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Stillwater Tragedy, The

<h2>XII</h2> At the main entrance to the marble works Richard nearly walked over a man who was coming out, intently mopping his forehead with a very dirty calico handkerchief. It was an English stone-dresser named Denyven. Richard did not recognize him at first. "That you, Denyven!... what has happened!" "I've 'ad a bit of a scrimmage, sir." "A scrimmage in the yard, in work hours!" The man nodded. "With whom?" "Torrini, sir,--he's awful bad this day." "Torrini,--it is always Torrini! It seems odd that one man should be everlastingly at the bottom of everything wrong. How did it happen? Give it to me straight, Denyven; I don't want a crooked story. This thing has got to stop in Slocum's Yard." "The way of it was this, sir: Torrini wasn't at the shop this morning. He 'ad a day off." "I know." "But about one o'clock, sir, he come in the yard. He 'ad been at the public 'ouse, sir, and he was hummin'. First he went among the carvers, talking Hitalian to 'em and making 'em laugh, though he was in a precious bad humor hisself. By and by he come over to where me and my mates was, and began chaffin' us, which we didn't mind it, seeing he was 'eavy in the 'ead. He was as clear as a fog 'orn all the same. But when he took to banging the tools on the blocks, I sings out, ''Ands off!' and then he fetched me a clip. I was never looking for nothing less than that he'd hit me. I was a smiling at the hinstant." "He must be drunker than usual." "Hevidently, sir. I went down between two slabs as soft as you please. When I got on my pins, I was for choking him a bit, but my mates hauled us apart. That's the 'ole of it, sir. They'll tell you the same within." "Are you hurt, Denyven?" "Only a bit of a scratch over the heye, sir,--and the nose," and the man began mopping his brow tenderly. "I'd like to 'ave that Hitalian for about ten minutes, some day when he's sober, over yonder on the green." "I'm afraid he would make the ten minutes seem long to you." "Well, sir, I'd willingly let him try his 'and." "How is it, Denyven," said Richard, "that you and sensible workingmen like you, have permitted such a quarrelsome and irresponsible fellow to become a leader in the Association? He's secretary, or something, isn't he?" "Well, sir, he writes an uncommonly clean fist, and then he's a born horator. He's up to all the parli'mentary dodges. Must 'ave 'ad no end of hexperience in them sort of things on the other side." "No doubt,--and that accounts for him being over here." "As for horganizing a meeting, sir"-- "I know. Torrini has a great deal of that kind of ability; perhaps a trifle too much for his own good or anybody else's. There was never any trouble to speak of among the trades in Stillwater till he and two or three others came here with foreign grievances. These men get three times the pay they ever received in their own land, and are treated like human beings for the first time in their lives. But what do they do? They squander a quarter of their week's wages at the tavern,--no rich man could afford to put a fourth of his income into drink,--and make windy speeches at the Union. I don't say all of them, but too many of them. The other night, I understand, Torrini compared Mr. Slocum to Nero,--Mr. Slocum, the fairest and gentlest man that ever breathed! What rubbish!" "It wasn't just that way, sir. His words was, and I 'eard him,--'from Nero down to Slocum.'" "It amounts to the same thing, and is enough to make one laugh, if he didn't make one want to swear. I hear that that was a very lively meeting the other night. What was that nonsense about 'the privileged class'?" "Well, there is a privileged class in the States." "So there is, but it's a large class, Denyven. Every soul of us has the privilege of bettering out condition if we have the brain and the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to the front, and have the right to be there. A skillful workman gets double the pay of a bungler, and deserves it. Of course there will always be rich and poor, and sick and sound, and I don't see how that can be changed. But no door is shut against ability, black or white. Before the year 2400 we shall have a chrome-yellow president and a black-and-tan secretary of the treasury. But, seriously, Denyven, whoever talks about privileged classes here does it to make mischief. There are certain small politicians who reap their harvest in times of public confusion, just as pickpockets do. Nobody can play the tyrant or the bully in this country,--not even a workingman. Here's the Association dead against an employer who, two years ago, ran his yard full-handed for a twelvemonth at a loss, rather than shut down, as every other mill and factory in Stillwater did. For years and years the Association has prevented this employer from training more than two apprentices annually. The result is, eighty hands find work, instead of a hundred and eighty. Now, that can't last." "It keeps wages fixed in Stillwater, sir." "It keeps out a hundred workmen. It sends away capital." "Torrini says, sir"-- "Steer clear of Torrini and what he says. He's a dangerous fellow--for his friends. It is handsome in you, Denyven, to speak up for him--with that eye of yours." "Oh, I don't love the man, when it comes to that; but there's no denying he's right smart," replied Denyven, who occasionally marred his vernacular with Americanisms. "The Association couldn't do without him." "But Slocum's Yard can," said Richard, irritated to observe the influence Torrini exerted on even such men as Denyven. "That's between you and him, sir, of course, but"-- "But what?" "Well, sir, I can't say hexactly; but if I was you I would bide a bit." "No, I think Torrini's time has come." "I don't make bold to advise you, sir. I merely throws out the hobservation." With that Denyven departed to apply to his bruises such herbs and simples as a long experience had taught him to be efficacious. He had gone only a few rods, however, when it occurred to him that there were probabilities of a stormy scene in the yard; so he turned on his tracks, and followed Richard Shackford. Torrini was a Neapolitan, who had come to the country seven or eight years before. He was a man above the average intelligence of his class; a marble worker by trade, but he had been a fisherman, a mountain guide among the Abruzzi, a soldier in the papal guard, and what not, and had contrived to pick up two or three languages, among the rest English, which he spoke with purity. His lingual gift was