Erb/Chapter 1

UT I am reminded,” shouted the scarlet-faced man on the chair, still keeping his voice to the high note on which he had started, “I am reminded that my time is exhausted. Another talented speaker is 'ere to address you. I refer to our friend Barnes—better known per'aps to all of you as Erb.”

The crescent-shaped crowd, growling applause, gave signs of movement, and a round-faced young man, standing at the side of the chair, looked up modestly at the sky.

“He, as you all know, 'ails from the district of Berminsey, where he exercises a certain amount of influence, and, in spite of his youth, is recognised as a positive power in the labour world. He is accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder, and he fears neether friend nor foe. I am going to tell you some'ing you very like don't know, and there's no necessity for it to go any further; that is that he stands a vurry good chance of being made the secretary of a new society. Friends! without further remarks from me, I call upon Comrade Barnes, better known as Erb, to address you. Thanks.” The man stepped down from the chair. “Where's my hat been and gone?” he asked. “Someone's shifted it.”

The hour being half-past twelve, the crowd had no business of an urgent nature for thirty minutes. A few strolled away to join other groups, and Herbert Barnes, as he took off his bowler hat and stepped upon the green chair, watched these sternly. Southwark Park was being wooed by the morning sun of spring-time, the green fresh grass covered a space that was here and there protected by warning boards; the trees, after a shivering winter, were clothing themselves with a suit of new leaves. Away to the right, masts of shipping in the Surrey Commercial Docks showed high and gaunt above the middle-aged trees that fringed the park: on the other side rows of small houses pressed closely. Light-haired Scandinavian sailors looked on amiably; timber-carrying men, who showed a horny skin at the back of their necks as sign of their labour, made up, with railway men in unaccustomed, the rest of the group. The new speaker's features relaxed slightly as he saw two girls, conspicuous in the presence of so many men, join his audience, to resume his earlier manner when one exclaimed disappointedly, “Oh, it's only joring!” and both strolled away towards a bed of flaming tulips. A refined-looking young woman, slightly lame, took their place.

“Friends,” said Erb, very quietly, “I was not altogether prepared to be called upon for an address this morning, but—All right, my lad,” this in reply to an appeal from the outside of the crescent, “I'll speak up presently. I'll speak up when I'm ready, in a way that'll make even you understand me.” The line of speakers near the chair smiled, and the interjector's friends remarked gleefully that this was one in the eye for him. “I say that I came 'ere to this park this morning,” he went on, raising his voice defiantly, and smoothing his obstinate hair with one hand, “more as a listener than a teacher, more ready to learn from others than to learn them anything myself.” The lame girl on the edge of the crowd winced. “But as I have been called upon, I shall take the liberty of askin' you one or two very straight questions. I stand up 'ere,” he said, commencing to finger the buttons of his waistcoat, “as a working man addressing his fellow working men. Prouder titles there can never be, and if they was to offer to make me Lord Mayor of London at this present moment I should make answer to the effect that I preferred to be a working man.” A voice on the outside asked where he worked? “I am a parcels carman on a railway I am, and I earn twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week.” A voice said it was a shame to pay a van-boy the money earned by grown men; he flushed at this and went on. The voice, deluded, threw at him another remark. “Was he” (asked the voice), “was he a half-timer?”

“I'm going to spare one minute with this chap,” said Erb, turning suddenly. “Bring him forward! Stand back from him then, if he's too shy for that, and let's see who we're dealing with. Oh, it's you, is it?”

“Yus,” admitted the owner of the voice resentfully, “it is me.”

“You don't look 'appy,” said Erb.

“I've been listening to you,” explained the man.

“Take your 'ands out of your pockets and let's 'ave a look at them.” The man turned to go, but the circle declined to permit this. “Take a sight at his little hansy-pansy.” Order complied with. “What d'you make of 'em?” I knew he was a loafer,” said Erb. “Let him go now and prop up his favourite pubs; I want to talk to genuine working men, not toimitations of men. My first question is”—he referred to the notes on the back of an envelope which he held in his hand—“my first question is, what is it we working men most keenly desire at the present moment?”

