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THE MESSAGE




[Illustration: "I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT THE HEAD OF HER
WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS" (_See page 233_)]




                         The Message


                      _By_ A. J. DAWSON

 _Author of_ "Hidden Manna," "African Nights Entertainments,"
              "Daniel Whyte," "God's Foundling,"
                    "Ronald Kestrel," etc.


              _Illustrated from Color Sketches_
                       _By_ H. M. BROCK


                           [Device]


                 DANA ESTES & COMPANY, BOSTON
                  E. GRANT RICHARDS, LONDON




           _Copyright, April 17, 1907_
             BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY

              _All rights reserved_

          _Entered at Stationers' Hall_


                 COLONIAL PRESS
 ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS & CO.
                 BOSTON, U.S.A.




CONTENTS


              PART I.--THE DESCENT

 CHAPTER                                    PAGE
     I. IN THE MAKING                          3
    II. AT THE WATER'S EDGE                   12
   III. AN INTERLUDE                          17
    IV. THE LAUNCHING                         29
     V. A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT              41
    VI. A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS           53
   VII. A GIRL AND HER FAITH                  66
  VIII. A STIRRING WEEK                       78
    IX. A STEP DOWN                           90
     X. FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI             101
    XI. MORNING CALLERS                      111
   XII. SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON             121
  XIII. THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK       131
   XIV. THE NEWS                             143
    XV. SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON               153
   XVI. A PERSONAL REVELATION                163
  XVII. ONE STEP FORWARD                     168
 XVIII. THE DEAR LOAF                        177
   XIX. THE TRAGIC WEEK                      188
    XX. BLACK SATURDAY                       198
   XXI. ENGLAND ASLEEP                       208


            PART II.--THE AWAKENING

     I. THE FIRST DAYS                       221
    II. ANCIENT LIGHTS                       228
   III. THE RETURN TO LONDON                 237
    IV. THE CONFERENCE                       243
     V. MY OWN PART                          257
    VI. PREPARATIONS                         262
   VII. THE SWORD OF THE LORD                271
  VIII. THE PREACHERS                        291
    IX. THE CITIZENS                         301
     X. SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE       312
    XI. THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE                317
   XII. BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER          330
  XIII. ONE SUMMER MORNING                   338
   XIV. "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY"        343
    XV. "SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"      352
   XVI. HANDS ACROSS THE SEA                 360
  XVII. THE PENALTY                          366
 XVIII. THE PEACE                            374
   XIX. THE GREAT ALLIANCE                   383
    XX. PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES             389




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                        PAGE
 "I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT
 THE HEAD OF HER WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS"        _Frontispiece_

 THE ROARING CITY                                         40

 "RIVERS USHERED IN MISS CONSTANCE GREY"                 114

 "I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVELESS HAND"      212




PART I

THE DESCENT


Non his juventus orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine
Punico.--HORACE.




THE MESSAGE




I

IN THE MAKING

    "Such as I am, sir--no great subject for a boaster, I admit--you see
    in me a product of my time, sir, and of very worthy parents, I
    assure you."--EZEKIEL JOY.


As a very small lad, at home in Tarn Regis, I had but one close chum,
George Stairs, and he went off with his father to Canada, while I was
away for my first term at Elstree School. Then came Rugby, where I had
several friends, but the chief of them was Leslie Wheeler. Just why we
should have been close friends I cannot say, but I fancy it was mainly
because Leslie was such a handsome fellow, and always seemed to cut a
good figure in everything he did; while I, on the other hand, excelled
in nothing, and was not brilliant even in the expression of my
discontent, which was tolerably comprehensive. Withal, in other matters
beside discontent, I was a good deal of an extremist, and by no means
lacking in enthusiasm.

My father, too, was an enthusiast in his quiet way. His was the
enthusiasm of the student, and his work as historian and archaeologist
absorbed, I must suppose, a great deal more of his interest and energy
than was ever given to his cure of souls. He was rector of Tarn Regis,
in Dorset, before I was born, and at the time of his death, to be
present at which I was called away in the middle of the last term of my
third year at Cambridge. I was to have spent four years at the
University; but, as the event proved, I never returned there after my
hurried departure, three days prior to my father's death.

The personal tie between my father and those among whom he lived and
worked was not a very close or intimate bond. His contribution to the
Cambridge History was greatly appreciated by scholars, and his
archaeological research won him the respect and esteem of his peers in
that branch of study. But I cannot pretend that his loss was keenly felt
by his parishioners, with most of whom his relations had been strictly
professional rather than personal. A good man and true, without a trace
of anything sordid or self-seeking in his nature, my father was yet
singularly indifferent to everything connected with the daily lives and
welfare of his fellow creatures.

In this he was typical of a considerable section of the country clergy
of the time. I knew colleagues of his who were more pronounced examples
of the type. One in particular I call to mind (whose living was in the
gift of a Cambridge college, like my father's), who, though a good
fellow and a clean-lived gentleman, was no more a Christian than he was
a Buddhist--less, upon the whole. Among scholarly folk he made not the
slightest pretence of regarding the fundamental tenets of the Christian
faith in the light of anything more serious than interesting historical
myths, notable sections in the mosaic of folk-lore, which it was his
pride and delight to study and understand.

Such men as A---- R---- and my father (and there were many like them,
and more who shared their aloofness while lacking half their virtues)
lived hard-working, studious lives, in which the common kinds of
self-indulgence played but a very small part. Honourable, kindly at
heart, gentle, rarely consciously selfish, these worthy men never gave a
thought to the current affairs of their country, to their own part as
citizens, or to the daily lives of their fellow countrymen. Indeed, they
exhibited a kind of gentle intolerance and contempt in all topical
concerns; and though they preached religion and drew stipends as
expounders of Christianity, they no more thought of "prying" or
"interfering," as they would have said, into the actual lives and hearts
and minds of those about them, than of thrusting their hands into their
parishioners' pockets.

Stated in this bald way the thing may sound incredible, but those whose
recollections carry them back to the opening years of the century will
bear me out in saying that this was far from being either the most
distressing or the most remarkable among the outworkings of what was
then extolled as a broad spirit of tolerance. Our "tolerance," our
vaunted "cosmopolitanism," were far more dangerous factors of our
national life, had we but known it, than either the insularity of our
sturdy forbears or the strength of our enemies had ever been.

Even my dear mother did not, I think, feel the shock of her bereavement
so much as might have been supposed. One may say, without disrespect,
that the loss of my father gave point and justification to my mother's
attitude toward life. Kind, gentle soul that she was, my mother was
afflicted with what might be called the worrying temperament; a
disposition characteristic of that troublous time. My memory seems to
fasten upon the matter of domestic labour as representing the crux and
centre of my dear mother's grievances and topics of lament prior to my
father's death. The subject may seem to border upon the ridiculous, as
an influence upon one's general point of view; but at that time it was
really more tragic than farcical, and I know that what was called "the
servant question"--as such it was gravely treated in books and papers,
and even by leader-writers and lecturers--formed the basis of a great
deal of my mother's conversation, just as I am sure that it coloured her
outlook upon life, and strengthened her tendency to worry over
everything, from the wear-and-tear of house-linen to the morality of the
people. All this was incomprehensible and absurd to my father, though,
had he but thought of it, it was really more human than his own
attitude; for certainly my mother was interested and concerned in the
daily lives of her fellow creatures, though not in a cheering or
illuminating manner perhaps.

But, as I say, the deprecatory, worrying attitude had become second
nature with my mother long years before her widowhood, and had lined and
seamed her poor forehead and silvered her hair before my Rugby days
were over. Bereavement merely gave point to a mood already well
established.

That I should not return to Cambridge was decided as a matter of course
within the week of my father's funeral, when we learned that the little
he had left behind him would not even pay for the dilapidations of the
rectory. There was practically nothing, when my father's affairs were
put in order, beyond my mother's little property, a recent legacy, the
investment of which in Canadian railway stocks brought in about a
hundred and fifty a year.

Thus I found myself confronted with a sufficiently serious situation for
a young man whose training so far had no more fitted him for taking part
in any particular division of the battle of life, where the prize sought
is an income, than for the administration of the planet Mars. Rugby was
better than some of the great public schools in this respect, for a lad
with definite purposes and ambitions, but its curriculum had far less
bearing upon the working life of the age than it had upon its games and
pastimes and the affairs of nations and peoples long since passed away.
Yet Rugby belonged to a group of schools that were admittedly the best,
and certainly the most outrageously costly, of the educational
establishments of the period.

I think my sister Lucy was more shocked than any one else by the death
of our father. I say shocked, because I am not certain whether or not
the word grieved would apply accurately. For one thing, Lucy had never
before seen any dead person. Neither had I, for that matter; but Lucy
was more affected by the actual presence in the house of Death, than I
was. Twice a day for years she had kissed our father's forehead. Now and
again she had sat upon the arm of his chair and stroked his thin hair.
These demonstrations were connected, I believe, with the quest of
favours--permission, money, and so forth; but doubtless affection played
a part in them.

As for Lucy's home life, a little conversation I recall on the occasion
of her driving me to the station when I was leaving for what proved my
last term at Cambridge, seems to me to throw some light. I had but
recently learned of Lucy's engagement to marry Doctor Woodthrop, of
Davenham Minster, our nearest market-town. I had found Woodthrop a
decent fellow enough, but thirty-four as against Lucy's twenty-one,
inclining ominously to corpulence, and as flatly prosaic and
unadventurous a spirit as a small country town could produce. Now, as
Lucy seemed to me to have hankerings in the direction of social
pleasures and the like, with a penchant for brilliancy and daring, I was
a little puzzled about her engagement, for Woodthrop was one who kept a
few conversational pleasantries on hand, as a man keeps old pipes on a
rack, for periodical use at suitable times.

"So you are actually going to be married, Loo?" I said.

"Oh, well, engaged, Dick," she replied, with a little blush.

"With a view, I presume. Then I suppose it follows that you are in
love--h'm?"

"Why, Dick, what a cross-examiner you are!" The blush increased.

"Well, my dear girl, surely it's a natural assumption, is it not?"

"Oh, I suppose so. But----"

"Yes?"

"Well, I don't think in real life it's the same thing that you read
about in novels, do you, Dick?"

"What? Being in love?"

"Yes."

"Well, perhaps not; but I imagine it ought to be something pretty
pronounced, you know, even in such a pale reflection of the novels as
real life. I gather that it ought to be; seriously, Loo, I think it
ought to be. I suppose you do love Woodthrop, don't you?"

My sister looked a little distressed, and I half-regretted having put so
direct a question. I was sufficiently the product of my day to be
terribly afraid of any kind of interference with my fellow creatures.
Our apotheosis of individual liberty had made any such action anathema,
"bad form," a sin more resented in the sinner than cowardice or
dishonesty, or than any kind of wickedness which was strictly personal
and, as you might say, self-contained. Our one object of universal
reverence and respect was the personal equation.

"There, Loo," I said, "I didn't mean to tease you." Thus, in accordance
with my traditions, I brushed aside and apologized for my natural
interest in her well-being in the same way that my poor father and his
like brushed away all matters of topical import, and the average man of
the period brushed aside all concern with his fellow men, all
responsibility for the common weal.

"No," she said, "I know you didn't. And, indeed, Dick, I suppose I don't
love Herbert as well as I ought; but--but, Dick, you don't know what it
is to be a girl. You can go off to Cambridge, and presently you will go
out into the world and live your own life in your own way. But it's
different for me, Dick. A girl is not supposed to want to live her own
life; she is just part of the home, and the home----. Well, Dick, you
know father's life, and mother--poor mother----"

"Yes," I said, "that's so."

"Well, Dick, I'm afraid it seems pretty selfish, but I do want to live
my own way, and I do get terribly tired of--of----"

"Of the 'servant question,' for instance."

"Exactly."

"And you think you can live your own life with Woodthrop?"

"Why, I think he is very kind and good, Dick, and he says there's no
reason why I shouldn't hunt, if I can manage with one mount, and we can
have friends of mine to stay, and--and so on."

"Yes, I see. You will be mistress of a house."

"And, of course, I like him very much, Dick; he really is good."

"Yes."

That was how Lucy felt about her marriage. There seemed to me to be a
good deal lacking; but then I was rather given to concentrating my
attention upon flaws and gaps. And when I was next at home, at the time
of my father's death, I could not help feeling that the engagement was
something to be thankful for. A hundred and fifty a year would mean a
good deal of pinching for my mother alone, as things went then; but for
mother and Lucy together it would have been painfully short commons.
Life, even in the country, was an expensive business at that time
despite the current worship of cheapness and of "free" trade, as our
Quixotic fiscal policy was called. The sum total of our wants and
fancied wants had been climbing steadily, while our individual
capability in domestic and other simple matters had been on the decline
for a long while.

In the end we decided that my mother and Lucy should establish
themselves in apartments on the outskirts of Davenham Minster, which
apartments would serve my mother permanently, with the relinquishment of
a single room after Lucy's marriage. I saw them both established,
gathered my few personal belongings in a trunk and a couple of bags, and
started for London on a brilliantly fine morning toward the end of June.

At that time a young man went to London as a matter of course, when
launching out for himself. It was not that folk liked living in the huge
city (though, curiously enough, many did), but they gravitated toward it
because the great aim, always, and in those conditions necessarily, was
to make money. There was more money "knocking about," so people said, in
London than anywhere else; so that was the place for which one made.

I started for London with a capital of precisely eleven guineas over and
above my railway fare--and left it again on the same day.




II

AT THE WATER'S EDGE

    "Now a little before them, there was on the left-hand of the Road, a
    Meadow, and a Stile to go over into it, and that Meadow is called
    By-Path-Meadow."--_The Pilgrim's Progress._


My friend, Leslie Wheeler, had left Cambridge a few months before my
summons home, in order to enter his father's office in Moorgate Street.
His father was of the mysteriously named tribe of "financial agents,"
and had evidently found it a profitable calling.

As I never understood anything of even the nomenclature of finance, I
will not attempt to describe the business into which my friend had been
absorbed; but I remember that it afforded occupation for dozens of
gentlemanly young fellows, the correctness of whose _coiffure_ and
general appearance was beyond praise. These beautifully groomed young
gentlemen sat upon high stools at desks of great brilliancy. They used
an ingenious arrangement of foolscap paper to protect their shirt-cuffs
from contact with baser things, and one of the reasons for the evident
care lavished upon the disposition of their hair may have been the fact
that they made it a point of honour to go hatless when taking the air or
out upon business during the day. Their general appearance and
deportment in the office and outside always conveyed to me the
suggestion that they were persons of some wealth and infinite leisure;
but I have been assured that they were hard-working clerks, whose
salaries, even in these simpler days, would not be deemed extravagant.
These salaries, I have been told, worked out at an average of perhaps
L120 or L130 a year.

Now London meant no more to me at that time than a place where, upon
rare occasions, one dined in splendour, went to a huge and gilded
music-hall, cultivated a bad headache, and presently sought to ease it
by eating a nightmarish supper, and eating it against time. My allowance
at Cambridge had, no doubt fortunately for my digestion, allowed of but
few excursions to the capital; but my friend Wheeler lived within twenty
miles of it, and I figured him already burgeoning as a magnate of
Moorgate Street. Therefore I had of course written to him of my proposed
descent upon the metropolis, and had been very kindly invited to spend a
week at his father's house in Weybridge before doing anything else.
Accordingly then, having reached Waterloo by a fast train, I left most
of my effects in the cloak-room there, and taking only one bag,
journeyed down to Weybridge.

My friend welcomed me in person in the hall of his father's big and
rather showy house, he having returned from the City earlier than usual
for that express purpose. I had already met his mother and two sisters
upon four separate occasions at Cambridge. Indeed, I may say that I had
almost corresponded with Leslie's second sister, Sylvia. At all events,
we had exchanged half a dozen letters, and I had even begged, and
obtained, a photograph. At Cambridge I thought I had detected in this
delicately pretty, soft-spoken girl, some sympathy and fellow-feeling in
the matter of my own crude gropings toward a philosophy of life. You may
be sure I did not phrase it in that way then. The theories upon which my
discontent with the prevailing order of things was based, seemed to me
then both strong and practical; a little ahead of my time perhaps, but
far from crude or unformed. As I see it now, my creed was rather a
protest against indifference, a demand for some measure of activity in
social economy. That my muse was socialistic seems to me now to have
been mainly accidental, but so it was, and its nutriment had been drawn
largely from such sources as Carpenter's _Civilization: its Cause and
Cure_, in addition to the standard works of the Socialist leaders.

It is quite possible that one of the reasons of my continued friendship
with Leslie Wheeler was the fact that, in his agreeable manner, he
represented in person much of the butterfly indifference to what I
considered the serious problems of life, against which my fulminations
were apt to be directed. I may have clung to him instinctively as a
wholesome corrective. At all events, he submitted, in the main
good-humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and, by his very
complaisance and merry indifference, supplied me again and again with
point and illustration for my sermons.

Leslie's elder sister, Marjory, was his counterpart in petticoats;
merry, frivolous, irresponsible, devoted to the chase of pleasure, and
obdurately bent upon sparing neither thought nor energy over other
interests; denying their very existence indeed, or good-humouredly
ridiculing them when they were forced upon her. She was a very handsome
girl; I was conscious of that; but, perhaps because I could not
challenge her as I did her brother, her character made no appeal to me.
But Sylvia, on the other hand, with her big, spiritual-looking eyes,
transparently fair skin, and earnest, even rapt expression; Sylvia
stirred my adolescence pretty deeply, and was assiduously draped by me
in that cloth of gold and rose-leaves which every young man is apt to
weave from out of his own inner consciousness for the persons of those
representatives of the opposite sex in whom he detects sympathy and
responsiveness.

Mrs. Wheeler spoke in a kind and motherly way of my bereavement, and the
generosity of youth somehow prevented my appreciation of this being
dulled by the fact that, until reminded, she had forgotten whether I had
lost a father or a mother. Indeed, though not greatly interested in
other folk's affairs, I believe that while the good soul's eyes rested
upon the supposed sufferer, or his story, she was sincerely sorry about
any kind of trouble, from her pug's asthma to the annihilation of a
multitude in warfare or disaster. She had the kindest heart, and no
doubt it was rather her misfortune than her fault that she could not
clearly realize any circumstance or situation which did not impinge in
some way upon her own small circle.

I met Leslie's father for the first time at dinner that evening. One
could hardly have imagined him sparing time for visits to Cambridge. He
was a fine, soldierly-looking man, with no trace of City pallor in his
well-shaven, purple cheeks. Purple is hardly the word. The ground was
crimson, I think, and over that there was spread a delicate tracery, a
sort of netted film, of some kind of blue. The eyes had a glaze over
them, but were bright and searching. The nose was a salient feature,
having about it a strong predatory suggestion. The forehead was low,
surmounted by exquisitely smooth iron-gray hair. Mr. Wheeler was
scrupulously fine in dress, and used a single eye-glass. He gave me
hearty welcome, and I prefer to think that the apparent chilling of his
attitude to me after he had learned of my financial circumstances was
merely the creation of some morbid vein of hyper-sensitiveness in
myself.

At all events, we were all very jolly together that evening, and I went
happily to bed, after what I thought a hint of responsive pressure in my
handshake with Sylvia, and several entertaining anecdotes from Mr.
Wheeler as to the manner in which fortunes had been made in the purlieus
of Throgmorton Street. Launching oneself upon a prosperous career in
London seemed an agreeably easy process at the end of that first evening
in the Wheeler's home, and the butterfly attitude toward life appeared
upon the whole less wholly blameworthy than before. What a graceful
fellow Leslie was, and how suave and genial the father when he sat at
the head of his table toying with a glass of port! And these were
capable men, too, men of affairs. Doubtless their earnestness was strong
enough below the surface, I thought--for that night.




III

AN INTERLUDE

    "To observations which ourselves we make,
    We grow more partial for th' observer's sake."

                                              POPE.


Though in no sense unfriendly or lacking in sympathy, I noticed that
Leslie Wheeler showed no inclination to be drawn into intimate
discussion of my prospects. I was not inclined to blame my friend for
this, but told myself that he probably acted upon paternal instructions.
For me, however, it was impossible to lay aside for long, thoughts
regarding my immediate future. I was aware that a nest-egg of eleven or
twelve pounds was not a very substantial barrier between oneself and
want. Mr. Wheeler told no more stories of fortunes built out of nothing
in the City, but he did take occasion to refer casually to the fact that
City men did not greatly care for the products of public schools and
universities, as employees.

I was more than half-inclined to ask why, in this case, Leslie had been
sent to Rugby and Cambridge, but decided to avoid the personal
application of his remark. It was, after all, no more than the
expression of a commonly accepted view, striking though it seems as a
comment upon the educational system of the period, when one remembers
the huge proportion of the middle and upper-class populace which was
absorbed by commercial callings of one kind or another.

There was practically no demand for physical prowess or aptitude,
outside the field of sport and games, nor even for those qualities which
are best served by a good physical training. One need not, therefore, be
greatly surprised that the public schools should have given no physical
training outside games, and that even of the most perfunctory character,
the majority qualifying as interested spectators merely, of the prowess
of the minority. But it certainly is remarkable, that no practical
business training, nor studies of a sort calculated to be of use in
later business training, should have been given in the schools most
favoured by those for whom business was a life's calling. In this, as in
so many other matters, I suppose we were guided and directed entirely by
habit and tradition; the line of least resistance.

When I talked of my prospects with handsome Leslie Wheeler--his was his
father's face, unblemished and unworn--our conversation was always three
parts jocular, at all events upon his side. I was to recast society and
mould our social system anew by means of my pen, and of journalism. I
was to provide "the poor blessed poor" with hot-buttered rolls and
devilled kidneys for breakfast, said Leslie, and introduce old-age
pensions for every British workman who survived his twenty-first
birthday.

I would not be understood to suggest that this sort of facetiousness
indicated the average attitude of the period with regard to the horrible
fact that the country contained millions of people permanently in a
state of want and privation. But it was a quite possible attitude then.
Such people as my friend could never have mocked the sufferings of an
individual. But with regard to the state of affairs, the pitiful
millions, as an abstract proposition, indifference was the rule, a tone
of light cynicism was customary, and "the poor we have always with us,"
quoted with a deprecatory shrug, was an accepted conversational refuge,
even among such people as the clergy and charitable workers.

And this, if one comes to think of it, was inevitable. The life and
habits and general attitude of the period would have been absolutely
impossible, in conjunction with any serious face-to-face consideration
of a situation which embraced, for example, such preposterously
contradictory elements as these:

The existence of huge and growing armies of absolutely unemployed men;
the insistence of the populace, and particularly the business people,
upon the disbandment of regiments, and upon great naval and military
reductions, involving further unemployment; the voting of considerable
sums for distribution among the unemployed; violent opposition to the
mere suggestion of State aid to enable the unemployed of England to
migrate to those parts of the Empire which actually needed their labour;
the increasing difficulty of the problem which was wrapped up in the
question of "What to do with our sons"; the absolute refusal of the
nation to admit of universal military service; the successive closing by
tariff of one foreign market after another against British manufactures,
and the hysterical refusal of the people to protect their own markets
from what was graphically called the "dumping" into them of the surplus
products of other peoples.

It is a queer catalogue, with a ring of insanity about it; but these
were the merest commonplaces of life at that time, and the man who
rebelled against them was a crank. My friend Leslie's attitude was
natural enough, therefore; and, with a few exceptions, it was my own,
for, curiously enough, the political school I favoured was, root and
branch, opposed to the only possible remedies for this situation.
Liberals, Radicals, Socialists, and the majority of those who arrogated
to themselves the title of Social Reformers; these were the people who
insisted, if not upon the actual evils and sufferings indicated in this
illustrative note of social contradictions, then upon violent opposition
to their complements in the way of mitigation and relief. And I was
keenly of their number.

Many of these matters I discussed, or perhaps I should say, dilated
upon, in conversation with Sylvia, while her brother and father were in
London. We would begin with racquets in the tennis-court, and end late
for some meal, after long wanderings among the pines. And in Sylvia, as
it seemed to me, I found the most delightfully intelligent
responsiveness, as well as sympathy. My knowledge of feminine nature,
its extraordinary gifts of emotional and personal intuition, was of the
scantiest, if it had any existence at all. But my own emotional side was
active, and my mind an inchoate mass of ideals and more or less
sentimental longings for social betterment. And so, with Sylvia's
gentle acquiescence, I rearranged the world.

Much I have forgotten, and am thus spared the humiliation of recounting.
But, as an example of what I recall, I remember a conversation which
arose from our passing a miniature rifle-range which some local
resident--"Some pompous Jingo of retrogressive tendencies," I called
him--had erected with a view to tempting young Weybridge into
marksmanship; a tolerably forlorn prospect at that time.

"Is it not pathetic," I said, "in twentieth-century England, to see such
blatant attacks upon progress as that?"

Sylvia nodded gravely; sweetly sympathetic understanding, as I saw it.
And, after all, why not? Understanding of my poor bubbling mind, anyhow,
and--Nature's furnishing of young women's minds is a mighty subtle
business, not very much more clearly understood to-day than in the era
of knight-errantry.

Sylvia nodded gravely, as I spurned the turf by the range.

"Here we are surrounded by quagmires of poverty, injustice, social
anomalies, and human distress, and this poor soul--a rich pork-butcher,
angling for the favours of a moribund political party, I dare
say--lavishes heaven knows how many pounds over an arrangement by which
young men are to be taught how to kill each other with neatness and
despatch at a distance of half a mile! It is more tragical than
farcical. It is enough to make one despair of one's fellow countrymen,
with their silly bombast about 'Empire,' and their childish waving of
flags. 'Empire,' indeed; God save the mark! And our own little country
groaning, women and children wailing, for some measure of common-sense
internal reform!"

"It is dreadful, dreadful," said Sylvia. My heart leapt out to meet the
gentle goodness of her. "But still, I suppose there must be soldiers,"
she added. Of course, this touched me off as a spark applied to tinder.

"But that is just the whole crux of the absurdity, and as long as so
unreal a notion is cherished we can never be freed from the slavery of
these huge armaments. Soldiers are only necessary if war is necessary,
and war can only be necessary while men are savages. The differences
between masters and men are far more vital and personal than the
differences between nations; yet they have long passed the crude stage
of thirsting for each other's destruction as a means of settling
quarrels. War is a relic of barbarous days. So long as armies are
maintained, unscrupulous politicians will wage war. If we, who call
ourselves the greatest nation in Christendom, would even deserve the
credit of plain honesty, we must put away savagery, and substitute
boards of arbitration for armies and navies."

"Yes, I see," said Sylvia, her face alight with interest, "I feel that
must be the true, the Christian view. But suppose the other nations
would not agree to arbitration?"

"But there is not a doubt they would. Can you suppose that any people
are so insensate as really to like war, carnage, slaughter, for their
own sake, when peaceful alternatives are offered?"

"No, I suppose not; and, indeed, I feel that all you say is true, Mr.
Mordan."

"Please don't say 'Mr. Mordan,' Sylvia. Even your mother and sister call
me Dick. No, no, the other nations would be only too glad to follow our
lead, and we, as the greatest Power, should take that lead. What could
their soldiers do to a soldierless people, anyhow; and even if we lost
at the beginning, why, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?' Of what use is the dominion of a huge,
unwieldy empire when even a tiny country like this is so administered
that a quarter of its population live always on the verge of starvation?
Let the Empire go, let Army and Navy go, let us concentrate our energies
upon the arts of peace, science, education, the betterment of the
conditions of life among the poor, the right division of the land among
those that will till it. Let us do that, and the world would have
something to thank us for, and we should soon hear the last of these
noisy, ranting idiots who are eternally waving flags like lunatics and
mouthing absurd phrases about imperialism and patriotism, national
destiny, and rubbish of that sort. Our duty is to humanity, and not to
any decayed symbols of feudalism. The talk of patriotism and imperialism
is a gigantic fraud, and the tyranny of it makes our names hated
throughout the world. We have no right to enforce our sway upon the
peace-loving farmers and the ignorant blacks of South Africa. They
rightly hate us for it, and so do the millions of India, upon whom our
yoke is held by armies of soldiers who have to be maintained by their
victims. It casts one down to think of it, just as the sight of those
ridiculous rifle-butts and the thought of the diseased sentiment behind
them depresses one."

"It all seems very mad and wrong, but--but I wish you would not take it
so much to heart," said Sylvia.

"That is very sweet of you," I told her; "and, indeed, there is not so
much real cause to be downhearted. The last elections showed clearly
enough that the majority of our people are alive to all this. The leaven
of enlightenment is working strongly among the people, and the old
tyranny of Jingoism is dying fast. One sees it in a hundred ways. Boer
independence has as warm friends in our Parliament as on the veld. The
rising movements of internationalism, of Pan-Islam, the Swadeshi
movement, the rising toward freedom in India; all these are largely
directed from Westminster. The Jingo sentiment toward Germany, a really
progressive nation, full of natural and healthy ambitions, is being
swept away by our own statesmen; by their courteous and friendly
attitude toward the Kaiser, who delights to honour our present Minister
of War. Also, the work of disarmament has begun. The naval estimates are
being steadily pruned, and whole regiments have been finally disbanded.
And all this comes from within. So you see we have some grounds for
hopefulness. It is a great step forward, for our own elected leaders to
show the enthusiastic and determined opposition they are showing to the
old brutal pretensions of England to sway the world by brute strength.
But, forgive me! Perhaps I tire you with all this--Sylvia."

"No, no, indeed you don't--Dick, I--I think it is beautiful. It--it
seems to make everything bigger, more kind and good. It interests me,
immensely."

And I knew perfectly well that I had not tired her--wearisome though the
recital of it all may be now. For I knew instinctively how the personal
note told in the whole matter. I had been really heated, and perfectly
sincere, but a kind of subconscious cunning had led me to utilize the
heat of the moment in introducing between us, for example, the use of
first names. Well I knew that I was not wearying Sylvia. But coldly
recited now, I admit the rhodomontade to be exceedingly tiresome. My
excuse for it is that it serves to indicate the sort of ideas that were
abroad at the time, the sort of sentiments which were shaping our
destiny.

After all, I was an educated youth. Many of my hot statements, too, were
of fact, and not merely of opinion and feeling. It is a fact that the
sentiment called anti-British had come to be served more slavishly in
England than in any foreign land. The duration of our disastrous war in
South Africa was positively doubled, as the result of British influence,
by Boer hopes pinned upon the deliberate utterances of British
politicians. In Egypt, South Africa, India, and other parts of the
Empire, all opposition to British rule, all risings, attacks upon our
prestige, and the like, were aided, and in many cases fomented, steered,
and brought to a successful issue--not by Germans or other foreigners,
but by Englishmen, and by Englishmen who had sworn allegiance at St.
Stephens. It is no more than a bare statement of fact to say that, in
the very year of my arrival in London, the party which ruled the State
was a party whose members openly avowed and boasted of their opposition
to British dominion, and that in terms, not less, but far more sweeping
than mine in talking to Sylvia among the pines at Weybridge.

But if Sylvia appreciated and sympathized in the matter of my
sermonizing, the rest of the family neither approved the sermons nor
Sylvia's interest in them. I was made to feel in various ways that no
import must be attached to my attentions to Sylvia. Marjory began to
shadow her sister in the daytime, and, as she was frankly rather bored
by me, I could not but detect the parental will in this.

Then with regard to my social and political views, Mr. Wheeler joined
with his son in openly deriding them. In Leslie's case the thing never
went beyond friendly banter. Leslie had no political opinions; he
laughed joyously at the mere notion of bothering his head about such
matters for a moment. And, in his way, he represented an enormous
section of the younger generation of Englishmen in this. The father, on
the other hand, was equally typical of his class and generation. This
was how he talked to me over his port:--

"I tell you what it is, you know, Mordan: you're a regular firebrand,
you know; by Jove, you are; an out-and-out Socialistic Radical: that's
what you are. By gad, sir, I don't mince my words. I consider
that--er--opinions like yours are a danger to the country; I do,
indeed; a danger to the country, and--er--to the--to the Empire. I do,
by gad. And as for your notions about disarmament and that, why, even if
our army reductions are justifiable, which, upon my word, I very much
doubt, it's ridiculous to suppose we can afford to cut down our Navy.
No, sir, the British Navy is Britain's safeguard, and it ought not to be
tampered with. I'm an out-and-out Imperialist myself, and--er--I can
tell you I have no patience with your Little Englandism."

I am not at all sure whether the class Mr. Wheeler belonged to was not
almost the most dangerous class of all. The recent elections showed this
class to be a minority. Of course, this section had its strong men, but
that it also included a large number of men like Leslie's father was a
fact--a fact which yielded pitiful evidence of its weakness. These men
called themselves "out-and-out Imperialists," and had not a notion of
even the meaning of the word they used. Still less had they any notion
of accepting any role which involved the bearing of responsibilities,
the discharge of civic and national duties.

Mr. Wheeler's aim in life was to make money and to enjoy himself. He
would never have exercised his right to vote if voting had involved
postponing dinner. He liked to talk of the British Empire, but he did
not even know precisely of what countries it consisted, and I think he
would cheerfully have handed Canada to France, Australia to Germany,
India to Russia, and South Africa to the Boers, if by so doing he could
have escaped the paying of income-tax.

On Sunday night, my last night at Weybridge, I walked home from church
alone with Sylvia. Marjory was in bed with a sore throat, and whatever
their notions as to my undesirability, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wheeler were
inclined to attend evening service. Leslie was not home from golf at
Byfleet. We were late for dinner, Sylvia and I, and during our walk she
promised to write to me regularly, and I promised many things, and
suggested many things, and was only deterred from actual declaration by
the thought of the poor little sum which stood between me and actual
want.

Next morning I went up to town with Leslie and his father to open my
campaign in London. As a first step toward procuring work, I was to
present a letter of introduction from a Cambridge friend to the editor
of the _Daily Gazette_. After that, as Leslie said, I was to "reform
England inside out."




IV

THE LAUNCHING

    "O Friend! I know not which way I must look
    For comfort, being, as I am, opprest
    To think that now our life is only drest
    For show; mean handi-work of craftsman, cook,
    Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook
    In the open sunshine, or we are unblest;
    The wealthiest man among us is the best;
    No grandeur now in Nature or in book
    Delight us...."

                                              WORDSWORTH.


Looking back now upon that lonely launch of mine in London, I see a very
curious and sombre picture. In the living I am sure there must have been
mitigations, and light as well as shade. In the retrospect it seems one
long disillusion. I see myself, and the few folk with whom my relations
were intimate, struggling like ants across a grimy stage, in the midst
of an inferno of noise, confusion, pointless turmoil, squalor, and
ultimate cataclysm. The whole picture is lurid, superhuman in its
chaotic gloom; but in the living, I know there were gleams of sunlight.
The tragic muddle of that period was so monstrous, that even we who
lived through it are apt in retrospect to see only the gloom and
confusion. It is natural, therefore, that those who did not live through
it should be utterly unable to discern any glimpse of relief in the
picture. And that leads to misconception.

As a fact, I found very much to admire in London when I sallied forth
from the obscure lodging I had chosen in a Bloomsbury back street, on
the morning which brought an end to my stay with the Wheelers at
Weybridge. Also, it was not given to me at that time to recognize as
such one tithe of the madness and badness of the state of affairs. Some
wholly bad features were quite good in my eyes then.

London still clung to its "season," as it was called, though motor-cars
and railway facilities had entirely robbed this of its sharply defined
nineteenth-century limits. Very many people, even among the wealthy,
lived entirely in London, spending their week-ends in this or that
country or seaside resort, and devoting the last months of summer with,
in many cases, the first months of autumn, to holiday-making on the
Continent, or in Scotland, or on the English moors or coasts.

The London season was not over when I reached town, and in the western
residential quarters the sun shone brightly upon many-coloured awnings
and beautiful decorative plants and flowers. The annual rents paid by
people who lived behind these flowers and awnings frequently ran into
thousands of pounds, with ten shillings in each pound additional by way
of rates and taxes. To live at all, in this strata, would cost a man and
his wife perhaps eighty to a hundred pounds a week, without anything
which would have been called extravagance.

Hundreds of people who lived in this way had neighbours within a
hundred yards of their front doors who never had enough to eat. Even
such people as these had to pay preposterous rents for the privilege of
huddling together in a single wretched room. But many of their wealthy
neighbours spent hundreds, and even thousands of pounds a year over
securing comfort and happiness for such domestic animals as horses,
dogs, cats, and the like. Amiable, kindly gentlefolk they were, with
tender hearts and ready sympathies. Most of them were interested in some
form of charity. Many of them specialized, and these would devote much
energy to opposing the work of other charitable specialists. Lady
So-and-so, who advocated this panacea, found herself bitterly opposed by
Sir So-and-so, who wanted all sufferers to be made to take his nostrum
in his special way. Then sometimes poor Lady So-and-so would throw up
her panacea in a huff, and concentrate her energies upon the work of
some society for converting Jews, who did not want to be converted, or
for supplying red flannel petticoats for South Sea Island girls, who
infinitely preferred cotton shifts and floral wreaths. Even these futile
charities were permitted to overlap one another to a bewilderingly
wasteful extent.

But the two saddest aspects of the whole gigantic muddle so far as
charitable work went, were undoubtedly these: The fact that much of it
went to produce a class of men and women who would not do any kind of
work because they found that by judicious sponging they could live and
obtain alcohol and tobacco in idleness; and the fact that where
charitable endeavour infringed upon vested interests, licit or illicit,
it was savagely opposed by the persons interested.

The discipline of the national schools was slack, intermittent, and of
short reach. There was positively no duty to the State which a youth was
bound to observe. Broadly, it might be said that at that time discipline
simply did not enter at all into the life of the poor of the towns, and
charity of every conceivable and inconceivable kind did enter into it at
every turn.

The police service was excellent and crime exceedingly difficult of
accomplishment. The inevitable result was the evolution in the towns of
a class of men and women, but more especially of men, who, though
compact of criminal instincts of every kind, yet committed no offence
against criminal law. They committed nothing. They simply lived,
drinking to excess when possible, determined upon one point only: that
they never would do anything which could possibly be called work. It is
obvious that among such people the sense of duty either to themselves,
to each other, or to the State, was merely non-existent.

London had long since earned the reputation of being the most charitable
city in the world. Its share in the production of an immense loafer
class formed one sad aspect of London's charity when I first came to
know the city. Another was the opposition of vested interests--the
opposition of the individual to the welfare of the mass. One found it
everywhere. An instance I call to mind (it happened to be brought
sharply home to me) struck at the root of the terribly rapid production
of degenerates, by virtue of its relation to pauper children--that is,
the children to whom the State, through its boards of guardians, stood
in the light of parents, because their natural parents were dead, or in
prison, or in lunatic asylums, or hopelessly far gone in the state of
criminal inactivity which qualified so many for all three estates.

Huge institutions were built at great expense for the accommodation of
these little unfortunates. Here they were housed in the most costly
manner, the whole work of the establishment being carried on by a highly
paid staff of servants and officials. The children were not allowed to
do anything at all, beyond the learning by rote of various theories
which there was no likelihood of their ever being able to apply to any
reality of life with which they would come in contact.

They listened to lectures on the making of dainty dishes in the best
style of French cookery, and in many cases they never saw a box of
matches. They learned to repeat poetry as parrots might, but did not
know the difference between shavings and raw coffee. They learned vague
smatterings of Roman history, but did not know how to clean their boots
or brush their hair. It was as though experts had been called upon to
devise a scheme whereby children might be reared into their teens
without knowing that they were alive or where they lived, and this with
the greatest possible outlay of money per child. Then, at a given age,
these children were put outside the massive gates of the institutions
and told to run away and become good citizens.

It followed as a matter of course that most of them fell steadily and
rapidly into the pit; the place occupied by the criminally inactive, the
"public-house props." So they returned poor, heavy-laden creatures, by
way of charity, to the institutions of the "rates," thus completing the
vicious circle of life forced upon them by an incredibly wrong-headed,
topsyturvy administration.

For the maintenance of this vicious circle enormous sums of public money
were required. Failing such vast expenditure, Nature unaided would have
righted matters to some extent, and the Poor Law guardians would have
become by so much the less wielders of power and influence, dispensers
of public money. Some of these Poor Law guardians gave up more or less
honest trades to take to Poor Law guardianship as a business; and they
waxed fat upon it.

