CHAPTER V.

DUCKED.

SARAH could not shake off the thought of something happening to John. All the next day, and the next, she lived in fear, often hard to control. Those evenings he came home safely untouched. He did not tell Sarah how the men on strike glowered at him; how he was pursued on his way by the contemptuous groan of "Blackleg!!"

Many a man would sooner face a knock-down blow than that sound of scorn; but John was not made of yielding stuff. He did not tell Sarah all this, for there was no need to add to her anxiety.

On the third day it became known that the works must close; so John Holdfast, and those others who had refused to join the strike, would be reduced to idleness. Some said this might not be for long, as there was talk of workmen coming from a distance. Mrs. Holdfast hoped that the closing of the works would appease the strikers' anger against her husband; but she did not happen to hear the report about men arriving from elsewhere, or she would hardly have been so hopeful.

Her dread had lessened on the third day; and that very evening John was long coming home. He was far later than usual. Mrs. Holdfast waited and waited, uneasiness deepening into terror. She put on her bonnet and shawl at length, and went out into the dusk to look for John; but she could see nothing of him, and it was impossible to leave the children for more than a few minutes.

She went in next door, and found Martha alone.

Stevens had gone somewhere, Martha said—to a meeting, she thought. "They're always at it with their speechifying," she said. "Maybe your husband's with them."

"He'd have told me if he meant to go," Mrs. Hold fast answered.

"Roger don't trouble to tell me," said Martha.

No comfort was to be had there, and Mrs. Holdfast hastened home; the dread of foul play growing upon her with sickening force.

Another hour she waited. It had grown quite dark. John never stayed away like this without previous warning.

Mrs. Holdfast went again next door, in her misery, and found Stevens just come in. He knew nothing, he said—had seen nothing, heard nothing. He had not set eyes on Holdfast that day.

At first he seemed very much disinclined to take any steps. "Holdfast's got himself into bad odour," he said; "staying in when the rest went out. He'd better have taken good advice."

Mrs. Holdfast would not then argue against the view that to go with the multitude must be the wiser course. She used all her energies to get him to act, and presently her entreaties overcame his reluctance. He left the house to make inquiries, and Sarah went back to her home.

Another long period of wearying suspense, and at length somebody was coming. Sarah knew what it meant, directly her ears caught the sound of shuffling footsteps. She went to the open door, and heard Stevens' voice—

"Come along! Here you are! Just home."

"John!" cried Sarah.

"I've found him. He's had a fall or something," said Stevens. "Been and tumbled into a pond."

Did Stevens really think so? There was a shamefaced sound in his voice.

Sarah was by her husband's side, helping to bear him up, to pull him along. John said nothing. It was as much as he could do to move at all, with the assistance of them both.

[Illustration: "Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in; but it wasn't a tumble."]

Once in the kitchen, they could see the state he was in—dripping wet, half-covered with green slime from the pond, his face ghastly pale, his right arm hanging helplessly, blood flowing still from a cut in his forehead. Stevens got him into a chair, and shut the door, John sat drooping forward, like one stupefied.

"Must have knocked his head against a sharp stone," said Stevens.

Sarah was bending over her husband, examining the cut. She straightened herself, and looked full at Stevens.

"Don't tell me that!" she said in a hard voice. "You know better! It's their doing—cowardly brutes, that dare to call themselves men!"

Then her manner softened, "But I do thank you," she said.

"Shouldn't wonder if you'd like me to help to get him up-stairs," said Stevens. "He don't seem able to stand alone. I say, Mrs. Holdfast—if I was you, I wouldn't go about saying it was the men."

"No, I won't; for they're not men!" she answered, with bitter scorn. "I'll say it's been done by brutes. You wouldn't have me say what I don't believe, would you? Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in; but it wasn't a tumble."

"Well, I'll maintain it was a tumble; and I'll thank you to keep my name out of it too," said Stevens.

"I wouldn't get you into the same trouble, not on any account," Mrs. Holdfast answered gratefully.

Getting John up-stairs was no easy task. He was too dizzy and dazed to stand without support, and he seemed not to understand what was said. The right arm would hardly endure a touch, but it appeared to be only bruised and strained, not broken. Stevens was very much averse to a doctor being called, and Sarah hoped it might not be needful. She bathed and bound up the injured arm and the cut forehead, and John showed signs of amendment. When he was in bed, and Sarah began feeding him with spoonfuls of tea, Stevens being gone, he looked almost comfortable.

"Things might be worse," he murmured, with an attempt at a smile.

"Yes; they might have managed to kill you outright," Sarah said sternly. The sternness was for others. She was very tender towards John. "Do you think you can tell me how it happened?" she asked.

John had little to tell. He had had occasion to go round by a certain lonely lane, to leave a message for somebody; and he supposed his going to have been known. Two or three men, perhaps more, had set upon him suddenly, in the dusk and loneliness, had ducked him in the pond, and otherwise maltreated him. He believed that they had left him on the road beside the pond, more or less unconscious. Stevens had found him there, when he was beginning to regain his sense, and had given him a helping arm home.

"And that's about all," John said.

"You didn't see the faces of the men?"

"No, not a glimpse. They were too sharp, and the cut blinded me."

"And they call themselves men!" she said again. "Men! Brutes, I say! John, I'll never forgive them!"

"That's no resolve for a Christian woman to make," John answered. "Why, Sarah, woman, how will you ever pray your prayers in church next Sunday, not to speak of to-night and to-morrow morning, without you forgive?"

"The brutes! That they should treat you so!" she said. "But I'm not going to let you go on talking now; you've got to try and sleep."

"Don't feel much like sleep," said John. "One word more. Sarah, I don't mean to hide the truth of what I know. It wouldn't be right, for others' sake. But I do want you not to go about saying a lot of hard words. It's no good, and there's bitterness enough. We've got to be kind and to forgive."

Sarah could only say tearfully—

"I'll try."

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