Yes, that was alive. Monkey's mask you
might call it, but the eyes behind the yellow lids flamed and
blazed. No exaggeration those words. A veritable fire burned there,
a fire, it might be, of mere physical irritation and savage
exasperation at the too-rapid crumbling of the wilfully disobedient
body, a glory, perhaps, of obstinate pride and conceit, a fire of
superstition and crass ignorance, but a fire to be doubted of no man
who looked upon it.
When he spoke his voice was harsher, angrier, more insulting than it
had been before. He spoke, too, in a hurry, tumbling his words one
upon another as though he were afraid that he had little mortal time
left to him and must make the most of what he had got.
From the first he was angry, rating the men of Skeaton as they had
never been rated before. And they liked it. They even revelled in
it; it did them no harm and at the same time tickled their skins.
Sometimes a preacher at the Methodist Chapel had rated them, but how
mild and halting a scolding compared with the fury of this little
man. As he continued they settled into their seats with the
conviction that this was the best free show that they had ever
enjoyed in all their lives.
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