Meantime the speed of the vehicle had increased to a fearful rate.
Rushton and the other occupants of the little wagonette in front had been for some time shouting to them to moderate the pace of their horses, but as the driver of Crass's brake was too drunk to understand what they said he took no notice, and they had no alternative but to increase their own speed to avoid being run down.The drunken driver now began to imagine that they were trying to race him, and became fired with the determination to pass them.It was a very narrow road, but there was just about room to do it, and he had sufficient confidence in his own skill with the ribbons to believe that he could get past in safety.
The terrified gesticulations and the shouts of Rushton's party only served to infuriate him, because he imagined that they were jeering at him for not being able to overtake them.He stood up on the footboard and lashed the horses till they almost flew over the ground, while the carriage swayed and skidded in a fearful manner.
In front, the horses of Rushton's conveyance were also galloping at top speed, the vehicle bounding and reeling from one side of the road to the other, whilst its terrified occupants, whose faces were blanched with apprehension, sat clinging to their seats and to each other, their eyes projecting from the sockets as they gazed back with terror at their pursuers, some of whom were encouraging the drunken driver with promises of quarts of beer, and urging on the homes with curses and yells.
Crass's fat face was pallid with fear as he clung trembling to his seat.Another man, very drunk and oblivious of everything, was leaning over the side of the brake, spewing into the road, while the remainder, taking no interest in the race, amused themselves by singing - conducted by the Semi-drunk - as loud as they could roar:
`Has anyone seen a Germin band, Germin Band, Germin Band?
I've been Iookin' about, Pom - Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom!
`I've searched every pub, both near and far, Near and far, near and far, I want my Fritz, What plays tiddley bits On the big trombone!'
The other two brakes had fallen far behind.The one presided over by Hunter contained a mournful crew.Nimrod himself, from the effects of numerous drinks of ginger beer with secret dashes of gin in it, had become at length crying drunk, and sat weeping in gloomy silence beside the driver, a picture of lachrymose misery and but dimly conscious of his surroundings, and Slyme, who rode with Hunter because he was a fellow member of the Shining Light Chapel.Then there was another paperhanger - an unhappy wretch who was afflicted with religious mania; he had brought a lot of tracts with him which he had distributed to the other men, to the villagers of Tubberton and to anybody else who would take them.
Most of the other men who rode in Nimrod's brake were of the `religious' working man type.Ignorant, shallow-pated dolts, without as much intellectuality as an average cat.Attendants at various PSAs and `Church Mission Halls' who went every Sunday afternoon to be lectured on their duty to their betters and to have their minds - save the mark! - addled and stultified by such persons as Rushton, Sweater, Didlum and Grinder, not to mention such mental specialists as the holy reverend Belchers and Boshers, and such persons as John Starr.
At these meetings none of the `respectable' working men were allowed to ask any questions, or to object to, or find fault with anything that was said, or to argue, or discuss, or criticize.They had to sit there like a lot of children while they were lectured and preached at and patronized.Even as sheep before their shearers are dumb, so they were not permitted to open their mouths.For that matter they did not wish to be allowed to ask any questions, or to discuss anything.They would not have been able to.They sat there and listened to what was said, but they had but a very hazy conception of what it was all about.
Most of them belonged to these PSAs merely for the sake of the loaves and fishes.Every now and then they were awarded prizes - Self-help by Smiles, and other books suitable for perusal by persons suffering from almost complete obliteration of the mental faculties.Besides other benefits there was usually a Christmas Club attached to the `PSA' or `Mission' and the things were sold to the members slightly below cost as a reward for their servility.
They were for the most part tame, broken-spirited, poor wretches who contentedly resigned themselves to a life of miserable toil and poverty, and with callous indifference abandoned their offspring to the same fate.Compared with such as these, the savages of New Guinea or the Red Indians are immensely higher in the scale of manhood.They are free! They call no man master; and if they do not enjoy the benefits of science and civilization, neither do they toil to create those things for the benefit of others.And as for their children -most of those savages would rather knock them on the head with a tomahawk than allow them to grow up to be half-starved drudges for other men.
But these were not free: their servile lives were spent in grovelling and cringing and toiling and running about like little dogs at the behest of their numerous masters.And as for the benefits of science and civilization, their only share was to work and help to make them, and then to watch other men enjoy them.And all the time they were tame and quiet and content and said, `The likes of us can't expect to 'ave nothing better, and as for our children wot's been good enough for us is good enough for the likes of them.'
But although they were so religious and respectable and so contented to be robbed on a large scale, yet in small matters, in the commonplace and petty affairs of their everyday existence, most of these men were acutely alive to what their enfeebled minds conceived to be their own selfish interests, and they possessed a large share of that singular cunning which characterizes this form of dementia.
