The pair haunted Unionist meetings, Ernie quiescent, the other aggressive to rowdiness. Young Stanley Bessemere, who had returned from Ireland (where he now spent all his leisure caracoling on a war-horse at the distinguished tail of the caracoling Captain Smith) to address a series of gatherings in his constituency in justification of the Ulster movement, and his own share in it, was the favoured target for his darts. Joe followed him round from the East-end to Meads, and from Meads to Old Town, and even pursued him into the country. He acquired a well-earned reputation as a heckler, and was starred as dangerous by the Tory bloods. Mark that man! the word went round. Joe knew it, and was only provoked to increased aggressiveness. "Go on, ma lad!" he would roar from the back of the hall. "Yon's the road to revolution aw reet!" There came a climax at a meeting in the Institute, Old Town. Joe at question time had proved himself unusually bland and provocative. The stewards had tried to put him out; and there had been a rough and tumble in the course of which somebody had hit the engineer a crack on the head from behind with the handle of a motor-car. Joe dropped; and Ernie stood over him in the ensuing scuffle. The news that there was trouble drew a little crowd. Ruth, on her evening marketings in Church Street, looked in. She found Joe sitting up against the wall, dazed; and Ernie kneeling beside him and having words with Stanley Bessemere, who was strolling towards the door. "Brought his troubles on his own head," said the young member casually. "Hit a man from behind!" retorted Ernie, quiet but rather white. "English, ain't it?" "It was your own brother, then!" volunteered an onlooker. Joe rallied, rubbed his head, looked up, saw Ruth and reassured her. "A'm maself," he said. He rose unsteadily on Ernie's arm. "He must come home along of us," said Ruth. "Of course he must then," Ernie answered with the asperity of the thwarted male. The night-air revived the wounded man. Arrived at the cottage he sat in the kitchen, still a little stupid, but amused with his adventure. "They'd ha kicked me in stoomach when A was down only for you, Ern," he said. "That's the Gentlemen of England's notion of politics, that is." "You'd ha done the same by them, Joe, if you'd the chance," answered Ern. The other grinned. "A would that, by Guy--and all for loov," he admitted. Ruth brought him a hot drink. He sipped it, one eye still on his saviour. "I owe this to you, Ern. Here's to you!" "Come to that, Joe, I owe you something," Ernie answered. "What's that then?" Joe sat as a man with a stiff neck, screwing up his eye at the other. Ern nodded significantly at Ruth's back. "Why that little bit o tiddley you done for me afore the beaks," he whispered. "That's nowt," answered Joe sturdily. "What was it Saul said to Jonathan--_If a feller can't tiddle it a liddel bit for his pal, what the hell use is he?_--Book o Judges."