“Tankard of bitter,” said someone.

“Ah!” Herbert Barnes whirled round, and pointed a forefinger at the humorist and his friends. “There's a man who speaks the truth. There's a man what says jest the thing he really thinks. There's a man who utters that which is uppermost in his mind. There's a man,” he leaned forward as though about to give one last applauding compliment, “whose 'ighest ambition, whose most elevated thought, whose one supreme anxiety is for—a tankard of bitter. Friends,” with a whirl of both arms, “we talk about the tyranny and what not of capital: the enmity of the upper circles, but there, jest over there, is the class of man that is our greatest opponent, the man from whom we have most to fear.”

“Well, but,” said the humorist in an injured tone, “I suppose a chep can open his mouth?”

“You can open your mouth, and when you do, apparently, it's generally for the purpose of em'tying down it a”

He hesitated. The crowd, glad to find personalities introduced, gave the words in a muffled chorus.

“Makin' a bloomin' song of it,” grumbled the humorist, going off. “Some people can't take a joke.”

“'Aving finished with our friend,” said Herbert Barnes, loudly, “we will now resume our attention to our original argument. What is it that the working man”

His voice grew so much in volume that people at Christadelphian and other crowds near the iron gates deserted these, and came across in the hope of better sport. One of his arguments created some dissension, and two men, detaching themselves from the crescent, went off to debate it, and an interested circle formed around these, listening with almost pained interest, and seemingly (from the nodding of their heads) convinced by each argument in turn. The round-faced young man on the Windsor chair, now aiming the fist of one hand into the palm of the other as he laboured at an argument, and giving a tremendous and convincing thump as he made his point, noted the new crowd with approval: it was good to have said the stimulating thing. There were no interrupters now, but occasionally a voice would throw an approving sentence, caught neatly by Herbert Barnes, and used if he thought it wise or necessary; his best retorts were given with a glance at the one young woman of the crowd. He was in the middle of a long sentence decked out with many a paraphrase, and whole regiments of adjectives hurrying to the support of a noun, when the hem of his jacket was pulled, and he stopped.

“Friends,” said Herbert resuming his quiet voice, “I'm afraid I've kept you rather long. We've had opportunities before of meetin' each other; we shall 'ave opportunities again. I 'ave only to add one word.” His neighbour frowned up at him on hearing this ominous phrase. “It's my firm and steadfast opinion that we shall increase our power and magnify our strength only by sticking close, quite close, shoulder to shoulder, in what I may call the march of progress. Not otherwise shall we see the risin' sun salute the dorn—” (a momentary frown from the lame young woman had disconcerted him)—“of labour's triumph: not otherwise shall we—shall we”

“Gain,” prompted the young man next to him, sulkily.

“Gain—thank you!—gain the respect of future ages and the admiration of posterity; not otherwise shall we lead others on in that battle which, to use the language of metaphor”

“I say, old man,” whispered his neighbour, “really! Play the game.”

“I will not pursue the train of thought,” said Erb, “on which I had, in a manner of speakin', embarked. One an' all, friends—thank you—kind 'tention—I now give way!”

“Feriends!” shouted the next man, stepping quickly on the chair, “our comrade from Berminsey has been so far carried away by his own eloquence as to overstep his time. In these circs, I will abstain from all preliminary remarks and come to the point at once. First of all, however”

The bowler-hatted men, who had spoken, seemed bored now with the proceedings, and tried to make out the exact time by the clock on the great biscuit factory; unable to do this, they appealed to Erb, who, heated with his oratorical efforts, and gratified to notice that the tall young woman had limped away directly that he had finished, produced a smart silver watch and gave the required information. They spoke in an undertone of the evening's engagements: one proud man was to turn on the gas, as he cheerfully expressed it, at Victoria Park in the afternoon, another had had a long talk with a member of Parliament, and the member had shaken hands with him; they all presented to the crowd a very serious and thoughtful and statesmanlike appearance as they whispered to each other. Flakes of the crowd began to fall away. The last speaker finished, hoarse and panting.

“Whose turn is it to carry the chair?”

