TWENTY POUNDS

THE shrill voice of Mrs. Tunkiss was heard, as she ran screaming up the stairs, calling for 'the master.' Then she burst into his room, followed by the maid-of-all-work, who was in convulsive jerks.

'Oh, master! there is a riot. Some of our men have joined, and there is a stack on fire at Gaultrip's. The mob is coming here, and threatens to burn us.'

'Who are coming?' asked Drownlands, looking up. He staggered to his feet, but was as one dazed. He did not observe the glare in the room. He did not hear distinctly the words spoken.

'Look, master! look at the blaze. It is at Gaultrip's. You can hear them coming on. They are swearing horrible, and say they will have our lives.'

'What is this all about?'

'I don't know for certain. Tom Easy has run here afore to tell us what he has gathered. But lawk! poor lad, he's frightened; and me—my poor head won't hold it. He says the mob be armed with bombs and cannons, and all sorts of engines of war, and they'll blow us up into the skies.'

Drownlands passed his hand over his eyes, then went to the window and looked out.

He saw in the distance the red blaze of a burning rick, the flames dancing and leaping in the air, and carrying with them wisps of ignited straw, which were borne on the wind as firebrands, to carry destruction elsewhere. He could see the mob advancing as a ripple of fire running along the drove before a dark wave. The rioters had, in fact, twisted up bands of straw, had lighted them, and were waving them as torches as they advanced, and the flames were reflected in the dykes on each side of the road. Drownlands was surprised. He threw up the sash, and the roar of voices was carried into the room.

'What is the meaning of this?' asked he. 'Who are these that are coming this way?'

'It is the rioters,' answered Mrs. Tunkiss.

'Rioters? What rioters?'

'Lawk! how can I tell? Tom Easy said they want advance of wages, and cheap flour. And he said, they ask for money to help on the cause.'

'Cause? What cause?'

'Lawk, sir! how can I say? Tom Easy said it was the Union of Fen Labourers, and they will have blood or money. They will make you swear to pay them two shillings a-day more wage, and pull the price of flour down to half a crown.'

'They demand money of me, do they? Let them venture to require it of me.'

'Here they are!' screamed Mrs. Tunkiss, as a blow was levelled at the door, and the strokes resounded through the house.

'Who was that?' shouted Drownlands from the window, with a curse. He was not a man to spare oaths when he was angry. 'Who struck my door? I will have the law of him.'

The mob was pouring into the yard.

'Make a blaze, and let us see the old tiger!' shouted one of the rioters, and bunches of straw and corn were snatched from a rick, a blaze was made, and fire tossed about, illumining the face of the house and the figures of the men in the waggon.

'By heaven, I know you!' shouted Drownlands from the window. 'That is Aaron Chevell in the waggon, and by him Isaac Harley and Harry Tansley with guns. I'll not forget you. I have a memory. I have five ash trees on the drove side, and I shall have a rioter slung to every branch of every tree, and shall begin with my own workmen.'

'Hold a civil tongue in your head!' shouted Chevell from the waggon. 'Don't threaten what you can't perform. We have guns here, as you see, and can silence you; and we shan't think twice about doing so, if you do not come to our terms.'

'Master Drownlands!' called Ephraim Beamish, working his way forward in the waggon with his long arms, and leaning his elbows on the front board when he had thrust himself into the middle position, 'you will gain nothing by abuse and threats. We have a good cause, and are a thousand strong to support it. You have had everything in the Fens your own way too long, and have trampled the working men under foot. You have coined their sweat into silver'—

Some one shouted as a correction, 'Into gold.'

'Yes,' said Beamish; 'you have coined the sweat of your men into heavy gold, and have left the men to hunger, and toil, and nakedness; to cramp, and ague, and fever. They have their rights as well as you. They have borne their wrongs long enough. Now they have risen to demand what in equity is theirs—some share of the profits, some just proportion out of your gains, so that they may live in comfort, and not barely live.'

'Shut your mouth!' roared one of the crowd; 'we want no preaching now. We knows our rights, and we'll maintain them with our fists, and not with your tongue. Pip thinks he'll convert Tiger Ki, he does! Words won't do that. Send a shot at him, Tansley. That's the only argument for him.'

