Joseph's coat

Old Joe and young Joe, sturdy sire and lissom son, trudged through the dust together--old Joe bent down a little earthwards, and going rather like a carthorse; young Joe with his head well up, and stepping like a hunter that can carry weight. I see them in my mind's eye, as in a picture. Old Joe, dressed in white moleskin of such weight and thickness that he looked like a polar bear, with his gnarled hands hanging lazily and solidly as if each carried a hundredweight which his gigantic strength made light of--blue-eyed, grey-whiskered, with deep blue scars like tattoo marks all over his face,--tramped on serenely, pipe in mouth. Young Joe, with a sprouting bit of whisker, downy as yet, and yellow like a callow fledgling's feathers; blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, lithe and limber, went springily at the old man's side. Young Joe was dressed like a gentleman of that period (it is nearly thirty years since the father and son walked side by side for the last time), and he and the old man made altogether a fine contrast. Old Joe was stolidly genial, as befitted a man who had beaten the world hollow, and now took his ease with dignity. Young Joe had something of an aggressive air, or carried at least a sort of warning in his face--nemo me impune lacessit. This warning was perhaps a trifle sulky, as was natural, all things considered. How rich old Joe might be no man knew, but he clung to the dress and habits of his youth--dressed like a working miner on holiday, lived like a miner, looked like a miner, and was proud to talk like one. Joe, bred at a distant 'college school,' and returning home at holiday times, resented these things. His speech was of the finest, his clothes were of the best--the son of a baronet was his chosen chum, he had yearnings towards the world of fashion, and believed that he could shine in that bright sphere, if he had but a chance. Old Joe cared for none of those things, and, except for a certain sturdy self-possession, had no pride. He would have met the hereditary Autocrat of All the Russias with a sentiment of equality so natural that he would not have dreamed of formulating it even to himself. Young Joe formulated his beliefs in the equality of mankind daily, and, with a natural want of logic, resented with great hauteur the approach of any of his father's old and less prosperous companions. He himself was 'a man for a' that'--cela va sans dire--but 'for a' that and a' that,' the claims of one's social inferiors must be repelled and beaten down. He was the equal of any man above him, but no one below him had a right to a similar claim. This mental attitude is not uncommon.

Young Joe resented his name, and would have preferred Reginald, or Herbert, or Walter, or anything rather than Joseph, so easily susceptible of a vulgar abbreviation. He was not without pride in his father, but he resented the old man's clothes, and his house, and his speech. And, most bitterly and shamefacedly of all, he resented the spectacle he was now on his way to witness.

It was summer weather, in days when summer weather meant warmth and sunshine. There was sunshine even here, though the scene lay in the centre of the Black Country. It is pleasant to notice how nature has reasserted herself in that grimy province after all the scars which labour has left upon her. Labour has dug deep into her heart, and has rifled her very entrails, and has set upon her breast such burdens as Enceladus lay under. Yet, wheresoever you see her face, she smiles; wheresoever her busy hands can move, she weaves her spells. Tall purple foxgloves lined the road, and the hawthorns were white with blossom, and the lark shook with the delight of his own song a mile above the smoke wreaths. It was Sunday also, and the smoke wreaths were something thinner and even fewer than they would have been on any other day in the seven. Old Joe had a little of the quiet Sabbath feeling on him. Young Joe, pridefully resenting all things, resented Sunday terribly because of the shame it brought him.

Father and son were on their way to listen to the most popular preacher of the time and neighbourhood. That preacher was a woman. Nay, the murder must out: that woman was Rebecca Bushell, old Joe's wife and young Joe's mother. On the subject of female preachers in general young Joe had incisive opinions, sharpened probably by some personal feeling. That his mother should preach, and be publicly advertised to preach, and that she should speak in public with no disguise of that picturesque and drawling accent which was her birthright, was an affliction which the lad's pride had borne with groaning this many a day. And now, worse than all, here was his mother--in combination with greasy-complexioned professionals, whom he knew, in seedy black and ties of dubious white, and roomy shoes topped by too visible stockings of white cotton, also dubious in tone--conducting a camp-meeting, advertised far and wide in flaring posters, and sure to bring with crowds of the pious, countless railers, to many of whom he himself was known. The reader will understand the term 'camp-meeting' in a limited sense. It was a camp-meeting with no encampment, and lasted one day only.

