zita, shrinking back.

'What! not settled? Again, then.' He kissed her once more. 'And so—till all is right, and the balance squared.'

Then he laughed, and, releasing her head, said—

'You know we raced,—that old Drownlands and I,—and you were to be the prize. I won you.' Then, seeing that she looked disturbed, he went off to, 'Now, Cheap Jackie, tell me, was not that a droll sort of a life, going over the world in that comical van?'

'It was a very happy life, and the van was not comical at all. It is splendid.'

'I have not seen it.'

'Then why did you call it unsuitable names?'

'A jolly life, was it?'

'Indeed it was. I was very happy in it—specially when we had piled up the profits.'

'You made a pile when you sold my father a flail for a guinea.'

'We did; but if it is any satisfaction to you to know it, it was the thoughts of that made him pass away so happy.'

'A guinea was nought to my father; he was rich. Now I am rich.' Then, with a trip of his foot on the bank as though he were dancing, 'Zita, what a joke it would be for us to go round in the summer with the old van and the stock-in-trade. What have you done with the goods?'

'They are safe.'

'And we will visit Swaffham, and Littleport, and Ely together, and sell away like blazes. I'll attend to the horse, and you shall do all the talking the folk want. What fun it will be!'

'No,' said Zita, colouring; 'that will not be right.'

'Why not?'

'No. It was all very well with my father. But I will not go again.'

'You must—you shall—with me!'

'I will not—indeed I will not.' She turned away.

'Well, anyhow you will show me the van?'

'Yes. When you like.'

'I can't well go into Prickwillow as matters are between us and Drownlands—not that I bear him ill-will, but he is sour as a crab towards me. We will manage it somehow at some time. But I can't help thinking what fun it would be for us two to travel the world all over together, selling pots and pans. I wish I had been born a Cheap Jack. Where are you off to now, Zita?'

'I am going to see Kainie at Red Wings.'

'I will go with you. I also want to see her. I am very fond of Kainie, I am.' Said with a mischievous laugh.

'I daresay you are, but I am going alone.'

'Nonsense! I shall go with you. I must see Kainie. I have an errand to her.'

'Who sent you?'

Mark hesitated, then said, 'Well, no one. But it is business. I must go.'

'Then go. I will remain here.'

Zita observed a lighter moored to the bank in the river. She stepped towards it. 'I will go into the barge. Will you come with me and punt me about?'

'I cannot. I must go to Kainie.'

'You wanted to come with me in the van, asked me to go with you. Now I ask you to come with me in the boat, and you will not.'

'I pay you off,' said Mark good-naturedly. 'You would not travel with me in the van, so I will not travel with you in the barge. But, seriously, I cannot. I must go on to Kainie. Come along with me,' urged Mark. 'Kainie will be pleased to see you.'

'Oh! you can answer for her?'

'In some things; certainly in this.'

'I will not go.'

Zita pouted and turned her back on Mark. The young man did not press her to change her intention. The decision in her face, the look in her eyes, convinced him that his labour would be in vain were he to attempt it. He started in the direction of Red Wings without her, and whistled as he walked. Zita's brow was moody. She was a girl of impulse and of no self-restraint, changeful in temper and vehement in passion.

There was no reason why she should resent Mark's going to Red Wings, and yet she did resent it. If he had to go, and she refused to accompany him, he must go without her. That was obvious, and yet she was very wroth. In her mind she contrasted Drownlands with Mark. She had but to express a wish to the former, and it was complied with. Had she said to him that she desired him to row her on the canal, he would have placed himself at her service with eager delight. But this scatterbrained Mark had no notion of submission to her wishes. He had desired her society on the bank; when she refused it, he did without it, and did without it with a light heart—he went away whistling.

Zita stepped into the barge and seated herself on the side. She put her chin in her hand and looked sullenly into the water full of broken, half-dissolved pieces of ice.

She was hot, her angry blood was racing through her veins. She was, in her way, as impetuous as Drownlands. She had been suffered in her girlhood by her father to follow her own bent, to do just what she liked. But, indeed, there had been no occasion for him to cross her, their interests were identical. Good-natured though Zita was, she was masterful. She had sense, but sense is sometimes obscured by passion.

She sat biting her nails. A fire was in her cheeks, and now and then the tears forced themselves into her burning eyes.

What could Mark have to call him to Red Wings?

What possible business could he have with Kainie?

Red Wings was not on his land; the mill did not drain his dykes.

Zita marvelled how long Mark would remain with Kerenhappuch. Would he sit down with her in her cabin? Would their conversation turn on herself—Zita? Would Mark say that she was sulky? What would Kerenhappuch reply? Would she not say, 'What else can you expect from a girl who is a vagabond? We who lead settled lives in mills and farmhouses know how to behave ourselves. What can you get out of a chimney but soot? What does a marsh breed but gadflies?'