Every now and again came disclosures. Guardians were shown to have paid
ten shillings a score for such and such a commodity this year, and next
year to have refused a tender for the supply of the same article at 9s.
8d. a score, in favour of the tender of a relative or protege of one of
their number at 109s. 8d. a score. I remember the newspapers showing up
such cases as these during the week of my arrival in London. The public
read and shrugged shoulders.

"Rascally thieves, these guardians," said the Public; and straightway
forgot the whole business in the rush of its own crazy race for money.

"But," cried the Reformer to the Public, "this is really your business.
It is your duty as citizens to stop this infamous traffic. Don't you see
how you yourselves are being robbed?"

You must picture our British Public of the day as a flushed, excited
man, hurrying wildly along in pursuit of two phantoms--money and
pleasure. These he desired to grasp for himself, and he was being
furiously jostled by millions of his fellows, each one of whom desired
just the same thing, and nothing else. Faintly, amidst the frantic
turmoil, came the warning voices in the wilderness:

"This is your business. It is your duty as citizens," etc.

Over his shoulder, our poor possessed Public would fling his answer:

"Leave me alone. I haven't time to attend to it. I'm too busy. You
mustn't interrupt me. Why the deuce don't the Government see to it? Lot
of rascals! Don't bother me. I represent commerce, and, whatever you do,
you must not in any way interfere with the Freedom of Trade."

The band of the reformers was considerable, embracing as it did the
better, braver sort of statesmen, soldiers, sailors, clergy, authors,
journalists, sociologists, and the whole brotherhood of earnest
thinkers. But the din and confusion was frightful, the pace at which the
million lived was terrific; and, after all, the cries of the reformers
all meant the same thing, the one thing the great, sweating public was
determined not to hear, and not to act on. They all meant:

"Step out from your race a moment. Your duties are here. You are passing
them all by. Come to your duties."

It was like a Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it was directed at a
people who had sloughed all pretensions to be ranked among those who
respond to such calls, to any calls which would distract them from their
objective in the pelting pursuit of money and pleasure.

But I am digressing--the one vice which, unfortunately for us, we never
indulged or condoned at the time of my arrival in London. I wanted to
give an instance of that aspect of charity and attempted social reform
which aroused the opposition of vested interests and chartered brigands
in the great money hunt. It was this: A certain charitable lady gave
some years of her life to the study of those conditions in which, as I
have said, the criminally inactive, the hopelessly useless, were
produced by authorized routine, at a ruinous cost in money and
degeneracy, and to the great profit of an unscrupulous few.

This lady then gave some further years, not to mention money, influence,
and energy, to the evolution of a scheme by which these pauper children
could really be made good and independent citizens, and that at an
all-round cost of about one-fifth of the price of the guardians' method
for converting them into human wrecks and permanent charges upon the
State. The wise practicability of this lady's system was admitted by
independent experts, and denied by nobody. But it was swept aside and
crushed, beaten down with vicious, angry thoroughness, in one
quarter--the quarter of vested interest and authority; quietly,
passively discouraged in various other quarters; and generally ignored,
as another interrupting duty call, by the rushing public.

Here, then, were three kinds of opposition--the first active and
deadly, the other two passive and fatal, because they withheld needed
support. The reason of the first, the guardians' opposition, was frankly
and shamelessly admitted in London at the time of my arrival there. The
guardians said:

"This scheme would reduce the rates. We want more rates. It would reduce
the amount of money at our disposal. We aim at increasing that. It would
divert certain streams of cash from our own channel into other channels
in other parts of the Empire. We won't have it." But their words were
far less civil and more heated than these, though the sense of them was
as I have said.

The quiet, passive opposition was that of other workers in charity and
reform. They said in effect:

"Yes, the scheme is all right--an excellent scheme. But why do you take
it upon yourself to bring it forward in this direct manner? Are you not
aware of the existence of our B---- nostrum for pauper children, or our
C---- specific for juvenile emigration? Your scheme, admirable as it is,
ignores both these, and therefore you must really excuse us if we----
Quite so! But, of course, as co-workers in the good cause, we wish you
well----", and so forth.

The opposition of the general public I have explained. It was not really
opposition. It was simply a part of the disease of the period; the
dropsical, fatty degeneration of a people. But the mere fact that the
reformers sent forth their cries and still laboured beside the public's
crowded race-course; that such people as the lady I have mentioned
existed--and there were many like her--should show that London as I
found it was not all shadow and gloom, as it seems when one looks back
upon it from the clear light of better days.

The darkness, the confusion, and the din, were not easy to see and hear
through then. From this distance they are more impenetrable; but I know
the light did break through continually in places, and good men and
women held wide the windows of their consciousness to welcome it,
striving their utmost to carry it into the thick of the fight. Many
broke their hearts in the effort; but there were others, and those who
fell had successors. The heart of our race never was of the stuff that
can be broken. It was the strongest thing in all that tumultuous world
of my youth, and I recall now the outstanding figures of men already
gray and bowed by long lives of strenuous endeavour, who yet fought
without pause at this time on the side of those who strove to check the
mad, blind flight of the people.

London, as I entered it, was a battle-field; the perverse waste of human
energy and life was frightful; but it was not quite the unredeemed chaos
which it seems as we look back upon it.

Even in the red centre of the stampede (Fleet Street is within the City
boundaries) men in the race took time for the exercise of human
kindliness, when opportunity was brought close enough to them. The
letter I took to the editor of the _Daily Gazette_ was from an old
friend of his who knew, and told him, of my exact circumstances. This
gentleman received me kindly and courteously. He and his like were
among the most furiously hurried in the race, but their handling of
great masses of diffuse information gave them, in many cases, a wide
outlook, and where, as often happened, they were well balanced as well
as honest, I think they served their age as truly as any of their
contemporaries, and with more effect than most.

This gentleman talked to me for ten minutes, during which time he
learned most of all there was to know about my little journalistic and
debating experience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my views and
purposes. I do not think he particularly desired my services; but, on
the other hand, I was not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for
publication; I had enthusiasm; and there was my Cambridge friend's
letter.

"Well, Mr. Mordan," he said, turning toward a table littered deep with
papers, and cumbered with telephones and bells, "I cannot offer you
anything very brilliant at the moment; but I see no reason why you
should not make a niche for yourself. We all have to do that, you
know--or drop out to make way for others. You probably know that in
Fleet Street, more perhaps than elsewhere, the race is to the swift.
There are no reserved seats. The best I can do for you now is to enter
you on the reporting staff. It is stretching a point somewhat to make
the pay fifty shillings a week for a beginning. That is the best I can
do. Would you care to take that?"

"Certainly," I told him; "and I'm very much obliged to you for the
chance."

"Right. Then you might come in to-morrow. I will arrange with the
news-editor. And now----" He looked up, and I took my hat. Then he
looked down again, as though seeking something on the floor. "Well, I
think that's all. Of course, it rests with you to make your own place,
or--or lose it. I sympathize with what you have told me of your
views--of course. You know the policy of the paper. But you must
remember that running a newspaper is a complex business. One's methods
cannot always be direct. Life is made up of compromises, and--er--at
times a turn to the left is the shortest way to the right--er--Good
night!"

Thus I was given my chance within a few hours of my descent upon the
great roaring City. I was spared much. Even then I knew by hearsay, as I
subsequently learned for myself, that hundreds of men of far wider
experience and greater ability than mine were wearily tramping London's
pavements at that moment, longing, questing bitterly for work that would
bring them half the small salary I was to earn.

I wrote to Sylvia that night, from my little room among the cat-infested
chimney-pots of Bloomsbury; and I am sure my letter did not suggest that
London was a very gloomy place. My hopes ran high.

[Illustration: THE ROARING CITY]




V

A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT

    "... Rapine, avarice, expense,
    This is idolatry; and these we adore:
    Plain living and high thinking are no more:
    The homely beauty of the good old cause
    Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
    And pure religion breathing household laws."

                                              WORDSWORTH.


Acting on the instructions I had received overnight, I presented myself
at the office of the _Daily Gazette_ in good time on the morning after
my interview with the editor. A pert boy showed me into the
news-editor's room, after an interval of waiting, and I found myself
confronting the man who controlled my immediate destiny. He was
dictating telegrams to a shorthand writer, and, for the moment, took no
notice whatever of me. I stood at the end of his table, hat in hand,
wondering how so young-looking a man came to be occupying his chair.

He looked about my age, but was a few years older. His face was as
smooth as the head of a new axe, and had something else chopper-like
about it. He reminded me of pictures I had seen in the advertisement
pages of American magazines; pictures showing a wedge-like human face,
from the lips of which some such an assertion as "It's _you_ I want!"
was supposed to be issuing. I subsequently learned that this Mr.
Charles N. Pierce had spent several years in New York, and that he was
credited with having largely increased the circulation of the _Daily
Gazette_ since taking over his present position. He suddenly raised the
even, mechanical tone in which he dictated, and snapped out the words:

"Right. Get on with those now, and come back in five minutes."

Then he switched his gaze on to me, like a searchlight.

"Mr. Mordan, I believe?"

I admitted the charge with my best smile. Mr. Pierce ignored the smile,
and said:

"University man?"

Accepting his cue as to brevity, I said: "Yes. Corpus Christi,
Cambridge."

He pursed his thin lips. "Ah well," he said, "you'll get over that."

In his way he was perfectly right; but his way was as coldly offensive
as any I had ever met with.

"Well, Mr. Mordan, I've only three things to say. Reports for this paper
must be sound English; they must be live stories; they must be short.
You might ask a boy to show you the reporters' room. You'll get your
assignment presently. As a day man, you'll be here from ten to six.
That's all."

And his blade of a face descended into the heart of a sheaf of papers.
As I reached the door the blade rose again, to emit a kind of thin bark:

"Ah!"

I turned on my heel, waiting.

"Do you know anything about spelling?"

I tried to look pleasant, as I said I thought I was to be relied on in
this.

"Well, ask my secretary for tickets for the meeting at Memorial Hall
to-day; something to do with spelling. Don't do more than thirty or
forty lines. Right."

And the blade fell once more, leaving me free to make my escape, which I
did with a considerable sense of relief. I found the secretary a meek
little clerk, with a curious hidden vein of timid facetiousness. He
supplied me with the necessary ticket and a hand-bill of particulars.
Then he said:

"Mr. Pierce is quite bright and pleasant this morning."

"Oh, is he?" I said.

"Yes, very--for him. He's all right, you know, when you get into his
way. Of course, he's a real hustler--cleverest journalist in London,
they say."

"Really!" I think I introduced the right note of admiration. At all
events, it seemed to please this little pale-eyed rabbit of a man, who,
as I found later, was reverentially devoted to his bullying chief, and
positively took a kind of fearful joy in being more savagely browbeaten
by Pierce than any other man in the building. A queer taste, but a
fortunate one for a man in his particular position.

For myself, I was at once repelled and gagged by Pierce's manner. I
believe the man had ability, though I think this was a good deal
overrated by himself, and by others, at his dictation; and I dare say he
was a good enough fellow at heart. His manner was aggressive and
feverish enough to be called a symptom of the disease of the period. If
the blood in his veins sang any song at all to Mr. Pierce, the refrain
of that song must have been, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" He and his like
never stopped to ask "Whither?" or "Why?" They had not time. And
further, if pressed for reasons, destination, and so forth, they would
have admitted, to themselves at all events, that there could be no other
goal than success; and that success could mean no other thing than the
acquisition of money; and that the man who thought otherwise must be a
fool--a fool who would soon drop out altogether, to go under, among
those who were broken by the way.

My general aim and purpose in journalistic work, at the outset, was the
serving of social reform in everything that I did. As I saw it, society
was in a parlous state indeed, and needed awaking to recognition of the
fact, to the crying need for reforms in every direction. That attitude
was justifiable enough in all conscience. The trouble was that I was at
fault, first, in my diagnosis; second, in my notions as to what kind of
remedies were required; and third, as to the application of those
remedies.

Like the rest of the minority whose thoughts were not entirely occupied
by the pursuit of pleasure and personal gain, I saw that the greatest
obstacle in the path of the reformer was public indifference. But with
regard to the causes of that indifference, I was entirely astray. I
clung still to the nineteenth-century attitude, which had been
justifiable enough during a good portion of that century, but had
absolutely ceased to be justifiable before its end came. This was the
attitude of demanding the introduction of reforms from above, from the
State.

Though I fancied myself in advance of my time in thought, when I joined
the staff of the _Daily Gazette_, I really was essentially of it. Even
my obscure work as reporter very soon brought me into close contact with
some of the dreadful sores which disfigured the body social and politic
at that time. But do you think they taught me anything? No more than
they taught the blindest racer after money in all London. They moved me,
moved me deeply; they stirred the very foundations of my being; for I
was far from being insensitive. But not even in the most glaringly
obvious detail did they move me in the right direction. They merely
filled me with resentment, and a passionate desire to bring improvement,
aid, betterment; a desire to force the authorities into some action.
Never once did it occur to me that the movement must come from the
people themselves.

Poverty, though frequently a dreadful complication, was far from being
at the root of all the sores. The average respectable working-class
wage-earner with a wife and family, who earned from 25s. to 35s. or 40s.
a week, would spend a quarter of that wage upon his own drinking;
thereby not alone making saving for a rainy day impossible, but docking
his family of some of the real necessities of life. But this was
accepted as a matter of course. The man wanted the beer; he must have
it. The State made absolutely no demand whatever upon such a man. But it
did for him and his, more than he did for himself and his family. And,
giving positively nothing to the State, he complainingly demanded yet
more from it.

These were respectable men. A large number of men spent a half, and even
three-quarters of their earnings in drink. The middle class spent
proportionately far less on liquor, and far more upon display of one
kind and another; they seldom denied themselves anything which they
could possibly obtain. The rich, as a class, lived in and for
indulgence, in some cases refined and subtle, in others gross; but
always indulgence. The sense of duty to the State simply did not exist
as an attribute of any class, but only here and there in individuals.

I believe I am strictly correct in saying that in half a century, while
the population increased by seventy-five per cent., lunacy had increased
by two hundred and fifty per cent.

Yet the majority rushed blindly on, paying no heed to any other thing on
earth than their own gratification, their own pursuit of the money for
the purchase of pleasure. One of the tragic fallacies of the period was
this crazy notion that not alone pleasure, but happiness, could be
bought with money, and in no other way. And the few who were stung by
the prevailing suffering and wretchedness into recognition of our
parlous state, we, for the most part, cherished my wild delusion, and
insisted that the trouble could be remedied if the State would contract
and discharge new obligations. We clamoured for more rights, more help,
more liberty, more freedom from this and that; never seeing that our
trouble was our incomplete comprehension of the rights and privileges
we had, with their corresponding obligations.

Though I knew them not, and as a _Daily Gazette_ reporter was little
likely to meet them, there were men who strove to open the eyes of the
people to the truth, and strove most valiantly. I call to mind a great
statesman and a great general, both old men, a great pro-consul, a great
poet and writer, a great editor, and here and there politicians with
elements of greatness in them, who fought hard for the right. But these
men were lonely figures as yet, and I am bound to say of the people's
leaders generally, at the time of my journalistic enterprise, that they
were a poor, truckling, uninspired lot of sheep, with a few clever
wolves among them, who saw the people's madness and folly and preyed
upon it masterfully by every trick within the scope of their ingenuity.

Even those who were honourable, disinterested, and, for such a period,
unselfish, were for the most part the disciples of tradition and the
slaves of that life-sapping curse of British politics: the party spirit,
which led otherwise honourable men to oppose with all their strength the
measures of their party opponents, even in the face of their country's
dire need.

Then there was the anti-British faction, a party which spread
fast-growing shoots from out the then Government's very heart and root.
The Government's half-hearted supporters were not anti-British, but they
were not readers of the _Daily Gazette_; they were not, in short,
whole-hearted Government supporters. They were Whigs, as the saying
went. My party, the readers of the _Gazette_, the out-and-out
Government party, to whom I looked for real progress, real social
reform; they were unquestionably riddled through and through with this
extraordinary sentiment which I call anti-British, a difficult thing to
explain nowadays.

With the newly and too easily acquired rights and liberties of the
nineteenth century, with its universal spread of education, cheap
literature, and the like, there came, of course, increased knowledge, a
wider outlook. No discipline came with it, and one of its earliest
products was a nervous dread of being thought behind the time, of being
called ignorant, narrow-minded, insular. People would do anything to
avoid this. They went to the length of interlarding their speech and
writings with foreign words often in ignorance of the meaning of those
words. Broad-minded, catholic, tolerant, cosmopolitan--those were the
descriptive adjectives which all desired to earn for themselves. It
became a perfect mania, particularly with the young and clever, the
half-educated, the would-be "smart" folk.

But it was also the honest ambition of many very worthy people, who
truly desired broad-minded understanding and the avoidance of prejudice.
This sapped the bulldog qualities of British pluck and persistence
terribly. You can see at a glance how it would shut out a budding Nelson
or a Wellington. But its most notable effect was to be seen among
politicians, who were able to claim Fox for a precedent.

To believe in the superiority of the British became vulgar, a proof of
narrow-mindedness. But, by that token, to enlarge upon the inferiority
of the British indicated a broad, tolerant spirit, and a wide outlook
upon mankind and affairs. From that to the sentiment I have called
anti-British was no more than a step. Many thoroughly good, honourable,
benevolent people took that step unwittingly, and all unconsciously
became permeated with the vicious, suicidal sentiment, while really
seeking only good. Such people were saved by their natural goodness and
sense from becoming actual and purposeful enemies of their country. But
as "Little Englanders"--so they were called--they managed, with the best
intentions, to do their country infinite harm.

But there were others, the naturally vicious and unscrupulous, the
morbid, the craven, the ignorant, the self-seeking; these were the
dangerous exponents of the sentiment. With them, Little Englandism
progressed in this wise: "There are plenty of foreigners just as good as
the British; their rule abroad is just as good as ours." Then: "There
are plenty of foreigners far better than the British; their rule abroad
is better than ours." Then: "Let the people of our Empire fend for
themselves among other peoples; our business is to look after
ourselves." Then: "We oppose the people of the Empire; we oppose British
rule; we oppose the British." From that to "We befriend the enemies of
the British" was less than a step. It was the position openly occupied
by many, in and out of Parliament.

"We are for you, for the people; and devil take Flag, Empire, and
Crown!" said these ranters; drunken upon liberties they never
understood, freedom they never earned, privileges they were not
qualified to hold.

There were persons among them who spat upon the Flag that protected
their worthless lives, and cut it down; sworn servants of the State who
openly proclaimed their sympathy with the State's enemies; carefully
protected, highly privileged subjects of the Crown, who impishly slashed
at England's robes, to show her nakedness to England's foes.

And these were supporters, members, proteges of the Government, and
readers of the _Daily Gazette_, upheld in all things by that organ. And
I, the son of an English gentleman and clergyman, graduate of an English
university, I looked to this party, the Liberal Government of England,
as the leaders of reform, of progress, of social betterment. And so did
the country; the British public. Errors of taste and judgment we
regretted. That was how we described the most ribald outbursts of the
anti-British sentiment.

It is hard to find excuse or palliation. Instinct must have told us that
the demands, the programme, of such diseased creatures, could only
aggravate the national ills instead of healing them. Yes, it would seem
so. I can only say that comparatively few among us did see it. Perhaps
disease was too general among us for the recognition of symptoms.

This then was the mental attitude with which I approached my duties as a
reporter on the staff of a London daily newspaper of old standing and
good progressive traditions. And my notion was that in every line
written for publication, the end of social reform should be served,
directly or indirectly. My idea of attaining social reformation was
that the people must be taught, urged, spurred into extracting further
gifts from the State; that the public must be shown how to make their
lives easier by getting the State to do more for them. That was as much
as my education and my expansive theorizing had done for me. Assuredly I
was a product of my age.

I had forgotten one thing, however, and that was the thing which Mr.
Charles N. Pierce began now to drill into me, by analogy, and with a
good deal more precision and directness than I had ever seen used at
Rugby or Cambridge. This one thing was that the _Daily Gazette_ was not
a philanthropic organ, but a people's paper; and that the people did not
want instructing but interesting.

"But," I pleaded, "surely, for their own sakes, in their own
interests----"

"Damn their own sakes!"

"Well, but----"

"There's no 'but' about it. The public is an aggregation of individuals.
This paper must interest the individual. The individual doesn't care a
damn about the people. He cares about himself. He is very busy making
money, and when he opens his paper he wants to be amused and interested;
and he is not either interested or amused by any instruction as to how
the people may be served. He doesn't want 'em served. He wants himself
served and amused. That's your job."

I believe I had faint inclinations just then to wonder whether, after
all, there might not be something to be said for the bloated Tories:
the opponents of progress, as I always considered them. My thoughts ran
on parties, in the old-fashioned style, you see. Also I was thinking, as
a journalist, of the characteristics which distinguished different
newspapers.

I cordially hated Mr. Charles N. Pierce, but he really had more
discernment than I had, for he said:

"Don't you worry about teaching the people to grab more from the State.
They'll take fast enough; they'll take quite as much as is good for 'em,
without your assistance. But, for giving, the angel Gabriel and two
advertisement canvassers wouldn't make 'em give a cent more than they're
obliged."




VI

A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS

    "Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
    Sole source of public and of private peace."

                                              YOUNG.


I am bound to suppose that I must have been a tolerably tiring person to
have to do with during my first year in London. The reason of this was
that I could never concentrate my thoughts upon intimate, personal
interests, either my own or those of the people I met. My thoughts were
never of persons, but always of the people; never of affairs, but always
of tendencies, movements, issues, ultimate ends. Probably my crude
unrest would have made me tiresome to any people. It must have been
peculiarly irritating to my contemporaries at that period, who, whatever
they may have lacked, assuredly possessed in a remarkable degree the
faculty of concentration upon their own individual affairs, their
personal part in the race for personal gain.

I remember that I talked, even to the poor, overworked servant at my
lodging, rather of the prospects of her class and order than of anything
more intimate or within her narrow scope. Poor Bessie! She was of the
callously named tribe of lodging-house "slaveys"; and what gave me some
interest in her personality, apart from the type she represented, was
the fact that she had come from the Vale of Blackmore, a part of Dorset
which I knew very well. I even remembered, for its exceptional
picturesqueness and beauty of situation, the cottage in which Bessie had
passed her life until one year before my arrival at the fourth-rate
Bloomsbury "apartments" house in which she now toiled for a living.
There was little enough of the sap of her native valley left in Bessie's
cheeks now. She had acquired the London muddiness of complexion quickly,
poor child, in the semi-subterranean life she led.

I was moved to inquire as to what had led her to come to London, and
gathered that she had been anxious to "see a bit o' life." Certainly she
saw life, of a kind, when she entered her horrible underground kitchen
of a morning, for, as a chance errand once showed me, its floor was a
moving carpet of black-beetles until after the gas was lighted. In
Bloomsbury, Bessie's daily work began about six o'clock--there were four
stories in the house, and coals and food and water required upon every
floor--and ended some seventeen hours later. Occasionally, an exacting
lodger would make it eighteen hours--the number of Bessie's years in the
world--but seventeen was the normal.

The trains which every day came rushing in from the country to the
various railway termini of London were almost past counting. The "rural
exodus," as it was called, was a sadly real movement then. Every one of
them brought at least one Bessie, and one of her male counterparts, with
ruddy cheeks, a tin box, and bright eyes straining to "see life."
Insatiable London drew them all into its maw, and, while sapping the
roses from their cheeks, enslaved many of them under one of the greatest
curses of that day: the fascination of the streets.

So terrible a power was exercised by this unwholesome passion that men
and women became paralyzed by it, and incapable of plucking up courage
enough to enable them to leave the streets. I talked with men--poor,
sodden creatures, whose greasy black coats were buttoned to their
stubbly chins to hide the absence of collar and waistcoat--who supported
a wretched existence in the streets, between begging, stealing, opening
cab-doors, and the like, in constant dread of police attention. Among
these I found many who had refused again and again offers of help to
lead an honest, self-dependent life, for the sole reason that these
offers involved quitting the streets.

The same creeping paralysis of the streets kept men from emigration to
parts of the Empire in which independent prosperity was assured for the
willing worker. They would not leave the hiving streets, with their
chances, their flaunting vice, their incessant bustle, and their
innumerable drinking bars.

The disease did not stop at endowing the streets with fascination for
these poor, undisciplined, unmanned creatures; it implanted in them a
lively fear, hard to comprehend, but very real to them, of all places
outside the streets, with their familiar, pent noises and enclosed
strife.

I met one old gentleman, the head of an important firm of printers, who,
being impressed with the squalid wretchedness of the surroundings in
which his work-people lived, decided to shift his works into the
country. He chose the outskirts of a charmingly situated garden city,
then in course of formation. He gave his people a holiday and
entertained them at a picnic party upon the site of his proposed new
works. He set before them plans and details of pleasant cottages he
meant to build for them, with good gardens, and scores of conveniences
which they could never know in the dingy, grimy tenements for which they
paid extortionate rents in London.

There were four hundred and thirty-eight of these work-people.
Twenty-seven of them, with some hesitation, expressed their willingness
to enter into the new scheme for their benefit. The remaining four
hundred and eleven refused positively to leave their warrens in London
for this garden city, situated within an hour's run of the metropolis.

Figure to yourself the attitude of such people, where the great open
uplands of the Empire were concerned: the prairie, the veld, the bush.
Consider their relation to the elements, or to things elemental. We went
farther than "Little Englandism" in those days; we produced little
street and alley men by the hundred thousand; and then we bade them
exercise their rights, their imperial heritage, and rule an Empire. As
for me, I was busy in my newspaper work trying to secure more rights for
them; for men whose present freedom from all discipline and control was
their curse.

The reporters' room at the office of the _Daily Gazette_ was the working
headquarters of five other men besides myself. One was a Cambridge man,
one had been at Oxford, one came from Cork, and the other two were
products of Scotch schools. Two of the five would have been called
gentlemen; four of them were good fellows; the fifth had his good
points, but perhaps he had been soured by a hard upbringing. One felt
that the desire for money--advancement, success, or whatever you chose
to call it; it all meant the one thing to Dunbar--mastered every
feeling, every instinct even, in this young man, and made him about as
safe and agreeable a neighbour as a wolf might be for a kennel of dogs.

A certain part of our time was devoted to waiting in the reporters' room
for what Mr. Pierce called our "assignments," to this or that reporting
task. Also, we did our writing here, and a prodigious amount of talking.
The talk was largely of Fleet Street, the ruffianism of Mr. Pierce, the
fortunes of our own and other journals, the poorness of our pay, the
arduousness of our labours, the affairs of other newspaper offices, and
the like. But at other times we turned to politics, and over our pipes
and copy paper would readjust the concert of Europe and the balance of
world power. More often we dealt with local politics, party intrigue,
and scandals of Parliament; and sometimes--more frequently since my
advent, it may be--we entered gaily upon large abstractions, and
ventilated our little philosophies and views of the eternal verities.

By my recollection of those queer confused days, my colleagues were
cynically anarchical in their political views, unconvinced and
unconvincing Socialists, and indifferent Agnostics. I am not quite sure
that we believed in anything very thoroughly--except that things were in
a pretty bad way. Earnest belief in anything was not a feature of the
period. I recall one occasion when consideration of some tyrannical act
of our immediate chief, the news-editor, led our talk by way of
character and morality to questions of religion. The _Daily Gazette_, I
should mention, was a favourite organ with the most powerful religious
community--the Nonconformists. Campbell, one of the two Scotch
reporters, hazarded the first remark about religion, if I remember
aright: something it was to the effect that men like Pierce had neither
religion nor manners. Brown, the Cambridge man, took this up.

"Well now," he said, "that's a queer thing about religion. I'd like you
to tell me what anybody's religion is in London."

"It's the capital of a Christian country, isn't it?" said Dunbar.

"Yes," admitted Brown. "That's just it. We're officially and politically
Christian. It's a national affair. We're a Christian people; but who
knows a Christian individual? Ours is a Christian newspaper, Christian
city, Christian country, and all the rest of it. There's no doubt about
it. All England believes; but no single man I ever meet admits that he
believes. I suppose it's different up your way, Campbell. One gathers
the Scotch are religious?"

"H'm! I won't answer for that," growled Campbell. "As a people, yes, as
you say; but as individuals--well, I don't know. But my father's a
believer; I could swear to it."

"Ah, yes; so's mine. But I'm not talking of fathers. I mean our
generation."

"Well," I began, "for my part, I'm not so sure of the fathers."

"Oh, we can count you out," said Kelly, the Irishman. "All parsons' sons
are atheists, as a matter of course; and bad hats at that."

"Rather a severe blow at our Christianity, isn't it?" said Brown.

I had no more to say on this point, not wishing to discuss my father.
But I knew perfectly well that that good, kind man had cherished no
belief whatever in many of what were judged to be the vital dogmas of
Christianity.

"Well, I've just been thinking," said Campbell, "and upon my soul,
Brown--if I've got one--I believe you're right. I don't know any one of
our generation who believes. Every one thinks every one else believes,
and everybody is most careful not to be disrespectful about the belief
everybody else is supposed to hold. But, begad, nobody believes himself.
We all wink at each other about it; accepting the certainty of every one
else's belief, and only recognizing as a matter of course that you and
me--we've got beyond that sort of thing."

"Well, I've often thought of it," said Brown. "I'll write an article
about it one of these days."

"Who'll you get to publish it?"

"H'm! Yes, that's a fact. And yet, hang it, you know, how absurd! Who
is there in this office that believes?"

"Echo answers, 'who?'"

"I happen to know that both Rainham and Baddeley go to church," said
Dunbar, naming a proprietor and a manager.

"I don't see the connection," said Brown.

"Because there isn't any," said Campbell. "But Dunbar sees it, and so
does the British public, begad. That's the kernel of the whole thing.
That's why every one thinks every one else, except himself, believes.
Rainham and Baddeley think their wives, and sons, and servants, and
circle generally believe, and therefore would be shocked if Rainham and
Baddeley didn't go to church. And every one else thinks the same. So
they all go."

"But, my dear chap, they don't all go. The parsons are always
complaining about it. The women do, but the men don't--not as a rule, I
mean; particularly when they've got motors, and golf, and things. You
know they don't. Here's six of us here. Does any one of us ever go to
church?"

Dunbar, looking straight down over his nose, said: "I do--often."

"You're a fine fellow, Dunbar, sure enough," said Campbell; "and I
believe you'll be a newspaper proprietor in five years. You've got your
finger on the pulse. Can you look me in the face and say you believe?"

Dunbar smiled in his knowing way and wobbled. "I certainly believe it's
a good thing to go to church occasionally," he said.

"And I believe you'll make a fortune in Fleet Street, my son."

"Well, in my humble opinion," said Kelly, "the trouble with you people
in England is not so much that you don't believe; a good many believe,
in a kind of a way, like they believe in ventilation, without troubling
to act on it. They believe, but they don't think about it; they don't
care, it isn't real. The poor beggars 'ld go crazy with fear of
hell-fire, if the sort of armchair belief they have was real to 'em. It
isn't real to 'em, like business, and money, and that, or like
patriotism is in Japan."

"Well, it really is a rum thing," said Brown, with an affectation of
pathos, "that in all this Christian country I shouldn't know a single
believer of my generation."

"It's a devilish bad thing for the country," said Campbell. And even
then, with all my fundamentally rotten sociological nostrums, I had a
vague feeling that the Scotchman was right there.

"Well, then, that's why it's good to go to church," said Dunbar, with an
air of finality.

"I still don't see the connection," murmured Brown.

"Because it still isn't there. But, of course, it's perfectly obvious.
That's why Dunbar sees it, and why he'll presently run a paper." Then
Campbell turned to Dunbar, and added slowly, as though speaking to a
little child: "You see, my dear, it's not their not going to church
that's bad; it's their not believing."

If I remember rightly, Mr. Pierce ended the conversation, through his
telephone, by assigning to Brown the task of reporting a clerical
gathering at Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a particularly
happy touch in the reporting of religious meetings. He certainly had an
open mind, for I remember his saying that day that he thought
Christianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish climate like ours
than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju worship in London would be sure to cause
friction with the County Council.

As I see it now, there was a terribly large amount of truth in the view
taken by Brown and Campbell and Kelly about belief in England, and more
particularly in London. But there were devout men of all ages who did
not happen to come within their circle of acquaintance. I met Salvation
Army officers occasionally, who were both intelligent, self-denying, and
hard-working; and I suppose that with them belief must have been at
least as powerful a motive as devotion to their Army, their General, and
the work of reclamation among the very poor. Also, there were High
Church clergymen, who toiled unceasingly among the poor. Symbolism was a
great force with them; but there must have been real belief there. Also,
there were some fine Nonconformist missions. I recall one in West
London, the work of which was a great power for good in such infected
warrens as Soho. But it certainly was not an age of faith or of earnest
beliefs. The vast majority took their Christianity, with the national
safety and integrity, for granted--a thing long since established by an
earlier generation; a matter about which no modern could spare time for
thought or effort.

I believe it was on the day following this particular conversation in
the reporters' room that I met Leslie Wheeler by appointment at
Waterloo, and went down to Weybridge with him for the week-end. My
friend was in even gayer spirits than usual, and laughingly told me that
I must "Work up a better Saturday face than that" before we got to
Weybridge.

I had known Leslie Wheeler since our school-days; and I remember lying
awake in the room next his own at Weybridge that night, and wondering
why in the world it was I felt so out of touch with my high-spirited
friend. During that Saturday afternoon and evening I had been pretty
much preoccupied in securing as much as possible of Sylvia's attention.
But the journey down had been made with Leslie alone, and when his
father had gone to bed, we two had spent another half-hour together in
the billiard-room, smoking and sipping whiskey and soda. Leslie was in
the vein most usual with him, of "turning to mirth all things on earth";
and I was conscious, upon my side, of a notable absence of reciprocal
feeling, of friendly rapport. And I could find no explanation for this,
as I lay thinking of it in bed.

Looking backward, I see many causes which probably contributed to my
feeling of lost touch. I had only been about a month in London, but it
had been a busy month, and full of new experiences, of intimate touch
with realities of London life, sordid and otherwise. It was all very
unlike Rugby and Cambridge; very unlike the life of the big luxurious
Weybridge house, and even more unlike lichen-covered Tarn Regis. In
those days I took little stock of such mundane details as bed and board.
But these things count; I had been made to take note of them of late.

I paid 12s. 6d. a week for my garret, and 7s. a week for my breakfast,
1s. for lighting, and 1s. for my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week
for daily lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the eternal
penny outgoings of London life. The purchase of such a trifle as a box
of sweets for Sylvia made a week's margin look very small. Already I had
begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laundry work, omnibus fares,
and such matters. My training had not been a hopeful one, so far as
small economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting golf, and
failing to attend the Inter-'Varsity cricket match. He found economy,
like all other things under heaven, and in heaven for that matter,
suitable subjects for the exercise of his tireless humour. But I
wondered greatly that his incessant banter should jar upon me; that I
should catch myself regarding him with a coldly appraising eye. Indeed,
it troubled me a good deal; and the more so when I thought of Sylvia.

I flatly declined to admit that London had affected my feeling for
Sylvia. Whatever one's view, her big violet eyes were abrim with gentle
sympathy. I watched her as I sat by her side in church, and thought of
our irreverent talk at the office. Here was sincere piety, at all
events, I thought. Mediaevalism never produced a sweeter devotee, a
worshipper more rapt. I could not follow her into the place of ecstasy
she reached. But, I told myself, I could admire from without, and even
reverence. Could I? Well, I was somewhat strengthened in the belief that
very Sunday night by Sylvia's father.




VII

A GIRL AND HER FAITH

    "If faith produce no works, I see
    That faith is not a living tree."

                                              HANNAH MORE.


During that Sunday at Weybridge I saw but little of my friend Leslie. It
was only by having obtained special permission from the _Daily Gazette_
office that I was able to remain away from town that day. My leisure was
brief, my chances few, I felt; and that seemed to justify the devoting
of every possible moment to Sylvia's company.

Sylvia's church was not the family place of worship. When Mrs. Wheeler
and Marjory attended service, it was at St. Mark's, but Sylvia made her
devotions at St. Jude's, a church famous in that district for its high
Anglicanism and stately ritual.

The incumbent of St. Jude's, his Reverence, or Father Hinton, as Sylvia
always called him, was a tall, full-bodied man, with flashing dark eyes,
and a fine, dramatic presence. I believe he was an indefatigable worker
among the poor. I know he had a keen appreciation of the dramatic
element in his priestly calling, and in the ritual of his church, with
its rich symbolism and elaborate impressiveness. Even from my brief
glimpses of the situation, I realized that this priest (the words
clergyman and vicar were discouraged at St. Jude's) played a very
important, a vital part, in the scheme of Sylvia's religion. I think
Sylvia would have said that the personality of the man was nothing; but
she would have added that his office was much, very much to her.

She may have been right, though not entirely so, I think. But it is
certain that, in the case of Father Hinton, the dramatic personality of
the man did nothing to lessen the magnitude of his office in the minds
of such members of his flock as Sylvia. I gathered that belief in the
celibacy of the clergy was, if not an article of faith, at least a part
of piety at St. Jude's.

Before seven o'clock on Sunday morning I heard footsteps on the gravel
under my window, and, looking out, saw Sylvia, book in hand, leaving the
house. She was exquisitely dressed, the distinguishing note of her
attire being, as always in my eyes, a demure sort of richness and
picturesqueness. Never was there another saint so charming in
appearance, I thought. Her very Prayer Book, or whatever the volume
might be, had a seductive, feminine charm about its dimpled cover.

I hurried over my dressing and was out of the house by half-past seven
and on my way to St. Jude's. Breakfast was not until half-past nine, I
knew. The morning was brilliantly sunny; and life in the world, despite
its drawbacks and complexities, as seen from Fleet Street, seemed an
admirably good thing to me as I strode over a carpet of pine-needles,
and watched the slanting sun-rays turning the tree trunks to burnished
copper.

The service was barely over when I tiptoed into a seat beside the door
at St. Jude's. At this period the appurtenances of ritual in such
churches as St. Jude's--incense, candles, rich vestments, and the
like--rivalled those of Rome itself. I remember that, fresh from the
dewy morning sunshine without, these symbols rather jarred upon my
senses than otherwise, with a strong hint of artificiality and
tawdriness, the suggestion of a theatre seen by daylight. But they meant
a great deal to many good folks in Weybridge, for, despite the earliness
of the hour, there were fifty or sixty women present, besides Sylvia,
and half a dozen men.

I could see Sylvia distinctly from my corner by the door, and I was made
rather uneasy by the fact that she remained in her place when every one
else had left the building. Five, ten minutes I waited, and then walked
softly up the aisle to her place. I did not perceive, until I reached
her side, that she was kneeling, or I suppose I should have felt obliged
to refrain from disturbing her. As it was, Sylvia heard me, and, having
seen who disturbed her, rose, with the gravest little smile, and, with a
curtsy to the altar, walked out before me.

I found that Sylvia generally stayed on in the church for the eight
o'clock service; and I was duly grateful when she yielded to my
solicitations and set out for a walk with me instead. I had taken a few
biscuits from the dining-room and eaten them on my way out; but I
learned later, rather to my distress, that Sylvia had not broken her
fast. I must suppose she was accustomed to such practices, for she
seemed to enjoy almost as much as I did our long ramble in the fresh
morning air.

I learned a good deal during that morning walk, and the day that
followed it, the greater part of which I spent by Sylvia's side. Upon
the whole, I was perturbed and made uneasy; but I continued to assure
myself, perhaps too insistently for confidence or comfort, that Sylvia
was wholly desirable and sweet. It was perhaps unfortunate for my peace
of mind that the day was one of continuous religious exercises. The fact
tinged all our converse, and indeed supplied the motive of most of it.

