CHAPTER XV

MR. TRUPP INTRODUCES THE LASH

There was no doubt that Anne Caspar was a woman of character.

"Too much character," said Mr. Trupp.

His wife was somewhat shocked.

"Can you have too much character?" she asked.

Her husband was in one of his philosophical moods.

"Character's only will," he growled. "It's the repression or direction of energy. You may misdirect your energies. Most so-called strong men do. Look at this fellow Chamberlain. Willed us into this war. If it hadn't been for his superfluous character we should never have heard of South Africa."

"And your investments would never have gone down," said Mrs. Trupp delicately.

The Doctor may have been unjust to the Colonial Secretary, but he was right about Anne Caspar, whom he knew rather better.

That dour woman had, indeed, just two friends in Beachbourne. One was Mr. Trupp, and the other was Mr. Trupp's wife. Neither had ever failed her; and she knew quite well that neither ever would.

The day after the calamity she went round to see the Doctor.

"He's got to go," she said, tight-lipped and trembling. "That's flat. You know what I been through with his father, Mr. Trupp. You're the only one as does. I'm not going through it again with him. Ned's my man, and I'm going to see him through. But Ern must go his own way. Stew in his own juice, as Alf says. They say I've been hard with the boy. So I have. Because I've seen it a-comin ever since he was so high. And I've fought it and been beaten."

The gruff man was wonderfully tender with her. He saw the woman's distress and understood its cause as no other could have done.

"Don't do anything in a hurry," he said soothingly. "Think it over for a week and then come and see me again."

That evening he reported the interview to his wife.

"She'll never turn him out!" cried the kind woman.

"She will though," said Mr. Trupp.

Mrs. Trupp, pink and white with indignation, dropped her eyes to her work to hide the flash in them.

"I'll never forgive her if she does," she said.

"Yes, you will," retorted Mr. Trupp.

Mrs. Trupp answered nothing for a time.

"I shall go round to see her," she said at last with determination.

"You won't move her," the Doctor answered, grimly cheerful.

"No," said Mrs. Trupp. "She hasn't got a heart. As Mr. Pigott says, she's hard as the nether millstone in a frost."

Mr. Trupp put down his coffee-cup and licked his lips like a cat.

"My dear," he said, "you haven't been through her mill."

"Perhaps not," the other answered warmly. "But I am a mother."

The sympathetic creature, all love and pity, was as good as her word.

Mrs. Trupp was always full of indignation against Mrs. Caspar when away from her, and in her presence touched by the tragedy of the woman's loneliness.

She found things at Rectory Walk as she had expected or worse.

Ern had lost his job. His escapade at the Rink had reached his employers' ears. None too satisfied with the quality of the lad's work, they had seized the excuse to dismiss him.

"There he is!" cried Mrs. Caspar. "Just turn eighteen and back on my hands. Nobody won't have him, and I don't blame em neether."

"Where is he?" asked Mrs. Trupp.

The interview between the two women was taking place in the back sitting-room, where Mrs. Caspar always saw her rare visitors.

Anne nodded in the direction of the study.

"Settin along o dad," she said briefly. "Nothing but trouble along of it all. I took his cigarettes away. _If he don't earn neether shan't he smoke_, as Alf says. And now dad won't smoke because Ern can't. _Sympathetic strike_, Alf calls it. And it's dad's one pleasure. I allow him a shilling bacca-money a week. It's just all I do allow him."

"We all make mistakes--especially when we're young," said Mrs. Trupp gently.

The other was adamant.

"There's slips and slips," she retorted. "If he'd gone with a girl I'd have said nothing. But _this_!"

Mrs. Trupp was steadfast in her tranquil way, as her opponent was dogged.

"I know if my Joe made a mistake what I should do," she said.

"What then?" sharply.

"Forgive him," replied the other.

Mrs. Caspar flared up.

"You wouldn't, not if your Joe's father----"

She pulled up short.

Loyalty to her husband was the soul of Anne Caspar.

On her way home the Doctor's wife met Mr. Pigott.

The sanguine little man stopped short.

"You've heard?" said Mrs. Trupp.

The other nodded, surly as a baited bear.

"Ern was round at my place first thing Sunday to tell me. He kept nothing back." Mr. Pigott dropped his voice like a stage-conspirator. "That young Alf's at the bottom of this, I'll lay."

Mrs. Trupp was shocked.

"Did Ernie say so?"

"No," fiercely. "He wouldn't give his brother away--not he. But I know." He came closer. "I tell you the Devil's in that boy. I can see him leering at me from behind the mask of Alf's face. There is no Alf Caspar. He's only a blind. But there is a Devil!"