As father and son walked together, there was heard suddenly the bray of a band, drowning the lark's music, and far and wide the sound of the Hallelujah Chorus filled the fields. It was not ignobly played or sung, though band and choir alike needed a little fining here and there. The folk of the Black Country are essentially musical, and here they played and sang with all their heart and soul and lungs. There was a little admixture of strings with the wind instruments, and a tailor led the violins. 'Now David,' cried the drummer, as he grasped his sticks, 'let thy elbow fly like a lamb's tail!' and David nodded to this encouragement, and led the way at a rattling pace. Whilst the band and choir were in the midst of their fervour, the two late comers took their place at the edge of the vast crowd. There were some five-and-twenty thousand people present, and the gathering could scarcely fail to be impressive. The place of meeting had some advantages and some disadvantages. For one thing, the crowd was sundered by the waters of a canal; but as a set-off against this, the lock, over which the platform was built, stood some ten or twelve feet above the hollow land in which the multitude had gathered, so that all could at least see the orators of the day. The platform was primitive but secure, and consisted of great beams of timber laid from wall to wall of the lock; and in the centre was another smaller platform on which the more prominent of the promoters of the meeting were gathered. They were a rugged set for the most part, and the presence of one or two massive women added little refinement to this central knot. Mrs. Bushell sat in black silk--square, hard, uncompromising in face and figure--at the little unclothed deal table with red legs, on which were set a water-bottle, a glass, a Bible, and a few scattered hymn-books. Young Joe, discerning here and there an acquaintance in the crowd, blushed at the figure on the platform, and revolted at its presence there. One gentleman, the son of a neighbouring coal-owner, beholding young Joe, waited until he caught his eye, and then, from his coign of vantage near the lock gates, elaborately winked at him. At this and a slight backward motion of the head, indicating the chief personage on the platform, the youngster turned scarlet, but he held his head erect and felt savagely defiant--not least defiant, perhaps, of his Mother and the prominence of her place. Old Joe, with his massive hands depending downwards, smoked his clay calmly at the edge of the crowd by his son's side. These al-fresco religious observances had one especial charm for the elder Bushell; they found room for a pipe; and, without the soothing influence of his tube of clay, the old man found the best of sermons dull.

Young Joe's resentfulness of humour increased as he stood by his father's side. But he was there to brave the whole thing out, and to show to his friends that be was not ashamed of his father and mother and their ways. But why, in the name of all things abominable, would his father insist on wearing moleskin clothing and on smoking a clay pipe at such a place and time? and why should his mother sit there, the centre of these vulgar orators, gazed at by all these vulgar eyes? He was not ashamed of them, he told himself. Was he not here by his own free will? He grew more and more wrathful and rebellious as he nursed these thoughts.

By-and-by, after the due introductory readings and prayers had been gone through, and when a hymn had been sung with rough and striking grandeur of tone, Mrs. Rebecca Bushell rose squarely up, and gave out her text and preached. I suppose that everybody who reads this will have some notion of what a revival sermon is like, and that there is therefore no need for me to set down Mrs. Bushell's utterances. The creed she unfolded was stern and ugly, though modified by some private tenderness of her own, and young Joe knew well enough that much of the discourse was levelled at himself. The presence of her son gave her speech a passionate earnestness which it would otherwise have missed, and she preached at the crowd through him, and at him through the crowd. This also young Joe resented, and savagely endured. It came to an end at last, and twenty-five thousand pairs of lungs aided the band in giving breath to the Old Hundredth, which rolled its slow, grand stream of sound across the sunny fields, and was heard, soft and sweet with distance, in the Sabbath streets of the town a mile away.

The crowd broke into scattered sections, and took its devious way towards a mid-day dinner. The old man and his son passed to the platform.

'Joseph,' said Rebecca, descending, 'put that pipe away. For shame--on a Sunday, an' at meeting too.'

'All right, missis,' said Bushell senior. 'There's no harm in a pipe.' And he smoked on placidly.