I did not at the time realize exactly what chilled and disturbed me, but
I think now that it was what I might call the inhumanity of Sylvia's
religion. I dipped into one of her sumptuous little books at some time
during the day, and I remember this passage:

"To this end spiritual writers recommend what is called a 'holy
indifference' to all created things, including things inanimate, place,
time, and the like. Try as far as possible to be indifferent to all
things. Remember that the one thing important above all others to you is
the salvation of your own soul. It is the great work of your life, far
greater than your work as parent, child, husband, wife, or friend."

It was a reputable sort of a book this, and fathered by a respected
Oxford cleric.

There was singularly little of the mystic in my temperament. My mind, as
you have seen, was surcharged with crude but fervent desires for the
material betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not interested in human
well-being, material progress, mortal ills and remedies. Approaching
Sylvia's position and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way
through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant
the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his
Reverence and St. Jude's; and found, or thought I found, that Sylvia's
religion was at worst a selfish gratification of the senses of the
individual worshipper, and at best a devout and pious ministration to
the worshipper's own soul; in which the loving of one's neighbour and
caring for one another seemed to play precisely no part at all.

True it was, as I already knew, that in the East End of London, and
elsewhere, some of the very High Church clergy were carrying on a work
of real devotion among the poor, and that with possibly a more
distinguished measure of success than attended the efforts of any other
branch of Christian service. They did not influence anything like the
number of people who were influenced by dissenting bodies, but those who
did come under their sway came without reservation.

But the point which absorbed me was the question of how this particular
aspect of religion affected Sylvia. In this, at all events, it seemed to
me a far from helpful or wholesome kind of religion. Sylvia liked early
morning services because so few people attended them. It was "almost
like having the church to oneself." The supreme feature of religious
life for Sylvia had for its emblem the tinkle of the bell at the service
she always called Mass. The coming of the Presence--that was the C
Major of life for Sylvia. For the rest, meditation, preferably in the
setting provided by St. Jude's, with its permanent aroma of incense and
its dim lights--the world shut out by stained glass--this, with prayer,
genuflections, and the ecstasy of long thought upon the circumstances of
the supreme act of Christ's life upon earth, seemed to me to represent
the sum total of Sylvia's religion.

But, over and above what was to me the chilling negativeness of all
this, its indifference to the human welfare of all other mortals, there
was in Sylvia's religion something else, which I find myself unable,
even now, to put into words. Some indication of it, perhaps, is given by
the little passage I have quoted from one of her books. It was the one
thing positive which I found in my lady's religion; all the rest was to
me a beautiful, intricate, purely artificial negation of human life and
human interest.

This one thing positive struck into my vitals with a chill premonition,
as of something unnatural and, to me, unfathomable. It was a sentiment
which I can only call anti-human. Even as those of Sylvia's persuasion
held that the clergy should be celibate, so it seemed to me they viewed
all purely human loves, ties, emotions, sentiments, and interests
generally with a kind of jealous suspicion, as influences to be
belittled as far as possible, if not actually suppressed.

Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no concern with Puritanism,
for it lacked the discipline, the self-restraint that made Cromwell's
men invincible. There was no Puritanism in the influence which could
make women indifferent to the earthly ties of love and sentiment, to
children, to the home and domesticity, while at the same time implanting
in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense, rich vestments,
gorgeous decorations, and the whole paraphernalia of such a service as
that of St. Jude's, Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would be
more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this religion, did not say:

"Deny yourself this or that."

It said:

"Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny all other mortals. Wrap
yourself in yourself, thinking only of your own soul and its relation to
its Maker and Saviour."

This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though she was sweetly kind
and sympathetic to me, Dick Mordan, I was strangely chilled and
perturbed by realization of the fact that nothing human really weighed
with her, unless her own soul was human; that the people, our fellow men
and women, of whose situation and welfare I thought so much, were far
less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints; that humanity had
even less import for her, was less real, than to me, was the fascination
of St. Jude's incense-laden atmosphere.

Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for me; the personality
which animated and informed it chilled and repelled me as it might have
been a thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear importance of some
one of humanity's claims, the faraway gaze of her beautiful eyes, with
their light that never was on sea or land, her faintly superior
smile--all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with more baffling
effect.

And then the accidental touch of her little hand would bring me back,
with pulses fluttering, and the warm blood in my veins insisting that
sweet Sylvia was adorable; that everything would be well lost in payment
for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I spent that pleasant Sabbath
day, attached to Sylvia by ties over which my mind had small control; by
bonds which, if the truth were known, were not wholly dissimilar, I
believe, from the ties which drew her daily to the heavy atmosphere of
the sanctuary rails of St. Jude's.

In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and smoke a cigar with him
in his private room, and the invitation was not one to be evaded. I was
subconsciously aware that it elicited a meaning exchange of glances
between Marjory and her mother.

"Well, Mordan, I hope things go well with you in Fleet Street," said Mr.
Wheeler, when his cigar was alight and we were both seated in his
luxurious little den.

"Oh, tolerably," I said. "Of course, I am quite an obscure person there
as yet; quite on the lowest rungs, you know."

"Quite so; quite so; and from all I hear, competition is as keen there
as in the City, though the rewards are--rather different, of course."

I nodded, and we were silent for a few moments. Then he flicked a little
cigar-ash into a tray and looked up sharply, with quite the Moorgate
Street expression, I remember thinking.

"I think you are a good deal attracted by my youngest girl, Mordan?" he
said; and his tone demanded a reply even more than his words.

"Yes, I certainly admire her greatly," I said, more than a little
puzzled by the wording of the question; more than a little fluttered, it
may be; for it seemed to me a welcoming sort of question, and I was
keenly aware of my ineligibility as a suitor.

"Exactly. That is no more than I expected to hear from you. Indeed, I
think anything less would--well, I shouldn't have been at all pleased
with anything less."

His complaisance quite startled me. Somehow, too, it reminded me of my
many baffled retirements of that day, before the elements in Sylvia's
character which chilled and repelled me. I was almost glad that I had
not committed myself to any warmer or more definite declaration. Mr.
Wheeler weighed his cigar with nice care.

"Yes," he continued. "If you had disputed the attraction--the
attachment, I should perhaps say--I should have found serious ground for
criticizing your--your behaviour to my girl. As it is, of course, the
thing is natural enough. You have been attracted; the child is
attractive; and you have paid her marked attentions--which is what any
young man might be expected to do."

"If he is going to suggest an engagement," I thought, "I must be very
clear about my financial position, or want of position." Mr. Wheeler
continued thoughtfully to eye his cigar.

"Yes, it is perfectly natural," he said; "and you will probably think,
therefore, that what I am going to say is very unnatural and unkind. But
you must just bear in mind that I am a good deal older than you, and,
also, I am Sylvia's father."

I nodded, with a new interest.

"Well, now, Mordan, let me say first that I know my girls pretty well,
and I am quite satisfied that Sylvia is not fitted to be a poor man's
wife. You would probably think her far better fitted for that part than
her sister, because Marjory is a lot more gay and frivolous. Well, you
would be wrong. They are neither of them really qualified for the post,
but Sylvia is far less so than Marjory. In point of fact she would be
wretched in it, she would fail in it; and--I may say that the fact would
not make matters easier for her husband."

There did not seem to me any need for a reply, but I nodded again; and
Mr. Wheeler resumed, after a long draw at his cigar. He smoked a very
excellent, rather rich Havana.

"Yes, girls are different now from the girls I sweethearted with; and
girls like mine must have money. I dare say you think Sylvia dresses
very prettily, in a simple way. My dear fellow, her laundry bill alone
would bankrupt a newspaper reporter."

I may have indicated before, that Mr. Wheeler was not a person of any
particular refinement. He had made the money which provided a tolerably
costly upbringing for his children, but his own education I gathered had
been of a much more exiguous character. There was, as I know, a good
deal of truth in what he said of the girl of the period.

"Well, now, I put it to you, Mordan, whether, admitting that what I say
about Sylvia is true--and you may take it from me that it is
true--whether it would be very kind or fair on my part to allow you to
go on paying attention to her at the rate of--say to-day's. Do you think
it would be wise or kind of me to allow it? I say nothing about your
side in the matter, because--well, because I still have some
recollection of how a young fellow feels in such a case. But would it be
wise of me to allow it?"

He was a shrewd man, this father of Sylvia, and of my old friend; and I
have no doubt that the tactics I found so disarming had served him well
before that day in the City. At the same time, instinct seemed to forbid
complete surrender on my side.

"It is just consideration of the present difficulties of my position
which has made me careful to avoid seeking to commit Sylvia in any way,"
I said.

It was probably an unwise remark. At all events, it struck the note of
opposition, of contumacy, which it seemed my host had been anticipating;
and he met it with a new inflection in his voice, as who should say:
"Well, now to be done with explanations and the velvet glove. Have at
you!" What he actually said was:

"Ah, there's a deal of mischief to be done without a declaration, my
friend. But, however, I don't expect that you should share my view. I
only suggested it on the off chance because--well, I suppose, because
that would be the easiest way out for me, as host. But I don't know that
I should have thought much of you if you had met me half-way. So now
let me do my part and get it over, for it's not very pleasant. I have
shown you my reasons, which, however they may seem to you, are
undeniable to me. Now for my wishes in the matter, as a father; I am
sure there is no need for me to say 'instructions,' so I say 'wishes.'
They are simply that for the time--for a year or two, anyhow--you should
not give me the pleasure of being your host, and that you should not
communicate in any way with Sylvia. There, now it's said, and done, and
I think we might leave it at that; for I don't think it's much more
pleasant for me than for you. I'm sure I hope we shall have many a
pleasant evening together--er--after a few years have passed. Now, what
do you say--shall we have another cigar, or go in to the ladies?"

I flatter myself that, with all my shortcomings, I was never a sulky
fellow. At all events, I elected to join the ladies; but my reward was
not immediately apparent, for it seemed that Sylvia had retired for the
night. At least, we did not meet again until breakfast-time next
morning, when departure was imminent, and the week's work had, so to
say, begun.




VIII

A STIRRING WEEK

    Ay! we would each fain drive
    At random, and not steer by rule.
    Weakness! and worse, weakness bestows in vain.
    Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive.
    We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;
    Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.

       .       .       .       .       .

    Even so we leave behind,
    As, charter'd by some unknown Powers,
    We stem across the sea of life by night.
    The joys which were not for our use design'd;
    The friends to whom we had no natural right,
    The homes that were not destined to be ours.

                                              MATTHEW ARNOLD.


It goes without saying that Mr. Wheeler's attitude, and my being
practically forbidden the house at Weybridge, strengthened and sharpened
my interest in Sylvia. Nothing else so fans the flame of a young man's
fancy as being forbidden all access to its object. Accordingly, in the
weeks which followed that Sunday at Weybridge, I began an ardent
correspondence with Sylvia, after inducing her to arrange to call for
letters at a certain newspaper shop not far from the station.

It was a curious correspondence in many ways. Some of my long, wordy
epistles were indited from the reporters' room at the _Daily Gazette_
office, in the midst of noisy talk and the hurried production of "copy."
Others, again, were produced, long after--for my health's sake--I should
have been in bed; and these were written on a corner of my little chest
of drawers in the Bloomsbury lodging-house. I was a great reader of the
poet Swinburne at the time, and I doubt not my muse was sufficiently
passionate seeming. But, though I believe my phrases of endearment were
alliteratively emphatic, and even, as I afterwards learned, somewhat
alarming to their recipient, yet the real mainspring of my eloquence was
the difference between our respective views of life, Sylvia's and mine.

In short, before very long my letters resolved themselves into fiery and
vehement denunciation of Sylvia's particular and chosen _metier_ in
religion, and equally vehement special pleading on behalf of the claims
of humanity and social reform, as I saw them. I find the thing
provocative of smiles now, but I was terribly in earnest then, or
thought so, and had realized nothing of the absolute futility of pitting
temperament against temperament, reason against conviction, argument
against emotional belief.

We had some stolen meetings, too, in the evenings, I upon one side of a
low garden wall, Sylvia upon the other. Stolen meetings are apt to be
very sweet and stirring to young blood; but the sordid consideration of
the railway fare to Weybridge forbade frequent indulgence, and such was
my absorption in social questions, such my growing hatred of Sylvia's
anti-human form of religion, that even here I could not altogether
forbear from argument. Indeed, I believe I often left poor Sylvia weary
and bewildered by the apparently crushing force of my representations,
which, while quite capable of making her pretty head to ache, left her
mental and emotional attitude as completely untouched as though I had
never opened my lips.

Wrought up by means of my own eloquence, I would make my way back to
London in a hot tremor of exaltation, which I took to be love and desire
of Sylvia. And then, as like as not, I would receive a letter from my
lady-love the next day, the refrain of which would be:

"How strange you are. How you muddle me! Indeed, you don't understand;
and neither, perhaps, do I understand you. It seems to me you would drag
sacred matters down to the dusty level of your politics."

The dusty level of my politics! That was it. The affairs of the world,
of mortal men, they were as the affairs of ants to pretty Sylvia. A
lofty and soaring view, you say? Why, no; not that exactly, for what
remained of real and vital moment in her mind, to the exclusion of all
serious interest in humanity? There remained, as a source of much
gratification, what I called the daily dramatic performance at St.
Jude's; and there remained as the one study worthy of serious devotion
and interest--Sylvia Wheeler's own soul. She never sought to influence
the welfare of another person's soul. Indeed, as she so often said to
me, with a kind of plaintiveness which should have softened my
declamatory ardour but did not, she did not like speaking of such
matters at all; she regarded it as a kind of desecration.

No, it did not seem to me a lofty and inspiring view that Sylvia took.
On the contrary, it exercised a choking effect upon me, by reason of
what I regarded as its intense littleness and narrowness. The too often
bitter and sordid realities of the struggle of life, as I saw it in
London, had the effect upon me of making Sylvia's esoteric exclusiveness
of interest seem so petty as to be an insult to human intelligence. I
would stare out of the train windows, on my way back from Weybridge, at
the countless lights, the endless huddled roofs of London; and, seeing
in these a representation of the huge populace of the city, I would
stretch out my arms in an impotent embrace, muttering:

"Yes, indeed, you _are_ real; you _are_ more important than any other
consideration; you are _not_ the mere shadows she thinks you; your
service is of more moment than any miracle, or than any nursing of one's
own soul!"

And so I would make my way to Fleet Street, where I forced myself to
believe I served the people by teaching them to despise patriotism, to
give nothing, but to organize and demand, and keep on demanding and
obtaining, more and more, from a State whose business it was to give,
and to ask nothing in return. I was becoming known, and smiled at
mockingly, for my earnest devotion to the extreme of the _Daily
Gazette's_ policy, which, if it made for anything, made, I suppose, for
anti-nationalism, anti-militarism, anti-Imperialism, anti-loyalty, and
anti-everything else except State aid--by which was meant the
antithesis of aid of the State.

"I've got quite a good job for you this afternoon, Mordan--something
quite in your line," said Mr. Charles N. Pierce one morning. "A lot of
these South African firebrands are having a luncheon at the Westminster
Palace Hotel, and that fellow John Crondall is to give an address
afterwards on 'Imperial Interests and Imperial Duties.' I'll give you
your fling on this up to half a column--three-quarters if it's good
enough; but, be careful. A sort of contemptuous good humour will be the
best line to take. Make 'em ridiculous. And don't forget to convey the
idea of the whole business being plutocratic. You know the sort of
thing: Park Lane Israelites, scooping millions, at the expense of the
overtaxed proletariat in England. Jingoism, a sort of swell bucket-shop
business--you know the tone. None of your heroics, mind you. It's got to
be news; but you can work in the ridicule all right."

I always think of that luncheon as one of the stepping-stones in my
life. However crude and mistaken I had been up till then, I had always
been sincere. My report of that function went against my own
convictions. The writing of it was a painful business; I knew I was
being mean and dishonest. Not that what I heard there changed my views
materially. No; I still clung to my general convictions, which fitted
the policy of the _Daily Gazette_. But the fact remained that in
treating that gathering as I did, on the lines laid down by my
news-editor, I knew that I was being dishonest, that I was conveying an
untrue impression.

In this feeling, as in most of a young man's keen feelings, the personal
element played a considerable part. I was introduced to the speaker,
John Crondall, by a Cambridge man I knew, who came there on behalf of a
Conservative paper, which had recently taken a new lease of life in new
hands, and become the most powerful among the serious organs of the
Empire party. It is a curious thing, by the way, that overwhelming as
was the dominance of the anti-national party in politics, the
Imperialist party could still claim the support of the greatest and most
thoughtfully written newspapers.

John Crondall had no time to spare for more than a very few words with
so obscure a person as myself; but in two minutes he was able to produce
a deep impression upon me, as he did upon most people who met him. John
Crondall had a great deal of personal charm, but the thing about him
which bit right into my consciousness that afternoon was his earnest
sincerity. As Crewe, the man who introduced me to him, said afterwards:

"There isn't one particle of flummery in Crondall's whole body."

It was an obviously truthful criticism. You might agree with the man or
not, but no intelligent human being could doubt his honesty, the reality
of his convictions, the strength and sincerity of his devotion to the
cause of those convictions. It was perfectly well known then that
Crondall had played a capable third or fourth fiddle in the maintenance,
so far, of the Imperial interest in South Africa. His masterful leader,
the man who, according to report, had inspired all his fiery earnestness
in the Imperialist cause, was dead. But John Crondall had relinquished
nothing of his activity as a lieutenant, and continued to spend a good
share of his time in South Africa, while, wherever he was, continuing to
devote his energies to the same cause.

As for his material interests, Crewe assured me that Crondall knew no
more of business, South African or otherwise, than a schoolboy. He had
inherited property worth about a couple of thousand a year, and had
rather decreased than added to it. For, though he had acted as war
correspondent in the Russo-Japan war, and through one or two "little
wars," in outlying parts of the British Empire, circumstances had
prevented such work being of profit to him. In the South African war he
had served as an irregular, and achieved distinction in scouting and
guiding work.

John Crondall's life, I gathered, had been the very opposite of my own
sheltered progress from Dorset village to school, from school to
University, and thence to my present street-bound routine in London. His
views were clearly no less opposite to that vague tumult of resentment,
protest, and aspiration which represented my own outlook upon life.
Indeed, his speech that day was an epitome of the sentiment and opinions
which I had chosen to regard with the utmost abhorrence.

With Crondall, every other consideration hinged upon and was subservient
to the Imperialist idea of devotion to the bond which united all
British possessions under one rule. The maintenance and furtherance of
that tie, the absorption of all parts into that great whole, the
subordination of all other interests to this: that I took to be John
Crondall's great end in life. By association I had come to identify
myself, and my ideals of social reform, entirely with those to whom mere
mention of the rest of the Empire, or of the ties which made it an
Empire, was as a red rag to a bull.

I have tried to explain something of the causes for this extraordinary
attitude, but I am conscious that at the present time it cannot really
be explained. It was there, however. We might interest ourselves in talk
of Germany, we might enthusiastically admire and even model ourselves
upon the conduct of a foreign people; but mention of the outside places
of our own Empire filled us with anger, resentment, scorn, and contempt.
It amounted to this: that we regarded as an enemy the man who sought to
serve the Empire. He cannot do that without opposing us, we said in
effect; as one who should say: You cannot cultivate my garden, or repair
my fences, without injuring my house and showing yourself an enemy to my
family. A strange business; but so it was.

Therefore, John Crondall's speech that day found me full enough of
opposition, and not at all inclined to be sympathetic. But the thing of
it was, I knew him for an honest and disinterested man; a man alight
with high inspiration and lofty motive; a man immeasurably above sordid
or selfish ends. And it was my task, first, to ridicule him; and,
second, to attach sordidness and self-interest to him. That was the
thing which made the day eventful for me.

John Crondall talked of British rule and British justice, as he had
known them in the world's far places. He drew pictures of Oriental rule,
Boer rule, Russian rule, savage rule; and, again, of the methods and
customs of foreign Powers in their colonial administration. When he
claimed this and that for British rule, and the Imperial unity which
must back it, as such, sneers came naturally to me. The anti-British
sentiment covered that. My qualms began, when he based his plea upon the
value of British administration to all concerned, the danger to
civilization, to mankind, of its being allowed to weaken.

Remember, he spoke in pictures, and in the first person; not of
imaginings, but of what he had seen: how a single anti-British speech in
London, meant a month's prolongation of bloody strife in one country, or
an added weight of cruel oppression in another. Right or wrong, John
Crondall carried you with him; for he dealt with men and things as he
had brothered and known them, before ever he let loose, in a fiery
peroration, that abstract idea of Empire patriotism which ruled his
life.

But it was not all this that made my paltry journalistic task a hard
one. It was my certainty of Crondall's lofty sincerity. From that
afternoon I date the beginning of the end of my _Daily Gazette_
engagement. Some men in my shoes would have moved to success from this
point; gaining from it either complete unscrupulousness, or the bold
decision which would have made them important as friends or enemies.
For my part I was simply slackened by the episode. I met John Crondall
several times again. He chaffed me in the most generous fashion over my
abominably unfair report of the luncheon gathering. He influenced me
greatly, though my opinions remained untouched, so far as I knew.

I cannot explain just how John Crondall influenced me, but I am very
conscious that he had a broadening effect on me--he enlarged my horizon.
If he had remained in London things might have gone differently with me.
One cannot tell. Among other things, I know his influence mightily
reduced the number and length of my letters to Weybridge. In my mind I
was always fighting John Crondall. It was my crowded millions of England
against his lonely, sun-browned men and women outside--his world
interests. The war in my heart was real, unceasing. And then there was
pretty Sylvia and her little soul, and her meditations, and her daily
miracles. The pin-point, bright as it was, became too tiny for me to
concentrate upon it, when contrasted with these other tumultuous
concerns.

Then came a crowded, confused week, in which I saw John Crondall depart
by the South African boat-train from Waterloo. The first lieutenant of
his dead leader out there had cabled for Crondall to come and hold his
broad shoulders against the side of some political dam. My eyes pricked
when John Crondall wrung my hand.

"You're all right, sonny," he said. "Don't you suppose I have the
smallest doubt about you."

I had never given him anything but sneers and opposition--I, a little
unknown scrub of a reporter; he a man who helped to direct policies and
shape States. Here he was rushing off to the other side of the earth at
his own expense, sacrificing his own interests and engagements at home,
in the service of an Idea, an abstract Tie, a Flag. My philosophy had
seemed spacious beside, say, Sylvia's: to secure better things for those
about me, instead of for my own soul only. But what of Crondall? As I
say, my eyes pricked, even while I framed some sentence in my mind
expressing regret for his wrong-headedness. Ah, well!

The same week--the same day--brought me the gentlest little note of
dismissal from Sylvia. Her duty to her father, and--my ideas seemed too
much for her peace of mind; so bewildering. "I am no politician, you
know; and truth to tell, these matters which seem so much to you that
you would have them drive religion from me, they seem to me so
infinitely unimportant. Forgive me!"

No doubt my vanity was wounded, but I will not pretend that I was very
seriously hurt. Neither could I ponder long upon the matter, because
another letter, received by the same post, claimed my attention.
Sylvia's letter threw out a hint of better things for us in a year or
two's time. Her notion of a break between us was "for the present."
There were references to "later on, when you can come here again, and we
need not hide things." But my other letter made more instant claims. It
was type-written, and ran thus:

    "DEAR MR. MORDAN:--Mr. Chas. N. Pierce directs me to inform you that
    after the expiration of the present month your services will no
    longer be required by the editor of the _Daily Gazette_.

                                              "I am, Sir,
                                                Yours faithfully,
                                                  JAMES MARTIN,
                                                    _Secretary_."

I pictured the little pale-eyed rabbit of a man typing the dictum of his
Napoleon, his hero, and wondering in his amiable way how "Mr. Mordan"
would be affected thereby, and how he had managed to displease the great
man. As for "the editor of the _Daily Gazette_," I had not seen him
since the day of my engagement. But I recalled now various recent signs
of chill disapproval of my work on Mr. Pierce's part. And, indeed, I was
aware myself of a slackness in my work, a kind of reckless,
windmill-tilting tendency in my general attitude.

Meantime, there was the fact that I had recently encroached twice upon
my tiny nest-egg; once to buy a wedding present for my sister Lucy, and
once for a piece of silly extravagance.

It was quite a notable week.




IX

A STEP DOWN

    "Cosmopolitanism is nonsense; the cosmopolite is a cipher, worse
    than a cipher; outside of nationality there is neither art, nor
    truth, nor life; there is nothing."--IVAN TURGENIEFF.


I have mentioned a piece of reckless extravagance; it was reckless in
view of my straightened circumstances. And the reason I mention this
apparent trifle is that it and its attendant circumstances influenced me
in my conduct after the abrupt termination of the _Daily Gazette_
engagement.

One of my fellow knights of the reporters' room introduced me in a
certain Fleet Street wine-bar to one of the characters of that classic
highway--a man named Clement Blaine, who edited and owned a weekly
publication called _The Mass_. I hasten to add that this journal had
nothing whatever to do with any kind of religious observance. Its title
referred to the people, or rather, to the section of the public which,
at that time, we still described by the quaintly misleading phrase, "the
working classes," as though work were a monopoly in the hands of the
manual labourer.

_The Mass_ was a journal which had quite a vogue at that time. This was
brought about, I suppose, by the wave of anti-nationalism which, in
1906, established the notorious administration which subsequently became
known as "The Destroyers." It was maintained largely, I fancy, by
Clement Blaine's genius for getting himself quoted in other journals of
every sort and standing.

The existence of _The Mass_, and the popularity which it earned by
outraging every civic and national decency, stands in my mind as a
striking example of the extraordinary laxity and slackness of moral
which had grown out of our boasted tolerance, broad-mindedness, and
cosmopolitanism. We had waxed drunken upon the parrot-like asseveration
of "rights," which our fathers had won for us, and we had no time to
spare for their compensating duties. This misguided apotheosis of what
we considered freedom and broad-mindedness, produced the most startling
and anomalous situations in our national life, including the almost
incredible fact that, while nominally at peace with the world, the State
was being bitterly warred against by cliques and parties among its own
subjects.

For instance, in any other State than our own, my new acquaintance,
Clement Blaine, would have been safely disposed in a convenient prison
cell, and his flamingly seditious journal would have been promptly and
effectually squashed. In England the man was free as the Prime Minister,
and a Department of State, the Post Office, was engaged in the
distribution of the journal which he devoted exclusively to stirring up
animosity against that State, and traitorous opposition to its
constitution.

Further, Mr. Blaine's vitriolic outpourings, his unnatural defilement of
his own nest, were gravely quoted in every newspaper in the Kingdom,
without a hint of recognition of the fact that they were fundamentally
criminal and a public offence. The sacrosanct "liberty of the subject"
was involved; and though Mr. Blaine would have been forcibly restrained
if he had shown any tendency to injure lamp-posts, or to lay hands upon
his own worthless life, he was given every facility in his
self-appointed task of inciting the public to all sorts of offences
against the State, and to a variety of forms of national suicide.

It was the commonest thing for a Member of Parliament, a man solemnly
sworn and consecrated to the loyal service of the Crown and State, to
fill a signed column of Clement Blaine's paper, with an article or
letter the whole avowed end of which would be the championing of some
national enemy or rival, or the advocacy of means whereby a shrewd blow
might be struck against British rule or British prestige in some part of
the world.

I recall one long and scurrilous article by a Member of Parliament,
urging rebellious natives in South Africa to take heart of grace and
pursue with ever-increasing vigour their attacks upon the small and
isolated white populace which upheld British rule in that part of the
Continent. I remember a long and venomous letter from another Member of
Parliament (a strong advocate of the State payment of members) defending
in the most ardently sympathetic manner both the action and the
sentiments of a municipal official who had torn down and destroyed the
Union Jack upon an occasion of public ceremony.

We called this sort of thing British freedom in those chaotic days; and
when our Continental rivals were not jeering at the grotesqueness of it,
they were lauding this particular form of madness to the skies, as well
they might, seeing that our insensate profligacy and incontinence meant
their gain. The cause of a foreigner, good, bad, or indifferent--that
was the cause Clement Blaine most loved to champion in his journal. An
attack upon anything British, though the author of it might be the
basest creature ever outlawed from any community--that was certain of
ready and eager hospitality in the columns of _The Mass_.

I can conceive of no infamy which that journal was not ready to condone,
no offence it would not seek to justify--save and except the crime of
patriotism, loyalty, avowed love of Britain. And this obscene, mad-dog
policy, so difficult even to imagine at this time, was by curious
devious ways identified with Socialism. _The Mass_ was called a
Socialist organ. The fact may have been a libel upon Socialism, if not
upon Socialists; but so it was.

Be it said that at Cambridge I had rather surprised the evangelical
section of my college (Corpus Christi) by the part I played in founding
a short-lived institution called the Anonymous Society, the choicest
spirits in which affected canvas shirts and abstention from the use of
neckties. As Socialists, we invited the waiters of the college to a
soiree, at which a judicious blend of revolutionary economics and
bitter beer was relied upon to provide a flow of reasonable and
inexpensive entertainment. The society lapsed after a time, chiefly
owing, if I remember rightly, to an insufficiency of funds for
refreshments. But I had remained rather a person to be reckoned with at
the Union.

I regarded my meeting with Clement Blaine as something of an event, and
I very cheerfully and quite gratuitously contributed an article to his
journal dealing with some form of government subvention which I held to
be a State duty. (We wasted few words over the duties of the citizen in
those days.) It was as a result of that article that I was invited to a
Socialist soiree in which the moving spirit, at all events in the
refreshment-room, was Mr. Clement Blaine. Here I met a variety of queer
fish who called themselves Socialists. They were of both sexes, and upon
the whole they were a silly, inconsequent set. Their views rather
wearied me, despite my predisposition to favour them.

They were a kind of tepid, ineffectual anarchists, unconvinced and
wholly unconvincing. Broadly speaking, theirs was a policy of blind
reversal. They were not constructive, but they were opposed vaguely to
the existing order of things, and, particularly, to everything British.
They pinned their faith to the foreigner in all things, even though the
foreigner's whole energies might be devoted to the honest endeavour to
raise conditions in his country to a level approaching the British
standard. Any contention against the existing order, and, above all,
anything against Britain, appealed directly to these rather tawdry
people.

In this drab, ineffective gathering, I found one point of colour, like a
red rose on a dingy white tablecloth. This was Beatrice, the daughter of
Clement Blaine. I believe the man had a wife. One figures her as a worn
household drudge. In any case, she made no appearance in any of the
places in which I met Blaine, or his handsome daughter. Beatrice Blaine
was a new type to me. One had read of such girls, but I had never met
them. And I suppose novelty always has a certain charm for youth. One
felt that Beatrice had crossed the Rubicon. Mentally, at all events, one
gathered that she had thrown her bonnet over the windmill.

Physically, materially, I have no doubt that Beatrice was perfectly well
qualified to take care of herself. But here was a very handsome girl who
was entirely without reticence or reserve. With her, many things usually
treated with respect were--"all rot." Beatrice's aim in life was
pleasure, and she not merely admitted, but boasted of the fact. She did
not think much of her father's friends as individuals. She probably
objected to their dinginess. But she acclaimed herself a thoroughgoing
Socialist, I think because she believed that Socialism meant the
provision of plenty in money, dresses, pleasures, and so forth, for all
who were short of these commodities.

Perhaps I was a shade less dingy than the others. At all events,
Beatrice honoured me with her favour upon this occasion, and talked to
me of pleasure. So far as recollection serves me she connected pleasure
chiefly with theatres, restaurants, the habit of supping in public, and
the use of hansom cabs. At all events, within the week I squandered two
whole sovereigns out of my small hoard on giving this young pagan what
she called a "fluffy" evening. It reminded me more than a little of
certain rather frantic undergraduate excursions from Cambridge. But
Beatrice quoted luscious lines of minor poetry, and threw a certain
glamour over a quarter of the town which was a warren of tawdry
immorality; the hunting-ground of a pallid-faced battalion of alien
pimps and parasites.

England was then the one civilized country in the world which still
welcomed upon its shores the outcast, rejected, refuse of other lands;
and, as a matter of course, when foreign capitals became positively too
hot for irreclaimable characters, they flocked into Whitechapel and
Soho, there to indulge their natural bent for every kind of criminality
known to civilization, save those involving physical risk or physical
exertion for the criminal. There were then whole quarters of the
metropolis out of which every native resident had gradually been ousted,
in which the English language was rarely heard, except during a police
raid.

Tens of thousands of these unclassed, denationalized foreigners lived
and waxed fat by playing upon the foibles and pandering to the
weaknesses of the great city's native population. Others, of a higher
class, steadily ousted native labour in the various branches of
legitimate commerce. We know now, to our cost, something of the
malignant danger these foreigners represented. In indirect ways one
would have supposed their evil influence was sufficiently obvious then.
But I remember that the parties represented by such organs as the _Daily
Gazette_ prided themselves upon their furious opposition to any hint of
precautions making for the restriction of alien immigration.

England was the land of the free, they said. Yet, while boasting that
England was the refuge of the persecuted (as well as the rejected) of
all lands, we were so wonderfully broad-minded that we upheld anything
foreign against anything British, and were intolerant only of English
sentiment, English rule, English institutions. I believe Beatrice's
conviction of the superiority of the Continent and of foreigners
generally was based upon the belief that:

"On the Continent people can really enjoy themselves. There's none of
our ridiculous English puritanism, and early closing, and rubbish of
that sort there."

I am rather surprised that the crude hedonism of Beatrice should have
appealed to me, for my weaknesses had never really included mere fleshly
indulgence. But, as I have said, the girl had the charm of novelty for
me. I remember satirically assuring myself that, upon the whole, her
frank concentration upon worldly pleasure was more natural and pleasing
than Sylvia's rapt concentration upon other kinds of self-ministration.
Ours was a period of self-indulgence. Beatrice was, after all, only a
little more naive and outspoken than the majority in her thirst for
pleasure. And she was quite charming to look upon.

Almost the first man to whom I spoke regarding my dismissal from the
staff of the _Daily Gazette_ was Clement Blaine. I met him in Fleet
Street, and was asked in to his cupboard of an office.

"You are a man who knows every one in Fleet Street," I said. "I wish you
would keep an eye lifting for a journalistic billet for me."

And then I told him that I was leaving the _Daily Gazette_, and spoke of
the work I had done, and of my little journalistic experiences at
Cambridge.

He combed his glossy black beard with the fingers of one hand; a white
hand it was, save where cigarettes had browned the first and second
fingers; a hand that had never known physical toil, though its owner
always addressed "working" men as one of themselves. He wore a fiery red
necktie, and a fiery diamond on the little finger of the hand that
combed his beard. A self-indulgent life in the city was telling on him,
but Clement Blaine was still rather a fine figure of a man, in his
coarse, bold way. He had a varnished look, and, dressed for the part,
would have made a splendid stage pirate.

"It's odd you should have come to me to-day," he said. "Look here!"

He handed me a cutting from a daily paper.

    At Holloway, yesterday afternoon, an inquest was held on the body of
    a man named Joseph Cartwright, who is said to have been a
    journalist. This man was found dead upon his bed, fully dressed, on
    Tuesday morning. The medical evidence showed death to be due to
    heart failure, and indicated alcoholism as the predisposing cause. A
    verdict was returned in accordance with the medical evidence.

"He was my assistant editor," said Clement Blaine, as I looked up from
my perusal of this sorry tale.

"Really?" I said.

"Yes, a clever fellow; most accomplished journalist, but----" And Mr.
Blaine raised his elbow with a significant gesture, by which he
suggested the act of drinking.

Within the hour I had accepted an engagement as assistant editor of _The
Mass_ with the magnificent sum of two pounds a week by way of
remuneration.

"It's poor pay," said Blaine. "And I only wish I could double it. But
that's all it will run to at present, and--well, of course, it counts
for something to be working for the cause as directly as we do in _The
Mass_."

I nodded, not without qualms. My education made it impossible for me to
accept unreservedly the most scurrilous features of the journal. But the
cause was good--I was assured of that; and I would introduce
improvements, I thought. I was still very inexperienced. Meantime, I was
not to know the carking anxiety of the out-of-work. I could still pay my
way at the Bloomsbury lodging. This was something.

Beatrice expressed herself as delighted. I was to accumulate large sums
in various vague ways, and enjoy innumerable "fluffy" evenings with her.

What a queer mad jumble of a shut-in world our London was, and how
blindly self-centred we all were in our pursuit of immediate gain, in
our absolute indifference to the larger outside movements, the shaping
of national destinies, the warring of national interests! I remember
that we were quite triumphant, in our little owlish way, that year; for
the weight of socialistic and anti-national, anti-responsible feeling
had forced a time-serving Cabinet into cutting down our Navy by a
quarter at one stroke. The hurried scramblers after money and pleasure
were much gratified.

"We can make defensive alliances with other Powers," they said.
"Meantime--retrench, reduce, cut down, and give us more freedom in our
race. Freedom, freedom--that's the thing; and peace for the development
of commerce."

Undoubtedly, as a people, we were fey.




X

FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI

    Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
      From out the storied Past, and used
      Within the Present, but transfused
    Thro' future time by power of thought.

    True love turned round on fixed poles,
      Love that endures not sordid ends,
      For English natures, freemen, friends,
    Thy brothers and immortal souls.

    But pamper not a hasty time,
      Nor feed with crude imaginings
      The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings
    That every sophister can lime.

    Deliver not the tasks of might
      To weakness, neither hide the ray
      From those, not blind, who wait for day,
    Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.

                                              TENNYSON.


And now, as assistant editor of _The Mass_, I entered a period of my
life upon which I look back as one might who, by chance rather than by
reason of any particular fitness for survival, had won safely through a
whirlpool. The next few years were a troublous time, a stormy era of
transition, for most English people. For many besides myself the period
was a veritable maelstrom of confusion, of blind battling with
unrecognized forces, of wasted effort, neglected duty, futile struggles,
and slavish inertia.

At an early stage I learned to know Clement Blaine for a sweater of
underpaid labour, a man as grossly self-indulgent as he was
unprincipled, as much a charlatan as he was, in many ways, an ignoramus.
Yet I see now, more clearly than then, that even Clement Blaine was not
all bad. He was not even completely a charlatan. He believed he was
justified in making all the money he could, in any way that was
possible. It must be remembered, however, that at that time most people
really thought, whatever they might say, that the first and most obvious
duty in life was to make money for themselves.

Then, too, I think Blaine really believed that the sort of
anti-national, socialistic theories he advocated would make for the
happiness of the people; for the profit and benefit of the majority. He
was blinded by lack of knowledge of history and of human nature. He was
an extreme example, perhaps, but, after all, his mistaken idea that
happiness depended upon personal possession of this and that, upon
having and holding, was very generally accepted at that time. The old
saving sense of duty, love of country, national responsibility, and
pride of race, had faded and become unreal to a people feverishly bent
upon personal gain only. Nelson's famous signal and watchword was kept
alive, in inscriptions; in men's hearts and minds it no longer had any
meaning; it made no appeal. This is to speak broadly, of course, and of
the majority. We had some noble exceptions to the rule.

In looking back now upon that period, it seems to me, as I suppose to
all who lived through it, such a tragedy of confusion, of sordidness,
and of futility, that one is driven to take too sweepingly pessimistic a
view of the time. I have said a good deal of the anti-national
sentiment, because it was undoubtedly in the ascendant then. As history
shows us, this sentiment ruled; by it the ship of state was steered; by
it the defences of the Empire were cut down and down to the ultimate
breaking point. We call the administration of that period criminally
unpatriotic. As such "The Destroyers" must always figure in history. But
we must not forget that then, as now, we English people had as good a
Government as we deserved. The spirit of selfish irresponsibility was
not confined to Whitehall.

On the other hand, it must not be supposed that no patriotic party
existed. There was a patriotic party, and the exigencies of the time
inspired some of its leaders nobly. But the sheer weight of numbers, of
indifference, and of selfishness to which this party was opposed was too
much for it. The best method of realizing this nowadays is by the study
of the newspaper files for the early years of the century. From these it
will be seen that even the people and journals in whom devoted
patriotism survived, even the leaders who gave up their time and energy
(politics gave us such a man, the Army another, the Navy another,
literature another, and journalism gave us an editor in whom the right
fire burned brightly) to the task of warning and adjuring the public,
and seeking to awaken the nation to the lost sense of its dangers, its
duties, and its responsibilities; even these were forced by the weight
of public selfishness into using an almost apologetic tone, with
reference to the common calls of patriotism and Imperial unity.

