Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

David saw the forces marshalled against him, and he fought back with a desperate courage. But how pitiful his weapons were against Joe’s armoury! Everywhere he turned he felt an insidious grip upon him, limiting his activities, crushing him. Unsparingly, he redoubled his efforts, using all his physical resources, all the training and experience of his political career. The more he battled, the more Joe countered. The heckling, which from the outset had interrupted David’s meetings, now became unmerciful. Ordinary interruptions he could deal with and often turn to his own advantage. But this heckling was not legitimate. It came from a gang of Tynecastle rowdies who turned up at every meeting organised under Pete Bannon, ex-middle weight and bartender from the Malmo Wharf, ready and willing for trouble. Free fights regularly took place; it became the rule for all David’s outdoor meetings to be broken up in wild disorder. Wilson, the agent, protested furiously to the police and demanded adequate protection. His protest was apathetically received.

“It’s none of our business,” Roddam told him impudently. “This Bannon has nothing to do with us. You can find your own b — stewards.”

The clean campaign continued, developing along subtler lines. On the morning of the following Tuesday, on the way to his committee rooms, David was met by a notice, roughly splashed in white paint on the wall at the end of Lamb Lane: Ask Fenwick about his wife . His face paled, he took a step forward as if to wipe out the indignity. Useless, quite useless. The notice shrieked all over the town, every prominent wall and house-end, even the railway sidings, bore the brutal and unanswerable words. In a mist of pain and horror, David went along Lamb Street and entered his rooms. Wilson and Harry Ogle were waiting on him. Both had seen the notice. Ogle’s face worked with indignation.

“It’s too bad, David,” he groaned. “It’s too damnable. We’ve got to go to him… lodge a protest.”

“He’ll only deny it,” David answered in a steely voice. “Nothing would please him better than for us to go whining to him.”

“Then by God we’ll get our own back somehow,” Harry answered passionately. “I’ll have something to say about him when I speak for you at the Snook to-night.”

“No, Harry.” David shook his head with sudden determination. “I’ll have no retaliation.”

Lately in the face of this organised persecution he had felt neither anger nor hatred, but an extraordinary intensification of his inward life. He saw this inward life as the real explanation of man’s existence, independent of the forms of religion, inseparably detached from the material plane. Purity of motive was the only standard, the real expression of the soul. Nothing else mattered. And the fullness of this spiritual interpretation of his own purpose left no room for malice or hatred.

But Harry Ogle felt otherwise. Harry was on fire with indignation, his simple soul demanded fair play, or at least the plain justice of measure for measure. At the Snook that night, where, at eight o’clock, he was holding a supporters’ open-air meeting on his own, Harry was carried away and so far forgot himself as to criticise Joe’s tactics. David had been up at Hedley Road End, the new miners’ rows, and he did not reach home until late. It was a darkish, windy night. Several times a sound outside caused him to look up in anticipation, for he expected Harry to look in to let him know how the Snook meeting had gone. At ten o’clock he rose to lock the front door. It was then Harry stumbled in upon him, his face white and bloodied, half-fainting, bleeding profusely from a gash above his eye.

Lying flat on the couch with a cold compress laid on the gaping wound, while David sent Jack Kinch tearing for Dr. Scott, Harry gasped shakily:

“Coming back over the Snook they set about us, Davey — Bannon and his hooligans. I’d happened to say about Gowlan sweatin’ his employees like, an’ about him makin’ fightin’ aeroplanes an’ munitions. I’d have held my own, lad, but one o’ them had a bit o’ lead pipe…” Harry smiled weakly and fainted altogether.

Harry took ten stitches in his forehead, then Harry was carried to his bed. Naturally, Joe flamed with righteous wrath. Could such a thing happen on British soil! From the platform of the Town Hall he denounced the Red Fiends, the Bolshies, who could turn, even, and assault their own leaders. He sent Harry Ogle messages of sympathy. Great prominence was given to Joe’s solicitude; his most magnanimous trumpetings were printed verbatim in the newspapers. Altogether, the incident redounded highly to his credit.

But the loss of Harry’s personal support was a serious blow for David. Harry, a respected figure, carried weight in Sleescale with the cautious element, and now the older men, mystified and slightly intimidated, began to think better of attending David’s meetings. At that moment, too, the wave of hysteria sweeping the country against Labour reached its climax. Terror was driven into the hearts of the people by wild predictions of financial ruin. Frenzied pictures were drawn of the worker, paid in handfuls of worthless paper, desperately seeking to purchase food. And far from attributing the impending cataclysm to the end results of the existing economic system, everything was laid upon the shoulders of Labour. Don’t let them take your money, was the cry. The issue was Money. We must keep our Money, at all costs keep it, preserve it, this sacred thing. Money… Money!

With almost superhuman endurance, David threw himself into a final effort. On October 26th he toured the town in the old light lorry which had borne him to his original success. He was in the open all day, snatching a mouthful of food between times. He spoke till his voice was almost gone. At eleven o’clock, after a last naphtha-flare meeting outside the Institute, he returned to Lamb Lane, and flung himself upon his bed, exhausted. He fell asleep instantly. The next day was polling day.

Early reports indicated a heavy poll. David remained indoors all the forenoon. He had done his best, given of his utmost; for the present he could give no more. Consciously, he did not anticipate the result, nor preconsider the verdict to be delivered upon him by his own people. Yet beneath the surface, his mind struggled between hope and fear. Sleescale had always been a safe seat for Labour, a stronghold of the miners. The men knew he had worked and fought for them. If he had failed it was not his fault. Surely they would give him the chance to work and fight for them again. He did not underrate Gowlan, nor the strategic advantage of Gowlan’s position as owner of the Neptune. He was aware that Joe’s unscrupulous methods had undoubtedly split the solidarity of the men; cast doubts and suspicion on his own reputation. Remembering that hateful reference to Jenny, which had damaged him more than all Joe’s misrepresentation, David’s heart contracted. He had a quick vision of Jenny lying in the grave. And at that a surge of pity and aspiration came over him, the old familiar feeling, intensified and strengthened. He wanted with all his soul to win, to prove the good in humanity rather than the bad. They had accused him of preaching Revolution. But the only Revolution he demanded was in the heart of man, an escape from meanness, cruelty and self-interest towards that devotion and nobility of which the human heart was capable. Without that, all other change was futile.

Towards six o’clock David went out to visit Harry Ogle and while he walked slowly up Cowpen Street he observed a figure advancing along Freehold Street. It was Arthur Barras. As they approached each other David kept his eyes straight ahead, thinking that Arthur might not wish to recognise him. But Arthur stopped.