Tansley, the man addressed, thrust Beamish back with the butt-end of his fowling-piece, and laid his barrel on the front board.

'Listen, Master Drownlands,' shouted Beamish, again making an effort to shoulder his way to the front of the waggon. 'What we ask of you is twenty pounds for the cause of the United Fen Labourers. Give us twenty pounds, and swear to the conditions—a fair wage and cheap corn. Then we will do you no harm whatever. We will take your money, and move along our way. We are bound for Ely.'

'I pay you twenty pounds?' yelled Drownlands. 'I have a gun as well as you have, and will contribute lead to the cause—lead only.'

He ran to the corner of the room and took down his gun from the rack.

'I'll shoot,' threatened Tansley.

'Ay—and so will I,' said Drownlands, 'and let us see who can take the best aim. I think my eye is pretty well known to be sharp and my hand steady. By the Lord, I'll not spare you!' He paused and put on a hat. 'I can see finely with all those wisps of fire. Hold up your torches, boys, higher, that I may send my bullet into Tansley's heart. He will leap, and then down he goes.'

Fallen pieces of ignited straw had kindled the half-kneaded straw on the ground, and there ran flames and half-flames to and fro on the soil. The cart-horses in the waggon started and shifted position to escape these flashes and flickers.

'Drownlands!' shouted a young voice, and Mark Runham thrust his way through the crowd. 'I pray you be reasonable. You will provoke bloodshed.'

'What, you there? You a ringleader in riots?' exclaimed Drownlands, lowering his fowling-piece.

'I am not that. Let me come within.'

Then Mark stood on the waggon-shafts and called to the crowd—

'Refrain from violence! Leave me to manage Master Drownlands. I will engage him to let you have the money you require.'

Then he jumped down from the shafts and ran up the steps.

The door had been bolted and chained by the housekeeper, but Zita, hearing what Mark said, without waiting for orders, descended to the ground floor, and unbarred the door, and admitted him. He ran upstairs, for no time was to be lost. The mob was restless and irritated. It was impatient to be on its way to Ely, and yet was reluctant to leave Prickwillow without having drawn money from it, or done some mischief.

Drownlands was too angry to listen to advice. He would not hear of coming to terms with the rabble. He had been too long accustomed to domineer over the labourers to fear them now. He in no way realised how much courage is given by association in numbers.

'What are you here for? How dare you enter uninvited?' he exclaimed, as Mark came into the office, followed by Zita.

'I admitted him,' said the girl. 'He has come in your interest.'

'He is one of the rioters! He is a leader! A Runham of Crumbland, with a tail of dirty scoundrels after him, burning, pillaging, and getting drunk.'

'I beseech you,' said Mark—'I entreat you to listen to reason. The men are, as you say, drunk—drunk with folly. I am no leader.'

'You are acting for them.'

'I am an intermediary. They have spared me. They came to Crumbland, but we humoured them, brought out cake and ale, and they went their way without molestation. Gaultrip resisted, and they set fire to a stack, and so frightened him that he yielded, and paid fifteen pounds. Now he is engaged in saving his other stacks. Do not provoke these fellows further.'

'I will not listen to you. You ought to be ashamed to take the part of these scurvy ragamuffins.'

'I am not taking their part, but yours. Hark!'

There was a cry from the yard of, 'Drownlands! Tiger Ki! We will break in the house door unless you give us money.'

Then a brick was thrown. It crashed through the double panes of the window with raised sash, and fell in the room, accompanied by a shower of glass splinters.

'I will shoot one of them!' exclaimed the yeoman, and he ran with his gun to the window.

Mark had just time to strike up the barrel, and the contents were discharged in the air, hurting nobody.

Drownlands turned on him with an oath.

'I will punish you,' he said, stamping with fury, and he rushed upon Mark with his gun raised over his head, grasping it by the barrel.

Then Zita sprang between them, holding the flail in both her hands, as a ward against the stock.