People dismissed an obvious challenge of the national conscience with a
hurried and impatient wave of the hand. They were tired of this; they
had heard enough of the other; they were occupied with local interests
of the moment, and could not be bothered with this or that consideration
affecting the welfare of the world-wide shores of greater outside
Britain. And, accordingly, we find that the most patriotic and
public-spirited journal was obliged, for its life, to devote more
attention to a football match at the Crystal Palace than to a change of
public policy affecting the whole commercial future of a part of the
Empire twenty times greater than Britain. There were other journals,
organs of the self-centred majority, that would barely even mention an
Imperial development of that sort, and then but casually, as a matter of
no particular interest to their readers; as indeed it was.

I do not think that retrospection has coloured my view too darkly when I
say that my brief experience in Fleet Street made me feel that the
_Daily Gazette_ party, the supporters of "The Destroyers" (as naval folk
had named the Government of the day) consisted of a mass of smugly
hypocritical self-seekers; and that the party I served under Clement
Blaine were a mass of blatantly frank self-seekers. Such
generalizations can never be quite just, however. There were earnest and
devoted men in every section of the community. But, as a generalization,
as indicating the typical characteristics of the parties, I fear that my
view has been proved correct.

It would be quite a mistake to suppose that in the political world the
shortcomings were all on one side. Writers like myself, even men like
Clement Blaine, had only too much justification for the contempt they
poured upon the Conservative party. Selfishness, indolence, and the
worship of the fossilized party spirit, had eaten into the very vitals
of this section of the political world. The form of madness we called
party loyalty made the best men we had willing to sacrifice national to
personal interests. So-and-so must retain his place; loyalty to the
party demands our support there and there. We must give it, whatever the
consequences. The thing is not easy to understand; but it was so, and
the strongest and best men of the day were culpable in this.

The farther my London experiences took me, the greater became the mass
of my shattered illusions, broken ideals, and lost hopes. I remember my
reflections during a brief visit I paid to my mother in Dorset, when I
had spent an evening talking with my sister Lucy's husband. Doctor
Woodthrop was a good fellow enough, and my sister seemed happier with
him than one would have expected, remembering that it was rather the
desire for freedom, than love, which gave her to him.

Woodthrop was popular, honest, steady-going; a fine, typical Englishman
of the period, I suppose. In politics he was as his father before him,
though the name had changed from Tory to Conservative. He talked
politics for a week at election time. I would not say that he ever
thought politics. I know that he had no knowledge, and less interest,
where the affairs of his country were concerned, when I met and talked
with him during that visit. The country's defences were actually of far
less importance in his eyes than the country's cricket averages. As for
either social reform interests in England, or the affairs of the Empire
outside England, he simply could not be induced to give them even
conversational breathing space. They were as exotic to my sister's
husband as the ethics of esoteric Buddhism. But he was a thick and thin
Conservative. To be sure, he would have said, nothing would cause him to
waver in that.

As for myself, I defended the anti-national party in its repudiation of
Imperial responsibility by arguing that the domestic needs of the
country were too urgent and great to admit of any kind of expenditure,
in money or energy, upon outside affairs. We did not recognize that
internal reform and content were absolutely incompatible with shameless
neglect of fundamental duties.

We were as sailors who should concentrate upon drying and cleaning their
cabin, seeking at all hazards to make that comfortable, while refusing
to spare time for the ship's pumps, though the water was rising in her
hold from a score of external fissures. Our anti-nationalists and Little
Englanders were little cabin-dwellers, shirkers from the open deck,
careless of the ship's hull, and masts, and sails, busily bent only
upon the enrichment of their particular divisions among her saloons.

In the early days of my engagement as assistant editor of _The Mass_, I
think I may claim that I worked hard and with honest intent to make the
paper represent truly what I conceived to be the good and helpful side
of Socialism, of social progress and reform. But, if I am to be frank, I
fear I must admit that within six months of my first engagement by
Clement Blaine, I had ceased to entertain any sincere hope or ambition
in this direction. And yet I remained assistant editor of _The Mass_.

The two statements doubtless redound to my discredit, and I have little
excuse to offer. The work represented bread and butter for me, and that
counted for something, of course. But I will admit that I think I could
have found some more worthy employment, and should have done so but for
Beatrice Blaine, my employer's daughter.

Time and time again my gorge rose at being obliged to play my part--very
often, as a writer, the principal part--in what I knew to be an
absolutely dishonest piece of journalism. Once I remember refusing to
write a grossly malicious and untrue representation of certain actions
of John Crondall's in the Transvaal. But I am ashamed to say I revised
the proofs of the lying thing, and saw it to press, when a hireling of
Clement Blaine's had prepared it. The man was a discharged servant of
Crondall's, a convicted thief, as I afterwards learned, as well as a
most abandoned liar. But his scurrilous fabrication, after publication
in _The Mass_, was quoted at length by the _Daily Gazette_, and by the
journals of that persuasion throughout the country.

I hardly know how to explain my relations with Blaine's daughter. I
suppose the main point is she was beautiful, in the sense that certain
cats are beautiful. I rarely heard of my Weybridge friends now, and
never, directly, of Sylvia. My life seemed infinitely remote from that
of the luxurious Wheeler _menage_. When I chanced to earn a few guineas
with my pen outside the littered office of _The Mass_ (where the bulk of
the editorial work fell to me), the money was almost invariably devoted
to the entertainment of Beatrice. She was in several ways not unlike a
kitten, or something feline, of larger growth: the panther, for example,
in Balzac's thrilling story, "A Passion in the Desert."

I have never, before or since, met any woman so totally devoid of the
moral sense as Beatrice. Yet she had a heart that was not bad; indeed it
was a tender heart. But there was no moral sense to guide and balance
her.

I think of Beatrice as very much a product of that time. Her own
personal enjoyment, pleasure, indulgence; these formed alike the centre
and the limit of her thoughts and aims. And the suggestion that serious
thought or energy should be given to any other end, struck Beatrice as
necessarily insincere and absurd. As for duty, the word had no more real
application to her own life as Beatrice saw it than the counsels of
old-time chivalry for the pursuit of the Holy Grail.

Soberly considered, this is doubtless very grievous. But it must be
said that if Beatrice was singular in this, her singularity lay rather
in her frank disclosure of her attitude than in the attitude itself. I
am not sure that morally her absorption in such crude pleasures as she
knew, was a whit more culpable than the equal absorption of nine people
out of ten at that time, in money-getting, in sport, in society
functions, or in sheer idleness. The same oblivion to the sense of duty
was very generally characteristic; though in other matters, no doubt,
the moral sense was more active. In Beatrice it simply was not present
at all.

All this was tolerably clear to me even then; but I will not pretend
that it interfered much with the physical and emotional attraction which
Beatrice had for me. Apart from her my life was very drab in colour. I
had no recreations. In my time at Rugby and at Cambridge we either
practically ignored sport (so far, at all events, as actual
participation in it went), or lived for it. I had very largely ignored
it. Now, Beatrice Blaine represented, not exactly recreation,
perhaps--no, not that I think--but gaiety. The hours I spent in her
company were the only form of gaiety that entered into my life.

My feeling for Beatrice was not serious love, not at all a grand
passion; but denying myself the occasional pleasure of ministering to
her appetite for little outings would have been a harder task for me
than the acceptation of Sylvia Wheeler's dismissal. My attentions to
Beatrice were very much those of Balzac's Provencal to his panther,
after he had overcome his first terrors.

There were times when her acceptance of gifts or compliments from
another man made me believe myself really in love with Beatrice. Then
some peculiarly distasteful aspect of my journalistic work would be
forced upon me; I would receive some striking illustration of the
hopelessly sordid character of Blaine and his circle, of the policy of
_The Mass_, of the general trend of my life; and, seeing Beatrice's
indifferent acceptance of all this venality, I would turn from her with
a certain sense of revulsion--for three days. After that, I would return
to handsome Beatrice, with her feline graces and her warm colouring, as
a chilly, tired man turns from his work to his fireside.

In short, as time went on, I became as indifferent to ends and aims as
the most callous among those at whose indifference to matters of real
moment I had once girded so vehemently. And I lacked their excuse. I cut
no figure at all in the race for money and pleasure; unless my clinging
to Beatrice be accounted pursuit of pleasure. Certainly it lacked the
rapt absorption which characterized the multitude really in the race. I
fear I was rapidly degenerating into a common type of Fleet Street hack;
into nothing more than Clement Blaine's assistant. And then a quite new
influence came into my life.




XI

MORNING CALLERS

    A woman mixed of such fine elements
    That were all virtue and religion dead
    She'd make them newly, being what she was.

                                              GEORGE ELIOT.


A sandy-haired youth-of-all-work, named Rivers, spent his days in the
box we called the front office; a kind of lobby really, by which one
entered the tolerably large and desperately untidy room in which Blaine
and myself compiled each issue of _The Mass_. Blaine spent a good slice
of all his days in keeping appointments, usually in Fleet Street bars.

My days were spent in the main office of the paper, among the files, the
scissors and paste, the books of reference, and the three Gargantuan
waste-paper baskets. Here at different times I interviewed men of every
European nationality and every known calling, besides innumerable
followers of no recognized trade or profession. Among them all I cannot
call to mind more than two or three who, by the most charitable stretch
of imagination, could have been called gentlemen.

Most of them were obviously, and in all ways seedy, shady
characters--furtive, wordy creatures, full of vague, involved
grievances. The greater proportion were foreigners; scallywags from the
mean streets of every Continental capital; men familiar with prisons;
men who talked of the fraternity of labour, and never did any work; men
full of windy plans for the enrichment of humanity, who themselves must
always borrow and never repay--money, food, shelter, and the other
things for which honest folk give their labour.

If an English Cabinet Minister had offered us an explanation of any
political development we should have had small use for his contribution
in _The Mass_, unless as an advertisement of our importance. For their
teaching, for the text they gave us in our fulminations, we greatly
preferred the rancorous and generally scurrilous vapourings of some
unknown alien dumped upon our shores for the relief and benefit of his
own country.

We wanted no information from Admiralty Lords about the Navy, from
commanding officers about the Army, from pro-Consuls about the Colonies,
or from the Foreign Office about foreign relations. But a deserter or a
man dismissed from either of the Services, a broker ne'er-do-well
rejected as unfit by one of the Colonies, or a foreign agitator with
stories to tell of Britain's duplicity abroad; these were all welcome
fish for our net, and folk whom it was my duty to receive with
respectful attention. From their perjured lips it became my mechanical
duty to extract and publish wisdom for the use of our readers in the
guidance of their lives and the exercise of their rights as citizens and
ratepayers. I became adept at the work, and in the end accomplished it
daily without interest, and with only occasional qualms of conscience.
It was my living.

On a sunshiny morning in June, which I remember very well, the
sandy-haired Rivers brought me a visiting-card upon which I read the
name of "Miss Constance Grey." In one corner of the card the words "Cape
Town" had been crossed out and a London address written over them.

I was engaged at the time with a large, pale, fat man from Stettin,
whose mission it was to show me that the socialist working men of the
Fatherland dearly loved their comrades in England, and that the paying
of taxes for the defence of these islands was a preposterously absurd
thing, for the reason that the Socialists would never allow Germany to
go to war with England or with any other country. "The Destroyers," in
their truckling to Demos, had already cut down Naval and Army estimates
by more than one-half since their rise to power, and our Stettin
ambassador was priming me regarding a demand for further reductions,
prior to actual disarmament, to provide funds for the fixing of a
minimum day's pay and a maximum day's work.

The gentleman from Stettin was to provide us with material for a special
article and a leading article. His proposals were to be made a
"feature." However, I thought I had gone far enough with him at this
time; and so, looking from his pendulous jowl to the card in my hand, I
told Rivers to ask the lady to wait for two minutes, and to say that I
would see her then. I remember Herr Mitmann found the occasion
opportune for the airing of what I suppose he would have called his
sense of humour. His English and his front teeth were equally badly
broken, and his taste in jokes was almost as swinishly gross as his
appearance. But I was able to be quit of him at length, and then Rivers
ushered in Miss Constance Grey.

As I rose to provide my visitor with a chair, I received the impression
that she was a young and quietly well-dressed woman, with a notable pair
of dark eyes. I thought of her as being no more than five-and-twenty
years of age and pleasant to look upon. But her eyes were the feature
that seized one's attention. They produced an impression of light and
brilliancy, of vigour, intelligence, and charm.

"I called to see you at the office of the _Daily Gazette_, Mr. Mordan,
and this was the only address of yours they could give me, or I should
have hesitated about intruding on you in working hours. I bring you an
introduction from John Crondall."

And with that she handed me a letter in Crondall's writing, and nodded
in a friendly way when I asked permission to read it at once.

"Please do," she said.

She had no particular accent, but yet her speech differed slightly from
that of the conventional Englishwoman of her class--the refined and
well-educated Englishwoman, that is. I suppose the difference was rather
one of expression, tone, and choice of phrase than a matter of accent. I
doubt if one could easily find an example of it nowadays, increased
communication having so much broadened our own colloquial diction that
many of its conventional peculiarities have disappeared. But it existed
then, and after a time I learned to place it as characteristic of the
speech of Greater Britain, as distinguished from the English of those of
us who lived always in this capital centre of the Empire.

[Illustration: "RIVERS USHERED IN MISS CONSTANCE GREY"]

Miss Grey had the Colonial directness and vividness of speech; a larger,
freer diction upon the whole than that of the Londoner born and bred;
more racy, less clipped and formal, but, in certain ways, more correct.
The society _cliche_, and the society fads of abbreviation and accent,
were missing; and in their place was an easy, idiomatic directness,
distinctly noticeable to a man like myself who had actually never been
out of England. This it was that first struck me about Miss Grey; this
and the warm brilliance of her eyes: a graphic, moving speech, a frank,
compelling gaze; both indicative, as it seemed to me, of broadly
sympathetic understanding.

I read John Crondall's kindly letter with a good deal of interest, moved
by the fact that his terse, friendly phrases recalled to me a phase of
my own life which, though no more than a couple of years past, seemed to
me wonderfully remote. I had been new to London and to Fleet Street
then, full of aspirations, of earnestness, of independent aims and
hopes; fresh from the University and the more leisured days of my life
as the son of the rector of Tarn Regis. I had had glimpses of much that
was sordid and squalid in London life, at the period John Crondall's
letter recalled, but as yet there had been no sordidness in my own life.
All that was far otherwise now, I felt. Cambridge and Dorset were a
long way from the office of _The Mass_. I thought of the greasy Teuton
nondescript for whom I had kept Miss Grey waiting, and I felt colour
rise in my face as I read John Crondall's letter:

"I expect you have been burgeoning mightily since I left London, and I
should not be surprised to learn that you have put the _Daily Gazette_
and its kind definitely behind you. You remember our talks? Tut, my dear
fellow, Liberalism, Conservatism, Radicalism--it's of not the slightest
consequence, and they're all much of a muchness. The thing is to stand
to one's duty as a citizen of the Empire, not as a member of this or
that little tin coterie; and if we stick honourably to that, nothing
else matters. You will like Constance Grey; that is why I have asked her
to look you up. She's sterling all through; her father's daughter to the
backbone. And he was the man of whom Talbot said: 'Give me two Greys,
and'--and a couple of other men he mentioned--'and a free hand, and
Whitehall could go to sleep with its head on South Africa, and never be
disturbed again.'"--When Crondall quoted his dead chief, the man whose
personality had dominated British South Africa, one felt he had said his
utmost.--"The principal thing that takes her to London now, I believe,
is detail connected with a special series she has been engaged upon for
_The Times_; fine stuff, from what I have seen of it. It is marvellous
the grip this one little bit of a girl has of South African affairs."

"Yes," I thought, now the fact was mentioned, "I suppose she is small."

"I hope the articles will be well read, for there's a heap of the vitals
of South Africa in them; and even if they are to cut us adrift
altogether, it's as well 'The Destroyers' should know a little about us,
and the country. Constance Grey's name and introductions will take her
anywhere in London, or I would have asked your help in that way."

I thought of Clement Blaine's friends, my own Fleet Street circle, and
shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

"As it is, the boot may be rather on the other leg, and she may be of
some service to you. But in any case, I want you to know each other,
because you are a good chap, and will interest her, I know; and because
she is of the bigger Britain and will interest you. Things political
are, of course, looking pretty blue for us all, and your particular
friends--I rather hope perhaps they're not so much your friends by
now--are certainly doing their level best to cut all moorings. But one
must keep pegging away. The more cutting for them, the more splicing for
us. But I do wish we could blindfold Europe until these 'Destroyers' had
got enough rope, and satisfactorily hanged themselves; for if they go
much farther, their hanging will come too late to save the situation.
Well, salue!"

I allowed my eyes to linger over the tail-end of the letter, while I
thought. I was sensible of a very real embarrassment. There seemed a
kind of treachery to John Crondall, a kind of unfairness to Miss Grey,
in my receiving her there at all. By this time one had no illusions left
regarding Clement Blaine and his circle, nor about _The Mass_. I knew
that, at heart, I was ashamed, and with good reason, of my connection
with both. Still, there I was; it was my living; and--I suppose my eyes
must have wandered from the letter. At all events, evidently seeing that
I had finished reading it, my visitor spoke.

"I had an introduction to the editor of the _Daily Gazette_, so I took
advantage of being there this afternoon to see him. A nice man, I
thought, though I don't care for his paper. He remembered you as soon as
I mentioned your name, and told me you--you were here. He seemed quite
sorry you had left his paper; but I am sure I can understand the
attraction of a position in which the whole concern is more or less in
one's own hands. Mr. Delaney found me a copy of _The Mass_; so I have
been studying you before calling. Perhaps you have inadvertently done so
much by me, through _The Times_--a rather high and dry old institution,
isn't it?"

Naturally I had punctuated these remarks of hers, here and there. She
had a very bright, alert way in talking, and now she added, easily, a
sentence or two to the effect that it would be a dull world if we all
held precisely the same views. She did the thing well, and in a few
minutes I found myself chatting away with her in the most friendly
manner. She managed with the utmost deftness to remove all ground for my
embarrassment regarding my position. She talked for a while of South
Africa, and the life she had lived there prior to her father's death;
but she touched no topic which contained any controversial element. It
seemed her aunt, a sister of her father's, had accompanied her to
England, and she said:

"I promised my aunt, Mrs. Van Homrey, that I would induce you to spare
us an evening soon. She loves meeting friends of John Crondall. We dine
at eight, but would fix any other hour if it suited you better."

The end of it was I promised to dine with Miss Grey and her aunt in
South Kensington on the following evening, and, after a quarter of an
hour's very pleasant chat (twice interrupted by Rivers, who had people
in his cupboard waiting to see me) my visitor rose to take her
departure, with apologies for having trespassed upon a busy man's time.
I told her with some warmth that the loss of my time was of no
importance, and, with a thought as to the nature of my petty routine, I
repeated the assurance. She smiled:

"Ah, that's just the masculine insincerity of your gallantry," she said,
"unworn, I see, by working with women. John Crondall would have sent me
packing."

"No doubt his time is of more value--better occupied."

I had a mental vision of Clement Blaine (who grew stouter and slacker
day by day) sitting drinking with Herr Mitmann of Stettin, in a
favourite bar, within fifty yards of the office.

"Still the insincerity of politeness," she laughed. "You forget I have
read _The Mass_. I find you a terribly earnest partisan; very keenly
occupied, I should say. Till to-morrow evening, then!"

And she was gone, and Rivers was leading in, like a bear on a cord, a
tousled Polish Jew named Kraunski, who was teaching us how the
Metropolitan Police Force should be run, and how tyrannically its wicked
myrmidons oppressed worthy citizens of Houndsditch, like Mr.
Kraunski--quite a good _Mass_ feature.

So I stepped back again, feeling as though Constance Grey had carried
away the pale London sunlight with her when she left my littered den.




XII

SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON

    "Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."--DAVID GARRICK.


I remember that the evening of the day following my dinner engagement
with Miss Grey and her aunt was consecrate, by previous arrangement, to
Beatrice Blaine. I had received seven guineas a couple of days before
for a rather silly and sensational descriptive article, the subject of
which had been suggested by Beatrice. Indeed, she had made me write it,
and liked the thing when it appeared in print. It described certain
aspects of the quarter of London which stood for pleasure in her eyes;
the quarter bounded by Charing Cross and Oxford Street, Leicester Square
and Hyde Park Corner.

I think I would gladly have escaped the evening with Beatrice if I could
have done so fairly. Seeing that I could not do this, and that my mood
seemed chilly, I plunged with more than usual extravagance, and sought
to work up all the gaiety I could. I had a vague feeling that I owed so
much to Beatrice; that the occasion in some way marked a crisis in our
relations. I did not mentally call it a last extravagance, but yet I
fancy that must have been the notion at the back of my mind; from which
one may assume, I think, that Constance Grey had already begun to
exercise some influence over me.

With the seven guineas clinking in the pockets of my evening
clothes--here, at all events, was a link with University days, for these
seldom-worn garments bore the name of a Cambridge tailor--I drove to the
corner of the road beside Battersea Park in which the Blaines lived, and
there picked up Beatrice, in all her vivid finery, by appointment. She
loved bright colours and daring devices in dress. That I should come in
a cab to fetch her was an integral part of her pleasure, and, if funds
could possibly be stretched to permit it, she liked to retain the
services of the same cab until I brought her back to her own door.

We drove to a famous showy restaurant close to Piccadilly Circus, where
Beatrice accomplished the kind of entrance which delighted her heart,
with attendants fluttering about her, and a messenger posting back to
the cab for a forgotten fan, and a deal of bustle and rustle of one sort
and another. A quarter of an hour was devoted to the choice of a menu in
a dining-room which resembled the more ornate type of music-hall, and
was of about the same size. The flashing garishness of it all delighted
Beatrice, and the heat of its atmosphere suited both her mood and her
extremely _decollete_ toilette.

I remember beginning to speak of my previous evening's engagement while
Beatrice sipped the rather sticky champagne, which was the first item of
the meal to reach us. But a certain sense of unfitness or
disinclination stopped me after a few sentences, and I did not again
refer to my new friends; though I had been thinking a good deal of
Constance Grey and her plain-faced, plain-spoken aunt. I felt strangely
out of key with my environment in that glaring place, and the strains of
an overloud orchestra, when they came crashing through the buzz of talk
and laughter, and the clatter of glass and silver, were rather a relief
to me as a substitute for conversation. I drank a great deal of
champagne, and resented the fact that it seemed to have no stimulating
effect upon me. But Beatrice was in a purring stage of contentment, her
colour high, her passionate eyes sparkling, and low laughter ever
atremble behind her full, red lips.

After the dinner we drove to another place exactly like the restaurant,
all gilding and crimson plush, and there watched a performance, which
for dulness and banality it would be difficult to equal anywhere. It was
more silly than a peep-show at a country fair, but it was all set in a
most gorgeous and costly frame. The man who did crude and ancient
conjuring tricks was elaborately finely dressed, and attended by
monstrous footmen in liveries of Oriental splendour. What he did was
absurdly tame; the things he did it with, his accessories, were
barbarously gorgeous.

This was not one of the great "Middle Class Halls," as they were called
during their first year of existence, but an old-established haunt of
those who aimed at "seeing life"--a great resort of ambitious young
bloods about town. Not very long before this time, a powerful trust had
been formed to confer the stuffy and inane delights of the "Hall" upon
that sturdily respectable suburban middle class--the backbone of London
society--which had hitherto, to a great extent, eschewed this particular
form of dissipation. The trust amassed wealth by striking a shrewd blow
at our national character. Its entertainments were to be all
refinement--"fun without vulgarity"; the oily announcements were
nauseating. But they answered their purpose only too well. The great and
still religious bourgeois class was securely hooked; and then the name
of "Middle Class Halls" was dropped, and the programme provided in these
garish palaces became simply an inexpensive and rather amateurish
imitation of those of the older halls, plus a kind of prudish,
sentimental, and even quasi-religious lubricity, which made them
altogether revolting, and infinitely deleterious.

But our choice upon this occasion had fallen upon the most famous of the
old halls. Of the performance I remember a topical song which evoked
enthusiastic applause. It was an incredibly stupid piece of doggerel
about England's position in the world; and the shiny-faced exquisite who
declaimed it strutted to and fro like a bantam cock at each fresh roar
of applause from the heated house. When he used the word "fight" he
waved an imaginary sword and assumed a ridiculous posture, which he
evidently connected with warlike exercises of some kind. The song
praised the Government--"A Government er business men; men that's got
sense"--and told how this wonderful Government had stopped the pouring
out of poor folks' money upon flag-waving, to devote it to poor folks'
needs. It alluded to the title that Administration had earned: "The
Destroyers"; and acclaimed it a proud title, because it meant the
destruction of "gold-laced bunkcombe," and of "vampires that were
preying on the British working man."

But the chorus was the thing, and the perspiring singer played conductor
with all the airs and graces of a spangled showman in a booth, while the
huge audience yelled itself hoarse over this. I can only recall two
lines of it, and these were to the effect that: "They"--meaning the
other Powers of civilization--"will never go for England, because
England's got the dibs."

It was rather a startling spectacle; that vast auditorium, in which one
saw countless flushed faces, tier on tier, gleaming through a haze of
tobacco smoke; their mouths agape as they roared out the vapid lines of
this song. I remember thinking that the doggerel might have been the
creation of my fat contributor from Stettin, Herr Mitmann, and that if
the music-hall public had reached this stage, I must have been
oversensitive in my somewhat hostile and critical attitude toward the
writings of that ponderous Teuton. I thought that for once _The Mass_
would almost lag behind its readers; though in the beginning I had
regarded Herr Mitmann's proposals as going beyond even our limits.

We left the hall while its roof echoed the jingling tail-piece of
another popular ditty, which tickled Beatrice's fancy hugely. In it the
singer expressed, without exaggeration and without flattery, a good
deal of the popular London attitude toward the pursuit of pleasure and
the love of pleasure resorts. I recall phrases like: "Give my regards to
Leicester Square--Greet the girls in Regent Street--Tell them in Bond
Street we'll soon meet"--and, "Give them my love in the Strand."

The atmosphere reeked now of spirits, smoke, and overheated humanity.
The voice of the great audience was hoarse and rather bestial in
suggestion. The unescorted women began to make their invitations
dreadfully pressing. Doubtless my mood coloured the whole tawdry
business, but I remember finding those last few minutes distinctly
revolting, and experiencing a genuine relief when we stepped into the
outer air.

But the lights were just as brilliant outside, the pavements as thronged
as the carpeted promenade, its faces almost as thickly painted as those
of the lady who wished her "regards" given to Leicester Square, or the
gentleman who had assured us that nobody wanted to fight England,
because England had the "dibs."

Beatrice was now in feverishly high spirits. She no longer purred
contentment; rather it seemed to me she panted in avid excitement, while
pouring out a running fire of comment upon the dress and appearance of
passers-by, as we drove to another palace of gilt and plush--a sort of
magnified Pullman car, with decorations that made one's eyes ache. Here
we partook of quite a complicated champagne supper. I dare say fifty
pounds was spent in that room after the gorgeously uniformed attendants
had begun their chant of "Time, gentlemen, please; time!" which
signified that the closing hour had arrived.

Beatrice kept up her excitement--or perhaps the champagne did this for
her--until our cab was half-way across Chelsea Bridge. Then she lay back
in her corner, and, I suppose, began to feel the grayness of the as yet
unseen dawn of a new day. But as I helped her out of the cab in
Battersea, she said she had thoroughly enjoyed her "fluffy" evening, and
thanked me very prettily. I returned in the cab as far as Westminster,
and there dismissed the man with the last of my seven guineas, having
decided to walk from there to my Bloomsbury lodging.

For a Socialist, my conduct was certainly peculiar. There were two of
us. We had had two meals, one of which was as totally unnecessary as the
other was overelaborate. And we had spent an hour or two in watching an
incredibly stupid and vulgar performance. And over this I had spent a
sum upon which an entire family could have been kept going for a couple
of months. But there were scores of people in London that night--some of
them passed me in cabs and carriages, as I walked from the Abbey toward
Fleet Street--who had been through a similar programme and spent twice
as much over it as I had. It was an extraordinarily extravagant period;
and it seemed that the less folk did in the discharge of their national
obligations as citizens, the more they demanded, and the more they
spent, in the name of pleasure.

The people who passed me, as I made my way eastward, were mostly in
evening dress, pale and raffish-looking. Many, particularly among the
couples in hansoms, were intoxicated, and making a painful muddle of
such melodies as those we had listened to at the music hall. Overeaten,
overdrunken, overexcited, overextravagant, in all ways figures of
incontinence, these noisy Londoners made their way homeward, pursued by
the advancing gray light of a Sabbath dawn in midsummer.

And Beatrice loved everything foreign, because the foreigners had none
of our stupid British Puritanism! And the British public was mightily
pleased with its Government, "The Destroyers," because they were cutting
down to vanishing point expenditure upon such superfluous vanities as
national defence, in order to devote the money to improving the
conditions in which the public lived, and to the reducing of their heavy
burdens as citizens of a great Empire. Money could not possibly be
spared for such ornamentation as ships and guns and bodies of trained
men. We could not afford it!

As I passed the corner of Agar Street a drunken cabdriver, driving two
noisily intoxicated men in evening dress, brought his cab into collision
with a gaunt, wolf-eyed man who had been scouring the gutter for scraps
of food. He was one of an army prowling London's gutters at that moment:
human wolves, questing for scraps of refuse meat. The space between each
prowler was no more than a few yards. This particular wretch was knocked
down by the cab, but not hurt. Cabby and his fares roared out drunken
laughter. The horse was never checked. But in the midst of their
laughter one of the passengers threw out a coin, upon which the human
wolf pounced like a bird of prey. I saw the glint of the coin. It was a
sovereign; very likely the twentieth those men had spent that night. For
that sum, four hundred of the gaunt, gutter-prowling wolves might have
been fed and sheltered.

Entering Holborn I ran against a man I knew, named Wardle, one of the
sub-editors of a Sunday newspaper, then on his way home from Fleet
Street. Wardle was tired and sleepy, but stopped to exchange a few words
of journalistic gossip.

"Rather sickening about the wind-up of the East Anglian Pageant," he
said, "isn't it? Did you hear of it?"

I explained that I had not been in Fleet Street that night, and had
heard nothing.

"Why, there was to be no end of a tumashi for the Saturday evening
wind-up, you know, and we were featuring it. We sent a special man up
yesterday to help the local fellow. Well, just as we'd got in about a
couple of hundred words of his introductory stuff, word came through
that the wires were interrupted, and not another blessed line did we
get. I tell you there was some tall cursing done, and some flying around
in the editorial 'fill-up' drawers. We were giving it first place--three
columns. One blessing, we found the stoppage was general. No one else
has got a line of East Anglian stuff to-night. Ours was the last word
from the submerged city of Ipswich. But it really is rather an odd
breakdown. No sign of rough weather; and, mind you there are a number
of different lines of communication. But they're all blocked, telegraph
and telephone. Our chief tried to get through via the Continent, just to
give us something to go on. But it was no go. Odd, isn't it?"

"Very," I agreed, as we turned; and I added, rather inanely: "One hears
a lot about East Anglian coast erosion."

Wardle yawned and grinned.

"Yes, to be sure. Perhaps East Anglia is cruising down Channel by now.
Or perhaps the Kaiser's landed an army corps and taken possession. That
Mediterranean business on Tuesday was pretty pronounced cheek, you know,
and, by all accounts, the result of direct orders from Potsdam. Only the
Kaiser's bluff, I suppose, but I'm told it's taken most of the Channel
Fleet down into Spanish waters."

I smiled at the activity of Wardle's journalistic imagination, and
thought of the music-hall crowd.

"Ah, well," I said, "'They'll never go for England, because England's
got the dibs'!"

"What ho!" remarked Wardle, with another yawn. And this time he was
really off.

And so I walked home alone to my lodgings, and climbed into bed,
thinking vaguely of Constance Grey, and what she would have thought of
my night's work; this, as the long, palely glinting arms of the Sabbath
dawn thrust aside the mantle of summer night from Bloomsbury.




XIII

THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK

    Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--
    And what should they know of England who only England know?--
    The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
    They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the
              English flag.

                                              RUDYARD KIPLING.


As was usually the case on the day following one of Beatrice's "fluffy"
evenings, I descended to my never very tempting lodging-house breakfast
on that Sunday morning feeling the reverse of cheerful, and much
inclined to take the gloomiest view of everything life had to offer me.

Sunday was generally a melancholy day for me. It was my only day out of
Fleet Street, and, though I had long since taken such steps as I thought
I could afford toward transforming my bedroom into a sitting-room, there
was nothing very comfortable or homelike about it. I had dropped the
habit of churchgoing after the first few months of my London life,
without any particular thought or intention, but rather, I think, as one
kind of reflex action--a subconscious reflection of the views and habits
of those among whom I lived and worked.

Hearing a newsboy crying a "special" edition of some paper, I threw up
the window and bought a copy, across the area railings. It was the paper
for which Wardle worked. I found in it no particular justification for
any special issue, and, as a fact, the probability is the appearance of
this edition was merely a device to increase circulation, suggested
mainly by the fact that the ordinary issue had been delayed by the East
Anglian telegraphic breakdown. Regarding this, I found the following
item of editorial commentary:

"As is explained elsewhere, a serious breakdown of telegraphic
communication has occurred between London and Harwich, Ipswich and East
Anglia generally, as a result of which our readers are robbed of special
despatches regarding last night's conclusion of the East Anglian
Pageant. It is thought that the breakdown is due to some electrical
disturbance of the atmosphere resulting in a fusion of wires.

"But as an example of the ridiculous lengths to which the national
defence cranks will go in their hatching of alarmist reports, a rumour
was actually spread in Fleet Street at an early hour this morning that
this commonplace accident to the telegraph wires was caused by an
invading German army. This ridiculous _canard_ is reminiscent of some of
the foolish scares which frightened our forefathers a little more than a
century ago, when the Corsican terrorized Europe. But our rumour-mongers
are too far out of date for this age. It is unfortunate that the
advocates of militarism should receive parliamentary support of any
kind. The Opposition is weakly and insignificant enough in all
conscience, without courting further unpopularity by floating British
public feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks among its
following to bring ridicule upon the country.

"The absurd _canard_ to which we have referred is maliciously ill-timed.
It will doubtless be reported on the Continent, and may injure us there.
But we trust our friends in Germany will do us the justice of
recognizing at once that this is merely the work of an irresponsible and
totally unrepresentative clique, and in no sort a reflection of any
aspect of public feeling in this country. We are able to state with
certainty that last Tuesday's regrettable incident in the Mediterranean
has been satisfactorily and definitely closed. Admiral Blennerhaustein
displayed characteristic German courtesy and generosity in his frank
acceptance of the apology sent to him from Whitehall; and the report
that our Channel Fleet had entered the Straits of Gibraltar is
incorrect. A portion of the Channel Fleet had been cruising off the
coast of the Peninsula, and is now on its way back to home waters. Our
relations with His Imperial Majesty's Government in Berlin were never
more harmonious, and such a _canard_ as this morning's rumour of
invasion is only worthy of mention for the sake of a demonstration of
its complete absurdity. If, as was stated, the author of this puerile
invention is a Navy League supporter, who reached London in a motor-car
from Harwich soon after daylight this morning, our advice to him is to
devote the rest of the day to sleeping off the effects of an
injudicious evening in East Anglia."

Failing the East Anglian Pageant, the paper's "first feature," I
noticed, consisted of a lot of generously headed particulars regarding
the big Disarmament Demonstration to be held in Hyde Park that
afternoon. It seemed that this was to be a really big thing, and I
decided to attend in the interests of _The Mass_. The President of the
Local Government Board and three well-known members on the Government
side of the House were to speak. The Demonstration had been organized by
the National Peace Association for Disarmament and Social Reform, of
which the Prime Minister had lately been elected President. Delegates,
both German and English, of the Anglo-German Union had promised to
deliver addresses. Among other well-known bodies who were sending
representatives I saw mention of the Anti-Imperial and Free Tariff
Society, the Independent English Guild, the Home Rule Association, the
Free Trade League, and various Republican and Socialist bodies. The
paper said some amusement was anticipated from a suggested counter
demonstration proposed by a few Navy League enthusiasts; but that the
police would take good care that no serious interruptions were allowed.

As the Demonstration was fixed for three o'clock in the afternoon, I
decided to go up the river by steamboat to Kew after my late breakfast.
It was a gloriously fine morning, and on the river I began to feel a
little more cheerful. As we passed Battersea Park I thought of Beatrice,
who always suffered from severe depressions after her little outings.
Her spirits were affected; in my case, restaurant food, inferior wine,
and the breathing of vitiated air was paid for by nothing worse than a
headache and a morning's discomfort.

(One of the curses of the time, which seemed to grow more acute as the
habit of extravagance and the thirst for pleasure increased, was the
outrageous adulteration of all food-stuffs, and more particularly of all
alcoholic liquors, which prevailed not alone in the West End of London,
but in every city. Home products could only be obtained in clubs and in
the houses of the rich. Their quantity was insufficient to admit of
their reaching the open markets. In the cities we lived entirely upon
foreign products, and their adulteration had reached a most amazing
limit of badness.)

My thought of Beatrice was brief that morning, but I continued during
most of my little excursion to dwell upon my new friends in South
Kensington. I wondered how Constance Grey spent Sunday in London, and
whether the confinement of the town oppressed her after the spacious
freedom of the South African life she had described to me. I remembered
that I had promised to call upon her and her aunt very soon, and
wondered whether that afternoon, after the Demonstration, would be too
soon. I mentally decided that it would, but that I would go all the
same.

And then, suddenly, as the steamer passed under Hammersmith Bridge, a
thought went through me like cold steel:

"She will very soon return to that freer, wider life out there in South
Africa."

How I hated the place. South Africa! I had always associated it with
Imperialism, militarism--"empireism," as I called it in my own mind: the
strange, outside interests, which one regarded as opposing home
interests, social reform, and the like. Though I did not know that any
political party considerations influenced me one atom, I was in reality,
like nearly every one else at that time, mentally the slave and creature
of party feeling, party tradition, party prejudice. But now I had a new
cause for hating those remote uplands of Empire, those outside places.

Sitting under a tree in Kew Gardens, I had leisure in which to browse
over the matter, and, upon reflection, I was astonished that this sudden
thought of mine should have struck so shrewdly, so violently, into my
peace of mind. I tried to neutralize its effect by reminding myself that
I had met Constance Grey only twice; that she was in many ways outside
my purview; that she was the intimate friend of people who had helped to
make history, the special contributor to _The Times_, with her
introductions to ex-Cabinet Ministers in England and her other relations
with great people; that such a woman could never play an intimate part
in my life. Her friendliness could not be the prelude to friendship with
the assistant editor of _The Mass_; it probably meant no more than a
courteous deference to John Crondall's whim, I told myself. But I would
call at the South Kensington flat, certainly; it would be boorish to
refrain, and--there was no denying I should have been mightily
perturbed if any valid reason had appeared against my going to see
Constance Grey after doing my duty by the Demonstration.

The newsboys were putting a good deal of feeling into their crying of
special editions when I reached the streets again; but I was not
inclined to waste further pence upon the _Sunday News'_ moralizings over
the evolution of _canards_. I took a mess of some adulterated pottage at
a foreign restaurant in Notting Hill, as I had no wish to return to
Bloomsbury before the Demonstration. The waiter--either a Swiss or a
German--asked me:

"Vad you sink, sare, of ze news from ze country?"

I asked him what it was, and he handed me a fresh copy of the _Sunday
News_, headed: "Special Edition. Noon."

"By Jove!" I thought; "no Sunday dinner for Wardle! They couldn't have
printed this in the small hours."

