Free In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells Page B

handsome
upbringing, and large, romantic, expensive ambitions filled
his generously nurtured mind. He had early distinguished himself
at Oxford by his scornful attitude towards democracy. There was
something that appealed to the imagination in his fine antagonism
to the crowd—on the one hand, was the brilliant young nobleman,
picturesquely alone; on the other, the ugly, inexpressive multitude,
dressed inelegantly in shop-clothes, under-educated, under-fed,
envious, base, and with a wicked disinclination for work and a wicked
appetite for the good things it could so rarely get. For common
imaginative purposes one left out the policeman from the design,
the stalwart policeman protecting his lordship, and ignored the
fact that while Lord Redcar had his hands immediately and legally
on the workman's shelter and bread, they could touch him to the
skin only by some violent breach of the law.
    He lived at Lowchester House, five miles or so beyond Checkshill;
but partly to show how little he cared for his antagonists, and
partly no doubt to keep himself in touch with the negotiations that
were still going on, he was visible almost every day in and about
the Four Towns, driving that big motor car of his that could take
him sixty miles an hour. The English passion for fair play one
might have thought sufficient to rob this bold procedure of any
dangerous possibilities, but he did not go altogether free from
insult, and on one occasion at least an intoxicated Irish
woman shook her fist at him. . . .
    A dark, quiet crowd, that was greater each day, a crowd more than
half women, brooded as a cloud will sometimes brood permanently upon
a mountain crest, in the market-place outside the Clayton
Town Hall, where the conference was held. . . .
    I consider myself justified in regarding Lord Redcar's passing
automobile with a special animosity because of the leaks in our
roof.
    We held our little house on lease; the owner was a mean, saving
old man named Pettigrew, who lived in a villa adorned with plaster
images of dogs and goats, at Overcastle, and in spite of our specific
agreement, he would do no repairs for us at all. He rested secure
in my mother's timidity. Once, long ago, she had been behind-hand
with her rent, with half of her quarter's rent, and he had extended
the days of grace a month; her sense that some day she might need
the same mercy again made her his abject slave. She was afraid even
to ask that he should cause the roof to be mended for fear he might
take offence. But one night the rain poured in on her bed and gave
her a cold, and stained and soaked her poor old patchwork counterpane.
Then she got me to compose an excessively polite letter to old
Pettigrew, begging him as a favor to perform his legal obligations.
It is part of the general imbecility of those days that such one-sided
law as existed was a profound mystery to the common people, its
provisions impossible to ascertain, its machinery impossible to set
in motion. Instead of the clearly written code, the lucid statements
of rules and principles that are now at the service of every one,
the law was the muddle secret of the legal profession. Poor people,
overworked people, had constantly to submit to petty wrongs because
of the intolerable uncertainty not only of law but of cost, and of
the demands upon time and energy, proceedings might make. There
was indeed no justice for any one too poor to command a good
solicitor's deference and loyalty; there was nothing but rough
police protection and the magistrate's grudging or eccentric advice
for the mass of the population. The civil law, in particular, was
a mysterious upper-class weapon, and I can imagine no injustice that
would have been sufficient to induce my poor old mother to appeal
to it.
    All this begins to sound incredible. I can only assure you that it
was so.
    But I, when I learned that old Pettigrew had been down to tell my
mother all about his rheumatism, to inspect the roof, and to allege
that nothing was