“Erb's!” said the others, quickly.

“But I thought” he began.

“You thought wrong,” said the others. “Besides you're going straight 'ome.”

They walked across the grass to the gates near the station, where men and children, and men with babies perched on their shoulders, were making way back to the homes from which they had been temporarily expelled in order to give wives and mothers opportunity for concentrating minds on the preparation for dinner.

“No use trying to blister you for 'alf a pint, Erb?”

“Waste of time,” said Erb.

“What d'you do with all your money?”

“I don't find no difficulty,” he replied, “in getting rid of it. Any spare cash goes in books. I've got a reg'lar little library at 'ome. John Stuart Mill and Professor Wallace and Robert Owen, and goodness knows what all.”

“The only reelly sensible thing you've done, Erb,” remarked one, “is not getting married.”

“That's one of 'em,” he admitted.

“You don't know what it is to be always buying boots for the kiddies.”

“Don't want.”

“You single men get it all your own way. Same time, it's a selfish life in my opinion. You don't live for the sake of anybody.”

“I live for the sake of a good many people,” said Erb, dodging into the road to evade a square of girls carrying hymn-books, and returning with his chair to the pavement. “What I'm anxious to do is to see the world better and brighter, to organise either by word of mouth or otherwise”

“Old man!” protested the others indignantly, “give us a rest. You ain't in the park now.”

He gave up the wooden chair to one of the men, who took it inside the passage of a house in Upper Grange Road. The others stepped across to a public-house; he nodded and went on.

“Won't change your mind and 'ave one, Erb?”

“My mind,” he called back, “is the one thing I never 'ardly change.”

He did not relax his seriousness of demeanour until he had passed the high-walled enclosure of Bricklayers' Arms Goods Station and had turned into Page's Walk. There the fact was borne on the air that dinner-time was near, for attractive scents of cooking issued out of every doorway; he moved his lips appreciatively and hurried on with a more cheerful air. Children waited anxiously in doorways for the signal to approach the one gay, over-satisfying meal of the week, at which there was always an unusual exhibition of geniality and good temper that would eventually conciliate the worried mother, who had devoted the morning to providing the meal. Men returned from a morning at their clubs, where the hours had been chased by a third-rate music-hall entertainment; these walked slowly and hummed or whistled some enticing air with which they desired better acquaintance. Erb scraped his boots carefully on the edge of the pavement, and went up the stone steps of some model dwellings. From No. 17 came a broad hint of rabbit pie: a veiled suggestion of pickled pork.

“Well, young six-foot,” he said cheerfully, “is the banquet prepared, and are all our honoured guests assembled?”

“Wouldn't be you,” remarked his short sister, quickly, “if you didn't come 'ome long before you were wanted.” She stood on tiptoe and glanced at herself in the glass over the mantelpiece; her head was covered with steel hair-curlers, which had held it fiercely since the previous morning. “And me in me disables.”

“You look all right,” said Erb.

“I shall 'ave to this afternoon.”

“What's going to 'appen this afternoon?

“I told you!” remonstrated his sister. “My new young man's going to drop in for a cup of tea.”

“You mean the one in the hat place in Southwark Street.”

“Bah!” said his young sister contemptuously. “I gave him the sack weeks ago.”

“You're always a-choppin' and a-changin',” said Erb tolerantly.

“If you weren't such a great gawk,” remarked his sister, bending to peep into the oven, “you'd put the knives and forks, and not sit there like a—like a—I don't know what.”

Erb pulled a drawer underneath the table and complied.

“The other way about, stupid,” said the short girl wrathfully. “You don't take your knife in your left hand, do you? 'Pon me word, I often wonder that men was ever invented. I s'pose you've been talkin' yourself 'ungry, as usual?”

“I addressed a large meeting,” said Erb, with a touch of his important manner, “for upwards of eleven minutes.”

“Did they aim straight?”

“They were very appreciative,” said Erb. “One chap that interrupted I went for with 'orse, foot, and artillery. I treated him with satire!”

“Did you, though?” asked his short sister with reluctant admiration. “Make him squirm, eh, Erb? Did ye call him names, or did you say something about his nose?”