But the only new matter in this issue was a short announcement, headed
in poster type, as follows:

                        "EAST ANGLIA'S ISOLATION
                     RAILWAY COMMUNICATION STOPPED
                   STRANGE SUPPORT OF INVASION CANARD
                         _IS THIS A TORY HOAX?_
                               (SPECIAL)

"The preposterous rumour of a German invasion of England is receiving
mysterious support. We hear from a reliable source that some Imperialist
and Navy League cranks have organized a gigantic hoax by way of
opposition to the Disarmament Demonstration. If the curious breakdown of
communication with the east coast does prove to be the work of political
fanatics, we think, and hope, that these gentry may shortly be
convinced, in a manner they are never likely to forget, that, even in
this land of liberty, the crank is not allowed to interfere with the
transaction of public business.

"No trains have reached Liverpool Street from the northeast this
morning, and communication cannot be established beyond Chelmsford.
Whatever the cause of this singular breakdown may be, our readers will
soon know it, for, in order finally to dispel any hint of credence which
may be attached in some quarters to the absurd invasion report, we have
already despatched two representatives in two powerful motor-cars,
northeastward from Brentwood, with instructions to return to that point
and telegraph full particulars directly they can discover the cause of
the stoppage of communication.

"Further special editions will be issued when news is received from East
Anglia."

"Yes," I said to the waiter; "it's a curious affair."

"You believe him, sare--zat Shermany do it?"

"Eh? No; certainly not. Do you?"

"Me? Oh, sare, I don' know nozzing. Vaire shstrong, sare, ze Sherman
Armay."

The fellow's face annoyed me in some way. It, and his grins and
gesticulations, had a sinister seeming. My trade brought me into contact
with so many low-class aliens. I told myself I was getting insular and
prejudiced, and resumed my meal with more thought for myself and my
tendencies and affairs than for the East Anglian business. I have
wondered since what the waiter thought about while I ate; whether he
thought of England, Germany, and of myself, as representing the British
citizen. But, to be sure, for aught I know, his thoughts may have been
ordered for him from Berlin.

The Demonstration drew an enormous concourse of people to Hyde Park. The
weather being perfect, a number of people made an outing of the
occasion, and one saw whole groups of people who clearly came from
beyond Whitechapel, the Borough, Shepherd's Bush, and Islington. As had
been anticipated, a few well-dressed people endeavoured to run a
counter-demonstration under a Navy League banner; but their following
was absurdly small, and the crowd gave them nothing but ridicule and
contempt.

The President of the Local Government Board received a tremendous
ovation. For some minutes after his first appearance that enormous crowd
sang, "He's a jolly good fellow!" with great enthusiasm. Then, when this
member of the Government at last succeeded in getting as far as: "Mr.
Chairman, ladies and gentlemen," some one started the song with the
chorus containing the words: "They'll never go for England, because
England's got the dibs." This spread like a line of fire in dry grass,
and in a moment the vast crowd was rocking to the jingling rhythm of the
song, the summer air quivering to the volume of its thousand-throated
voice.

The President of the Local Government Board had been rather suspected of
tuft-hunting recently, and his appearance in the stump orator's role,
and in the cause of disarmament, was wonderfully popular. In his long
career as Labour agitator, Socialist, and Radical, he had learned to
know the popular pulse remarkably well; and now he responded cleverly to
the call of the moment. His vein was that of the heavy, broad
bludgeoning sarcasm which tickles a crowd, and his theme was not the
wickedness, but the stupidity and futility of all "Jingoism,"
"spread-eagleism," "tall-talk," and "gold-lace bunkcombe."

"I am told my honourable friends of the opposition," he said, with an
ironical bow in the direction of the now folded Navy League banner,
"have played some kind of a practical joke in the eastern counties
to-day. Well, children will be children; but I am afraid there will have
to be spankings if half that I hear is true. They have tried to frighten
you into abandoning this Demonstration with a pretended invasion of
England. Well, my friends, it does not look to me as though their
invasion had affected this Demonstration very seriously. I seem to fancy
I see quite a number of people gathered together here. (It is estimated
that over sixty thousand people were trying to hear his words.) But all
I have to say on this invasion question is just this: If our friends
from Germany have invaded East Anglia, let us be grateful for their
enterprise, and, as a nation of shopkeepers should, let us make as much
as we can out of 'em. But don't let us forget our hospitality. If our
neighbours have dropped in in a friendly way, why, let's be sure we've
something hot for supper. Perhaps a few sausages wouldn't be taken
amiss. (The laughter and applause was so continuous here that for some
moments nothing further could be heard.) No, my friends, this invasion
hoax should now be placed finally upon the retired list. It has been on
active service now since the year 1800, and I really think it's time our
spread-eagle friends gave us a change. Let me for one moment address you
in my official capacity, as your servant and a member of the Government.
This England of ours is about as much in danger of being invaded as I am
of becoming a millionaire, and those of you----"

The speaker's next words never reached me, being drowned by a great roar
of laughter and applause. Just then I turned round to remonstrate with a
man who was supporting himself upon my right shoulder. I was on the edge
of the one narrow part of the crowd, against some iron railings. As I
turned I noticed a number of boys tearing along in fan-shaped formation,
and racing toward the crowd from the direction of Marble Arch. My eyes
followed the approaching boys, and I forgot the fellow who had been
plaguing me. The lads were all carrying bundles of papers, and now, as
they drew nearer, I could see and hear that they were yelling as they
ran.

"Another special edition," I thought. "No sort of a Sunday for poor
Wardle."

The President of the Local Government Board had resumed his speech, and
I could hear his clean-cut words distinctly. He had a good incisive
delivery. Across his words now the hoarse yell of an approaching
newsboy smote upon my ears:

"Extry speshul! Sixpence! German Army Corps in England! Speshul!
Invashen er Sufferk! Speshul--sixpence! German Army Corps--sixpence!
Invashen!"

"By Jove!" I thought. "That's rough on our disarmament feature from Herr
Mitmann!"

I very well remember that that precisely was my thought.




XIV

THE NEWS

    He could not hear Death's rattle at the door,
    He was so busy with his sottishness.

                                              TURNER.


The chance of my position on the edge of the crowd nearest to Marble
Arch caused me to be among those who secured a paper, and at the
comparatively modest price of sixpence. Two minutes later, I saw a
member of the committee of the Demonstration hand over half-a-crown for
one of the same limp sheets, all warm and smeary from the press. And in
two more minutes the newsboys (there must have been fifty of them) were
racing back to Marble Arch, feverishly questing further supplies, and, I
suppose, reckoning as they ran their unaccustomed gains.

The news, mostly in poster type, was only a matter of a few lines of
comment, and a few more lines of telegraphic despatch from Brentwood:

"Telegraphic communication with Chelmsford has now been cut off, but one
of our special representatives, who succeeded in obtaining a powerful
six-cylinder motor-car, has reached Brentwood, after a racing tour to
the northeastward. We publish his despatch under all possible reserve.
He is a journalist of high repute, but we venture to say with
confidence that he has evidently been imposed upon by the promoters of
the most abominably wicked hoax and fraud ever perpetrated by criminal
fanatics upon a trusting public. We have very little doubt that a number
of these rabid advocates of that spirit of militarism to which the
British public will never for one moment submit, will be cooling their
heated brains in prison cells before the night is out."

And then followed the despatch from Brentwood, which said:

"Roads, railways, communication of all kinds absolutely blocked. Coastal
regions of Suffolk and South Norfolk, and possibly Essex, are occupied
by German soldiers. A cyclist from near Harwich says the landing was
effected last evening, the most elaborate preparations and arrangements
having been made beforehand. My car was fired at near Colchester.
Chelmsford is now occupied by German cavalry, cyclist and motor corps.
Have not heard of any loss of life, but whole country is panic-stricken.
Cannot send further news. Telegraph office closed to public, being
occupied in official business."

That was all. As my eyes rose from the blurred surface of the news-sheet
the picture of the crowd absorbed me, like a stage-spectacle. There were
from forty to sixty thousand people assembled, of all ages and classes.
Among them were perhaps one thousand, perhaps two thousand, copies of
the newspaper. Some ten thousand people were craning necks and straining
eyes to read those papers. The rest were making short, hoarse,
frequently meaningless ejaculations.

I saw one middle-aged man, who might have been a grocer, and a deacon in
his place of worship, fold up his paper after reading it and thrust it,
for future reference, in the tail-pocket of his sombre Sunday coat. But
his neighbours in the crowd would not have that. A number of
outstretched hands suddenly surrounded him. I saw his face pale. "Give
us a look!" was all the sense I grasped from a score of exclamations.
The grocer's paper was in fragments on the grass ten seconds later, and
its destroyers were reaching out in other directions.

"It's abominable," I heard the grocer muttering to himself; and his
hands shook as though he had the palsy.

But in other cases the papers passed whole from hand to hand, and their
holders read the news aloud. I think the entire crowd had grasped the
gist of it inside of four minutes; and their exclamatory comments were
extraordinary, grotesque.

"My God!" and "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less
representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and
staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And,
piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory
yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?"
"'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly
disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? Not arf!" "Anything to sell the
papers, you know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" "Johnny get yer gun,
get yer gun!" "Some one must be punished for this. Might have caused a
panic, you know." "True? Good Lord, no! What would our Navy be doing?"
"Well, upon my word, I don't know." "Nice business for the fish trade!"
"Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to their Aunt
Rebecca's." "Wot price Piccadilly an' Regent Street to-night?" "Come
along, my dear; let's get home out of this." "Absolute bosh, my dear
boy, from beginning to end--doing business with 'em every day o' my
life!" And then a hoarse snatch of song: "'They'll never go for
England'--not they! What ho! 'Because England's got the dibs!'"

Suddenly then, above and across the thousand-voiced small talk, came the
trained notes of the voice of the President of the Local Government
Board.

"My friends, the whole story is a most transparent fraud. It's a
shameful hoax. I tell you the thing is physically and morally
impossible. It couldn't have been done in the time; and it is all a lie,
anyhow. I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our chairman
for----"

The crowd had listened attentively enough to the old agitator's comment
on the news. They liked his assurances on that point. But they were in
no mood for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling across the
grass toward Marble Arch and down to Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's
further words were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause, cheers,
laughter, shouts of "Are we downhearted?" raucous answers in the
negative, and cries of "Never mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good
fellow!"

In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to have been stripped naked,
and the few vehicles, tables, and little platforms which had formed the
centre of the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree suddenly
bereft of foliage, looking curiously small and bare. I am told that
restaurants and refreshment places did an enormous trade during the next
few hours. When the public-houses opened they were besieged, and, in
many cases, closed again after a few hours, sold out.

For my part, I made at once, and without thinking, for Constance Grey's
flat in South Kensington. The crowds in the streets were not only much
larger, but in many ways different from the usual run of Sunday crowds.
The people wore their Sunday clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday
manners and air. There was more of a suggestion of Saturday night in the
streets; the suggestion that a tremendous number of people were going to
enjoy a "spree" of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, combined with a
general desire for cigars, drinks, singing, and gaiety, seemed to be
ruling the people.

At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band was blaring out the air
of "The Holy City," and people stood about in groups laughing and
chatting noisily. The newspaper boys had some competitors now, and the
Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was added to by a number of lads and
girls who had appeared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless
commodities for sale, such as peacocks' feathers, paper fans, and
streamers of coloured paper.

Why these things should have been wanted I cannot say; but their
sellers knew their business very well. The demand was remarkably brisk.
Indeed, I noticed one of three young men, who walked abreast, purchase
quite a bunch of the long feathers, only to drop them beside the curb a
few moments later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them, and sold
them again. I suppose that by this time the vast majority of the people
had no doubt whatever about the news being a monstrous hoax; but there
was no blinking the fact that the public had been strongly moved.

It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned from a servant
that Miss Grey was at home--had just come in, as a matter of fact. It
was as though I had some important business to transact with this girl
from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes, and alert, thoughtful
expression. I felt that it would have been serious if she should have
been away, if I had missed her. It was not until I heard her step
outside the door of the little drawing-room into which I had been shown,
that I suddenly became conscious that I had no business whatever with
Constance Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty-eight hours
of my dining there, might perhaps be adjudged a piece of questionable
taste.

A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the matter at all, I
should have known that Constance Grey wasted no time over any such petty
considerations. She entered to me with a set, grave face, taking my hand
mechanically, as though too much preoccupied for such ceremonies.

"What do you think of the news?" she said, without a word of
preliminary greeting. I felt more than a little abashed at this; for,
truth to tell, I really had given no serious thought to the news. I had
observed its reception by the public as a spectator might. But, in the
first place, I had been early warned that it was all a hoax; and then,
too, like so many of my contemporaries, I was without the citizen
feeling altogether, so far as national interests were concerned. I had
grown to regard citizenship as exclusively a matter of domestic politics
and social progress, municipal affairs, and the like. I never gave any
thought to our position as a people and a nation in relation to foreign
Powers.

"Oh, well," I said, "it's an extraordinary business, isn't it? I have
just come from the Demonstration in Hyde Park. It was practically
squashed by the arrival of the special editions. The people seemed
pretty considerably muddled about it, so I suppose those who arranged it
all may be said to have scored their point."

"So you don't believe it?"

"Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a gigantic hoax, is it
not?"

"But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how--how wonderful English people are! You,
your own self; what do _you_ think about it? But forgive me for
heckling. Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the study? Aunt is
in there."

We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room, with low wicker chairs,
and a big, littered writing-table.

"Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance Grey, when I had shaken
hands with her aunt.

"Doesn't he?" said that strong, plain-spoken woman. "Well, I fancy there
are a good many more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their eyes
opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow."

"Then you take the whole thing seriously?" I asked them.

Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in the presence of these
women, and were racing over everything that I had seen and heard that
day, from the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise, in Holborn.

"I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs. Van Homrey, with
laconic emphasis. "Do you?" she added.

"Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your view. My first word of it
was just before dawn this morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and,
somehow--well, you know, the general idea seems to be that the whole
thing is an elaborate joke worked up by the Navy League, or somebody, as
a counter-stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration--to teach us a lesson,
and all that, you know."

I had to remind myself that I was addressing two ladies who were sure to
be whole-hearted supporters of the Navy League and all other Imperialist
organizations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be appraising me. I
fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were looking right into me with
grave criticism, and discovering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the
thought. I should have been more distressed had not a vague, futile
anger crept into my mind. After all, I thought, what right had this girl
from South Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew England better
than she did. I was a journalist of experience. Bah! My twopenny
thoughts drooped and fainted as they rose.

"But perhaps you are better informed?" I said, weakly. "Perhaps you have
other information?"

Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I recall her gaze now, it
was almost maternal in its yearning gravity.

"I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she said. "What cuts me
to the heart is the fear that it may have come too late."

Never have I heard such gravity in a young woman's voice. Her words
overpowered me almost by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them.
They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a fount of inspiration.

"We haven't any special information," said Mrs. Van Homrey. "We have
only read, like every one else, that East Anglia is occupied by German
soldiers, landed last night; that the East Anglian Pageant has been made
the cloak of most elaborate preparations for weeks past; that the
Mediterranean incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw the
Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dreadful business has succeeded
so far, like--like perfect machinery; like the thing it is: the outcome
of perfect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We have heard no
more; but the only hoaxing that I can see is done by the purblind people
who have made the public think it a hoax--and that is not conscious
hoaxing, of course; they are too bemuddled with their disarmament farce
for that."

"More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid," said Constance Grey. And
then, turning to me, she said: "We lunched at General Penn Dicksee's
to-day; and they have no doubt about the truth of the news. The General
has motored down to Aldershot. They will begin some attempt at
mobilizing at once, I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into
touch with headquarters. All the War Office people are away for the
week-end. In fact, they say the Minister's in Ipswich, and can't get
away. General Penn Dicksee says they have practically no material to
work with for any immediate mobilization purposes. He says that under
the present system nothing can be done in less than a week. He thinks
the most useful force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks. But I
should suppose they would be wanted for the ships--if we have any ships
left fit for sea. The General thinks there may be a hundred thousand
German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of London by to-morrow."

"Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, "it doesn't seem easy to take it any other
way than seriously; not if one's on the British side. And, for the
matter of that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty
seriously in East Anglia, and--and in Berlin."

And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra Sunday work for
Wardle, and the way they had started selling peacocks' feathers and
things, in the streets!




XV

SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON

       .       .       .

    "Ah," they cry, "Destiny,
    Prolong the present!
    Time, stand still here!"

    The prompt stern Goddess
    Shakes her head, frowning;
    Time gives his hour-glass
    Its due reversal;
    Their hour is gone.

                                              MATTHEW ARNOLD.


I stayed to dinner at the flat in South Kensington, and after dinner,
when I spoke of leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to
accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call at Printing House
Square, and ascertain what further news had arrived. The implied
intimacy and friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasurable
thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement for me, and compensated
for much. Constance Grey's views of me had in some way become more
important to me than anything else. I was even now more concerned about
that than about the news.

We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a cab, as in duty bound,
but, doubtless with a thought of my finances, my companion insisted upon
the cheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but found them at
last on a motor omnibus bound for Whitechapel. The streets were densely
crowded, and the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before was now
general, and much more marked.

"It reminds me exactly of 'Mafeking Night,'" I said, referring to that
evening of the South African war during which London waxed drunk upon
the news of the relief of Mafeking.

"Was it as bad even then?" said my companion. And her question showed
me, what I might otherwise have overlooked, that a good deal of water
had passed under the bridges since South African war days. We had been a
little ashamed of our innocent rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We
had become vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I think
the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken their share in the progress, by
breaking down much of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the
respectable middle class. But, of course, one sees now that the rapid
growth among us of selfish irresponsibility and repudiation of national
obligations was the root cause of that change in public behaviour which
I saw clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by Constance
Grey's question.

I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy promenaders of both
sexes who filled the streets, and impeded traffic at all crossings, the
class which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and
that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a
class which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its
decorous and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned
afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A
man we met in _The Times_ office told us of this, and my companion's
comment was:

"Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them than their pleasure;
and, with religion a dead letter, the spirit that won Trafalgar and
armed the Thames against Napoleon, must be dead and buried."

The news we received at _The Times_ office was extraordinary. It seemed
there was no longer room for the smallest doubt that a large portion of
East Anglia was actually occupied by a German army. Positive details of
information could not be obtained.

"The way the coastal districts have been hermetically sealed against
communication, and the speed and thoroughness with which the occupation
has been accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amazing episode
in the history of warfare," said the solemn graybeard, to whom I had
been presented by Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the
assistant editor of _The Mass_, I doubt if this Mr. Poole-Smith would
have consented to open his mouth in my presence. But my obscurity and
his importance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with confidence
as the friend of a respected contributor.)

"Already we know enough to be certain that the enemy has received
incalculably valuable assistance from within. I am afraid there will
presently be only too much evidence of the blackest kind of treachery
from British subjects, members of one or other among the anti-National
coteries. But in the meantime, we hear of extraordinary things
accomplished by aliens employed in this country, many of them in
official capacities. We have learned through the Great Eastern Railway
Company, and through one or two shipping houses, of huge consignments of
stores, and, I make very little doubt, of munitions of war. The thing
must have been in train on this side for many months--possibly for
years. Here, for instance, is an extraordinary item, which is hardly
likely to be only coincidence: Out of one hundred postmasters within a
sixty-mile radius of Harwich, eighty-one have obtained their positions
within the last two years, and of those sixty-nine bear names which
indicate German nationality or extraction. But that is only one small
item. An analysis of the Eastern Railway employees, and of the larger
business firms between here and Ipswich, will tell a more startling
tale, unless I am greatly mistaken."

But to me, I think the part of the news we gathered which seemed most
startling was the fact that a tiny special issue of _The Times_, then
being sold in the streets, contained none of the information given to
us, but only a cautiously worded warning to the public that the news
received from East Anglia had been grossly exaggerated, and that no
definite importance should be attached to it, until authoritative
information, which would appear in the first ordinary issue of _The
Times_ on Monday, had been considered. It was all worded very pompously,
and vaguely, in a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader to
conclude that _The Times_ supported the generally accepted hoax theory.
And we found that all the daily papers of repute and standing had
issued similar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our grave
informant stroked his whiskers, and alluded distantly to "policy decided
upon in consultation with representatives of the Crown."

"For one thing, you see, London is extraordinarily full of Germans,
though we have already learned that vast numbers of them went to swell
the attendance at the East Anglian Pageant, and may now, for all we
know, be under arms. Then, too, anything in the nature of a panic on a
large scale, and that before the authorities have decided upon any
definite plan of action, would be disastrous. Unfortunately our reports
from correspondents at the various southern military depots are all to
the effect that mobilization will be a slow business. As you know, the
regulars in England have been reduced to an almost negligible minimum,
and the mobilization of the 'Haldane Army' involves the slow process of
drawing men out of private life into the field. What is worse, it means
in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves at Aldershot, and
south-country men reporting themselves in the north. And then their
practical knowledge so far leaves them simply men in the street.

"But the great trouble is that the Government and the official heads of
departments have been at loggerheads this long time past, and now are
far from arriving at any definite policy of procedure. Of course, the
majority of the leaders are out of town. You will understand that every
possible precaution must be taken to avoid unduly alarming the public,
or provoking panic. We hope to be able to announce something definite
in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with
us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this
entirely unprovoked invasion."

"And what do you think will be the practical effect and use of their
sympathy, Mr. Poole-Smith?" asked Constance Grey.

"Well," said our solemn friend, caressing his whiskers, "as to its
_practical_ effect, my dear Miss Grey, why, I am afraid that in such
bitter matters as these the practical value of sympathy, or of
international law, is--er--cannot very easily be defined."

"Quite so. Exactly as I thought. It would not make one pennyworth of
difference, Mr. Poole-Smith. The British public is on the eve of
learning the meaning of brave old Lord Roberts's teaching: that no
amount of diplomacy, of 'cordiality,' of treaties, or of anything else
in the repertoire of the disarmament party, can ever counterbalance the
uses of the rifle in the hands of disciplined men. Their
twentieth-century notions will avail us pitifully little against the
advance of the Kaiser's legions. The brotherhood of man and the sacred
arts of commerce and peace will have little in the way of reply to
machine guns. If only our people could have had even one year of
universal military training! But no; they would not even pay for the
maintenance of such defence force as they had when it took three years
to beat the Boers; and now--didn't some man write a book called 'The
Defenceless Isles'? We live in them."

"But that is not the worst, Miss Grey," said our friend. "These are now
not only defenceless, but invaded isles."

"Ah! How long before they become surrendered isles, Mr. Poole-Smith?"

"The answer to that is with a higher Power than any in Printing House
Square, Miss Grey. But, let me say this, in strict confidence, please.
You wonder, and perhaps are inclined to condemn our--well, our reticence
about this news. Do you know my fear? It is that if, in its present
mood, suddenly, the British public, and more especially the London
public, were allowed to realize clearly both what has happened in East
Anglia, and the monumental unfitness of our authorities and defences to
meet and cope with such an emergency--that then we should see England
torn in sunder by the most terrible revolution of modern times. We
should see statesmen hanging from lamp-posts in Whitehall; 'The
Destroyers' would be destroyed; the Crown would be in danger, as well as
its unworthy servants. And the Kaiser's machine-like army would find it
had invaded a ravaged inferno, occupied by an infuriated populace
hopelessly divided against itself, and already in the grip of the
deadliest kind of strife. That, I think, is a danger to be guarded
against, so far as it is possible, at all or any cost."

One could not but be impressed by this rather pompous, but sincere and
earnest man's words.

"I see that very clearly, Mr. Poole-Smith," said Constance Grey. "But
can the thing be done? Can the public be deluded for more than a few
hours?"

"Not altogether, my dear young lady, not altogether. But, as we learn
early in journalism, life is made up of compromises. We hope to school
them to it, and give them the truth gradually, with as little shock as
may be."

Soon after this we left the great office, and, as we passed out into the
crowded streets, Constance Grey said to me:

"Thank God, _The Times_ managed to win clear of the syndicate's clutches
when it did. There is moral and strength of purpose there now. I think
the Press is behaving finely--if only the public can be made to do as
well. But, oh, 'The Destroyers'--what a place they have cut out for
themselves in history!"

But for the glorious summer weather, one could have fancied Christmas at
hand from the look of Ludgate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look
up at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the evening sky. But
between it and us was a seething crowd, promenading at the rate of a
mile an hour, and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless
trifles and fruit, and so forth.

Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to the steps of an
omnibus, was a band of youths linked arm in arm, and all apparently
intoxicated. There must have been forty in a line. As they advanced,
cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in something like
unison, the melancholy music-hall refrain:

"They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs."

The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up grass, and narrow Fleet
Street echoed to the monstrous din of their singing. I began to feel
anxious about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out of the
fourteen people on the top of our omnibus were noticeably and noisily
tipsy.

"Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British reserve? How I hate that
beloved word cosmopolitan!"

She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her of something.

"Forgive my familiarity," she said. "John Crondall spoke of you as Dick
Mordan. It's rather a way we have--out there."

I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned me the friendly short
name from her for the future; and, with England tumbling about our ears,
for aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously happy. But it was
none the less with a sigh of relief that I handed her in at the outer
door of the mansions in which their flat was situated. We paused for a
moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy we had known
that evening, and the last, I thought, with a recollection of Mrs. Van
Homrey waiting in the flat above.

I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full to bursting. Perhaps the
great news of that day affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I
had no words, or very few. I remember I touched the sleeve of her dress
with my finger-tips. What I said was:

"You know I am--you know I am at your orders, don't you?"

And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth, while the light of
grave watching never flickered in her eyes.

"Yes, Dick; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs.

Yet I was still the assistant editor of _The Mass_--Clement Blaine's
right hand.




XVI

A PERSONAL REVELATION

    The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
    I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
    I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

                                              BYRON.


That Sunday night was not one of London's black nights that have been so
often described. The police began to be a little sharp with the people
after nine or ten o'clock, and by midnight the streets were getting
tolerably clear. For the great majority, I believe it had been a day of
more or less pleasurable excitement and amusement. For the minority, who
were better informed, it was a day and night of curious bewilderment and
restless anxiety.

I looked in at several newspaper offices on my way home from South
Kensington, but found that subordinate members of the staffs had no
information to give, and that their superiors maintained an attitude of
strict reticence. As I passed the dark windows of my own office I
thought of our "feature" for the coming week: the demand for
disarmament, in order that naval and military expenditure might be
diverted into labour reform channels; Herr Mitmann's voluble assurances
of the friendliness of the German people; of the ability and will of the
German Socialists to make German aggression impossible, for the sake of
their brother workers in England.

I thought of these things, and wished I could spurn under foot my
connection with _The Mass_. Then, sitting at the window of my little
bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, I looked into my petty finances. If I
left Clement Blaine I had enough to subsist upon for six or eight weeks.
It was a risky business. Then I pictured myself casually mentioning to
Constance Grey that I was no longer connected with _The Mass_. I fancied
that I saw the bright approval in her eyes. Before blowing my light out,
I had composed the little speech to Blaine which, in the morning, should
set a period to our connection.

And then I thought of Beatrice. It was barely twenty-four hours since we
had parted beside Battersea Park (though it seemed more like twenty-four
days), and recollection showed me Beatrice in her rather rumpled finery,
with the bleakness of the gray hour that follows such pleasures as most
appealed to her, beginning to steal over her handsome face, sapping its
warm colour, thinning and sharpening its ripe, smooth contours. Beatrice
would pout when she heard of my leaving her father. The thought showed
me her full red lips, and the little even white teeth they so often
disclosed.

The curves of Beatrice's mouth were of a kind that have twisted many
men's lives awry; and those men have thought straightness well lost for
such red lips. Yes, Beatrice was good to look upon. She had a way of
throwing her head back, and showing the smooth, round whiteness of her
throat when she laughed, that had thrilled me time and again. And how
often, and how gaily she laughed.

In the midst of a picture of Beatrice, laughing at me across a
restaurant table with a raised glass in her hand, I had a shadowy vision
of Constance Grey beside the foot of the stairs in South Kensington.
There was no laughter in her face. I had gathered, when I dined there,
that Constance did not care for wine. She had said: "I don't care for
anything that makes me feel as though I couldn't work if I wanted to."
How Beatrice would have scoffed at that! And then, how Constance would
have smiled over Beatrice's ideals--her "fluffy" evenings--in a kind of
regretful, wondering way; almost as she had smiled when she first called
me "Dick," in asking what had become of our staid English reserve; as
she watched the noisy crowd in Fleet Street, singing its silly doggerel
about England's security and England's "dibs."

And then, suddenly, my picture-making thoughts swept out across low
Essex flats to the only part of East Anglia with which I was familiar,
and gave me a vision of burning farmhouses, and terror-smitten
country-folk fleeing blindly before a hail of bullets, and the pitiless
advance of legions of fair-haired men in long coats of a kind of
roan-gray, buttoned across the chest with bright buttons arranged to
suggest the inward curve to an imaginary waist-line. The faces of the
soldiers were all the same; they all had the face of Herr Mitmann of
Stettin. And a hot wave of angry resentment and hatred of these
machine-like invaders of a peaceful unprotected countryside pulsed
through my veins. Could they dare--here on English soil? My fists
clenched under the bed-clothes. If it was true, by heavens, there was
work for Englishmen toward!

My blood was hot at the thought. It was perhaps the first swelling of a
patriotic emotion I had known; the first hint of any larger citizenship
than that which claims and demands, without thought of giving. And,
immediately, it was succeeded by a sharp chill, a chill that ushered me
into one of the bitterest moments of humiliation that I can remember.
The thought accompanying that chill was this:

"What can you do? What are you fit for? What boy's part, even, can you
take, though the roof were being burned over your mother's head? What of
Constance, or Beatrice? Could you strike a blow for either? Work for
Englishmen, forsooth! Yes, for those of them who have ever learned a
man's part in such work. But you--you have never had a gun in your hand.
What have you done? You have poured out for your weekly wage so many
thousands of words; words meaning--what? Why, they have meant what the
roadside beggar means: 'Give! Give! Give!' They have urged men to demand
more from the State, and give the State nothing; to rob the State of
even its defences, for the sake of adding to their own immediate ease.
And you have ridiculed, as a survival of barbarous times, the efforts of
such men as the brave old Field Marshal who gave his declining years to
the thankless task of urging England to make some effort of preparation
to fend off just that very crisis which has now come upon her, and
found her absolutely unprepared. That is how you have earned your right
to live, a citizen of the freest country in the world, a subject of the
greatest Empire the world has ever seen. And when you have had leisure
and money to spend, you have devoted it to overeating and drinking, and
helping to fill the tills of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your
part. And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you, whose
qualification is that you can wield the pen of a begging letter-writer,
who is also scurrilous and insolent--you lie in bed and clench your
useless hands, and prate of work for Englishmen!"

That was the thought that came to me with a sudden chill that night; and
I suppose I was one of the earliest among millions doomed to writhe
under the impotent shame of such a thought. I shall never forget that
night in my Bloomsbury lodging. It was my ordeal of self-revelation. I
suppose I slept a little toward morning; but I rose early with a kind of
vague longing to escape from the company of the personality my thought
had shown me in the night.

It is natural that the awakening of an individual should be a more
speedy process than the awakening of a people--a nation. I regard my
early rising on that Monday morning as the beginning of my first real
awakening to life as an Englishman. I had still far to go--I had not
even crossed the threshold as yet.




XVII

ONE STEP FORWARD

    Thy trust, thy honours, these were great; the greater now thy shame,
    for thou hast proved both unready and unfit, unworthy offspring of a
    noble sire!--MERROW'S _Country Tales_.


Five minutes after Clement Blaine reached the office of _The Mass_ that
morning, he had lost the services of his assistant editor, and I felt
that I had taken one step upward from a veritable quagmire of
humiliation.

Blaine was almost too excited about the news of the day to pay much heed
to my little speech of resignation. The morning paper to which he
subscribed--a Radical journal of pronounced tone--had observed far less
reticence than most of its contemporaries, and, in its desire to lend
sensational interest to its columns, had not minimized in any way the
startling character of such intelligence as it had received.

"The bloodthirsty German devils!" said Blaine, the erstwhile apostle of
internationalism and the socialistic brotherhood of man. "By God, the
Admiralty and the War Office ought to swing for this! Here are we taxed
out of house and home to support their wretched armies and navies, and
German soldiers marching on London, they say, with never a sign of a
hand raised to oppose 'em--damn them! Nice time you choose to talk of
leaving. By God, Mordan, you may be leaving from against a wall with a
bullet through your head, next thing you know. These German devils don't
wear kid gloves, I fancy. They're not like our tin-pot army. Army!--we
haven't got one--lot of gold-laced puppets!"

That was how Clement Blaine was moved by the news. Last week: "Bloated
armaments," "huge battalions of idle men eating the heart out of the
nation through its revenues." This week, we had no army, and because of
it the Admiralty and the War Office ought to "swing." In Blaine's
ravings I had my foretaste of public opinion on the crisis.

On the previous day I had listened to a prominent Member of Parliament
urging that our children should be preserved from the contamination of
contact with those who taught the practice of the "hellish art" of
shooting.

The leading daily papers of this Monday morning admitted the central
fact that England had been invaded during Saturday night, and even
allowed readers to assume that portions of the eastern counties were
then occupied by "foreign" troops. But they used the word "raid" in
place of "invasion," and generally qualified it with such a word as
"futile." The general tone was that a Power with whom we had believed
ourselves to be upon friendly terms had been guilty of rash and
provocative action toward us, which it would speedily be made to regret.
It was an insult, which would be promptly avenged; full atonement for
which would be demanded and obtained at once. It was even suggested that
some tragic misunderstanding would be found to lie at the root of the
whole business; and in any case, things were to be set right without
delay. One journal, the _Standard_, did go so far as to say that the
British public was likely to be forced now into learning at great cost a
lesson which had been offered daily as a free gift since the opening of
the century, and as steadily repudiated or ignored.

"Two things it should teach England," said this journal; "never to
invite insult and contempt by a repetition of Sunday's Disarmament
Demonstration or enunciation of its fallacious and dangerous teaching;
and the necessity for paying instant heed to the warnings of the
advocates of universal military training for purposes of home defence."

But at that time the nicknames of the "The Imperialist Banner" and "The
Patriotic Pulpit," applied by various writers and others to this great
newspaper, were scornful names, applied with opprobrious intent; and
London was still full of people whose only comment upon this
sufficiently badly-needed warning would be: "Oh, of course, the
_Standard_!"

But the policy of reticence, though I have no doubt that it did save
London from some terrible scenes of panic, was not to be tenable for
many hours. Within half an hour of noon special editions of a halfpenny
morning paper, and an evening paper belonging to the same proprietors,
were issued simultaneously with a full, sensational, and quite
unreserved statement of all the news obtainable from East Anglia. A
number of motor-cyclists had been employed in the quest of
intelligence, and one item of the news they had to tell was that
Colchester had offered resistance to the invaders, and as a result had
been shelled and burned to the ground. A number of volunteers and other
civilians had been found bearing arms, and had been tried by drum-head
court martial and shot within the hour, by order of the
Commander-in-Chief of the German forces.

Another sensational item was a copy of a proclamation issued by the
German Commander-in-Chief. This proclamation was dated from Ipswich, and
I think it struck more terror into the people than any other single item
of intelligence published during that eventful day. It was headed with
the Imperial German Arms, and announced the establishment of German
military jurisdiction in England. It announced that the penalty of
immediate death would be inflicted without any exception upon any
British subject not wearing and being entitled to wear British military
uniform who should be found:

1. Taking arms against the invaders.

2. Misleading German troops.

3. Injuring in any manner whatever any German subject.

4. Injuring any road, rail, or waterway, or means of communication.

5. Offering resistance of any kind whatsoever to the advance and
occupation of the German Army.

Then followed peremptory details of instructions as to the supplies
which every householder must furnish for the German soldiers quartered
in his neighbourhood, and an announcement as to the supreme and
inviolable authority of the German officer in command of any given
place.

Nothing else yet published brought home to the public the realization of
what had happened as did this coldly pompous and, in the circumstances,
very brutal proclamation. And no item in it so bit into the hearts of
the bewildered Londoners who read it as did the clear incisive statement
to the effect that a British subject who wore no military uniform would
be shot like a dog if he raised a hand in the defence of his country or
his home. He must receive the invader with open arms, and provide him
food, lodging, and assistance of every kind, or be led out and shot.
There were hundreds of thousands of men in London that day who would
have given very much for the right to wear a uniform which they had
learned almost to despise of late years; a uniform many of them had
wished to abolish altogether, as the badge of a primitive and barbarous
trade, a "hellish art."

We had talked glibly enough of war, of its impossibility in England, and
of the childish savagery of the appeal to arms; just as, a few years
earlier, before the naval reductions, we had talked of England's
inviolability, secured her by her unquestioned mastery of the sea. We
had written and spoken hundreds of thousands of fine words upon these
subjects; and, within the last forty-eight hours, we had demonstrated
with great energy the needlessness of armed forces for England. For and
against, about it and about, we had woven a mazy network of windy
platitudes and catch-phrases, all devised to hide the manifest and
manly duties of citizenship; all intended to justify the individual's
exclusive concentration upon his own personal pleasures and
aggrandizement, without waste of time or energy upon any claims of the
commonwealth.

And now, in a few score of short, sharp words, in a single brief
document, peremptorily addressed to the fifty million people of these
islands, a German soldier had brought an end to all our vapourings, all
our smug, self-interested theories, and shattered the monstrous fabric
of our complaisance, as it were, with a rattle of his sword-hilt. Never
before in history had a people's vanity been so shaken by a word.

In the early afternoon an unavoidable errand took me to a northeastern
suburb. I made my return to town as one among an army of refugees. The
people had begun flocking into London from as far north and east as
Brentwood. The Great Eastern Railway was disorganized. The northern
highways leading into London were occupied by unbroken lines of people
journeying into the city for protection--afoot, in motor-cars, on
cycles, and in every kind of horse-drawn vehicle, and carrying with them
the strangest assortment of personal belongings.

At the earliest possible hour I made my way toward South Kensington. I
told myself there might be something I could do for Constance Grey.
Beyond that there was the fact that I craved another sight of her, and I
longed to hear her comment when she knew I had finished with _The Mass_.

A porter on the Underground Railway told me that the Southwestern and
Great Western termini were blocked by feverish crowds of well-to-do
people, struggling, with their children, for places in trains bound
south and west. Huge motor-cars of the more luxurious type whizzed past
one in the street continuously, their canopies piled high with bags,
their bodies full of women and children, their chauffeurs driving hard
toward the southern and western highways.

Outside South Kensington station I had my first sight of a Royal
Proclamation upon the subject of the invasion. Evidently the Government
realized that, prepared or unprepared, the state of affairs could no
longer be hidden from the public. The King was at Buckingham Palace that
day I knew, and it seemed to me that I read rather his Majesty's own
sentiments than those of his Cabinet in the Proclamation. I gathered
that the general public also formed this impression.

There is no need for me to reproduce a document which forms part of our
history. The King's famous reference to the Government--"The
Destroyers"--"Though admittedly unprepared for such a blow, my
Government is taking prompt steps for coping in a decisive manner,"
etc.; and again, the equally famous reference to the German Emperor, in
the sentence beginning: "This extraordinary attack by the armed forces
of my Royal and Imperial nephew." These features of a nobly dignified
and restrained Address seemed to me to be a really direct communication
from their Sovereign to the English people. Whatever might be said of
the position of "The Destroyers" in Whitehall, it became evident, even
at this early stage, that the Throne was in no danger--that the
sanctity pertaining to the person of the Monarch who, as it were in
despite of his Government, had done more for the true cause of peace
than any other in Europe, remained inviolate in the hearts of the
people.

For the rest, the Proclamation was a brief, simple statement of the
facts, with an equally simple but very heart-stirring appeal to every
subject of the Crown to concentrate his whole energies, under proper
guidance, upon the task of repelling "this dastardly and entirely
unprovoked attack upon our beloved country."

I heard many deeply significant and interesting comments from the circle
of men and women who were reading this copy of the Proclamation. The
remarks of two men I repeat here because in both cases they were typical
and representative. The first remark was from a man dressed as a navvy,
with a short clay pipe in his mouth. He said:

"Oh, yus; the King's all right; Gawd bless un! No one 'ld mind fightin'
for 'im. It's 'is blighted Gov'nment wot's all bloomin' wrong--blast
'em!"