"O, Mr. Pigott!" murmured the lady.

"Yes, you may O Mr. Pigott me!" cried the wrathful man. "But I've watched. I know. He's the cuckoo kind, Alf is. He wants the place to himself. It's me and mum all the time. His father don't count; and Ern's to be jostled out of the nest. Then there'll be room for him to grow. I curse the day Mr. Trupp saved his miserable little life."

"Hush! hush! hush!" said the lady.

"Yes, I know Alf's one of Mr. Trupp's darlings," continued the other. "And I know why. You know my old bicycle they all laugh at. I bought it for ten shillings from a pedlar and patched it up myself. It's the worst bike in Old Town, but I saved it from the scrap-heap, so I think the world of it. Same with Mr. Trupp and young Alf."

Mrs. Trupp reported to her husband that Mr. Pigott had become almost blasphemous over Alf.

"I know," grunted the Doctor. "He's not fair to the boy. Alf's stunted; of course he's stunted. He's grown up all wrong. The wonder is he's grown up at all. He's a standing witness to the power of Nature to make the most of a bad job."

It was next day that Mrs. Caspar came round, as appointed, to see the Doctor, who was much more to her than a physician.

Mr. Trupp had now come to a decision as to the best course to be taken.

"You must send him right away," he said. "That's his best chance."

"Dad won't hear of the Colonies," the other replied. "Says it's so far and he'll never see the boy again once he gets out there. Stood up and fought me fairly!" And it was clear from the way she said it that the resistance encountered from her husband had been as rare as it was astonishing.

"I didn't mean the Colonies," the other replied.

"What then?"

"The Army."

Mrs. Caspar's face fell. She was momentarily shocked: for she belonged to a sect that had for generations been despitefully used by the powers that be. And the weapon of the powers that be is always in the last resort the Army.

"Discipline is what the boy wants," said Mr. Trupp. "It's what we all want."

Anne Caspar nodded dubiously.

"If it's the right sort," she said.

"It may save him," continued her mentor. "It can't do him any harm. And anyway, it's worth trying. You send Ernie round to me. I'll have a talk with him, and I'll drop in to-morrow and have a chat with his father."

Ernie, when approached, made no difficulty.

He was young; his enthusiasms were easily stirred; and the most famous of South Country regiments, the Forest Rangers, known in history as the Hammer-men, had been more than living up to its reputation in South Africa.

"You'll travel," Mr. Trupp told him. "Go to India as like as not and see a bit of the world. Our Joe's going to Sandhurst next year. Nothing'll do but he must be a Hammer-man--like his grandfather before him. I dare say he'll join you out there."

But if Ern was too young to fight his own battles, there was one doughty warrior who meant to fight them for him.

Mr. Pigott came round to see the Doctor in roaring wrath.

The South African War was in full swing. The frenzy of lusty paganism, called Imperialism, which was sweeping the country, had revolted the schoolmaster and many more. In the estimation of these, the horrors enacted at home in the name of God and Empire surpassed the obscenities of the war itself. Mr. Pigott saw Militarism as a raddled prostitute dancing on the souls and bodies of men.

He burst like a tempest into Mr. Trupp's consulting room.

"The Army!" he cried. "You're going to send that boy into the Army! Take him a first-class ticket to Hell at once! Where's your Militarism led us? The war's costing us half a million a week! Over a thousand casualties at Paardeberg alone! Rowntree stoned in York; Leonard Courtney boycotted in London; Lloyd George escaping for his life over the house-tops for daring to preach Christ! And you call yourself a Radical, Mr. Trupp!--Shame on you!"

Mr. Trupp listened, amused and patient.

"It's discipline he wants," he said at last. "He's soft and slack. He'll never do any good without it. The artist type like his father."

The other began to blaze again.

"Discipline!" he cried. "You talk like a Prussian drill-sergeant. I tell you that lad's got a soul. You _discipline_ beasts of the field--with a Big Stick; but you _grow_ souls."

Mr. Trupp shook his head.

"We're only just emerging from the mud," he said. "The Brute still lurks in all of us. Watch him or he'll catch you out. And remember the only thing the Brute understands is the Big Stick. Without it he'll either go to sleep--like Ernie; or pounce on some one who has gone to sleep--like Alf."

Mr. Pigott drew himself up. There was about him the dignity of conviction.

"Mr. Trupp," he said. "Fear never made a man yet. Faith's the thing."

The Doctor lifted his shrewd kind face, and eyed the other through his pince-nez.

"Fear plays its part too," he said. "We none of us can do without the Lash as yet."