“I treated him with satire!”

“Weren't there ladies present, then?”

“There was one, as it happened.”

“She'd been better off at 'ome,” remarked the girl severely.

“A tremendous weapon satire in the 'ands of a clever man,” said Erb exultantly, “takes the starch out of 'em like drenching with a fire 'ose. Am I supposed to stay on 'ere whilst this new chap of yours mops up his tea?”

“Unless me lady comes down from Eaton Square to lord it over us all.”

“Nice occupation for a man of my—a man of my”

“Don't say 'intellect,'” begged his sister. “Spoils me appetite if I laugh much before dinner.”

A pleasure to watch the sister, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, setting right the things on the table, placing, with the aid of an exact pair of eyes, the china cruet-stand at the very centre, fabricating some mustard in a teacup, and pouring it cleanly and carefully into the mustard-pot, glancing at the oven with an encouraging, “'Urry up there!” to the pie, and ever a wary look-out on the lid of the saucepan on the fire; the intervals she filled by complaining of the price of coals, by dusting the mantelpiece, by asking questions about the morning's speeches, and by explaining with great interest the trouble that came to a girl in her workshop consequent on accepting engagement rings from two young men at the same time. Presently the one right moment arrived, and out came the rabbit pie, with a crust not to be equalled for lightness and flakiness in Page's Walk, where, indeed, experiments in the higher walks of cookery usually proved so disastrous as to lead to domestic contention and a review of all the varied grievances that had accumulated throughout the ages. Erb, at the head of the table, cut the pie, and his young sister sat at the side, with one foot on the insecure support, so that the table scarcely wobbled under this trying operation; there ensued some argument because Erb wanted to place both of the kidneys on her plate, and his sister would not hear of this, but a compromise was effected by sharing these dainties fairly and equally. His sister said grace.

“For what we are 'bout 'ceive, Lord make us truly thankful for. Well?” she asked, rather nervously, as Erb took his first mouthful. Erb tasted with the air of a connoisseur.

“I've tasted worse,” he said.

“I was afraid how it was going to turn out,” confessed his sister with relief. “It's long since I tried my 'and at a pie.”

“There's nothing anyone can't do in this so-called life of ours,” said Erb oracularly, “providin' that we put our best into it. We've all been endowed”

“Pickle pork all right?”

“The pickle pork isn't nearly so bad as it might be,” said Erb. “They couldn't beat it in Eaton Square. As I was saying, the human brain”

“If Alice comes down from Eaton Square this afternoon in anything new,” said his young sister definitely, “I shall simply ignore it. In fact, I shall say, 'Oh, you havn't got anything new for the spring then yet?' That,” said the girl gleefully, “that'll make her aspirate her aitches.”

“We mustn't forget that she's our sister.”

“She'd like to get it out of her memory. Being parlourmaid in Eaton Square, and about five foot ten from top to toe, don't entitle anybody to come down 'ere to Page's Walk and act about as though Bricklayers' Arms Station belonged to them. After all, she's only a servant, Erb; there's no getting away from that. She doesn't get her evenings to herself like I do. Compared with her, I'm almost independent, mind you. I may 'ave to work 'ard in the day, I don't deny it, and the work isn't over and above 'ealthy, but after seven o'clock at night I'm me own mistress, and I can go out and about jest as I jolly well like. Tip up the dish, and take some more gravy.”

“As a matter of fact you come 'ome 'ere, and you work about and get the place ready against me coming 'ome.”

“And why shouldn't I?” demanded his young sister warmly, “if I like to? Can't I please meself? I'd a jolly sight rather do that than go and wait at table on a lot of over-dressed or under-dressed people, and obliged to keep a straight face whatever silly things you might 'ear them say. Is there a little bit more of the crust you can spare me?”

“I quite admit,” said Erb, supplying her offered plate, “that to me there is something distasteful”

“I only put the leastest bit of onion in.”

“I'm referrin' now to the arrangement by which those who possess riches are able to call upon the working portion of the population to enable them to live.”