The reply came from a young man evidently of sedentary occupation--a
shop-assistant or clerk:

"You're all right, too, old sport; but don't you forget the other
feller's proclamation. If you 'aven't got no uniform, your number's up
for lead pills, an' don't you forget it. A fair fight an' no favour's
all right; but I'm not on in this blooming execution act, thank you.
Edward R. I. will have to pass me, I can see."

"Well, 'e won't lose much, matey, when all's said. But you're English,
anyway; that seems a pity. Why don't yer run 'ome ter yer ma, eh?"

"Go it, old sport. You're a blue-blooded Tory; an Imperialist, aren't
you?"

"Not me, boy; I'm only an able-bodied man."

"What ho! Got a flag in your pocket, have you? You watch the Germans
don't catch you fer sausage meat."

And then I passed on, heading for Constance Grey's flat. I reflected
that I had done my share toward forming the opinions, the mental
attitude of that young clerk or shop-assistant. The type was familiar
enough. But I had had no part nor lot in the preservation of that
navvy's simple patriotism. Rather, by a good deal, had the tendency of
all I said and wrote been toward weakening the sturdy growth, and
causing it to be deprecated as a thing archaic, an obstacle in the way
of progress.

Progress! The expounding of Herr Mitmann of Stettin! That Monday was a
minor day of judgment for others beside myself.




XVIII

THE DEAR LOAF

    A third of the people, then, in the event of war, would immediately
    be reduced to starvation: and the rest of the thirty-eight million
    would speedily be forced thither.--L. COPE CORNFORD'S _The
    Defenceless Islands_ (London, 1906).


I saw Constance Grey only for a few minutes during that day. She had
passed the stage of shocked sorrow and sad fear in which I had found her
on Sunday, and was exceedingly busy in organizing a corps of assistant
nurses, women who had had some training, and were able to provide a
practical outfit of nursing requisites. She had the countenance of the
Army Medical authorities, but her nursing corps was to consist
exclusively of volunteers.

The organizing ability this girl displayed was extraordinary. She spared
five minutes for conversation, and warmed my heart with her appreciation
of my severance of _The Mass_ connection. And then, before I knew what
had happened, she had me impressed, willingly enough, in her service,
and I was off upon an errand connected with the volunteer nursing corps.
News had arrived of some wounded refugees in Romford, unable to proceed
on their way into London; and a couple of motor-cars, with nurses and
medical comforts, were despatched at once.

Detailed news of the sacking of Colchester showed this to have been a
most extraordinarily brutal affair for the work of a civilized army. The
British regular troops at Colchester represented the whole of our forces
of the northeastern division, and included three batteries of artillery.
The regiments of this division had been reduced to three, and for
eighteen months or more these had been mere skeletons of regiments, the
bulk of the men being utilized to fill other gaps caused by the
consistently followed policy of reduction which had characterized "The
Destroyers'" regime.

A German spy who had been captured in Romford and brought to London,
said that the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in England had
publicly announced to his men that the instructions received from their
Imperial master were that the pride of the British people must be struck
down to the dust; that the first blows must be crushing; that the
British people were to be smitten with terror from which recovery should
be impossible.

Be this as it may, the sacking of Colchester was a terrible business. A
number of citizens had joined the shockingly small body of regulars in a
gallant attempt at defence. The attempt was quite hopeless; the German
superiority in numbers, discipline, metal, and material being quite
overwhelming. But the German commander was greatly angered by the
resistance offered, and, as soon as he ascertained that civilians had
taken part in this, the town was first shelled and then stormed. It was
surrounded by a cordon of cavalry, and--_no prisoners were taken_.

The town was burned to the ground, though many valuable stores were
first removed from it; and those of the inhabitants who had not already
fled were literally mown down in their native streets, without parley or
quarter--men, women, and children being alike regarded as offenders
against the edict forbidding any civilian British subject, upon pain of
death, to offer any form of resistance to German troops. I myself spoke
to a man in Knightsbridge that evening who had definite news that his
nineteen-year-old daughter, a governess in the house of a Colchester
doctor, was among those shot down in the streets of the town while
endeavouring to make her escape with two children. The handful of
British regulars had been shot or cut to pieces, and the barracks and
stores taken over by the Germans.

As I left Constance Grey's flat that evening I passed a small baker's
shop, before which an angry crowd was engaged in terrifying a small boy
in a white apron, who was nervously endeavouring to put up the window
shutters. I asked what the trouble was, and was told the baker had
refused to sell his half-quartern loaves under sevenpence, or his
quartern loaves under a shilling.

"It's agin the law, so it is," shouted an angry woman. "I'm a
policeman's wife, an' I know what I'm talking about. I'll have the law
of the nasty mean hound, so I will, with his shillin' for a fivepenny
loaf, indeed!"

Long before this time, and while Britain still held on to a good
proportion of her foreign trade, it had been estimated by statisticians
that in the United Kingdom some ten to twelve million persons lived
always upon the verge of hunger. But since then the manufacturers of
protected countries, notably Germany and the United States, had, as was
inevitable in the face of our childish clinging to what we miscalled
"free" trade, crowded the British manufacturer out of practically every
market in the world, except those of Canada. Those also must of
necessity have been lost, but for the forbearing and enduring loyalty of
the Canadian people, who, in spite of persistent rebuffs, continued to
extend and to increase their fiscal preference for imports from the
Mother-country.

But, immense as Canada's growth was even then, no one country could keep
the manufacturers of Britain busy; and I believe I am right in saying
that at this time the number of those who lived always on the verge of
hunger had increased to at least fifteen millions. Cases innumerable
there were in which manufacturers themselves had gone to swell the ranks
of the unemployed and insufficiently employed; the monstrous legion of
those who lived always close to the terrifying spectre of hunger.

If the spirit of Richard Cobden walked the earth at that time, even as
his obsessions assuredly still cumbered it, it must have found food for
bitter reflection in the hundreds of empty factories, grass-grown
courtyards, and broken-windowed warehouses, which a single day's walk
would show one in the north of England.

You may be sure I thought of those things as I walked away from that
baker's shop in South Kensington. A journalist, even though he be only
the assistant of a man like Blaine, is apt to see the conditions of life
in his country fairly plainly, because he has a wider vision of them
than most men. Into Fleet Street, each day brings an endless stream of
"news items," not only from all parts of the world, but from every town
and city in the kingdom. And your journalist, though he may have scant
leisure for its digestion, absorbs the whole of this mass of
intelligence each day in the process of conveying one-tenth part of it,
in tabloid form, to the public.

If one assumes for the moment that only twelve million people in Great
Britain were living on hunger's extreme edge at that time, the picture I
had of the sullen, angry crowd outside the baker's shop remains a
sufficiently sinister one. As a matter of fact, I believe that
particular baker was a shade premature, or a penny or two excessive, in
his advance of prices. But I know that by nightfall you could not have
purchased a quartern loaf for elevenpence halfpenny within ten miles of
Charing Cross. The Bakers' Society had issued its mandates broadcast.
Shop-windows were stoned that night in south and east London; but
twenty-four hours later the price of the quartern loaf was 1s. 3d., and
a man offering 1s. 2d. would go empty away.

And with the same loaf selling at one-third the price, twelve million
persons at least had lived always on the verge of hunger. I mention the
staple food only, but precisely the same conditions applied to all other
food-stuffs with the exception of dairy produce, the price of which was
quadrupled by Tuesday afternoon, and fish, the price of which put it at
once beyond the reach of all save the rich, and all delicacies, the
prices of which became prohibitive. Twelve million persons had lived on
the verge of hunger, before, under normal conditions, and when the
country's trade had been far larger and more prosperous than of late.
Now, with the necessities of life standing at fully three times normal
prices, a large number of trades employing many thousands of work-people
were suddenly shut down upon, and rendered completely inoperative.

It must be borne in mind that we had been warned again and again that
matters would be precisely thus and not otherwise in the event of war,
and we had paid no heed whatever to the telling.

Historians have explained for us that the primary reason of the very
sudden rise to famine rates of the prices of provisions was the
persistent rumour that the effective bulk of the Channel Fleet had been
captured or destroyed on its way northward from Spanish waters. German
strategy had drawn the Fleet southward, in the first place, by means of
an international "incident" in the Mediterranean, which was clearly the
bait of what rumour called a death-trap. Once trapped, it was said,
German seamanship and surprise tactics had done the rest.

The crews of the Channel Fleet ships (considerably below full strength)
had been rushed out of shore barracks, in which discipline had fallen to
a terribly low ebb, to their unfamiliar shipboard stations, at the time
of the Mediterranean scare. Beset by the flower of the German Navy, in
ships manned by crews who lived afloat, it was asserted that the
Channel Fleet had been annihilated, and that the entire force of the
German Navy was concentrated upon the task of patrolling English waters.

We know that men and horses, stores and munitions of war, were pouring
steadily and continuously into East Anglia from Germany during this
time, escorted by German cruisers and torpedo-boats, and uninterrupted
by British ships. There was yet no report of the Channel Fleet, the
ships of which were already twenty-four hours overdue at Portsmouth.

Two things, more than any others, had influenced the British Navy during
the Administration of "The Destroyers": the total cessation of building
operations, and the withdrawal of ships and men from sea service. The
reserve ships had long been unfit to put to sea, the reserve crews had,
for all practical purposes, become landsmen--landsmen among whom want of
sea-going discipline had of late produced many mutinous outbreaks.

It had been said by the most famous admiral of the time, and said
without much exaggeration, that, within twelve months of "The
Destroyers'" abandonment of the traditional two-Power standard of
efficiency, the British Navy had "fallen to half-Power standard." The
process was quickened, of course, by the unprecedented progress of the
German Navy during the same period. It was said that at the end of 1907
the German Government had ships of war building in every great dockyard
in the world. It is known that the entire fleet of the "Kaiser" class
torpedo-boats and destroyers was built and set afloat at the German
Emperor's own private expense.

Then there were the "Well-borns," as they were called--vessels of no
great weight of metal, it is true, but manned, armed, officered, and
found better perhaps than any other war-ships in the world; entirely at
the instigation of the German Navy League, and out of the pockets of the
German nobility. The majority of our own wealthy classes preferred
sinking their money in German motor-cars and German pleasure resorts; or
one must assume so, for it is well known that our Navy League had long
since ceased to exert any active influence, because it was unable to
raise funds enough to pay its office expenses.

Our Navy might have had a useful reserve to draw upon in the various
auxiliary naval bodies if these had not, one by one, been abolished. The
Mercantile Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance in this
respect, for our ships at that time carried eighty-seven thousand
foreign officers and men, three parts of whom were Teutons. These facts
were presumably all well known to the heads and governing bodies of the
various trades, and, that being so, the extremely pessimistic attitude
adopted by them, directly the fact of invasion was established, is
scarcely to be wondered at.

In banking, insurance, underwriting, stock and share dealing,
manufacturing, and in every branch of shipping the lead of the bakers
were followed, and in many cases exceeded. The premiums asked in
insurance and underwriting, and the unprecedented advance in the
bank-rate, corresponding as it did with a hopeless "slump" in every
stock and share quoted on the Stock Exchange, from Consols to mining
shares, brought business to a standstill in London on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday entire blocks of offices remained unopened. In business, more
perhaps than in any other walk of life, self-preservation and
self-advancement were at that time, not alone the first, but the only
fixed law. With bread at 1s. 4d. a loaf, great ship-owners in England
were cabling the masters of wheat ships in both hemispheres to remain
where they were and await orders.

This last fact I learned from Leslie Wheeler, whom I happened to meet
hurrying from the City to Waterloo, on his way down to Weybridge. His
family were leaving for Devonshire next morning, to stay with relatives
there.

"But, bless me!" I said, when he told me that friends of his father,
shipping magnates, had despatched such cable messages that morning,
"surely that's a ruffianly thing to do, when the English people are
crying out for bread?"

Leslie shrugged his smartly-clad shoulders. "It's the English people's
own affair," he said.

"How's that?"

"Why, you see it's all a matter of insurance. All commerce is based on
insurance, in one form or another. The cost of shipping insurance to-day
is absolutely prohibitive; in other words, there isn't any. We did have
a permanent and non-fluctuating form of insurance of a kind one time.
But you Socialist chaps--social reform, Little England for the English,
and all that--you swept that away. Wouldn't pay for it; said it wasn't
wanted. Now it's gone, and you're feeling the pinch. The worst of it is,
you make the rest of us feel it, too. I'm thankful to say the dad's
pulling out fairly well. He told me yesterday he hadn't five hundred
pounds in anything British. Wise old bird, the dad!"

My friend's "You Socialist chaps" rather wrang my withers; its sting not
being lessened at all by my knowledge of its justice. I asked after the
welfare of the Wheeler family generally, but it was only as Leslie was
closing the door of the cab he hailed that I mentioned Sylvia.

"Yes, Sylvia's all right," he said, as he waved me good-bye; "but she
won't come away with the rest of us--absolutely refuses to budge."

And with that he was off, leaving me wondering about the girl who had at
one time occupied so much of my mind, but of late had had so little of
it. During the next few hours I wove quite a pretty story round Sylvia's
refusal to accompany her family. I even thought of her as joining
Constance Grey's nursing corps.

The thought of this development of Sylvia Wheeler's character interested
me so much that I wrote to her that evening, tentatively sympathizing
with her determination not to be frightened away from her own place. The
whole thing was a curious misapprehension on my part; but Sylvia's reply
(explaining that it was her particular place of worship she refused to
leave, and that she was staying "with his Reverence's sister"), though
written within twenty-four hours, did not reach me until after many
days--days such as England will never face again.




XIX

THE TRAGIC WEEK

    England can never have an efficient army during peace, and she must,
    therefore, accept the rebuffs and calamities which are always in
    store for the nation that is content to follow the breed of cowards
    who usually direct her great affairs. The day will come when she
    will violently and suddenly lose her former fighting renown to such
    an unmistakable extent that the plucky fishwives will march upon
    Downing Street, and if they can catch its usual inmates, will rend
    them. One party is as bad as the other, and I hope and pray that
    when the national misfortune of a great defeat at sea overtakes us,
    followed by the invasion of England, that John Bull will turn and
    rend the jawers and talkers who prevent us from being prepared to
    meet invasion.--_From a letter written by Lord Wolsley,
    ex-Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, to Lord Wemyss, and
    published, and ignored by the public, in the year 1906._


It is no part of my intention to make any attempt to limp after the
historians of the Invasion. The Official History, the half-dozen of
standard military treatises, and the well-known works of Low, Forster,
Gordon, and others, have allowed few details of the Invasion to escape
unrecorded. But I confess it has always seemed to me that these writers
gave less attention to the immediate aftermath of the Invasion than that
curious period demanded. Yet here was surely a case in which effect was
of vastly more importance than cause, and aftermath than crisis. But
perhaps I take that view because I am no historian.

To the non-expert mind, the most bewildering and extraordinary feature
of that disastrous time was the amazing speed with which crisis
succeeded crisis, and events, each of themselves epoch-making in
character, crashed one upon another throughout the progress toward Black
Saturday. We know now that much of this fury of haste which was so
bewildering at the time, which certainly has no parallel in history, was
due to the perfection of Germany's long-laid plans. Major-General
Farquarson, in his "Military History of the Invasion," says:

"It may be doubted whether in all the history of warfare anything so
scientifically perfect as the preparations for this attack can be found.
It is safe to say that every inch of General von Fuechter's progress was
mapped out in Berlin long months before it came to astound and horrify
England. The maps and plans in the possession of the German staff were
masterpieces of cartographical science and art. The German Army knew
almost to a bale of hay what provender lay between London and the coast,
and where it was stored; and certainly their knowledge of East Anglia
far exceeded that of our own authorities. The world has never seen a
quicker blow struck; it has seldom seen a blow so crushingly severe; it
has not often seen one so aggressively unjustifiable. And, be it noted,
that down to the last halter and the least fragment of detail, the
German Army was provided with every conceivable aid to success--_in
duplicate_.

"Never in any enterprise known to history was less left to chance. The
German War Office left nothing at all to chance, not even its
conception--a certainty really--of Britain's amazing unreadiness. And
the German Army took no risks. A soldier's business, whether he be
private or Field Marshal, is, after all, to obey orders. It would be
both foolish and unjust to blame General von Fuechter. But the fact
remains that no victorious army ever risked less by generosity than the
invading German Army. Its tactics were undoubtedly ruthless; they were
the tactics necessitated by the orders of the Chief of the Army. They
were more severe, more crushing, than any that have ever been adopted
even by a punitive expedition under British colours. They were
successful. For that they were intended. Swiftness and thoroughness were
of the essence of the contract.

"With regard to their humanity or morality I am not here concerned. But
it should always be remembered by critics that British apathy and
neglect made British soil a standing temptation to the invader. The
invasion was entirely unprovoked, so far as direct provocation goes. But
who shall say it was entirely undeserved, or even unforeseen, by
advisers whom the nation chose to ignore? This much is certain: Black
Saturday and the tragic events leading up to it were made possible, not
so much by the skill and forethought of the enemy, which were notable,
as by a state of affairs in England which made that day one of shame and
humiliation, as well as a day of national mourning. No just recorder may
hope to escape that fact."

In London, the gravest aspect of that tragic week was the condition of
the populace. It is supposed that over two million people flocked into
the capital during the first three days. And the prices of the
necessities of life were higher in London than anywhere else in the
country. The Government measures for relief were ill-considered and
hopelessly inadequate. But, in justice to "The Destroyers," it must be
remembered that leading authorities have said that adequate measures
were impossible, from sheer lack of material.

During one day--I think it was Wednesday--huge armies of the hungry
unemployed--nine-tenths of our wage-earners were unemployed--were set to
work upon entrenchments in the north of London. But there was no sort of
organization, and most of the men streamed back into the town that
night, unpaid, unfed, and sullenly resentful.

Then, like cannon shots, came the reports of the fall of York, Bradford,
Leeds, Halifax, Hull, and Huddersfield, and the apparently wanton
demolition of Norwich Cathedral. The sinking of the _Dreadnought_ near
the Nore was known in London within the hour. Among the half-equipped
regulars who were hurried up from the southwest, I saw dozens of men
intercepted in the streets by the hungry crowds, and hustled into
leaving their fellows.

Then came Friday's awful "surrender riot" at Westminster, a magnificent
account of which gives Martin's big work its distinctive value. I had
left Constance Grey's flat only half an hour before the riot began, and
when I reached Trafalgar Square there was no space between that and the
Abbey in which a stone could have been dropped without falling upon a
man or a woman. There were women in that maddened throng, and some of
them, crying hoarsely in one breath for surrender and for bread, were
suckling babies.

No Englishman who witnessed it could ever forget that sight. The Prime
Minister's announcement that the surrender should be made came too late.
The panic and hunger-maddened incendiaries had been at work. Smoke was
rising already from Downing Street and the back of the Treasury. Then
came the carnage. One can well believe that not a single unnecessary
bullet was fired. Not to believe that would be to saddle those in
authority with a less than human baseness. But the question history puts
is: Who was primarily to blame for the circumstances which led up to the
tragic necessity of the firing order?

Posterity has unanimously laid the blame upon the Administration of that
day, and assuredly the task of whitewashing "The Destroyers" would be no
light or pleasant one. But, again, we must remind ourselves that the
essence of the British Constitution has granted to us always, for a
century past at least, as good a Government as we have deserved. "The
Destroyers" may have brought shame and humiliation upon England.
Unquestionably, measures and acts of theirs produced those effects. But
who and what produced "The Destroyers" as a Government? The only
possible answer to that is, in the first place, the British public; in
the second place, the British people's selfish apathy and neglect, where
national duty and responsibility were concerned, and blindly selfish
absorption, in the matter of its own individual interests and
pleasures.

One hundred and thirty-two men, women, and children killed, and three
hundred and twenty-eight wounded; the Treasury buildings and the
official residence of the Prime Minister gutted; that was the casualty
list of the "Surrender Riot" at Westminster. But the figures do not
convey a tithe of the horror, the unforgettable shame and horror, of the
people's attack upon the Empire's sanctuary. The essence of the tragedy
lay in their demand for immediate and unconditional surrender; the
misery of it lay in "The Destroyers'" weak, delayed, terrified response,
followed almost immediately by the order to those in charge of the
firing parties--an order flung hysterically at last, the very
articulation of panic.

No one is likely to question Martin's assertion that Friday's tragedy at
Westminster must be regarded--"not alone as the immediate cause of Black
Saturday's national humiliation, but also as the crucial phase, the
pivot upon which the development of the whole disastrous week turned."
But the Westminster Riot at least had the saving feature of
unpremeditation. It was, upon the one side, the outcry of a wholly
undisciplined, hungry, and panic-smitten public; and, upon the other
side, the irresponsible, more than half-hysterical action of a group of
terrified and incompetent politicians. These men had been swept into
great positions, which they were totally unfitted to fill, by a tidal
wave of reactionary public feeling, and of the blind selfishness of a
decadence born of long freedom from any form of national discipline; of
liberties too easily won and but half-understood; of superficial
education as to rights, and abysmal ignorance as to duties.

But, while fully admitting the soundness of Martin's verdict, for my
part I feel that my experiences during that week left me with memories
not perhaps more shocking, but certainly more humiliating and
disgraceful to England, than the picture burnt into my mind by the
Westminster Riot. I will mention two of these.

By Wednesday a large proportion of the rich residents of Western London
had left the capital to take its chances, while they sought the security
of country homes, more particularly in the southwestern counties. Such
thoroughfares as Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Bond Street were no
longer occupied by well-dressed people with plenty of money to spend.
Their usual patrons were for the most part absent; but, particularly at
night, they were none the less very freely used--more crowded, indeed,
than ever before. The really poor, the desperately hungry people, had no
concern whatever with the wrecking of the famous German restaurants and
beer-halls. They were not among the Regent Street and Piccadilly
promenaders.

The Londoners who filled these streets at night--the people who sacked
the Leicester Square hotel and took part in the famous orgy which
Blackburn describes as "unequalled in England since the days of the
Plague, or in Europe since the French Revolution"; these people were not
at all in quest of food. They were engaged upon a mad pursuit of
pleasure and debauchery and drink. "Eat, drink, and be vicious; but
above all, drink and be vicious; for this is the end of England!" That
was their watchword.

I have no wish to repeat Blackburn's terrible stories of rapine and
bestiality, of the frenzy of intoxication, and the blind savagery of
these Saturnalias. In their dreadful nakedness they stand for ever in
the pages of his great book, a sinister blur, a fiery warning, writ
large across the scroll of English history. I only wish to say that
scenes I actually saw with my own eyes (one episode in trying to check
the horror of which I lost two fingers and much blood), prove beyond all
question to me that, even in its most lurid and revolting passages,
Blackburn's account is a mere record of fact, and not at all, as some
apologists have sought to show, an exaggerated or overheated version of
these lamentable events.

Regarded as an indication of the pass we had reached at this period of
our decadence, this stage of our trial by fire, the conduct of the
crowds in Western London during those dreadful nights, impressed me more
forcibly than the disaster which Martin considers the climax and pivot
of the week's tragedy.

One does not cheerfully refer to these things, but, to be truthful, I
must mention the other matter which produced upon me, personally, the
greatest sense of horror and disgrace.

Military writers have described for us most fully the circumstances in
which General Lord Wensley's command was cut and blown to pieces in the
Epping and Romford districts. Authorities are agreed that the records of
civilized warfare have nothing more horrible to tell than the history
of that ghastly butchery. As a slaughter, there was nothing exactly like
it in the Russo-Japanese war--for we know that there were less than a
hundred survivors of the whole of Lord Wensley's command. But those who
mourned the loss of these brave men had a consolation of which nothing
could rob them; the consolation which is graven in stone upon the Epping
monument; a consolation preserved as well in German as in English
history. Germany may truthfully say of the Epping shambles that no
quarter was given that day. England may say, with what pride she may,
that none was asked. The last British soldier slaughtered in the Epping
trenches had no white flag in his hand, but a broken bayonet, and, under
his knee, the Colours of his regiment.

The British soldiers in those blood-soaked trenches were badly armed,
less than half-trained, under-officered, and of a low physical standard.
But these lamentable facts had little or nothing to do with their
slaughter. There were but seven thousand of them, while the German force
has been variously estimated at between seventy thousand and one hundred
thousand horse and foot, besides artillery. One need not stop to
question who should bear the blame for the half-trained, vilely equipped
condition of these heroic victims. The far greater question, to which
the only answer can be a sad silence of remorse and bitter humiliation,
bears upon the awful needlessness of their sacrifice.

The circumstances have been described in fullest detail from authentic
records. The stark fact which stands out before the average non-expert
observer is that Lord Wensley was definitely promised reinforcements to
the number of twenty thousand horse and foot; that after the Westminster
Riot not a single man or horse reached him; _and he was never informed
of the Government's forced decision to surrender_.

And thus those half-trained boys and men laid down their lives for
England within a dozen miles of Westminster, almost twelve hours after a
weak-kneed, panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the people
that England would surrender.

That, to my thinking, was the most burning feature of our disgrace;
that, as an indication of our parlous estate, is more terrible than
Martin's "pivot" of the tragic week.




XX

BLACK SATURDAY

    Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
    England hath need of thee: she is a fen
    Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
    Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
    Have forfeited their ancient English dower
    Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.

                                              WORDSWORTH.


In the afternoon of Black Saturday, General von Fuechter, the
Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in England, took up his quarters,
with his staff, in the residence of the German Ambassador to the Court
of St. James in Carlton House Terrace, and, so men said, enjoyed the
first sleep he had had for a week. (The German Ambassador had handed in
his credentials, and been escorted out of England on the previous
Monday.)

Throughout the small hours of Saturday morning I was at work near
Romford as one of the volunteer bearers attached to Constance Grey's
nursing corps. That is one reason why the memory of the north of London
massacre will never leave me. One may assume that the German Army had no
wish to kill nurses, but, as evidence of the terrible character of the
onslaught on the poor defences of London, I may recall the fact that
three of our portable nursing shelters were blown to pieces; while of
Constance Grey's nurses alone five were killed and fourteen were badly
wounded.

Myself, I had much to be thankful for, my only wound being the ploughing
of a little furrow over the biceps of my right arm by a bullet that
passed out through the back of my coat. But a circumstance for which my
gratitude was more deeply moved was the fact that Constance Grey,
despite a number of wonderfully narrow escapes, was entirely uninjured.

The actual entry of General von Fuechter and his troops into London has
been so often described that nothing remains for me to say about that.
Also, I am unable to speak as an eye witness, since Constance Grey and
myself were among those who returned to London, in the rear of the
German troops, with the ambulances. The enemy's line of communications
stretched now from the Wash to London, and between Brentwood and London
there were more Germans than English. I believe the actual number of
troops which entered London behind General von Fuechter was under
forty-eight thousand; but to the northward, northeast, and northwest the
huge force which really invested the capital was spread in careful
formation, and amply provided with heavy artillery, then trained upon
central London from all such points as the Hampstead heights.

Although a formal note of surrender had been conveyed to General von
Fuechter at Romford, _after_ the annihilation of our entrenched troops,
occasional shots were fired upon the enemy as they entered London.
Indeed, in the Whitechapel Road, one of the General's aides-de-camp,
riding within a few yards of his chief, was killed by a shot from the
upper windows of a provision shop. But the German reprisals were sharp.
It is said that fifty-seven lives paid the penalty for the shooting of
that aide-de-camp. Several streets of houses in northeast London were
burned.

By this time the Lord Mayor of London had been notified that serious
results would accrue if any further opposition were offered to the
German acceptance of London's surrender; and proclamations to that
effect were posted everywhere. But the great bulk of London's
inhabitants were completely cowed by hunger and terror. Practically, it
may be said that, throughout, the only resistance offered to the Army of
the invaders was that which ended so tragically in the trenches beyond
Epping and Romford, with the equally tragical defence of Colchester, and
some of the northern towns captured by the eighth German Army Corps.

In London the people's demand from the first had been for unconditional
surrender. It was this demand which had culminated in the Westminster
Riot. The populace was so entirely undisciplined, so completely lacking
in the sort of training which makes for self-restraint, that even if the
Government had been possessed of an efficient striking force for
defensive purposes, the public would not have permitted its proper
utilization. The roar of German artillery during Friday night and
Saturday morning, with the news of the awful massacre in the northern
entrenchments, had combined to extinguish the last vestige of desire
for resistance which remained in London.

Almost all the people with money had left the capital. Those
remaining--the poor, the refugees from northward, irresponsibles, people
without a stake of any kind; these desired but the one thing: food and
safety. The German Commander-in-Chief was wise. He knew that if time had
been allowed, resistance would have been organized, even though the
British regular Army had, by continuous reductions in the name of
"economy," practically ceased to exist as a striking force. And
therefore time was the one thing he had been most determined to deny
England.

It is said that fatigue killed more German soldiers than fell to British
bullets; and the fact may well be believed when we consider the
herculean task General von Fuechter had accomplished in one week. His
plan of campaign was to strike his hardest, and to keep on striking his
hardest, without pause, till he had the British Government on its knees
before him; till he had the British public--maddened by sudden fear, and
the panic which blows of this sort must bring to a people with no
defensive organization, and no disciplinary training--cowed and crying
for quarter.

The German Commander has been called inhuman, a monster, a creature
without bowels. All that is really of small importance. He was a soldier
who carried out orders. His orders were ruthless orders. The instrument
he used was a very perfect one. He carried out his orders with the
utmost precision and thoroughness; and his method was the surest,
quickest, and, perhaps, the only way of taking possession of England.

At noon precisely, the Lord Mayor of London was brought before the
German Commander-in-Chief in the audience chamber of the Mansion House,
and formally placed under arrest. A triple cordon of sentries and two
machine-gun parties were placed in charge of the Bank of England, and
quarters were allotted for two German regiments in the immediate
vicinity. Two machine-guns were brought into position in front of the
Stock Exchange, and all avenues leading from the heart of the City were
occupied by mixed details of cavalry and infantry, each party having one
machine-gun.

My acquaintance, Wardle, of the _Sunday News_, was in the audience
chamber of the Mansion House at this time, and he says that he never saw
a man look more exhausted than General von Fuechter, who, according to
report, had not had an hour's sleep during the week. But though the
General's cheeks were sunken, his chin unshaven, and his eyes blood-red,
his demeanour was that of an iron man--stern, brusque, taciturn, erect,
and singularly immobile.

Food was served to this man of blood and iron in the Mansion House,
while the Lord Mayor's secretary proceeded to Whitehall, with word to
the effect that the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in England
awaited the sword and formal surrender of the British Commander, before
proceeding to take up quarters in which he would deal with peace
negotiations.

Forster's great work, "The Surrender," gives the finest description we
have of the scene that followed. The Field Marshal in command of the
British forces had that morning been sent for by a Cabinet Council then
being held in the Prime Minister's room at the House of Commons. With
nine members of his staff, the white-haired Field Marshal rode slowly
into the City, in full uniform. His instructions were for unconditional
surrender, and a request for the immediate consideration of the details
of peace negotiations.

The Field Marshal had once been the most popular idol of the British
people, whom he had served nobly in a hundred fights. Of late years he
himself had been as completely disregarded, as the grave warnings, the
earnest appeals, which he had bravely continued to urge upon a
neglectful people. The very Government which now despatched him upon the
hardest task of his whole career, the tendering of his sword to his
country's enemy, had for long treated him with cold disfavour. The
general public, in its anti-national madness, had sneered at this great
little man, their one-time hero, as a Jingo crank.

(As an instance of the lengths to which the public madness went in this
matter, the curious will find in the British Museum copies of at least
one farcical work of fiction written and published with considerable
success, as burlesques of that very invasion which had now occurred, of
the possibility of which this loyal servant in particular had so
earnestly and so unavailingly warned his countrymen.)

Now, the blow he had so often foreshadowed had fallen; the capital of
the British Empire was actually in possession of an enemy; and the
British leader knew himself for a Commander without an Army.

He had long since given his only son to the cause of Britain's defence.
The whole of his own strenuous life had been devoted to the same cause.
His declining years had known no ease by reason of his unceasing and
thankless striving to awaken his fellow countrymen to a sense of their
military responsibilities. Now he felt that the end of all things had
come for him, in the carrying out of an order which snapped his life's
work in two, and flung it down at the feet of England's almost unopposed
conqueror.

The understanding Englishman has forgiven General von Fuechter much, by
virtue of his treatment of the noble old soldier, who with tear-blinded
eyes and twitching lips tendered him the surrender of the almost
non-existent British Army. No man ever heard a speech from General von
Fuechter, but the remark with which he returned our Field Marshal's sword
to him will never be forgotten in England. He said, in rather laboured
English, with a stiff, low bow:

"Keep it, my lord. If your countrymen had not forgotten how to recognize
a great soldier, I could never have demanded it of you."

And the man of iron saluted the heart-broken Chief of the shattered
British Army.

We prefer not to believe the report that this, the German Commander's
one act of gentleness and magnanimity in England, was subsequently paid
for by the loss of a certain Imperial decoration. But, if the story was
true, then the decoration it concerned was well lost.

It was a grim, war-stained procession that followed General von Fuechter
when, between two and three o'clock, he rode with his staff by way of
Ludgate Hill and the Strand to Carlton House Terrace. But the cavalry
rode with drawn sabres, the infantry marched with fixed bayonets, and,
though weariness showed in every line of the men's faces, there was as
yet no sign of relaxed tension.

Throughout that evening and night the baggage wagons rumbled through
London, without cessation, to the two main western encampments in Hyde
Park. The whole of Pall Mall and Park Lane were occupied by German
officers that night, few of the usual occupants of the clubs in the one
thoroughfare, or the residences in the other, being then in London.

By four o'clock General von Fuechter's terms were in the hands of the
Government which had now completed its earning of the title of "The
Destroyers." The Chief Commissioner of Police and the principal
municipal authorities of greater London had all been examined during the
day at the House of Commons, and were unanimous in their verdict that
any delay in the arrangement of peace and the resumption of trade,
ashore and afloat, could mean only revolution. Whole streets of shops
had been sacked and looted already by hungry mobs, who gave no thought
to the invasion or to any other matter than the question of food supply.
A great, lowering crowd of hungry men and women occupied Westminster
Bridge and the southern embankment (no German soldiers had been seen
south of the Thames) waiting for the news of the promised conclusion of
peace terms.

There is not wanting evidence that certain members of the Government had
already bitterly repented of their suicidal retrenchment and
anti-defensive attitude in the past. But repentance had come too late.
The Government stood between a hungry, terrified populace demanding
peace and food, and a mighty and victorious army whose commander, acting
upon the orders of his Government, offered peace at a terrible price, or
the absolute destruction of London. For General von Fuechter's brief
memorandum of terms alluded threateningly to the fact that his heavy
artillery was so placed that he could blow the House of Commons into the
river in an hour.

At six o'clock the German terms were accepted, a provisional declaration
of peace was signed, and public proclamations to that effect, embodying
reference to the deadly perils which would be incurred by those taking
part in any kind of street disorder, were issued to the public. As to
the nature of the German terms, it must be admitted that they were as
pitiless as the German tactics throughout the invasion, and as surely
designed to accomplish their end and object. Berlin had not forgotten
the wonderful recuperative powers which enabled France to rise so
swiftly from out of the ashes of 1870. Britain was to be far more
effectually crippled.

The money indemnity demanded by General von Fuechter was the largest ever
known: one thousand million pounds sterling. But it must be remembered
that the enemy already held the Bank of England. One hundred millions,
or securities representing that amount, were to be handed over within
twenty-four hours. The remaining nine hundred millions were to be paid
in nine annual instalments of one hundred millions each, the first of
which must be paid within three months. Until the last payment was made,
German troops were to occupy Glasgow, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Devonport,
Chatham, Yarmouth, Harwich, Hull, and Newcastle. The Transvaal was to be
ceded to the Boers under a German Protectorate. Britain was to withdraw
all pretensions regarding Egypt and Morocco, and to cede to Germany,
Gibraltar, Malta, Ceylon, and British West Africa.

It is not necessary for me to quote the few further details of the most
exacting demands a victor ever made upon a defeated enemy. There can be
no doubt that, in the disastrous circumstances they had been so largely
instrumental in bringing about, "The Destroyers" had no choice, no
alternative from their acceptance of these crushing terms.

And thus it was that--not at the end of a long and hard-fought war, as
the result of vast misfortunes or overwhelming valour on the enemy's
side, but simply as the result of the condition of utter and lamentable
defencelessness into which a truckling Government and an undisciplined,
blindly selfish people had allowed England to lapse--the greatest,
wealthiest Power in civilization was brought to its knees in the
incredibly short space of one week, by the sudden but scientifically
devised onslaught of a single ambitious nation, ruled by a monarch whose
lack of scruples was more than balanced by his strength of purpose.




XXI

ENGLAND ASLEEP

    Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,
    And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,
    Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.

                                              LOWELL.


General von Fuechter and his splendidly trained troops were not the only
people in England for whom the mere fatigue of that week was something
not easily to be forgotten. My impression of its last three days is that
they brought no period of rest for any one. I know that there were as
many people in the streets by night as by day. The act of going within
doors or sitting down, seemed in some way to be a kind of cowardice, a
species of shirking, or disloyalty.

I remember Constance Grey assuring me that she had lain down for an hour
on Thursday. I can say with certainty that we were both of us on our
feet from that time until after the terms of the surrender were made
known on Saturday evening. I can also say that no thought of this matter
of physical weariness occurred to me until that period of Saturday
evening--soon after seven o'clock it was--when the proclamations were
posted up in Whitehall, and the special issues of the newspapers
containing the peace announcements began to be hawked.

An issue of the _Standard_, a single sheet, with broad black borders,
was the first press announcement to reach the public; and it contained a
grave, closely reasoned address from the most famous statesman of the
Opposition, urging upon the public the need vital of exercising the
utmost cautiousness and self-restraint.

"England has been stricken to the earth," said this dignified statement.
"Her condition is critical. If the injury sustained is not to prove
mortal, the utmost circumspection is required at this moment. The
immediate duty of every loyal subject is quietly to concentrate his
energies for the time upon the restoration of normal conditions. In that
way only can our suffering country be given that breathing space which
is the first step toward recuperation. For my part, I can conceive of no
better, quicker method for the individual of serving this end than for
him to make the speediest possible return to the pursuit of his ordinary
avocation in life. It is to be hoped that, bearing in mind our urgent
need, all employers of labour will do their utmost to provide immediate
occupation for their work-people. It is not in the tragic catastrophe of
the past week, but in the ordeal of this moment, of the coming days,
that the real test of England's endurance lies. Never before was her
need so great; never before has Nelson's demand had so real and intimate
a message for each and every one of us. I pray God the response may ring
true. 'England expects that every man will do his duty!'"

I must not omit my tribute to those responsible for the salient fact
that this important issue of the journal whose unwavering Imperialism
had been scoffed at in the mad times before the Invasion, was not sold,
but distributed. Employment was found for hundreds of hungry men, women,
and children in its free distribution; their wage being the thing they
most desired: bread, with soup, which, as I learned that night, was
prepared in huge coppers in the foundry of the printing works.

I was with Constance Grey in Trafalgar Square when the news of the
accepted terms of peace reached us. We had just secured admission into
Charing Cross Hospital--not without considerable difficulty, for its
wards were crowded--for two wounded nurses from Epping. Together we read
the news, and when the end was reached it seemed to me that the light of
life and energy passed suddenly out of my companion. She seemed to
suffer some bodily change and loss, to be bereft of her spring and
erectness.

"Ah, well," she said, "I am very tired, Dick; and, do you know, it
occurs to me I have had nothing to eat since yesterday afternoon. I
wonder can we get away from these men, anywhere?"

The streets between Victoria and Hyde Park were lined by German cavalry
men, who sat motionless on their chargers, erect and soldierly, but, in
many cases, fast asleep.

We began to walk eastward, looking for some place in which we could rest
and eat. But every place seemed to be closed.

"How long have you been on your feet?" said Constance, as we passed the
Law Courts.

"Only since Thursday evening," I said. "I had a long rest in that cart,
you remember--the one I brought the lint and bandages in."

Just then we passed a tailor's shop-window, and, in a long, narrow strip
of mirror I caught a full-length reflection of myself. I positively
turned swiftly to see who could have cast that reflection. Four days
without shaving and without a change of collar; two days without even
washing my hands or face; four days without undressing, and eight hours'
work beside the North London entrenchments--these experiences had made a
wild-looking savage of me, and, until that moment, I had never thought
of my appearance.

