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And yet in spite of how hard they had tried, his lapse had blackened every one of them, just as though they had been skulkers and shirkers. Just staying around where the others were made him hot and uncomfortable. While the room rang with cheers for the victorious Foxes he slipped out of the door and melted away in the darkness. Suddenly the fact that he was sneaking away struck him like a blow.
"It's like ye," he shouted, "like yere mother, like all the Perkinses. Word-breakers! cowards! shirkers!" The words seared. The careful articulation of the afternoon was gone. "Promised if I sent ye to school, ye'd stay here winters to look after ye're pore ol' Father didn't ye?" He looked at her through narrow, reddish lids, where she had backed against the door. "Didn't ye?" he repeated.
His eyes, cruelly sharpened now, saw the adversary all around him, in the carelessness of the world, its stupidity, its egotism, its luxury, in the "I don't give a damn!", the indecent profits of the war, the enjoyment of it, the falseness down to the roots.... All these sheltered people, shirkers, police, with their insolent autos that looked like cannon, their women booted to the knee, with scarlet mouths, and cruel little candy faces ... they are all satisfied ... all is for the best!... "It will go on forever as it is!"
Even supposing they were to carry out their plan of killing me, would not another "Sahib" at once be set over them, and might he not be an even harder task-master? They all knew that I was just and fair to the real worker; it was only the scoundrels and shirkers who had anything to fear from me, and were upright, self-respecting.
But all came forward, heartily, willingly, cheerfully, to do the work of their Lord. There is only one exception, only one blot on the page, only one dark spot on the register. The nobles of Tekoa, for 2000 years their names have stood, enrolled as the shirkers in God's grand work. Who then are to work for God?
What I can't stand is those blooming swipes, those shirkers who sit at home and who call themselves men. I tell you I'm for conscription out and out. This is no job to be played with; if we don't put forth our strength we can't beat 'em.
"That wall's a bit o' baith." David would take all the pains in the world with a well-meaning but slow workman, but he disposed of shirkers and double-dealers without needless words. Neither did he encourage discussion and idle talk about the work. "A true mason's no sae glib-gabbet," he observed one day. "There's no need o' speechmaking to make an adder bite or a gude man work."
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