第103章

However,everybody listens:as I do myself.A dozen years ago,common decency would have hushed the thing.But common decency no longer exists,and the colliers'wives are all up in arms and unabashed in voice.One would think every child in Tevershall,for the last fifty years,had been an immaculate conception,and every one of our nonconformist females was a shining Joan of Arc.That our estimable game-keeper should have about him a touch of Rabelais seems to make him more monstrous and shocking than a murderer like Crippen.Yet these people in Tevershall are a loose lot,if one is to believe all accounts.

The trouble is,however,the execrable Bertha Coutts has not confined herself to her own experiences and sufferings.She has discovered,at the top of her voice,that her husband has been 'keeping'women down at the cottage,and has made a few random shots at naming the women.This has brought a few decent names trailing through the mud,and the thing has gone quite considerably too far.An injunction has been taken out against the woman.

I have had to interview Mellors about the business,as it was impossible to keep the woman away from the wood.He goes about as usual,with his Miller-of-the-Dee air,I care for nobody,no not I,if nobody care for me!Nevertheless,I shrewdly suspect he feels like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail:though he makes a very good show of pretending the tin can isn't there.But I heard that in the village the women call away their children if he is passing,as if he were the Marquis de Sade in person.

He goes on with a certain impudence,but I am afraid the tin can is firmly tied to his tail,and that inwardly he repeats,like Don Rodrigo in the Spanish ballad:'Ah,now it bites me where I most have sinned!'

I asked him if he thought he would be able to attend to his duty in the wood,and he said he did not think he had neglected it.I told him it was a nuisance to have the woman trespassing:to which he replied that he had no power to arrest her.Then I hinted at the scandal and its unpleasant course.'Ay,'he said.'folks should do their own fuckin',then they wouldn't want to listen to a lot of clatfart about another man's.'

He said it with some bitterness,and no doubt it contains the real germ of truth.The mode of putting it,however,is neither delicate nor respectful.

I hinted as much,and then I heard the tin can rattle again.'It's not for a man the shape you're in,Sir Clifford,to twit me for havin'a cod atween my legs.'

These things,said indiscriminately to all and sundry,of course do not help him at all,and the rector,and Finley,and Burroughs all think it would be as well if the man left the place.

I asked him fit was true that he entertained ladies down at the cottage,and all he said was:'Why,what's that to you,Sir Clifford?'I told him I intended to have decency observed on my estate,to which he replied:

'Then you mun button the mouths o'a'th'women.'--When I pressed him about his manner of life at the cottage,he said:'Surely you might ma'e a scandal out o'me an'my bitch Flossie.You've missed summat there.'

As a matter of fact,for an example of impertinence he'd be hard to beat.

I asked him fit would be easy for him to find another job.He said:

'If you're hintin'that you'd like to shunt me out of this job,it'd be easy as wink.'So he made no trouble at all about leaving at the end of next week,and apparently is willing to initiate a young fellow,Joe Chambers,into as many mysteries of the craft as possible.I told him I would give him a month's wages extra,when he left.He said he'd rather I kept my money,as I'd no occasion to ease my conscience.I asked him what he meant,and he said:'You don't owe me nothing extra,Sir Clifford,so don't pay me nothing extra.If you think you see my shirt hanging out,just tell me.'

Well,there is the end of it for the time being.The woman has gone away:we don't know where to:but she is liable to arrest if she shows her face in Tevershall.And I heard she is mortally afraid of gaol,because she merits it so well.Mellors will depart on Saturday week,and the place will soon become normal again.