one of his misfortunes. Among the exotics in Stillwater, which even boasted a featureless Celestial, who had unobtrusively extinguished himself with a stove-pipe hat, Torrini was the only figure that approached picturesqueness. With his swarthy complexion and large, indolent eyes, in which a southern ferocity slept lightly, he seemed to Richard a piece out of his own foreign experience. To him Torrini was the crystallization of Italy, or so much of that Italy as Richard had caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the town-folks Torrini perhaps vaguely suggested hand-organs and eleemosynary pennies; but Richard never looked at the straight-limbed, handsome fellow without recalling the Phrygian-capped sailors of the Mediterranean. On this account, and for other reasons, Richard had taken a great fancy to the man. Torrini had worked in the ornamental department from the first, and was a rapid and expert carver when he chose. He had carried himself steadily enough in the beginning, but in these later days, as Mr. Slocum had stated, he was scarcely ever sober. Richard had stood between him and his discharge on several occasions, partly because he was so skillful a workman, and partly through pity for his wife and children, who were unable to speak a word of English. But Torrini's influence on the men in the yard,--especially on the younger hands, who needed quite other influences,--and his intemperate speeches at the trades-union, where he had recently gained a kind of ascendancy by his daring, were producing the worst effects. At another hour Richard might have been inclined to condone this last offense, as he had condoned others; but when he parted from Denyven, Richard's heart was still hot with his cousin's insult. As he turned into the yard, not with his usual swinging gait, but with a quick, wide step, there was an unpleasant dilation about young Shackford's nostrils. Torrini was seated on a block of granite in front of the upper sheds, flourishing a small chisel in one hand and addressing the men, a number of whom had stopped work to listen to him. At sight of Richard they made a show of handling their tools, but it was so clear something grave was going to happen that the pretense fell through. They remained motionless, resting on their mallets, with their eyes turned towards Richard. Torrini followed the general glance, and pause din his harangue. "Talk of the devil!" he muttered, and then, apparently continuing the thread of his discourse, broke into a strain of noisy declamation. Richard walked up to him quietly. "Torrini," he said, "you can't be allowed to speak here, you know." "I can speak where I like," replied Torrini gravely. He was drunk, but the intoxication was not in his tongue. His head, as Denyven had asserted, was as clear as a fog-horn. "When you are sober, you can come to the desk and get your pay and your kit. You are discharged from the yard." Richard was standing within two paces of the man, who looked up with an uncertain smile, as if he had not quite taken in the sense of the words. Then, suddenly straightening himself, he exclaimed,-- "Slocum don't dare do it!" "But I do." "You!" "When I do a thing Mr. Slocum backs me." "But who backs Slocum,--the Association, may be?" "Certainly the Association ought to. I want you to leave the yard now." "He backs Slocum," said Torrini, settling himself on the block again, "and Slocum backs down," at which there was a laugh among the men. Richard made a step forward. "Hands off!" cried a voice from under the sheds. "Who said that?" demanded Richard, wheeling around. No one answered, but Richard had recognized Durgin's voice. "Torrini, if you don't quit the yard in two minutes by the clock yonder, I shall put you out by the neck. Do you understand?" Torrini glared about him confusedly for a moment, and broke into voluble Italian; then, without a warning gesture, sprung to his feet and struck at Richard. A straight red line, running vertically the length of his cheek, showed where the chisel had grazed him. The shops were instantly in a tumult, the men dropping their tools and stumbling over the blocks, with cries of "Keep them apart!" "Shame on you!" "Look out, Mr. Shackford!" "Is it mad ye are, Torrany!" cried Michael Hennessey, hurrying from the saw-bench. Durgin held him back by the shoulders. "Let them alone," said Durgin. The flat steel flashed again in the sunlight, but fell harmlessly, and before the blow could be repeated, Richard had knitted his fingers in Torrini's neckerchief and twisted it so tightly that the man gasped. Holding him by this, Richard dragged Torrini across the yard, and let him drop on the sidewalk outside the gate, where he lay in a heap, inert. "That was nate," said Michael Hennessey, sententiously. Richard stood leaning on the gate-post to recover he breath. His face was colorless, and the crimson line defined itself sharply against the pallor; but the rage was dead within him. It had been one of his own kind of rages,--like lightning out of a blue sky. As he stood there a smile was slowly gathering on his lip. A score or two of the men had followed him, and now lounged in a half-circle a few paces in the rear. When Richard was aware of their presence, the glow came into his eyes again. "Who ordered you to knock off work?" "That was a foul blow of Torrini's, sir," said Stevens, stepping forward, "and I for one come to see fair play." "Give us your 'and, mate!" cried Denyven; "there's a pair of us." "Thanks," said Richard, softening at once, "but there's no need. Every man can go to his job. Denyven may stay, if he likes." The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the sheds in silence. Presently Torrini stretched out one leg, then the other, and slowly rose to his feet, giving a stupid glance at his empty hands as he did so. "Here's your tool," said Richard, stirring the chisel with the toe of his boot, "if that's what you're looking for." Torrini advanced a step as if to pick it up, then appeared to alter his mind, hesitated perhaps a dozen seconds, and turning abruptly on his heel walked down the street without a stagger. "I think his legs is shut off from the rest of his body by water-tight compartments," remarked Denyven, regarding Torrini's steady gait with mingled amusement and envy. "Are you hurt, sir?" "Only a bit of a scratch of the heye," replied Richard, with a laugh. "As I hobserved just now to Mr. Stevens, sir, there's a pair of us!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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