His wife, knowing by old experience the uselessness of opposition, resigned the point with a sigh, and walked gravely away with the Reverend Paul Screed.

In these days in which I write the Reverend Paul is dead, and no truth can hurt his feelings any more. But it is true of him that he preached a vulgar gospel, worshipped a vulgar god, and had vulgar notions upon all things which came within the sphere of an intellect not too well instructed. He was always in remarkable earnest, and was very certain that all his beliefs were accurate and that all beliefs running counter to his own were sinful. He was incapable of doing a wilful wrong to anybody. In person he was gaunt and bony, and his general aspect was repellent. Young Joe, resenting most things, resented the Reverend Paul with a vehemence inspired by direct hate. The Reverend Paul, for his part, looked on the young man with a stony severity of holiness which foresaw for him eternal pains and penalties.

Mrs. Bushell, arm-in-arm with the minister, walked homewards, and her husband and her son followed at a little distance. By-and-by came round a corner of the lane, facing this broken quartette, a youngster resplendent in the devices of the latest fashion, switching at the hedges as be walked. The lane was fairly filled with scattered groups of homeward-going worshippers, and all but the new-comer were walking in one direction. He strolled along, a good deal stared at, and pausing suddenly before young Joe, thrust out a gloved hand, and said 'Good morning' in a loud and cheery voice. The youngster, a little embarrassed, returned his greeting. The old man, without pausing, turned his head, and in his broadest drawl bade his son be home in time for dinner.

'Who's that?' said the new-comer. He was one of those people who, without knowing it, are audible under ordinary conditions over a circuit of fifty yards.

'My father,' young Joe answered, speaking in tones as loud as the other's, and with an air of injured pride.

'Who's that?' asked old Joe, returning, and joining the young men as they stood before each other.

'Mr. Sydney Cheston,' said young Joe; 'Sir Sydney Cheston's son. My father, Mr. Cheston.'

'How be you?' said old Joe, pipe in mouth. He kept his hands in the pockets of his moleskin jacket, and nodded at the baronet's son with perfect naturalness.

'I am very well,' returned Mr. Cheston. 'How be you?'

'I'm as right as a trivet,' old Joe answered, unsuspicious of Satire. For a moment he had thought the loud 'Who's that?' a little impudent, but seeing the young man cheerful and self-possessed, forgot to notice it. Young Joe burned to knock Mr. Sydney Cheston down 'I've heerd Joe talk about you,' said the old man comfortably. 'Come and have a bit o' dinner along of us. Eh?'

'Very sorry,' the young buck returned, 'I have an engagement.'

'All right,' said the old man, nodding. 'Be in time, Joe. Good mornin', young mister.'

'Good morning, governor,' said Mr. Cheston with loud cheer. Young Joe raged inwardly. 'Queer old bird, the pater,' the baronet made comment, in a moderated voice.

'It occurs to me,' young Joe replied, in rapid undertone, 'that I am scarcely a fit repository for your opinions.'

'My dear fellow,' said Mr. Cheston lightly, 'everything must have a beginning. You begin now, and we began a hundred years ago. That's all the difference.'

'Possibly,' said young Joe with great stiffness. His reply was somewhat vague, even to himself; but he felt that he discharged a duty, whilst he relieved the gathered spleen of the whole morning.

'Don't be rusty,' Mr. Cheston answered. 'anybody's welcome to tell me that my governor's a queer old bird. Gad, he is! A very queer old bird. Most men's governors are queer old birds. We shall be queer old birds ourselves some day:

Young Joe, a little mollified and a little in haste to be rid of that sore subject, asked what had brought his friend into the neighbourhood. The out-of-door worshippers were still straggling by, and Cheston, taking Joe's arm, turned with him and struck across a by-path which led through cornfields where the bright scarlet of thick-growing poppies lent more beauty than value to the crop.

'I'm staying with old Moulding, at the Hollies,' Cheston said; 'and as they all went to church this morning, I ventured on a lonely stroll through the region. I'm glad I did it, for I've seen two things which impressed me vastly.'

'Imprimis?' asked young Joe, trying to catch some little seeming of gaiety, if only for wounded pride's sake.