It is really wonderful what a cloud of torments an ingenious mind can rouse if it resolves to give run to fancy. Perhaps a woman is more prone to this than a man. She conceives conversations relative to herself; she puts into the mouths of the speakers the most offensive expressions relative to herself. She wreathes their faces with contemptuous smiles, gives to their voices insulting intonations, and finally assumes that all the brood of her festering brain is real fact, and not mirage.

It was so now with Zita.

She was startled from her reverie of self-torment by a shock in the boat. She looked up, startled, and saw before her a man with long arms and large hands, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He was handsome, but his face bore an expression of sour discontent. The thin lips were indicative of a sharp and querulous temper, and the checks seemed as though they could not dimple into laughter.

'What are you doing in the lighter?' asked the man, whom Zita recognised as Ephraim Beamish, the orator.

'I suppose I have as much right to be in the boat as you,' answered the girl peevishly.

'No doubt. We neither have any right anywhere. We are both poor. I know who you are—the Cheap Jack girl. I hear you have been taken into Prickwillow. Wish you happiness. It is not the place I should care to be in. Drownlands is not the man to clothe the poor, house the wanderer, feed the hungry, without expecting his reward—and that here. He does nothing of good to any one but to serve his own ends. He has just had me turned out.'

'Turned out of what?'

'Turned out of my mill, out of my employ, out of my livelihood. I have now to run about the fens, in ice and snow. I have no home. I am a gentleman, however, for I have no work. The rats may shelter in the barn, the mice may nest in the stack, but I must be without a roof to cover my head, without work to engage my hands, and without bread to put into my mouth. And all for why? Because I have been bold to speak the truth. Truth is like light. Men hate it and turn their eyes from it. Them as speaks the truth gets persecuted, and I am one of these.'

'You can obtain work elsewhere,' said Zita, displeased at having her imaginary troubles broken in on by some one with a real grievance.

'No, I cannot,' answered Beamish; 'the owners of property hang together like bees when they swarm. If you disturb one, the whole hive sets on you and stings you to death.'

'Well,' said Zita irritably, 'you need not tell me all this. I cannot assist you.'

'I do not suppose you can. But—has Property got into your blood, that you speak so sharp to me? Maybe, like a bat, you're hanging on to it by a claw. Like a gnat, you have your lips to it, and are sucking your fill. I do not ask your help. I fend for myself. But I like to talk. Nothing will be done to correct evils if the evils be not talked about. You must go round Jericho and blow the trumpets seven times, and seven times again, before the walls will fall, and we can march up and take the city. Let Property look out. The working people will not stand to be robbed and maltreated any longer.'

Beamish unloosed the rope that attached the boat to the shore, and, taking a pole, thrust out and began slowly to force the vessel up stream, talking as he punted.

'You may tell Drownlands my curse rests on him; and that will rot his timber and rust his corn.'

'I will bear him no such message,' said Zita. 'But where are you taking me?'

'Up the river. I shall leave you presently; but I will return and punt you back again.'

'Where are you going?'

'To Red Wings.'

'What do you want there?'

'I have an errand,' answered Beamish.

'There is one gone there before you, with an errand from himself—and that is Mark Runham.'

'He there!' exclaimed Pip Beamish, leaning on the punting-pole and looking down into the water. 'Property meets one everywhere. Property blights everything. I am a poor chap. I am cast out of employ; but I did think I had my ewe lamb. And now Property comes between me and her. Property says to me, "Go—what I cannot consume I will destroy, lest you have it." Do you think, you Cheap Jack girl, that Mark Runham will marry Kainie? He is a man of property, and property hungers for property. She is like me. She has nothing. She is a miller grinding nought save water.'

He thrust the boat towards the shore.

'I'll not go to see her,' said Beamish. 'I could not bear it. I'm off to the Duck at Isleham. I shall meet there some fellows who love the working people, and who will combine to teach these men who hold the Fens in their fists to deal with their labourers justly and mercifully.'

He leaped ashore, mounted the bank, and, standing there, extended his long arms and expanded his great hands, and cried, 'I see the day coming! I see the light about to break! The trumpet will sound, and the dead and crushed working men will rise and stand on their feet. That will be a day of vengeance!—a day of fire and consuming heat! Then will the fen-farmers call to the earth to swallow them, and to the isles to cover them, against the anger of the dead men risen up in judgment against them.'

'There comes Mark,' said Zita. 'I suppose I must get him to punt me home. But I shall not speak to him all the way.'