“I don't blame them,” remarked his sister quickly, with her involuntary twitching of the head. “I should do the same if I was in their place. Tapioca pudding, Erb, for after. How does that strike you?”

“A tapioca and me,” said Erb genially, “have always been on speaking terms. I can always do with a tapioca. A tapioca and me are good chums. Don't forget your stout.”

“Wish I was.”

“What I mean is, don't forget to drink it. My friend Payne, by the way, may call with a message.”

“I'd as lief take doctor's stuff,” said his sister with a wry face. “What's Payne calling about?”

“You'll have a lay down after dinner.”

“I shall be busy,” answered his sister, “making meself good-looking.”

“You'll have a lay down,” Erb repeated firmly. “Besides, you look all right. Your face is a bit white, but,” with a burst of compliment, “you'd pass in a crowd. No cheese for me. You 'ave some.”

“I've done, thanks.” She bowed her head and spoke rapidly in an undertone. “What we have received the Lord make

The fact that the tall sister from Eaton Square called before Louisa had changed and taken her hair out of curlers was attributed by Louisa to the tall sister's unvarying desire to see Page's Walk at its worst, to find thus excuse for showering upon it her contempt. Alice, from a lofty height added to by an astonishing hat from which Louisa could not, in spite of herself, keep her eyes, complained bitterly to her sister of the state of Old Kent Road, upbraided Erb for the impudence of a 'bus conductor who, because she had talked a little on the way, offered to carry her on to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum without extra charge. “The vulgar humour of these poor men,” said Alice, unnecessarily dusting a chair before sitting down, “appals one.” She mentioned that the Eaton Square coachman had offered to drive her anywhere she wanted to go, but that, for various reasons, into which she preferred not to enter, she had declined.

“I've brought you a bottle of Burgundy, Louisa. You'll find it in my muff.”

“To put on me 'andkerchief?” asked Louisa satirically.

The tall sister glanced appealingly first at the stolid Erb, then at the ceiling.

“I am on good terms with the housekeeper,” she explained, “for the moment, and there is no difficulty in obtaining any little thing of this kind. And you're not looking well. You want picking up.”

“Your idea seems to be to give me a set down,” said Louisa. “Going to take your things off?”

“I'll just loosen my jacket. I won't take it off, thank you.”

“You know the state of the lining better than I do. Erb, you're silent all at once.”

“I was thinking,” said Erb, going across the room and taking the bottle from its resting place. “How much does a bottle of Burgundy wine like this run into, Alice?”

An exclamation came from the short girl as the tall sister took a pair of pince-nez from her breast, and, with great care, put on these new decorations in order to assist her in giving the answer.

“A bottle like that would 'run into,'” she explained with a short laugh as she quoted Erb, “about, what shall I say, six or seven shillings.”

“You can take it back,” he said shortly. “I'm not going to be indebted to Eaton Square or any other 'aunt of the aristocracy for philanthropy of any kind or description whatever, not even when they are not aware that they're giving anything away. I should be stultifying meself if I did. If Louisa or me wants Burgundy we can buy it at the grocer's, and, if necessary, go as far as to drink it, with the satisfied feeling that we're not beholden to any one. Eh, Louisa?”

“You've hit it in once,” agreed the short sister. “Cigar or cokernut?”

“Therefore, whilst thankin' you, one and all, for your doubtless well-meant kindness, perhaps, Alice, you'll understand that my principles”

“You needn't bang the table about,” interrupted the tall sister.

“It's ours,” retorted Louisa. “We can bang it if we like.”

“My principles,” repeated Erb with relish, “prevent me from accepting anything whatsoever concerning which I have reason to believe that it had not been acquired, or bought, or paid for by the party at whose hands—at whose hands I receive it.”

“That's right, Erb,” said Louisa encouragingly.

“At whose hands that gift is, so to speak, attempted to be bestowed.”

“I shall look pretty,” protested Alice, “carrying that about all the evening.”

“If it has that effect,” said her short sister, “I don't see how you can grumble. Come in the bedroom and show me how you manage this new way of doing up the hair.”