'Stand back, Mark!' she cried. 'He dare not touch you across this flail.'

It was as she said.

The man stood as one paralysed, the uplifted gun in his hands, his eyes glaring at young Runham, and the red reflections of the fire flashing on his face and turning it to blood. But the blow did not fall. His muscles remained immovable, the gun suspended in the air, till Zita lowered the flail, and put it behind her back. Then the spell was off him. He let the gun fall on the ground, and his head sank on his bosom.

The discharge of the fowling-piece had produced a hush in the voices outside.

None knew whether, in the darkness, some one had been hit. But when, after a pause, it was found that no harm had been done, then there broke forth loud cries and execrations; the courage of the rabble rose with a sense of its immunity, and a rain of brickbats beat against the windows of the house, shivering the panes. The kitchen-maid fell on the floor in a fit. Mrs. Tunkiss went into a series of shrieks. Renewed blows were raised against the house door, and they were accompanied with cries of, 'Smash it in! Tear the tiger's house down! He has hundreds of pounds put away somewhere. If he will not pay twenty sovereigns when we ask civil, we will take two hundred.'

Then one shrill voice cried, 'Make a bonfire of the wheat ricks.'

'Ki Drownlands! will you do nothing?' asked Mark; 'will you not give up a few pounds to save those long ranges of stacks?'

'Let them do their worst,' answered the master of Prickwillow doggedly. 'By the light of the fire I will note every face, and mark them all down, man by man, and then woe betide them.'

Then a burst of cheers, and cries of, 'That will do famously. We will have that out. Get horses, harness, and we will drive to Ely.'

Zita ran to the window, and returned hastily with a blank face.

'They have found my van! They have got inside. They are clambering on the roof. They are treating it worse than poultry! Oh, Mark! Mark!'

Then through the window she pleaded, 'Spare my van. Here are ten gold sovereigns.' Then to Mark, 'Take my money, go to the men, and get them to leave my darling, precious van alone.'

'Stay,' said Drownlands. 'I have changed my mind.' He went to the door and summoned the domestics who had fled when the brickbat crashed into the room. 'Come here, Leehanna. Sarah, get out of your fits and come at once. Come here, Tom Easy.'

The frightened servants obeyed.

'Bring a candle,' he said.

The scared housekeeper did as required.

When Drownlands had received the light, he went into the passage, and, holding it before the face of Mark, said to the domestics, 'Do you know who this is? Is not this Mark Runham? Can you swear to it?' He paused for an answer to each question.

'He has come here, pushed his way into my house, against my wishes, to force me to contribute twenty pounds towards the cause of the rioters. He threatens me with the burning of my ricks if I do not comply. Is it not so?'

'I have come,' said Mark, 'because I am desirous to save you, as well as others in your house, from injury; and also to intervene and protect these misguided men against committing a crime.'

'They touched nothing at Crumbland.'

'No; we gave them food and drink.'

'Yes, you are hand and glove with them. And now you are acting as their spokesman and their leader. Take my money—twenty pounds, and take Zita's ten pounds—thirty pounds in all, the plunder of this house. Mind you, I give it on compulsion. I do not find meat and liquor for the rioters; I do this to save my ricks of corn. And I give it to you, Mark Runham, acting for the rioters.'

Drownlands turned to those present.

'I call upon you all to witness, you, Leehanna Tunkiss, you, Sarah, you, Tom Easy, and you, Zita, that I pay over my twenty pounds against my will. Open your hand, Mark Runham. Let them see that you have there my twenty pounds and Zita's ten pounds. There are the sovereigns all in gold. They are well spent—well spent—they rid me of you.'

A few moments later a shout rang from the crowd without—'Tiger Ki has shelled out. For the Union, for the Cause! for the fen-labourers! Twenty pounds! Twenty pounds for liberty and right! The cheap loaf and the big wage! Hurrah! hurrah, boys! Forward to Ely! On to the banks. On to the mills!'

Drownlands looked after the retreating mob from his window, and said, with a sneer, 'Go on—to the gallows, Mark Runham; I am clear of you now. Cheap at twenty pounds.'