Smoke, earth, and blood had worked their will upon me. My left hand,
from which two fingers were missing, was swathed in blackened bandages.
My right coat-sleeve had been cut off by a good-natured fellow who had
bandaged the flesh wound in my arm to stop its bleeding. My eyes glinted
dully in a black face, with curious white fringes round them, where
their moisture had penetrated my skin of smoked dirt. And here was I
walking beside Constance Grey!

Then I realized, for the first time, that Constance herself bore many
traces of these last few terrible days. In some mysterious fashion her
face and collar seemed to have escaped scot free; but her dress was
torn, ragged, and stained; and the intense weariness of her expression
was something I found it hard to bear.

Just then we met Wardle of the _Sunday News_, and he told us of the
bread and soup distribution in the _Standard_ office. Something warned
me that Constance had reached the limit of her endurance, and, in
another moment, she had reeled against me and almost fallen. I took her
in my arms, and Wardle walked beside me, up a flight of stairs and into
the office of the great newspaper. There I walked into the first room I
saw--the sanctum of some managerial bashaw, for aught I knew--and placed
Constance comfortably in a huge easy chair of green leather.

Wardle brought some water, for Constance was in a fainting state still;
but I hurried him off again to look for bread and soup. Meantime I
lowered Constance to the floor, having just remembered that in such a
case the head should be kept low. Her face was positively deathly--lips,
cheeks, all alike gray-white, save for the purple hollows under both
eyes. One moment I was taking stock of these things, as a doctor might;
the next I was on my knees and kissing the nerveless hand at her side,
all worn and bruised and stained as it was from her ceaseless strivings
of the past week. I knew then that, for me, though I should live a
hundred years and Constance should never deign to speak to me again,
there was but one woman in the world.

I am afraid Wardle found me at the same employ; but, though I remember
vaguely resenting his fresh linen and normally smart appearance, he was
a good fellow, and knew when to seem blind. All he said was:

"Here's the soup!"

[Illustration: "I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVELESS HAND"]

He had brought a small wash-hand basin full to the brim, and a loaf of
warm, new bread. As the steam of the hot soup reached me, I realized
that I was a very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides. It
may have been the steam of the soup that rallied Constance. I know that
within two minutes I was feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It
is a wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouthfuls of hot soup
upon an exhausted woman, whose exhaustion is due as much to lack of food
as need of rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though cracked, was
clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxurious little cabinet near the
chair one felt was dedicated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we
had invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink soup from as a
cup, but requires more careful manipulation when hot. If the side of the
tumbler becomes soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new
bread.

Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he was neatly dressed;
but he found a certain vicarious pleasure, I think, in watching
Constance and myself at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used
the seat of the green chair as a table--a strange meal, in strange
surroundings; but a better I never had, before or since. There was a
physical gratification, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the
colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face; a singularly
beautiful process of nature I thought it. Presently the door of the room
opened with a jerk, and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in.

"H'm!" he said brusquely. "Beg pardon!" And he was gone. I learned
afterwards that the room belonged to him, and that he came direct from a
conference of newspaper pundits called together at Westminster by the
Home Secretary. I do not know where he took refuge, but as for us we
went on with our soup and bread till repletion overtook us, as it
quickly does after long fasts, and renewed strength brought sighs of
contentment.

"Wardle," I remember saying to my journalistic friend, with absurd
earnestness, "have you anything to smoke?"

"I haven't a thing but my pipe," he said. "But wait a moment! There used
to be--yes. Look here!"

There was a drawer in a side-table near the great writing-table, and one
division of it was half-full of cigarettes, the other of Upman's
"Torpedoes."

"I will repay thee," I murmured irreverently, as I helped myself to one
of each, and lit the cigarette, having obtained permission from
Constance. It was the first tobacco I had tasted for forty-eight hours,
and I was a very regular smoker. I had not known my need till then, a
fact which will tell much to smokers.

"And now?" said Constance. Her eyelids were drooping heavily.

"Now I am going to take you straight out to South Kensington, and you
are going to rest."

I had never used quite that tone to Constance before. I think, till now,
hers had been the guiding and directing part. Yet her influence had
never been stronger upon me than at that moment.

"Well, of course, there are no cabs or omnibuses," said Wardle, "but a
man told me the Underground was running trains at six o'clock."

We had a long, long wait at Blackfriars' station, but a train came
eventually, and we reached the flat in South Kensington as a
neighbouring church clock struck ten. The journey was curious and
impressive from first to last. Fleet Street had been very much alive
still when we left it; and we saw long files of baggage wagons rumbling
along between Prussian lancers. But Blackfriars was deserted, the ticket
collector slept soundly on his box; the streets in South Kensington were
silent as the grave.

London slept that night for the first time in a week. I learned
afterwards how the long lines of German sentries in Pall Mall, Park
Lane, and elsewhere slept solidly at their posts; how the Metropolitan
police slept on their beats; how thousands of men, women, and children
slept in the streets of South London, whither they had fled
panic-stricken that morning. Conquerors and conquered together, the
whole vast city slept that night as never perhaps before or since. After
a week of terror, of effort, of despair, and of debauchery, the sorely
stricken capital of the British Empire lay that night like a city of the
dead. England and her invaders were worn out.

At the flat we found Mrs. Van Homrey placidly knitting.

"Well, young folk," she said cheerily; "I've had all the news, and
there's nothing to be said; and--there's bath and bed waiting for you,
Conny. I shall bring you something hot in your room."

Ah, the kindly comfort of that motherly soul's words! It was but a few
hours since her "Conny" had stood by my side on ground that was
literally blood-soaked. Since the previous night we had both seen Death
in his most terrible guise; Death swinging his dripping scythe through
scores of lives at a stroke. We had been in England's riven heart
throughout the day of England's bitterest humiliation; and Mrs. Van
Homrey had bed and bath waiting, with "something hot" for Constance to
take in her room.

"But, Aunty, if you could have seen----"

"Dear child, I know it all." She patted her niece's shoulder, and I
noticed the rings and the shiny softness of her fingers. She saw at a
glance--indeed, had seen beforehand, in anticipation--the wrought-up,
exhausted condition Constance had reached. "I know it all, dear," she
said soothingly. "But the time has come for rest now. Nothing else is
any good till that is done with. Come, child. God will send better days
for England. First, we must rest."

So Constance turned to leave the room.

"And you?" she said to me.

"I will see to him. You run along, my dear," said her aunt. So Constance
took my hand.

"Good night, Dick. You have been very good and kind, and--patient. Good
night!"

There was no spare bedroom in that little flat, but the dear old lady
had actually made up a bed for me on a couch in the drawing-room, and
before she retired for the night she made me free of the bathroom, and
supplied me with towels and such like matters, and gave me cake and
cocoa; a delicious repast I thought it. And so, while crushed and beaten
London lay sleeping off its exhaustion, I slept under Constance Grey's
roof, full of gratitude, and of a kind of new hope and gladness, very
foreign, one would have said, to my gruesome experiences of the past
forty-eight hours.

England, the old victorious island kingdom, bequeathed to us by Raleigh,
Drake, Nelson; the nineteenth-century England of triumphant
commercialism; England till then inviolate for a thousand years; rich
and powerful beyond all other lands; broken now under the invader's
heel--that ancient England slept.




PART II

THE AWAKENING


Exoriare aliquis de nostris ex ossibus ultor.--VIRGIL.




I

THE FIRST DAYS

    The river glideth at his own sweet will.
    Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
    And all that mighty heart is lying still!

       .       .       .       .       .

    Without Thee, what is all the morning's wealth?
    Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
    Dear Mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

                                              WORDSWORTH.


It is safe to say that England's exhausted sleep on the night of Black
Saturday marked the end of an era in British history. It was followed by
a curious, quiescent half-consciousness during Sunday. For the greater
part of that day I should suppose that more than half London's populace
continued its sleep.

One of the first things I realized after Monday morning's awakening in
my Bloomsbury lodging was that I must find wages and work speedily,
since I possessed no more than a very few pounds. As a fact, upon that
and several subsequent days I found plenty of work, if nothing
noticeable in the way of wages. I was second in command of one of the
food and labour bureaux which Constance Grey helped to organize, and all
the workers in these bureaux were volunteers.

Another of my first impressions after the crisis was a sense of my
actual remoteness, in normal circumstances, from Constance. Her father
had left Constance a quite sufficient income. Mrs. Van Homrey was in her
own right comfortably well-to-do. But, despite the exiguous nature of my
own resources, it was not the money question which impressed me most in
this connection, but rather the fact that, while my only acquaintances
in London were of a more or less discreditable sort, Constance seemed to
have friends everywhere, and these in almost every case people of
standing and importance. Her army friends were apt to be generals, her
political friends ex-Ministers, her journalistic friends editors, and so
forth. And I---- But you have seen my record up to this point.

Nobody could possibly want Constance so much as I did, I thought. But an
astonishing number of persons of infinitely more consequence than myself
seemed to delight to honour her, to obtain her cooeperation. And I loved
her. There was no possibility of my mistaking the fact. I had been used
to debate with myself regarding Sylvia Wheeler. There was no room for
debate where my feeling for Constance was concerned. The hour of her
breakdown in Fleet Street on Black Saturday had taught me so much.

In the face of my circumstances just then, the idea of making any
definite disclosure of my feelings to Constance seemed impracticable.
Yet there was one intimate passage between us during that week, the
nature of which I cannot precisely define. I know I conveyed some hint
to Constance of my feeling toward her, and I was made vaguely conscious
that anything like a declaration of love would have seemed shocking to
her at that time. She held that, at such a juncture, no merely personal
interests ought to be allowed to weigh greatly with any one. The
country's call upon its subjects was all-absorbing in the eyes of this
"one little bit of a girl from South Africa," as Crondall had called
her. It made me feel ashamed to realize how far short I fell (even after
the shared experiences culminating in Black Saturday) of her personal
standard of patriotism. Even now, my standing in her eyes, my immediate
personal needs, loomed nearer, larger in my mind than England's fate. I
admitted as much with some shamefacedness, and Constance said:

"Ah, well, Dick, I suspect that is a natural part of life lived entirely
in England, the England of the past. There was so little to arouse the
other part in one. All the surrounding influences were against it. My
life has been different. Once one has lived, in one's own home, through
a native rising, for instance, purely personal interests never again
seem quite so absorbing. The elemental things had been so long shut out
of English life. Why, do you know----?" And she began to tell me of one
of the schemes in which she was interested; in connection with which I
learned of a cable message she had received that day telling that John
Crondall was then on his way to England.

The least forgiving critics of "The Destroyers" have admitted that they
did their best and worked well during those strange weeks which came
immediately after the invasion. One reason of this was that party
feeling in politics had been scotched. The House of Commons met as one
party. There was no longer any real Opposition, unless one counted a
small section of rabid anti-Britishers, who were incapable of learning a
lesson; and even they carped but feebly, while the rest of the House
devoted its united energies to the conduct of the country's shattered
business with the single aim of restoring normal conditions. Throughout
the country two things were tacitly admitted. That the Government in
power must presently answer for its doings to the public before ceasing
to be a Government; and that the present was no time for such business
as that of a general election.

And so we had the spectacle of a Government which had entirely lost the
confidence of the electors, a Government anathematized from the Orkneys
to Land's End, carrying on its work with a unison and a complete freedom
from opposition such as had not been known before, even by the biggest
majority or the most popular Administration which had ever sat at
Westminster. For the first time, and by no effort of our own, we
obtained the rule of an Imperial Parliament devoted to no other end than
the nation's welfare. The House of Commons witnessed many novel
spectacles at that time--such as consultations between the leading
members of the Government and the Opposition. Most of its members
learned many valuable lessons in those first weeks of the new regime. It
is to be supposed that the Surrender Riot had taught them something.

It must also be admitted that General, or, as he now was, General Baron
von Fuechter, accomplished some fine work during this same period. It has
been said that he was but consulting the safety of his Imperial master's
armed forces; but credit may safely be given the General for the
discretion and despatch he used in distributing the huge body of troops
at his command, without hitch or friction, to the various centres which
it was his plan to occupy. His was a hand of iron, but he used it to
good purpose; and the few errors of his own men were punished with an
even more crushing severity than he showed where British offences were
concerned.

The task of garrisoning those English ports with German soldiers was no
light or easy one; no task for a light or gentle hand. In carrying out
this undertaking a very little weakness, a very small display of
indecision, might easily have meant an appalling amount of bloodshed. As
it was, the whole business was completed in a wonderfully short while,
and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and municipal
administration of these centres was to remain English; but supreme
authority was vested in the officer commanding the German forces in each
place, and the heads of such departments as the postal and the police,
were German. No kind of public gathering or demonstration was
permissible in these towns, unless under the auspices of the German
officer in command, who in each case was given the rank of Governor of
the town.

We had learned by this time that the Channel Fleet had not been entirely
swept away. But a portion of it was destroyed, and the remaining ships
had been entrapped. It was strategy which had kept British ships from
our coasts during the fatal week of the invasion. "The Destroyers" were
responsible for our weak-kneed concessions to Berlin some years earlier,
in the matter of wireless telegraphy. In the face of urgent
recommendations to the contrary from experts, the Government had yielded
to German pressure in the matter of making our own system
interchangeable, and had even boasted of their diplomacy in thus
ingratiating themselves with Germany. As a consequence, the enemy had
been able to convey messages purporting to come from the British
Admiralty and ordering British commanders to keep out of home waters.

That these messages should have been conveyed in secret code form was a
mystery which subsequent investigations failed to solve. Some one had
played traitor. But the history of the invasion has shown us that we had
very many traitors among us in those days; and there came a time when
the British public showed clearly that it was weary of Commissions of
Inquiry. Where so many, if not indeed all of us, were at fault, where
the penalty was so crushing, it was felt that there were other and more
appropriate openings for official energy and public interest than the
mere apportioning of blame and punishment, however well deserved.

The issue of what was called the "Invasion Budget" was Parliament's
first important act, after the dispersal of the German forces in
England, and the termination of the Government distribution of food
supplies. The alterations of customs tariff were not particularly
notable. The House had agreed that revenue was the objective to be
considered, and fiscal adjustments with reference to commerce were
postponed for the time. The great change was in the income-tax. The
minimum income to be taxed was L100 instead of, as formerly, L160. The
scale ran like this: sixpence in the pound upon incomes of between L100
and L150, ninepence from that to L200, one shilling from that to L250,
one and threepence from that to L500, one and sixpence from that to
L1,000, two shillings upon all incomes of between L1,000 and L5,000, and
four shillings in the pound upon all incomes of over L5,000.

It was on the day following that of the Invasion Budget issue that I
received a letter from my sister Lucy, in Davenham Minster, telling me
of my mother's serious illness, and asking me to come to her at once.
And so, after a hurried visit to the South Kensington flat to explain my
absence to Constance, I turned my back upon London, for the first time
in a year, and journeyed down into Dorset.




II

ANCIENT LIGHTS

    Then the progeny that springs
      From the forests of our land,
    Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
      Shall a wider world command.

    Regions Caesar never knew
      Thy posterity shall sway.

       .       .       .       .       .

                                              COWPER.


In the afternoon of a glorious summer's day, exactly three weeks after
leaving London, I stood beside the newly filled grave of my mother in
the moss-grown old churchyard of Davenham Minster.

My dear mother was not one of those whose end was hastened by the shock
of England's disaster. Doctor Wardle gave us little hope of her recovery
from the first. The immediate cause of death was pneumonia; but I
gathered that my mother had come to the end of her store of vitality,
and, it may be, of desire for life. I have sometimes thought that her
complete freedom from those domestic cares of housekeeping, which had
seemed to be the very source and fountainhead of continuous worry for
her, may actually have robbed my mother of much of her hold upon life.
In these last days I had been almost continuously beside her, and I
know that she relinquished her life without one sigh that spelt regret.

Standing there at the edge of her grave in the hoary churchyard of the
Minster, I was conscious of the loss of the last tie that bound me to
the shelter of youth: the cared-for, irresponsible division of a man's
life. The England of my youth was no more. Now, in the death of my
mother, it seemed as if I had stepped out of one generation into
another. I had entered a new generation, and was alone in it.

I was to sleep at my sister's house that night, but I had no wish to go
there now. Doctor Wardle's forced gravity, his cheerful condolences,
rather worried me. So it happened that I set out to walk from the
churchyard, and presently found myself upon the winding upland road that
led out of the rich Davenham valley, over the Ridgeway, and into the
hilly Tarn Regis country, where I was born.

I drank a mug of cider in the quaint little beerhouse kept by Gammer Joy
in Tarn Regis, and read again the doggerel her grandfather had painted
on its sign-board, in which the traveller was advised of the various
uses of liquor, taken in moderation, and the evil effects of its abuse.
Taken wisely, I remember, it was suggested that liquor proved the best
of lubricants for the wheels of life. Mrs. Joy looked just as old and
just as active and rosy as she had always looked for so long as I could
remember; and she hospitably insisted upon my eating a large slab of her
dough cake with my cider--a very excellent comestible it was.

The old dame's mood was cheerfully pessimistic--that is to say, she was
garrulous, and spoke cheerily of generally downward tendencies. Thus,
the new rector, by her way of it, was of a decadent modern type, full of
newfangled "Papish" notions as to church vestments and early services,
and neglectful of traditional responsibilities connected with soup and
coal and medical comforts. Cider was no longer what it used to be, I
gathered, since the big brewers took it in hand, and spoiled the trade
of those who had hand-presses. As for farming, Gammer Joy held that it
was not near so good a trade for master or man with land at fifteen
shillings the acre, as much of it was thereabouts, as it had been with
rents up to two or three pounds, and food twice as dear as now.

"But there, Master Dick," said the old lady; "I suppose we be all
Germans now--so they do tell me, however; an' if we be no better nor
furriners here in Darset, why I doan't know as't matters gertly wha'
cwomes to us at all. But I will say things wor different in your
feyther's time, Master Dick--that they was. Ah doan't believe he'd ha'
put up wi' this German business for a minute, that ah doan't."

I gathered that the new rector was an earnest young man and a hard
worker; but, evidently, those of Gammer Joy's generation preferred my
father's aloofness in conjunction with his regular material
dispensations, and his habit of leaving folk severely to themselves, so
far as their thoughts and feelings were concerned.

The cottagers with whom I talked that summer's evening cherished a
monumental ignorance regarding the real significance of the events
which had shaken England to its very roots since I had last seen Tarn
Regis. Gammer Joy's view seemed to be fairly typical. We had become
German; England belonged to Germany; the Radicals had sold us to the
Kaiser--and so forth. But no German soldiers had been seen in Dorset.
The whole thing was shadowy, academic, a political business; suitable
enough for the discussion of Londoners, no doubt, but, after all, of
small bearing upon questions of real and intimate interest, such as the
harvest, the weather, and the rate of wages.

"Sims queer, too, that us should be born again like, and become
Germans," said one man to me; "but ah doan't know as it meakes much odds
to the loike o' we; though ah hev heerd as how Farmer Jupp be thinkin'
o' gettin' shut o' his shartharn bull that won the prize to Davenham,
an' doin' wi' fower men an' a b'y, in place o' sevin. Well, o' course,
us has to keep movin' wi' the times, as sayin' is; an' 'tis trew them
uplan' pastures o' Farmer Jupp's they do be mos' onusual poor an' leery,
as you med say."

Twilight already held the land in its grave embrace when I made my way
along Abbott's Lane (my father had devoted months to the task of tracing
the origin of that name) and began the ascent of Barebarrow, by crossing
which diagonally one reaches the Davenham turnpike from Tarn Regis, a
shorter route by nearly a mile than that of the road past the mill and
over the bridge. And so, presently, my feet were treading turf which had
probably been turf before the Christian era. Smooth and vast against the
sky-line, Barebarrow lay above me, like a mammoth at rest.

On its far side was our Tarn Regis giant, a famous figure cut in the
turf, and clearly visible from the tower of Davenham Minster. Long ago,
in my earliest childhood, village worthies had given me the story of
this figure--how once upon a time a giant came and slew all the Tarn
Regis flocks for his breakfast. Then he lay down to sleep behind
Barebarrow, and while he slept the enraged shepherds and work-folk bound
him with a thousand cart-ropes, and slew him with a thousand scythes and
forks and other homely implements. And then, that posterity might know
his fearsome bulk, they cut out the turf all round his form, and eke the
outline of the club beside him, and left the figure there to commemorate
their valour and the loss of their flocks. Some three hundred feet long
it was, I think, with a club the length of a tall pine-tree. In any
case, the Tarn Regis lad who would excel in feats of strength had but to
spend the night of Midsummer's Eve in the crook of the giant's arm (as
some one or two did every year), and other youths of the countryside
could never stand a chance with him.

I paused on the ledge below the barrow beside a ruined shepherd's hut,
and recalled the fact that here my father had unearthed sundry fragments
of stone and pieces of implements which the Dorchester Museum curator
had welcomed as very early British relics. They went back, I remembered,
to long before the Roman period; to days possibly more remote than those
of ancient Barebarrow himself. If you refer to a good map you will find
this spot surrounded by such indications of immemorial antiquity as
"Tumuli," "British Village," and the like. The Roman encampment on the
other side of Davenham Minster was modernity itself, I thought, compared
with this ancient haunt of the neolithic forerunners of the early
Briton; this resting-place of men whose doings were a half-forgotten
story many centuries before the birth of Julius Caesar.

I sat down on the grassy ledge and looked out across the lichen-covered
roofs and squat, rugged church tower of Tarn Regis; and pictures rose in
my mind, pictures to some extent inspired, perhaps, by scraps I had read
of learned essays written by my father. He had loved this ancient
ground; he had been used to finger the earth hereabouts as a man might
finger his mistress's hair. I do not know what period my twilit fancy
happened upon, but it was assuredly a later one than that of Barebarrow,
for I saw shaggy warriors with huge pointless swords, their hilts
decorated with the teeth of wild beasts--a Bronze Age vision, no doubt.
I saw rude chariots of war, with murderous scythe-blades on their
wheels--and, in a flash then, the figure of Boadicea: that valiant
mother of our race, erect and fearless in her chariot--

    Regions Caesar never knew,
    Thy posterity shall sway!

"Thy posterity shall sway!" If you repeat the lines to yourself you may
see the outline of my vision. There at the foot of Barebarrow I saw that
Queen of ancient Britons at the head of her wild, shaggy legions. "The
Roman Army can never withstand the shouts and clamour of so many
thousands, far less their shock and fury," said the Queen. I saw her
lead her valiant horde upon Colchester, and for me the ancient rudeness
of it all was shot through and through with glimpses of the scientific
sacking of Colchester, as I had read of it but a few weeks ago. I saw
the advance of the Roman Governor; the awful slaughter of the British;
the end of the brave Queen who could not brook defeat: the most
heart-stirring episode in English history.

"Thy posterity shall sway!" I recalled the solemn splendour of another
great Queen's passing--that which I had seen with my own eyes while
still a lad at Rugby: the stately gathering of the great ships at
Spithead; the end of Victoria the Good. No more than a step it seemed
from my vision of the unconquerable Boadicea. But to that other
onslaught upon Colchester--to General von Fuechter's slaughter of women
and children and unarmed men in streets of houses whose ashes must be
warm yet--O Lord, how far! I thought. Could it really be that a thousand
years of inviolability had been broken, ended, in those few wild days;
ended for ever?

Lights twinkled now among the nestling houses of the little place where
I was born. They made me think of torches, the clash of arms, the
spacious mediaeval days when Davenham Minster supported a great
monastery, whose lordly abbot owned the land Tarn Regis stood upon.

And then the little lights grew misty and dim in my eyes as glimpses
came of my own early days; of play on that very ridge-side where I sat
now, where I had then romantically sworn friendship with George Stairs
on the eve of my departure for Elstree School, and his leaving with his
father for Canada. How had I kept my vow? Where was George Stairs now?
There was not a foot of that countryside we had not roamed together. My
eyes pricked as I looked and listened. Exactly so, I thought, the
sheep-bells had sounded below Barebarrow when I had lain listening to
them in that low-pitched back bedroom of the Rectory which I had been
proud to hear called "Dick's Room," after my first experience of
sleeping alone.

Then for a space my mind was blank as the dark valley beyond the
village--until thoughts and pictures of recent happenings began to oust
the gentler memories, and I lived over again the mad, wild, tragic week
which culminated in the massacre of the North London trenches. But in
the light of my previous musings I saw these happenings differently,
more personally, than in the actual experience of them. It seemed now
that not my country only, but myself, had been struck down and humbled
to the dust by the soldiers of the Kaiser. I saw the broad fair faces of
the German cavalry as they had sat their horse in Whitehall on the
evening of Black Saturday. I heard again the clank of their arms, the
barking of guttural orders. Could it be that they had mastered England?
that for nine long years we were to be encircled by their garrisons?
Nine years of helotry!

A sudden coolness in the air reminded me of the lateness of the hour,
and I rose and began to cross Barebarrow.

But this ancient land was British in every blade of its grass, I
thought--root and crop, hill and dale, above and beneath, no single sod
of it but was British. Surely nothing could alter that. Nine years of
helotry! I heard again the confused din of the Westminster Riot; the
frantic crowd's insistent demand for surrender, for unconditional
surrender. And now the nation's word was pledged. Our heads were bowed
for nine years long.

Suddenly, then, as I descended upon the turnpike, a quite new thought
came to me. The invasion had overridden all law, all custom, all
understandings. The invasion was an act of sheer lawless brutality. No
surrender could bind a people to submission in the face of such an
outrage as that. The Germans must be driven out; the British people must
rise and cast them out, and overthrow for ever their insolent dominion.
But too many of the English people were--like myself! Well, they must
learn; we must all learn; every able-bodied man must learn; for a blow
had to be struck that should free England for ever. The country must be
awakened to realization of that need. We owed so much to the brave ones
who gave us England; so much could be demanded of us by those that came
after. The thing had got to be.

I walked fast, I remember, and singing through my head as I entered
Davenham Minster, long after my sister's supper hour, were the lines to
which I had never till then paid any sort of heed:

    Regions Caesar never knew,
    Thy posterity shall sway!




III

THE RETURN TO LONDON

                Oh! 'tis easy
    To beget great deeds; but in the rearing of them--
    The threading in cold blood each mean detail,
    And furze brake of half-pertinent circumstance--
    There lies the self-denial.

                                              CHARLES KINGSLEY.


I spent but one other day in Dorset after my walk out to Tarn Regis, and
then took train in the morning for London.

I believe I have said before that Doctor Wardle, my sister's husband,
was prosperous and popular. The fact made it natural for me to accept my
mother's disposition of her tiny property, which, in a couple of
sentences, she had bequeathed solely to me. My sister had no need of the
hundred and fifty pounds a year that was derived from my mother's little
capital, which had been invested in Canadian securities and was
unaffected by England's losses. Thus I was now possessed of means
sufficient to provide me with the actual necessities of life; and,
though I had not thought of it before, realization of this came to me
while I attended to the winding up of my mother's small affairs,
bringing with it a certain sense of comfort and security.

It was with a strongly hopeful feeling, a sense almost of elation, that
I stepped from the train at Waterloo. My quiet days and nights in Dorset
had taught me something; and, particularly, I had gained much, in
conviction and in hope, from the evening spent by Barebarrow. I cannot
say that I had any definite plans, but I was awake to a genuine sense of
duty to my native land, and that was as strange a thing for me as for a
great majority of my fellow countrymen. I was convinced that a great
task awaited us all, and I determined upon the performance of my part in
it. I suppose I trusted that London would show me the particular form
that my effort should take. Meanwhile, as a convert, the missionary
feeling was strong in me.

I might have made shift to afford better quarters, perhaps, but it was
to my original lodging in Bloomsbury that I drove from Waterloo. Some
few belongings of mine were there, and I entertained a friendly sort of
feeling for my good-hearted but slatternly landlady, and for poor,
overworked Bessie, with her broad, generally smutty face, and lingering
remains of a Dorset accent. The part of London with which I was familiar
had resumed its normal aspect now, and people were going about their
ordinary avocations very much as though England never had been invaded.

But in the north and east of the capital were streets of burned and
blackened houses, and the Epping and Romford districts were one
wilderness of ruins, and of graves; while across East Anglia, from the
coast to the Thames, the trail of the invaders was as the track of a
locust plague, but more terrible by reason of its blood-soaked
trenches, its innumerable shallow graves, and its charred remains of
once prosperous towns. Hundreds of ruined farmers and small landholders
were working as navvies at bridge and road and railway repairs.

A great many people had been ruined during those few nightmare days of
the invasion, and every man in England was burdened now with a scale of
taxation never before known in the country. But business had resumed its
sway, and London looked very much as ever. The need there was for a
general making good, from London to the Wash, provided a great deal of
employment, and the Government had taken such steps as it could to make
credit easy. But Consols were still as low as sixty-eight; prices had
not yet fallen to the normal level, and money was everywhere scarce.

In the middle afternoon I set out for South Kensington to see Constance
Grey, to whom I had written only once during my absence, and then only
to tell her of my mother's death. She had replied by telegraph, a
message of warm and friendly sympathy. I knew well that she was always
busy, and, like most moderns who have written professionally, I suppose
we were both bad correspondents. Now there was much of which I wanted to
talk with Constance, and it was with a feeling of sharp disappointment
that I learned from the servant at the flat that she was not at home.
Mrs. Van Homrey was in, however, and in a few moments I was with her in
the little drawing-room where I had passed the night of London's
exhausted sleep on Black Saturday.

"Yes, you have just missed my niece," said Mrs. Van Homrey, after a
kindly reference to the strip of crepe on my arm. "She has gone in to
Victoria Street to a 'conference of the powers' of John Crondall's
convening. Oh, didn't you know he was here again? Yes, he arrived last
week, and, as usual, is up to his neck in affairs already, and Constance
with him. I verily believe that child has discovered the secret of
perpetual motion."

At first mention of John Crondall's name my heart had warmed to its
recollection of the man, and a pleasurable thought of meeting him again.
And immediately then the warm feeling had been penetrated by a vague
sense of disquiet, when Mrs. Van Homrey spoke of his affairs--"and
Constance with him." But I was not then conscious of the meaning of my
momentary discomfort, though, both then and afterwards, I read emphasis
and meaning into Mrs. Van Homrey's coupling of the two names. I asked
what the "conference" was about, but gathered that Mrs. Van Homrey was
not very fully informed.

"I know they are to meet these young Canadian preachers who are so
tremendously praised by the _Standard_---- What are their names, again?
Tcha! How treacherous my memory grows! You know the men I mean. John
Crondall met them the day after their arrival last week, and is
enthusiastic about them."

I felt very much out of the movement. During the few days immediately
preceding my mother's death, and since then, I had not even seen a
newspaper, and, being unusually preoccupied, not only over the events
of my stay at Davenham Minster, but by developments in my own thoughts,
I seemed to have lost touch with current affairs.

"And what does John Crondall think of the outlook?" I asked.

"Well, I think his fear is that people in the country--outside East
Anglia, of course--may fail to realize all that the invasion has meant
and will mean; and that Londoners and townsfolk generally may slip back
into absorption in business and in pleasure as soon as they can afford
that again, and forget the fact that England is practically under
Germany's heel still."

"The taxes will hardly allow them to do that, surely," I said.

"Well, I don't know. The English are a wonderful people. The invasion
was so swift and sudden; the opposition to it was so comparatively
trifling; surrender and peace came so soon, that really I don't know but
what John is right. He generally is. You must remember that millions of
the people have not seen a German soldier. They have had no discipline
yet. Even here in London, as soon as the people spoke decidedly, peace
followed. They did not have to strike a blow. They did not feel a blow.
They were not with you and Conny, remember, at those awful trenches.
Anyhow, John thinks the danger is lest they forget again, and regard the
whole tragic business as a new proof of England's ability to 'muddle
through' anything, without any assistance from them. Of course,
England's wealth is still great, and her recuperative powers are
wonderful; but John Crondall holds that, in spite of that, submission
to nine years of German occupation and German tribute-paying will mean
the end of the British Empire."

"And he feels that the people must be stirred into seeing that and
acting on it?" I said, recalling my own thoughts during the night walk
from Barebarrow.

"Yes, I suppose that is his view. But, now I come to think of it, why
should you waste your time in talking to an old woman who can only give
you echoes? It is only half an hour since Conny started. Why not hurry
on to John Crondall's place, and join them there? He has often spoken of
you, Conny tells me."

This seemed to me too good a suggestion to neglect, and ten minutes
later I was on my way to St. James's Park by underground railway. I
bought an evening paper on my way, and read an announcement to the
effect that General Baron von Fuechter, after returning to Portsmouth
from his visit to Berlin, had definitely decided that Portsmouth and
Devonport could no longer remain British naval bases, and that no
British sailors or soldiers in uniform could in future be admitted into
any of the towns in England now occupied by Germany.




IV

THE CONFERENCE

    Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
    In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
    Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or
              blight,
    Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
    And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

                                              JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.


A few seconds after his servant had shown me into the dining-room of
John Crondall's flat, the man himself entered to me with a rush, as his
manner was, both hands outstretched to welcome me.

"Good man!" he said. "I've had fine news of you from Constance Grey, and
now you're here to confirm it. Splendid!"

And then, with sudden gravity, and a glance at my coat sleeve: "I heard
of your loss. I know what it means. I lost my mother when I was in Port
Arthur, and I know London looked different because of it when I got
back. It's a big wrench; one we've all got to face."

"Yes. I think my mother died without regret; she was very tired."

There was a pause, and then I said:

"But I may have chosen my time badly, to-day. Mrs. Van Homrey said you
had a conference. If you----"

"Tut, tut, man! Don't talk nonsense. I was just going to say how well
you'd timed things. I don't know about a conference, but Constance is
here, and Varley, and Sir Herbert Tate--he took on the secretaryship of
the Army League, you know, after Gilbert chucked it--and Winchester. You
know Winchester, the Australian rough-rider, who did such fine work with
his bushman corps in the South African war--and--let me see! And Forbes
Thompson, the great rifle clubman, you know; _and_ the Canadian
preachers--splendid fellows, by Jove! Simply splendid they are, I can
tell you. I look for great things from those two. Stairs is English, of
course, but he's been nearly all his life in British Columbia and the
Northwest, and he's got all the eternal youth, the fire and grit and
enthusiasm of the Canadian, with--somehow, something else as well--good.
His chum, Reynolds, is an out-and-out Canadian, born in Toronto of
Canadian parents. Gad, there's solid timber in that chap, I can tell
you. But, look here! Come right in, and take a hand. I'm awfully glad
you came. I heard all about _The Mass_ and that; but, bless me, I can
see in your eye that that's all past and done with for ever. By the way,
I heard last night that your Mr. Clement Blaine had got a job after his
own heart, in the pay of the Germans at Chatham--interpreter in the
passport office, or some such a thing. What a man! Well, come along in,
my dear chap, and give us the benefit of your wisdom."

We were leaving the room now.

"I knew you'd like Constance," he said. "She's the real thing, isn't
she?"

I despised myself for the hint of chill his words brought me. What right
had I to suspect or resent? And in any case John Crondall spoke in his
customary frank way, with never a hint of afterthought.

"Yes," I said; "she's splendid."

"And such a head-piece, my boy. By Jove, she has a better head for
business than---- Here we are, then."

Constance Grey was naturally the first to greet me in the big room where
John Crondall did his work and met his friends. There was welcome in her
beautiful eyes, but, obviously, Constance was very much preoccupied.
Then I was presented to Sir Morell Strachey, Sir Herbert Tate, and
Forbes Thompson, and then to the Canadian parson, the Rev. George
Stairs. I had paid no attention to the name when Crondall had mentioned
it in the other room. Now, as he named the parson again, I looked into
the man's face, and----

"Mordan? Why, not Dick Mordan, of Tarn Regis?" said the parson.

"By gad! George Stairs! I was thinking of you on the side of Barebarrow
the night before last."

"And I was thinking of you, Dicky Mordan, yesterday afternoon, when I
met the present rector of Tarn Regis at a friend's house."

It was a long strong handshake that we exchanged. Sixteen years on the
young side of thirty is a considerable stretch of time, and all that
had passed since I had last seen my old Tarn Regis playmate.

Stairs introduced me to his friend, Reynolds, and I learned the curious
fact that this comrade and chum of my old friend's was also a parson,
but not of Stairs's church. Reynolds had qualified at a theological
training college in Ontario, and had been Congregational minister in the
parish of which Stairs had been vicar for the last three years.

There was a big table in the middle of the room, littered over with
papers and writing materials. About this table we presently all found
seats.

"Now look here, my friends," said John Crondall, "this is no time for
ceremoniousness, apologies, and the rest of it, and I'm not going to
indulge in any. No doubt we've all of us got special interests of our
own, but there's one we all share; and it comes first with all of us, I
think. We all want the same thing for England and the Empire, and we all
want to do what we can to help. It's because of that I dismiss the
ceremonies, and don't say anything about the fear of boring you, and all
that. I don't even make exceptions of you, Stairs, or you, Reynolds. I
tell you quite frankly I want to poke and pry into your plans. I want to
know all about 'em. I've sense enough to see that you wield a big
influence. I am certain I have your sympathy in my aims. And I want to
find out how far I can make your aims help my aims. All I know is that
you have addressed three meetings, each bigger than the last; and that
your preaching is the real right thing. Now I want you to tell us as
much as you will about your plans. You know we are all friends here."

Stairs looked at Reynolds, and Reynolds nodded at Stairs.

"Well," said the latter, smiling, first at Crondall, and then at me,
"our plans are simplicity itself. In Canada we have not risen yet to the
cultivation of much diplomacy. We don't understand anything of your high
politics, and we don't believe in roundabout methods. For instance, I
suppose here in England you don't find parsons of one denomination
working in partnership much with parsons of another denomination. Well,
now, when I took over from my predecessor at Kootenay, I found my friend
Reynolds doing a fine work there, among the farmers and miners, as
Congregational minister. He was doing precisely the work I wanted to do;
but there was only one of him. Was I to fight shy of him, or set to
work, as it were, in opposition to him? Well, anyhow, that didn't seem
to me the way. We had our own places of worship; but, for the rest, both
desiring the one thing--the Christian living of the folk in our
district--we worked absolutely shoulder to shoulder. There were a few
worthy folk who objected; but when Reynolds and I came to talk it over,
we decided that these had as much religion as was good for them already,
and that we could afford rather to ignore them, if by joint working we
could rope in the folk who had next to none at all---- You must forgive
my slang, Miss Grey."

Constance smiled across at the parson.

"You forget, Mr. Stairs, I grew up on the veld," she said.

"Ah, to be sure; I suppose one is as close to the earth and the
realities there as in Canada."

"Quite," said Crondall. "And, anyhow, we are not doing any apologies
to-day; so please go ahead."

"Well," continued George Stairs, "we often talked over Old Country
affairs, Reynolds and I. Reynolds had only spent three months over here
in his life, but I fancy I learned more from him than he from me."

"That's a mistake, of course," said Reynolds. "He had the facts and the
knowledge. I merely supplied a fresh point of view--home-grown
Canadian."

"Ah, well, we found ourselves very much in agreement, anyhow, about Home
affairs and about the position of the Anglican Church in Canada; the
need there is for less exclusiveness and more direct methods. The idea
of coming Home and preaching through England, a kind of pilgrimage--that
was entirely Reynolds's own. I would have come with him gladly, when we
had our district in good going order out there. But, you see, I had no
money. My friend had a little. Then my father died. He had been ailing
for a long time, and I verily think the news of the invasion broke his
heart. He died in the same week that it reached him, and left his two
farms, with some small house property, to me.

"My father's death meant for me a considerable break. The news from
England shocked me inexpressibly. It was such a terrible realization of
the very fears that Reynolds and myself had so often discussed--the
climax and penalty of England's mad disregard of duty; of every other
consideration except pleasure, easy living, comfort, and money-making."

"This is the pivot of the whole business, that duty question,"
interposed Crondall. "It was your handling of that on Tuesday that
burdened you with my acquaintance. I listened to that, and I said, 'Mr.
George Stairs and you have got to meet, John Crondall!' But I didn't
mean to interrupt."