'Imprimis,' answered Cheston, 'the prettiest face I ever set eyes on. A Black Country beauty. A rose springing from an artificial Alp of slag and cinder.'

'Oh!' said the other in a meditative way.

'Pleasing spectacle number one,' said Cheston gaily, as though addressing an audience, 'led to pleasing spectacle number two. Number one, dressed in the most becoming and least conventional fashion, was apparently bound for church or chapel, inasmuch as she bore a hymn-book and looked devotional and demure. Having no fear of the proprieties before my eyes, and having a natural delight in the contemplation of beauty, I lit up a cigar and strolled after her. By-and-by we came upon an enormous outdoor meeting, where my little beauty met her mother or some other elderly female dragon, and I lost sight of her. But I know where she lives, and I am going to have another look at her.'

Young Joe, without seeing any clear grounds for apprehension, spoke with some anxiety, though with outer lightness.

'Who is this charming young person?'

'She dwells,' said Cheston, simulating a melodramatic tone, 'though in what capacity I know not, at the sign of the Saracen's Head, and her divine name is Diana--or Dinah. Yes, it's Dinah. I heard the guardian dragon scold her for being late.'

A blush, partly of anger and partly of embarrassment, was on young Joe's face. He forced a laugh.

'Yes, she's a pretty girl;' then hurriedly, to escape further discussion of the topic, 'And what was pleasing spectacle number two?'

'Pleasing spectacle number two,' said Cheston with noisy cheerfulness, 'was a sort of she-Boanerges in black silk who harangued the multitude. I protest,' he went on, laughing heartily, 'that she was worth a journey to the North Pole to look at and to listen to. But I dare say you were there and heard her. You were coming back that way. For myself, I walked off to the Saracen's Head and watched my little divinity in again before I turned to walk to the Hollies.'

What with wounded pride, and jealous fear, and his resentful rage at things in general, young Joe was very near to boiling-point.

'You know everybody hereabouts,' said Cheston, with obtuse goodhumour and unflagging enjoyment in the sound of his own voice--sweeter music than the spheres could make--'who was the Boanerges?'

Young Joe reached boiling-point and bubbled over.

'She was my mother, sir! And in ten minutes you have insulted my father and my mother and have told me how you dogged my--my sweetheart home, and--and-- I tell you what it is, Cheston. You cash that I O U I have of yours at your earliest convenience, and don't trouble yourself to know me any more. Good morning.'

And off went the hapless young fellow in a great heat, with a face like a peony, and with smarting tears in his eyes. Cheston stood a moment, stunned, as though an invisible avalanche had fallen upon him. Then he raced after his late companion and caught him by the shoulder in the act of mounting the first stile.

'My dear fellow,' be said pantingly, 'pray forgive me. I was quite ignorant. I wouldn't have done it for the world. Pray do forgive me. I beg your pardon a hundred thousand times.'

Young Joe swung himself out of the other's grasp and mounted the stile. He melted a little notwithstanding. He wanted somebody's sympathy and companionship, and Cheston was evidently very sorry. But how could he turn and show the hot tears which were even then finding their channels on his face? The penitent vaulted the stile after him and pursued him with breathless apology, and at last took him by the shoulders and swung him fairly round. At that, in a sudden gust of added shame for the tears with which his eyes were filled, he gave his rage full swing, and launched a blow at the apologist, and stood waving his arms about him, demanding wildly to know if the prostrate Cheston wanted any more.

'By Jove I do,' roared the late penitent, and springing to his feet he threw his hat and coat upon the grass and awaited young Joe's onslaught. For a minute the two stood face to face, in a posture of defence. Then Cheston dropped his hands. 'It was quite my fault, Bushell,' he said, 'and I won't fight about it. I don't wonder at your striking me. Let us say no more about it. Shake hands, old man, shake hands.'

Thereupon young Joe shamefacedly shook hands, stammered some broken excuses--'temper greatly tried,' and so forth--and went his way.

'He's got hatsful of money;' meditated the future baronet, as young Joe walked miserably away. 'But ain't he paying for having it, poor beggar?--ain't he just, that's all?'