But he turned laughing to her.
“Nay,” he said, “I must be getting
home.”
He turned and went straight out of the house.
Watching him, the landlady’s face became yellow
with passion and rage.
“That little poisonous Indian viper,”
she said aloud, attributing Aaron’s mood to
the doctor. Her husband was noisily bolting the
door.
Outside it was dark and frosty. A gang of men
lingered in the road near the closed door. Aaron
found himself among them, his heart bitterer than
steel.
The men were dispersing. He should take the
road home. But the devil was in it, if he could
take a stride in the homeward direction. There
seemed a wall in front of him. He veered.
But neither could he take a stride in the opposite
direction. So he was destined to veer round,
like some sort of weather-cock, there in the middle
of the dark road outside the “Royal Oak.”
But as he turned, he caught sight of a third exit.
Almost opposite was the mouth of Shottle Lane, which
led off under trees, at right angles to the highroad,
up to New Brunswick Colliery. He veered towards
the off-chance of this opening, in a delirium of icy
fury, and plunged away into the dark lane, walking
slowly, on firm legs.
It is remarkable how many odd or extraordinary people
there are in England. We hear continual complaints
of the stodgy dullness of the English. It would
be quite as just to complain of their freakish, unusual
characters. Only en masse the metal is
all Britannia.
In an ugly little mining town we find the odd ones
just as distinct as anywhere else. Only it happens
that dull people invariably meet dull people, and
odd individuals always come across odd individuals,
no matter where they may be. So that to each
kind society seems all of a piece.
At one end of the dark tree-covered Shottle Lane stood
the “Royal Oak” public house; and Mrs.
Houseley was certainly an odd woman. At the
other end of the lane was Shottle House, where the
Bricknells lived; the Bricknells were odd, also.
Alfred Bricknell, the old man, was one of the partners
in the Colliery firm. His English was incorrect,
his accent, broad Derbyshire, and he was not a gentleman
in the snobbish sense of the word. Yet he was
well-to-do, and very stuck-up. His wife was
dead.
Shottle House stood two hundred yards beyond New Brunswick
Colliery. The colliery was imbedded in a plantation,
whence its burning pit-hill glowed, fumed, and stank
sulphur in the nostrils of the Bricknells. Even
war-time efforts had not put out this refuse fire.
Apart from this, Shottle House was a pleasant square
house, rather old, with shrubberies and lawns.
It ended the lane in a dead end. Only a field-path
trekked away to the left.
On this particular Christmas Eve Alfred Bricknell
had only two of his children at home. Of the
others, one daughter was unhappily married, and away
in India weeping herself thinner; another was nursing
her babies in Streatham. Jim, the hope of the
house, and Julia, now married to Robert Cunningham,
had come home for Christmas.