Erb read a chapter from Herbert Spencer whilst the girls were out of the room, well repaid if here and there he understood a sentence, or now and again caught sight of a view that soon eluded him. The book had been recommended by a speaker at the Liberal and Radical Club a few Sundays before, an Honourable Somebody, whose proud boast it was that he had unsuccessfully contested more seats at general and at bye-elections than any man belonging to his party, and who was, indeed, such an uncompromising bore, that he might well and appropriately have been subsidised by his very grateful opponents. The Honourable Somebody had also strongly recommended a book by Ruskin, and this, too, Erb had procured from the Free Library, but had given it up after a brief struggle, confessing that it was a bit too thick even for him. Erb made notes on the back of parcels' waybills when he came on something that seemed to him lucid: smiled to think of the start his companions would give when they heard him say in a speech, “I am inclined to go with our friend Spencer and say with him” conveying in this way an impression that his acquaintance with literature was so complete that he had but to pick and choose from the treasures of his memory in order to give an illuminating quotation. He had made a bag of five when his sisters returned to the front room; Louisa without her fierce hair curlers, her head decked out in a new fashion, and more amiable in her attitude towards her sister, and, indeed, holding her arm affectionately. Alice, slightly less austere, took up Erb's book with a word of apology and remarked, “Oh, yes!” in the manner of one recognising an old companion.

“Read it?”

“Well,” said the tall sister, “I have not exactly read it, but I have heard of it. Two of our young ladies talk about it sometimes at meals: Lady Frances declares she can't understand half of it.”

“It's easy enough,” said Erb, “once you get the hang of the thing.”

“What are the young ladies like, Alice, at your new place?” asked the short sister at the looking-glass.

“I've often been going to tell you, but you'd never listen,” complained Alice.

“Tell us now!”

They all became much interested in this subject, and even Erb put some elucidating questions. Louisa looked admiringly at her tall sister as Alice went from this to the subject of visitors to Eaton Square: young Lady Frances, it seemed, occasionally gave mixed dinners, where no one knew anybody else, and even Lady Frances herself did not insist on previous acquaintance: the passport was notoriety. From this subject to the servants' coming party of the following Thursday week was an easy stage. Thursday had been selected to fit the convenience of certain visitors whose establishments on that day closed early.

“We shall be rather short of gentlemen, by-the-by.”

“I can quite understand that.”

“I suppose, Erb,” said Alice to her brother doubtfully, “you wouldn't care to come if I got you an invite? If you did, you'd have to remember that I told them you were an inspector: you mustn't make me look like a story-teller. I'd get you asked, Louisa,” she said candidly to her short sister, “if you looked better than you do. I don't think your work does you any good.”

“I'm not in it for me health,” retorted the other, her head giving its involuntary shake.

“I've advised her to try something else,” agreed Erb, walking up and down the room. “She's only a bit of a girl, and the circumstances under which our female workers are compelled to carry on their duties amount to a species of white slavery which would not be tolerated in Russia.”

“Loud cheers!” commented Louisa. “It's about time my young man was 'ere. If he can't keep his appointments I shall have to talk to him straight.”

As though in answer to this threat a loud single knock came at the door.

“Let him wait a bit,” said Louisa. “Do him good.”

Another knock came and the girl went to the door to upbraid the caller for unmannerly impatience. She withdrew her head quickly.

“It's Payne,” she announced to her brother.

“Deuce it is!” said Erb with excitement.

In the passage stood a man with a stiff, short, red beard, his upper lip shaven; near to him, a newer arrival, a nervous youth, with a wired flower in his coat, who asked shyly whether Miss Barnes happened by any chance to be at home.

“Trot in,” said Erb, jerking his head. The nervous youth took off his hat and obeyed. “Well, Payne, old man,” said Erb to the other.

“I've won the three old 'uns over,” whispered the man with the red beard.

“Good on you!”

“They'll sign to-morrow.”

“And if the answer ain't satisfactory?”

“Then,” said Payne in an undertone, with his hand guarding the words at his mouth, “then they'll follow our lead.”

“And strike?”

“And strike!” said Payne.