"Well, as I say, I found myself rather at a parting of the ways, and
then came my good friend here, and he said, 'What about these farms and
houses of yours, Stairs? They represent an income. What are you going to
do about it?' And--well, you see, that settled it. We just packed our
bags and came over."

"And now that you are here?" said John Crondall.

"Well, you heard what we had to say the other afternoon?"

"I did--every word of it."

"Well, that's what we are here for. Our aim is to take that message to
every man and woman in this country; and we believe God will give us
zest and strength enough to bring it home to them--to make them _feel_
the truth of it. Your aim, naturally, is political and patriotic. I
don't think you can have any warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and
myself. But our part, as you see, is another one, and outside politics.
We believe the folk at Home have lost their bearings; their compasses
want adjusting. I say here what I should not venture to admit to a less
sympathetic and indulgent audience: Reynolds and myself aim at arousing,
by God's will, the sleeping sense of duty in our kinsmen here at Home.
We have no elaborate system, no finesse, no complicated issues to
consider. Our message is simply: 'You have forgotten Duty; and the
Christian life is not possible while Duty remains forgotten or ignored.'
Our purpose is just to give the message; to prove it; make it real; make
it felt."

Crondall had been looking straight at the speaker while he listened, his
face resting between his two hands, his elbows planted squarely on the
table. Now he seemed to pounce down upon Stairs's last words.

"And yet you say your part is another one than ours. But why not the
same? Why not the very essence and soul of our part, Stairs?"

"Gad--he's right!" said Sir Herbert Tate, in an undertone. Reynolds
leaned forward in his chair, his lean, keen face alight.

"Why not the very soul of our part, Stairs--the essential first step
toward our end? Our part is to urge a certain specific duty on them--a
duty we reckon urgent and vital to the nation. But we can't do that
unless we, or you, can first do your part--rousing them to the sense of
duty--Duty itself. Man, but your part is the foundation of our
part--foundation, walls, roof, corner-stone, complete! We only give the
structure a name. Why, I give you my word, Stairs, that that address of
yours on Tuesday was the finest piece of patriotic exhortation I ever
listened to."

"But--it's very kind of you to say so; but I never mentioned King or
country."

"Exactly! You gave them the root of the whole matter. You cleared a way
into their hearts and heads which is open now for news of King and
country. It's as though I had to collect some money for an orphanage
from a people who'd never heard of charity. Before I see the people you
teach 'em the meaning and beauty of charity--wake the charitable sense
in them. You needn't bother mentioning orphanages; but if I come along
in your rear, my chances of collecting the money are a deal rosier than
if you hadn't been there first--what?"

"I see--I see," said Stairs, slowly.

"Mr. Crondall, you ought to have been a Canadian," said Reynolds, in his
dry way. His use of the "Mr.," even to a man who had no hesitation in
calling him plain "Reynolds," was just one of the tiny points of
distinction between himself and Stairs.

"Oh, Canada has taught me something; and so have South Africa and India;
and so have you and Stairs, with your mission, or pilgrimage, or
whatever it is--your Message."

"Well," said Stairs, "it seems to me your view of our pilgrimage is a
very kindly, and perhaps flattering one; and as I have said, your aims
as a citizen of the Empire and a lover of the Old Country could not have
warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself; but----"

"Mind, I'm not trying to turn your religious teaching to any ignoble
purpose," said Crondall, quickly. "I am not asking you to introduce a
single new word or thought into it for my sake."

"That's so," said Reynolds, his eye upon Stairs.

"Quite so, quite so," said Stairs. "And, of course, I am with you in all
you hope for; but you know, Crondall, religion is perhaps a rather
different matter to a parson from what it is to you. Forgive me if I put
it clumsily, but----"

And now, greatly daring, I ventured upon an interruption, speaking upon
impulse, without consideration, and hearing my voice as though it were
something outside myself.

"George Stairs," I said--and I fancy the thoughts of both of us went
back sixteen years--"what was it you thought about the Congregational
minister when you took over your post at Kootenay? How did you decide to
treat him? Did you ever regret the partnership?"

"Now if that isn't straight out Western fashion!" murmured Reynolds.
Constance beamed at me from her place beside John Crondall.

"I leave it at that," said our host.

"A palpable bull's-eye," said Forbes Thompson.

I hardly needed George Stairs's friendly clap on the shoulder, nor the
assurance of his:

"You are right, Dick. You have shown me my way in three words."

"Good," said Reynolds. "Well, now I don't mind saying what I wouldn't
have said before, that among the notes we drew up nearly three years
ago----"

"You drew up, my friend," said Stairs.

"Among the notes we drew up, I say, on this question of neglected duty,
were details as to the citizen's obligations regarding the defence of
his home and native land, with special reference to the callous neglect
of Lord Roberts's campaign of warning and exhortation. Now, Stairs, you
know as well as I do, you wrote with your own hand the passage about the
Englishman's sphere of duty being as much wider than his country as
Greater Britain was wider than Great Britain. You know you did."

"Oh, you can count me in, all right, Reynolds; you know I'm not one for
half-measures."

"Well, now, my friends, I believe I see daylight. By joining hands I
really believe we are going to accomplish something for England."
Crondall looked round the table at the faces of his friends. "We are all
agreed, I know, that the present danger is the danger Kipling tried to
warn us about years and years ago."

"'Lest we forget!'" quoted Sir Herbert quietly.

"Exactly. There are so many in England who have neither seen nor felt
anything of the blow we have had."

And here I told them something of what I had seen and heard in Dorset;
how remote and unreal the whole thing was to folk there.

"That's it, exactly," continued Crondall. "That's one difficulty which
has just got to be overcome. Another is the danger that, among those who
did see and feel something of it, here in London, and even in East
Anglia, the habit of apathy in national matters, and the calls of
business and pleasure may mean forgetting, indifference--the old fatal
neglect. You see, we must remember that, crushing as the blow was, it
did not actually reach so very many people. It did not force them to get
up and fight for their lives. It was all over so soon. Directly they
cried out, 'The Destroyers' answered with surrender, and so helped to
strengthen the fatal delusion they had cherished so long, that
everything is a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence."

"'They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs,'" quoted
Forbes Thompson, with a nod of assent.

"Yes, yes. 'Make alliances, and leave me to my business!' One knows it
all so well. But, mind you, even to the blindest of them, the invasion
has meant something."

"And the income-tax will mean something to 'em, too," said Sir Morell
Strachey.

"Yes. But the English purse is deep, and the Englishman has long years
of money-spinning freedom from discipline behind him. Still, here is
this brutal fact of the invasion. Here we are actually condemned to nine
years of life inside a circle of German encampments on English soil,
with a hundred millions a year of tribute to pay for the right to live
in our own England. Now my notion is that the lesson must not be lost.
The teaching of the thing must be forced home. It must be burnt into
these happy-go-lucky countrymen of ours--if Stairs and Reynolds are to
achieve their end, or we ours."

"Our aim is to awake the sense of duty which seems to us to have become
atrophied, even among the professedly religious," said Stairs.

"And ours," said Crondall, sharp as steel, "is to ram home your
teaching, and to show them that the nearest duty to their hand is their
duty to the State, to the Race, to their children--the duty of freeing
England and throwing over German dominion."

"To render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," said Reynolds. And
Stairs nodded agreement.

"Now, by my way of it, Stairs and Reynolds must succeed before we can
succeed," said Crondall. "That is my view, and because that is so, you
can both look to me, up till the last breath in me, for any kind of
support I can give you--for any kind of support at all. But that's not
all. Where you sow, I mean to reap. We both want substantially the same
harvest--mine is part of yours. I know I can count on you all. You,
Stairs, and you, Reynolds, are going to carry your Message through
England. I propose to follow in your wake with mine. You rouse them to
the sense of duty; I show them their duty. You make them ready to do
their duty; I show it them. I'll have a lecturer. I'll get pictures.
They shall _feel_ the invasion, and know what the German occupation
means. You shall convert them, and I'll enlist them."

"Enlist them! By Jove! that's an idea," said Forbes Thompson. "A
patriotic league, a league of defenders, a nation in arms."

"The Liberators!"

"Ah! Yes, the Liberators."

"Or the Patriots, simply?"

"I would enrol them just as citizens," said Crondall. "By that time
they should have learned the meaning of the word."

"Yes, by Jove! it is good enough--just 'The Citizens,'" said Sir Morell
Strachey.

And then a servant came in with a message for Forbes Thompson, and we
realized that dinner-time had come and almost gone. But we were in no
mood for separating just then, and so every one welcomed John Crondall's
invitation to dine with him at a neighbouring hotel.




V

MY OWN PART

          Free men freely work;
    Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.

                                              E. B. BROWNING.


Constance Grey and myself were the last of John Crondall's guests to
leave him on that evening of the conference. As soon as we three were
alone, Constance turned to Crondall, and said:

"You must expect to have me among your camp followers if I find Aunt
Mary can stand the travelling. I dare say there will be little things I
can do."

"Things you can do! By George, I should think so!" said Crondall. "I
shall look to you to capture the women; and if we get the women, it will
surprise me if we don't get the men as well. Besides, don't you fancy I
have forgotten your prowess as a speaker in Cape Town and Pretoria. You
remember that meeting of your father's, when you saved him from the
wrath of Vrow Bischoff? Why, of course, I reckon on you. We'll have
special women's meetings."

"And where do I come in?" I asked, with an assumed lightness of tone
which was far from expressing my feeling.

"Yes," said Crondall, eying me thoughtfully; "I've been thinking of
that."

As he said that, I had a swift vision of myself and my record, as both
must have appeared to a man like Crondall, whose whole life had been
spent in patriotic effort. The vision was a good corrective for the
unworthy shafts of jealousy--for that no doubt they were--which had come
to me with John Crondall's references to Constance. I was admitted
cordially into the confidences of these people from whom, on my record,
I scarcely deserved common courtesy. It was with a distinctly chastened
mind that I gave them both some outline of the thoughts and resolutions
which had come to me during my evening beside Barebarrow, overlooking
sleepy little Tarn Regis.

"It's a kind of national telepathy," said Crondall. "God send it's at
work in other counties besides Dorset."

"It had need be," I told them; "for all those that I spoke to in Dorset
accepted the German occupation like a thing as absolutely outside their
purview as the movements of the planets."

"Yes, they want a lot of stirring, I know; but I believe we shall stir
'em all right. But about your part in the campaign. Of course, I
recognize that every one has to earn his living, just as much now as
before. But yet I know you'd like to be in this thing, Dick Mordan, and
I believe you can help it a lot. What I thought of was this: I shall
want a secretary, and want him very badly. He will be the man who will
do half my work. On the other hand, I can't pay him much, for every cent
of my income will be wanted in the campaign, and a good deal more
besides. The thing is, would you tackle it, for the sake of the cause,
for a couple of hundred a year? Of course, I should stand all running
expenses. What do you think? It's not much of an offer, but it would
keep us all together?"

Constance looked expectantly at me, and I realized with a sudden thrill
the uses of even such small means as I now possessed.

"Well, no," I said; "I couldn't agree to that." The pupils of John
Crondall's eyes contracted sharply, and a pained, wondering look crept
into the face I loved, the vivid, expressive face of Constance Grey.
"But what I would put my whole heart and soul into, would be working as
your secretary for the sake of the cause, as long as you could stand the
running expense, and--and longer."

I think the next minute was the happiest I had ever known. I dare say it
seems a small enough matter, but it was the only thing of the kind I had
ever been able to do. These friends of mine had always given so much to
our country's cause. I had felt myself so far beneath them in this. Now,
as John Crondall's strong hand came down on my shoulder, and Constance's
bright eyes shone upon me in affectionate approval, my heart swelled
within me, with something of the glad pride which should be the
possession of every man, as it indubitably is of every true citizen and
patriot.

"You see," I explained deprecatingly, as Crondall swayed my shoulder
affectionately to and fro in his firm grip; "I have become a sort of a
minor capitalist. I have about a hundred and fifty a year coming in,
and so I'm as free as I am glad to work with you, and--there'll be two
hundred more for the campaign, you see."

"God bless you, old chap! You and Constance and I, we'll move
mountains--even the great mountain of apathy--between us. Sir Herbert
offers a thousand pounds toward expenses, and Forbes Thompson and Varley
are ready to speak for us anywhere we like, and Winchester has a pal who
he says will work wonders as a kind of advance agent. I'm pretty sure of
Government help, too--or Opposition help; they'll be governing before
Christmas, you'll find. Now, we all meet here again the day after
to-morrow. We three will see each other to-morrow, I expect. I must
write a stack of letters before the midnight post."

"Well, can I lend a hand?" I asked.

"No, not to-night, Mr. Secretary Dick, thank you! But it's late. Will
you take Constance home? I'll get my fellow to whistle up a cab."

Ten minutes earlier I should have been chilled by his implied
guardianship of Constance; but now I had that within which warmed me
through and through: the most effectual kind of protection against
chill. So all was settled, and we left John Crondall to his letters.
And, driving out to South Kensington, we talked over our hopes,
Constance and I, as partners in one cause.

"This is the beginning of everything for me, Constance," I said, when we
parted in the hall below her flat.

"It is going to be the beginning of very much for a good many," she
said, as she gave me her hand.

"I wonder if you know how much--for me!"

"I think so. I am tremendously glad about it all."

But she did not know, could not know, just how much it meant to me.

"Good night, my patriotic Muse!" I said.

"Good night, Mr. Secretary Dick!"

And so we parted on the night of my return to London.




VI

PREPARATIONS

    We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
    We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
    Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power, with the Need,
    Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.

       .       .       .       .       .

    Follow after--follow after--for the harvest is sown:
    By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

                                              RUDYARD KIPLING.


Never before had I known days so full, so compact of effort and
achievement, as were those of the week following the conference in John
Crondall's rooms. I could well appreciate Winchester's statement when he
said that: "John Crondall is known through three Continents as a glutton
for work."

Our little circle represented Canada, South Africa, Australia, and the
Mother Country; and, while I admit that my old friend, George Stairs,
and his Canadian-born partner, Reynolds, could give points to most
people in the matter of unwearying energy, yet I am proud to report that
the member of our circle who, so to say, worked us all to a standstill
was John Crondall, an Englishman born and bred. I said as much in the
presence of them all, and when my verdict was generally endorsed, John
Crondall qualified it with the remark:

"Well, I can only say that pretty nearly all I know about work I learned
in the Colonies."

And I learned later on to realize the justice of this qualification.
Colonial life does teach directness and concentration. Action of any
sort in England was at that time hedged about by innumerable
complications and cross issues and formalities, many of which we have
won clear from since then. Perhaps it was the strength of our Colonial
support which set the pace of our procedure. Whatever the cause, I know
I never worked harder, or accomplished more; and I had never been so
happy.

I think John Crondall must have interviewed from two to three hundred
prominent politicians and members of the official world during that
week. I have heard it said by men who should know, that the money
Crondall spent in cable messages to the Colonies that week was the price
of the first Imperial Parliament ever assembled in Westminster Hall. I
use these words in their true sense, their modern sense, of course.
Nominally, the House of Commons had long been the "Imperial" Parliament.

I know that week's work established _The Citizens_ as an already
powerful organization, with a long list of names famous in history among
its members, with a substantial banking account, and with volunteer
agents in every great centre in the kingdom. The motto and watchword of
_The Citizens_, as engraved upon a little bronze medal of membership,
was: "For God; our Race; and Duty." The oath of enrolment said:

"I ---- do hereby undertake and promise to do my duty to God, to our
Race, and to the British Empire to the utmost limit of my ability,
without fear and without compromise, so help me God!"

John Crondall interviewed the editors of most of the leading London
newspapers during that week, and thereby earned a discreet measure of
journalistic support for his campaign. There was a great need of
discretion here, for our papers were carefully studied in Berlin, as
well as by the German Generals commanding the various English towns now
occupied by the Kaiser's troops. It was, of course, most important that
no friction should be caused at this stage.

But it was with regard to the preaching pilgrimage of the two Canadian
parsons that Crondall's friends of the Press rendered us the greatest
possible service. Here no particular reticence was called for, and the
Press could be, and was, unreservedly helpful and generous. In
estimating the marvellous achievements of the two preachers, I do not
think enough weight has been attached to the great services rendered to
their mission by such journals as the great London daily which published
each morning a column headed, "The New Evangel," and, indeed, by all the
newspapers both in London and the provinces.

We were not directly aiming, during that first week, at enrolling
members. No recruiting had been done. Yet when, at the end of the week,
a meeting of the executive committee was held at the Westminster Palace
Hotel, the founder, John Crondall, was able to submit a list of close
upon six hundred sworn members of _The Citizens_; and, of these, I
suppose fully five hundred were men of high standing in the world of
politics, the Services, commerce, and the professions. Among them were
three dukes, twenty-three peers, a Field Marshal, six newspaper
proprietors, eleven editors, seven of the wealthiest men in England, and
ninety-eight prominent Members of Parliament. And, as I say, no
systematic recruiting had been done.

At that meeting of the executive a great deal of important business was
transacted. John Crondall was able to announce a credit balance of ten
thousand pounds, with powers to overdraw under guarantee at the Bank of
England. A simple code of membership rules and objects was drawn up for
publication, and a short code of secret rules was formed, by which every
sworn member was to be bound. These rules stipulated for implicit
obedience to the decision and orders of the executive, and by these
every member was bound to take a certain course of rifle drill, and to
respond immediately to any call that should be made for military service
within the British Isles during a period of twelve months from the date
of enrolment. John Crondall announced that there was every hope of _The
Citizens_ obtaining from the Government a grant of one service rifle and
one hundred rounds of ammunition for every member who could pass a
simple medical examination.

"We may not actually secure this grant until after the general
election," Crondall explained; "but it can be regarded as a certain
asset."

It was decided that, officially, there should be no connection between
the Canadian preachers, as every one called them, and the propaganda of
_The Citizens_. But it was also privately agreed that steps should be
taken to follow the Canadians throughout their pilgrimage with lectures
and addresses, and meetings at which members could be enrolled upon the
roster of _The Citizens_, including volunteer instructors in rifle
drill. My friend Stairs attended this meeting with Reynolds, and, after
discussion, it was agreed that, for the present, they should not visit
the towns occupied by the Germans.

"The people there have their lesson before them every day and all day
long," said John Crondall. "The folk we want to reach are those who have
not yet learned their lesson. My advice is to attack London first.
Enlist London on your side, and on that go to the provinces."

There was a good deal of discussion over this, and finally an offer John
Crondall made was accepted by Stairs and Reynolds, and our meeting was
brought to a close. What Crondall said was this:

"To-day is Monday. There is still a great deal of detail to be attended
to. Officially, there must be no connection between Stairs and Reynolds
and _The Citizens_. Actually, we know the connection is vital. Give me
the rest of this week for arrangements, and I promise that we shall all
gain by it. I will not appear in the matter, and I will see you each
evening for consultation. Your pilgrimage shall begin on Sunday, and
ours within a day or so of that."

Then followed another week of tense effort. Stairs and Reynolds both
addressed minor gatherings during the week, and met John Crondall every
evening for consultation. On Wednesday the principal Imperialistic
newspaper in London appeared with a long leading article and three
columns of descriptive exposition of "The New Evangel." On the same day
the papers published despatches telling of the departure from their
various homes of the Premiers, and two specially elected representatives
of all the British Colonies, who were coming to England for an Imperial
Conference at Westminster. The Government's resignation was expected
within the month, and writs for the election were to be issued
immediately afterwards.

On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning the newspapers of London alone
published one hundred and thirteen columns of matter regarding the
message and the pilgrimage of the Rev. George Stairs and the Rev. Arthur
J. Reynolds. During the latter part of the week all London was agog over
the Canadian preachers. As yet, very little had appeared in print
regarding _The Citizens_.

On Sunday morning at three o'clock John Crondall went into his bedroom
to sleep, and I slept in the room he had set aside for me in his
flat--too tired out to undress. Even Crondall's iron frame was weary
that night, and he admitted to me before retiring from a table at which
we had kept three typewriters busy till long after midnight, that he
had reached his limit and must rest.

"I couldn't stand another hour of it--unless it were necessary, you
know," was his way of putting it.

By my persuasion he kept his bed during a good slice of Sunday morning,
and lunched with me at Constance Grey's flat. He always said that Mrs.
Van Homrey was the most restful tonic London could supply to any man. I
went to the morning service at Westminster Abbey that day with
Constance, and listened to a magnificent sermon from the Bishop of
London, whose text was drawn from the sixth chapter of Exodus: "And I
will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God."

The Bishop struck a strong note of hopefulness, but there was also
warning and exhortation in his discourse. He spoke of sons of our race
who had gone into far countries, and, carrying our Faith and traditions
with them, had preserved these and wrought them into a finer fabric than
the original from which they were drawn. And now, when a great
affliction had come upon the people of England, their sons of the
Greater Britain oversea were holding out kindly hands of friendship and
support. But it was not alone in the material sense that we should do
well to avail ourselves of the support offered us from the outside
places. These wandering children of the Old Land had cherished among
them a strong and simple godliness, a devout habit of Christian
morality, from which we might well draw spiritual sustenance.

"You have all heard of the Canadian preachers, and I hope you will all
learn a good deal more of their Message this very afternoon at the
Albert Hall, where I am to have the honour of presiding over a meeting
which will be addressed by these Christian workers from across the sea."

We found John Crondall a giant refreshed after his long sleep.

"I definitely promise you a seat this afternoon, Mrs. Van Homrey," he
said, as we all sat down to lunch in the South Kensington flat, "but
that's as much as I can promise. You and I will have to keep our feet,
Dick, and you will have to share Lady Tate's seat, Constance. If every
ticket-holder turns up this afternoon, there won't be a single vacant
seat in the whole of that great hall."

"You earned your Sunday morning in, John," said Mrs. Van Homrey. "Is the
Prime Minister coming?"

"No, he has failed me at the last, but half the members of the last
Government will be there, and I have promises from prominent
representatives of every religious denomination in England. There will
be sixty military officers above captain's rank, in uniform, and
forty-eight naval officers in uniform. There will be many scores of
bluejackets and private soldiers, a hundred training-ship lads, fifty of
the Legion of Frontiersmen, and a number of volunteers all in full
uniform. There will be a tremendous number of society people, but the
mass will be leavened, and I should say one-half the people will be
middle-class folk. For to-night, no tickets have been issued. The
attendance will depend to some extent on the success of this afternoon,
but, to judge from the newspapers and the talk one hears, I should say
it would be enormous."

Just before we left the flat Crondall told us a secret.

"You know they have a volunteer choir of fifty voices?" he said. "It was
Stairs's idea, and he has carried it out alone. The choir consists
entirely of bluejackets, soldiers, volunteers, Red Cross nurses, and
boys from the Army bands."




VII

THE SWORD OF THE LORD

    Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
    O Duty! if that name thou love
    Who art a light to guide, a rod
    To check the erring, and reprove;
    Thou who art victory and law
    When empty terrors overawe;
    From vain temptations dost set free,
    And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

                                              WORDSWORTH'S _Ode to Duty_.


I have always been glad that I was able to attend that first great
service of the Canadian preachers; and so, I think, has every one else
who was there. Other services of theirs may have been more notable in
certain respects--indeed, I know they were; but this one was the
beginning, the first wave in a great tide. And I am glad that I was
there to see that first grand wave rise upon the rock of British apathy.

I have said something of the audience, but a book might well be devoted
to its description, and, again, a sentence may serve. It was a
representative English gathering, in that it embraced a member of the
Royal Family, a little group of old men and women from an asylum for the
indigent, and members of every grade of society that comes between.
Also, it was a very large gathering--even for the Albert Hall.

It should be remembered that not many weeks prior to this Sunday
afternoon, the people of London, maddened by hunger, fear, and
bewildered panic, had stormed Westminster to enforce their demand for
surrender, and had seen Von Fuechter with his bloodstained legions take
possession of the capital of the British Empire. Fifty Londoners had
been cut down, almost in as many seconds, within two miles of the
Mansion House. In one terrible week London had passed through an age of
terror and humiliation, the end of which had been purchased in panic and
disorder by means of a greater humiliation than any. Now England had to
pay the bill. Some, in the pursuit of business and pleasure, were
already forgetting; but the majority among the great concourse of
Londoners who sat waiting in the Albert Hall that afternoon, clothed in
their Sunday best, were still shrewdly conscious of the terrible
severity of the blow which had fallen upon England.

Having found Constance her half-seat with Lady Tate, I stood beside one
of the gangways below the platform, which lead to the dressing-rooms and
other offices. Beside me was a table for Press representatives. There,
with their pencils, I noted Campbell, of the _Daily Gazette_, and other
men I knew, including Carew, for the _Standard_, who had an assistant
with him. He told me that somewhere in the hall his paper had a special
descriptive writer as well.

Looking up and down that vast building, from dome to amphitheatre, I
experienced, as it were vicariously, something of the nervousness of
stage fright. Londoners were not simple prairie folk, I thought. How
should my friend George Stairs hold that multitude? Two plain men from
Western Canada, accustomed to minister to farmers and miners, what could
they say to engage and hold these serried thousands of Londoners, the
most blase people in England? I had never heard either of the preachers
speak in public, but--I looked out over that assemblage, and I was
horribly afraid for my friends. A Church of England clergyman and a
Nonconformist minister from Canada, and I told myself they had never had
so much as an elocution lesson between them!

And then the Bishop of London appeared on the crowded platform, followed
by George Stairs and Arthur Reynolds; and a dead silence descended upon
the hall. In the forefront of the platform was a plain table with a
chair at either end of it, and a larger one in the middle. Here the
Bishop and the two preachers placed themselves. Then the Bishop rose
with right hand uplifted, and said solemnly:

"May God bless to us all the Message which His two servants have brought
us from oversea; for Christ's sake, Amen."

George Stairs remained kneeling at his end of the table. But as the
Bishop resumed his seat Arthur Reynolds stepped forward, and, pitching
his voice well, said:

"My friends, let us sing the British Anthem."

And at that the great organ spoke, and the choir of sailors, soldiers,
and nurses led the singing of the National Anthem. The first bar was
sung by the choir alone, but by the time the third bar was reached
thousands among the standing congregation were singing with them, and
the volume of sound was most impressive. I think that a good many people
besides myself found this solemn singing of the Anthem, from its first
line to its last, something of a revelation. It made "God Save the King"
a real prayer instead of a musical intimation that hats might be felt
for and carriages ordered. It struck a note which the Canadian preachers
desired to strike. They began with a National Hymn which was a prayer
for King and Country. The people were at first startled, and then
pleased, and then stirred by a departure from all customs known to them.
And that this should be so was, I apprehend, the deliberate intention of
the Canadian preachers.

Still George Stairs knelt at his end of the bare table.

As the last note of the organ accompaniment died away, Arthur Reynolds
stepped to the front.

"Will you all pray, please?" he said. He closed his eyes and extended
one hand.

I cannot tell you what simple magic the man used. I know those were his
words. But the compelling appeal in them was most remarkable. There was
something childlike about his simple request. I do not think any one
could have scoffed at the man. After a minute's silence, he prayed
aloud, and this is what he said:

"Father in Heaven, give us strength to understand our duty and to do it.
Thou knowest that two of the least among Thy servants have crossed the
sea to give a Message to their kinsmen in England. Our kinsmen are a
great and proud people, and we, as Thou knowest, are but very simple
men. But our Message is from Thee, and with Thee all things are
possible. Father, have pity upon our weakness to-day. Open to us the
hearts of even the proudest and the greatest of our kinsmen. Do not let
them scorn us. And, O Father of all men, gentle and simple, breathe Thou
upon us that we may have a strength not of ourselves; a power worthy of
the Message we bring, which shall make its truth to shine so that none
may mistake it. For Christ's sake. Amen."

Arthur Reynolds resumed his seat, and a great Australian singer, a
_prima donna_ of world-wide repute, stepped forward very simply and sang
as a solo the hymn beginning:

    Church of the Living God,
    Pillar and ground of truth,
    Keep the old paths the fathers trod
    In thy illumined youth.

The prayer had softened all hearts by its simplicity, its humility. The
exquisitely rendered hymn attuned all minds to thoughts of ancient,
simple piety, and the traditions which guided and inspired our race in
the past. When it was ended, and not till then, George Stairs rose from
his knees, and stepped forward to where a little temporary extension
jutted out beyond the rest of the platform. He stood there with both
hands by his side, and a Bible held in one of them. His head inclined a
little forward. It was an attitude suggestive rather of submission to
that great assembly, or to some Power above it, than of exhortation.
Watching him as he stood there, I realized what a fine figure of a man
George was, how well and surely Canadian life had developed him. His
head was massive, his hair thick and very fair; his form lithe, tall,
full of muscular elasticity.

He stood so, silent, for a full minute, till I began to catch my breath
from nervousness. Then he opened the Bible, and:

"May I just read you a few verses from the Bible?" he said.

There was the same directness, the same simple, almost childlike appeal
that had touched the people in Reynolds's prayer. He read some verses
from the First Book of Samuel. I remember:

"'And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest,
to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me?
And did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by
fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at
mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honouredst
thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the
offerings of Israel, my people? Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith,
I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk
before me for ever; but now the Lord saith, be it far from me; for them
that honour me I will honour, and them that despise me shall be lightly
esteemed. Behold the day is come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the
arm of thy father's house, and there shall not be an old man in my
house. And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth
which God shall give Israel.... And I will raise me up a faithful
priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my
mind....'"

There was a pause, and then the preacher read a passage from Judges,
ending with the famous war-cry: "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon."
He looked up then, and, without reference to the Bible in his hand,
repeated several verses:

"'And by thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt serve thy brother: and it
shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt
break his yoke from off thy neck.'

"'He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.'

"'For he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a
revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.'

"'And take the helmet of salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which
is the Word of God.'

"'Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
peace but a sword.' Not the peace of indolence and dishonour; not the
fatted peace of mercenary well-being; but a Sword; the Sword of the
Lord, the Sword of Duty, which creates, establishes, and safeguards the
only true peace--the peace of honourable peoples."

I remember his slow turning of leaves in his Bible, and I remember:

"'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man--' the whole duty----
Yes, 'but isn't Duty rather an early Victorian sort of business, and a
bit out of date, anyhow?' That was what a young countryman of mine--from
Dorset, he came--said to me in Calgary, last year. I told him that,
according to my reading of history, it had come down a little farther
than early Victorian days. I remember I mentioned Rorke's Drift; and he
rather liked that. But, of course, I knew what he meant."

It was in this very simple strain, without a gesture, without a trace of
dramatic appeal, that George Stairs began to address that great
gathering. Much has been said and written of the quality of revelation
which was instinct in that first address; of its compelling force, its
inspired strength, the convincing directness of it all. And I should be
the last to deny to my old friend's address any of the praises lavished
upon it by high and low. But what I would say of it is that, even now,
sufficient emphasis and import are never attached to the most compelling
quality of all in George Stairs's words: their absolutely unaffected
simplicity. I think a ten-year-old child could have followed his every
word with perfect understanding.

Nowadays we take a fair measure of simplicity for granted. Anything less
would condemn a man as a fool or a mountebank. But be it remembered that
the key-note and most striking feature of all recent progress has been
the advance toward simplicity in all things. At the period of George
Stairs's first exposition of the new evangel in the Albert Hall, we were
not greatly given to simplicity. It was scarcely noticeable at that
time even among tillers of the earth. Not to put too fine a point upon
it, we were a tinselled lot of mimes, greatly given to apishness, and
shunning naked truth as though it were the plague. Past masters in
compromise and self-delusion, we had stripped ourselves of simplicity in
every detail of life, and, from the cradle to the grave, seemed
willingly to be hedged about with every kind of complexity. We so
maltreated our physical palates that they responded only to flavours
which would have alarmed a plain-living man; and, metaphorically, the
same thing held good in every concern of our lives, until simplicity
became non-existent among us, and was forgotten. There were men and
women in that Sunday afternoon gathering at the Albert Hall whose very
pleasures were a complicated and laborious art, whose pastimes were a
strain upon the nervous system, whose leisure was quite an arduous
business.

This it was which gave such striking freshness, such compelling
strength, to the simple, forthright directness, the unaffected
earnestness and modesty of the Message brought us by the Canadian
preachers. The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who ever heard
the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found resentment impossible after
George Stairs's little account of his leaving Dorset as a boy of twelve,
and picking up such education as he had, while learning how to milk
cows, bed down horses, split fire-wood, and perform "chores" generally,
on a Canadian farm. Even during his theological course, vacations had
found him in the harvest field.

"You may guess my diffidence, then," he said, "in lifting up my voice
before such a gathering as this, here in the storied heart of the
Empire, the city I have reverenced my life long as the centre of the
world's intelligence. But there is not a man or woman here to-day who
would chide a lad who came home from school with tidings of something he
had learned there. That is my case, precisely. I have been to one of our
outside schools, from my home here in this beloved island. Home and
school alike, they are all part of our family heritage--yours and mine.
I only bring you your own word from another part of our own place. That
is my sole claim to stand before you to-day. Yet, when I think of it, it
satisfies me; it safeguards me from the effect of misunderstanding or
offence, so long as my hearers are of my kin--British."

His description of Canada and the life he had lived there occupied us
for no more than ten minutes, at the outside. It has appeared in so many
books that I will not attempt to quote that little masterpiece of
illumination. But by no means every reproduction of this passage adds
the simple little statement which divided it from its successor.

"That has been my life. No brilliant qualities are demanded of a man in
such a life. The one thing demanded is that he shall do his duty. You
remember that passage in Ecclesiastes--'The conclusion of the whole
matter'?"

And then came the story of Edward Hare. That moved the people deeply.

"My first curacy was in Southern Manitoba. When I was walking from the
church to the farmhouse where I lodged, after morning service, one
perfect day in June, I passed a man called Edward Hare, sitting at the
edge of a little bluff, on a rising piece of ground. I had felt drawn
toward this man. He was a Londoner, and, in his first two years, had had
a tough fight. But he had won through, and now had just succeeded in
adding a hundred and sixty acres to his little farm, which was one of
the most prosperous in the district.

"'I didn't see you at church this morning, Hare,' I said, after we had
chatted a minute or two.

"'No,' said he; 'I wasn't at church. I've been here by this bluff since
breakfast, and--Parson!' he said, with sudden emphasis, 'I shall give up
the farm. I'm going back Home.'

"Well, of course, I was surprised, and pressed him for reasons. 'Well,'
he said, 'I don't know as I can make much of a show of reasons; but I'm
going. Did you notice anything special about the weather, or--or that,
this morning, Parson?' I told him I had only noticed that it was a very
sweet, clear, happy sort of a morning. 'That's just it, Parson,' he
said; 'sweet and clear and clean it is; and I don't believe there's any
sweeter, cleaner thing than this morning on my farm--no, not in heaven,
Parson,' he said. 'And that's why I'm going back Home to London; to
Battersea; that's where I lived before I came here.'

"I waited for him to tell me more, and presently he said: 'You know,
Parson, I was never what you might call a drunkard, not even at Home,
where drinking's the regular thing. But I used to get through a tidy lot
of liquor, one way and another, and most generally two or three pints
too many of a Saturday night. Then, of a Sunday morning, the job was
waiting for the pubs to open. Nobody in our street ever did much else of
a Sunday. I suppose you don't happen to have ever been down the Falcon
Road of a Sunday morning, Parson? No? Well, you see, the street's a kind
of market all Saturday night, up till long after midnight--costers'
barrows with flare-lights, gin-shops full to the door, and all the fun
of the fair--all the fun of the fair. Mothers and fathers, lads and
sweethearts, babies in prams, and toddlers in blue plush and white wool;
you see them all crowding the bars up till midnight, and they see--well,
they see Battersea through a kind of a bright gaze. Then comes Sunday,
and a dry throat, and waiting for the pubs to open. The streets are all
a litter of dirty newspaper and cabbage-stumps, and worse; and the air's
kind of sick and stale.'

"At that Hare stopped talking, and looked out over the prairie on that
June morning. Presently he went on again: 'Well, Parson, when I came out
here this morning--I haven't tasted beer for over three years--I sat
down and looked around; and, somehow, I thought I'd never seen anything
so fine in all my life; so sweet and clean; the air so bright, like dew;
and green--well, look at it, far as your eye can carry! And all this
round, away to the bluff there, and the creek this way; it's mine, every
foot of it. Well, after a bit, I was looking over there to the church,
and what d'ye think I saw, all through the pretty sunlight? I saw the
Falcon Road, a pub I know there, and a streak of sunshine running over
the wire blinds into the bar, all frowsy and shut in, with the liquor
stains over everything. And outside, I saw the pasty-faced crowd waiting
to get in, and all the Sunday litter in the road. Parson, I got the
smell of it, the sick, stale smell of it, right here--in Paradise; I got
the frowsy smell of it, and heard the waily children squabbling, and--I
can't tell you any more of what I saw. If you'd ever seen it, you'd
know.'

"And there he stopped again, until I moved. Then he said: 'Parson, if
you saw a fellow starving on a bit of land over there that wouldn't feed
a prairie-chick, and you knew of a free homestead across the creek,
where he could raise five and twenty bushels to the acre and live like a
man, would you leave him to rot on his bare patch? Not you. That's why
I'm going Home--to Battersea.'

"If Hare had been a married man I might have advised him otherwise. But
he was married only to the farm he had wrought so well, and it did not
seem to me part of my business to come between a man and his duty--as he
saw it. That man came Home, and took the cheapest lodging he could get
in Battersea. He had sold his farm well. Now he took to street
preaching, and what he preached was, not religion, but the prairie.
'Lord sake, young folk!' he used to say to the lads and girls when they
turned toward the public-houses. 'Hold on! Wait a minute! I want to tell
you something!' And he would tell them what four years' clean work had
given him in Canada.

"He got into touch with various emigration agencies. The money he had
lasted him, living as he did, for five years. In that time he was the
means of sending nine hundred and twenty men and five hundred and forty
women and girls to a free and independent life in Canada. Just before
his money was exhausted, England's affliction, England's chastisement,
came upon her like God's anger in a thunderbolt. Hare had meant to
return to Canada to make another start, and earn money enough to return
to his work here. Instead of that, my friends, instead of what he called
Paradise in Manitoba, God took him straight into Heaven. He left his
body beside the North London entrenchments, where, so one of his
comrades told me, he fought like ten men for England, knowing well that,
if captured, he would be shot out of hand as a civilian bearing arms.
One may say of Edward Hare, I think, that he saw his duty very
clearly--and did it.

       *       *       *       *       *

"But what of us? What of you, and I, my friends? How do we stand
regarding Duty?"

I never heard such questions in my life. He had been speaking smoothly,
evenly, calmly, and without gesticulation. With the questions, his body
was bent as though for a leap; his hands flung forward. These questions
left him like bullets. It was as though that great hall had been in
blackest darkness, and with a sudden movement the speaker had switched
on ten thousand electric lights. I saw men rise to a half-erect
posture. I heard women catch their breath. The air of the place seemed
all aquiver.

"My friends, will you please pray with me?"

He leaned forward, an appeal in every line of his figure, addressed
confidentially to each soul present. Then his right hand rose:

"Please God, help me to give my Message! Please God, open London's heart
to hear my Message! Please God, give me strength to tell it--now! For
Christ's sake. Amen!"

One heard a low, emphatic, and far-carrying "Amen!" from the lips of
London's Bishop; and I think that, too, meant something to the great
congregation of Londoners assembled there.

Immediately then, it was, while the electric thrill of his questions and
the simple prayer still held all his audience at high tension, that
George Stairs plunged into the famous declaration of the new evangel of
Duty and Simplicity. If any man in the world has learned for himself
that prayer is efficacious, that man is the Rev. George Stairs. For it
is now universally admitted that such winged words as those of his first
great exposition of the doctrine of Duty and simple living, the doctrine
which has placed the English-speaking peoples in the forefront of
Christendom, had never before thrilled an English audience.

His own words were a perfect example of the invincible virtue of
simplicity; his presence there was a glowing evidence of the force of
Duty. It is quite certain that the knowledge shown in his flashing
summary of nineteenth-century English history was not knowledge based
upon experience. But neither the poets, nor the most learned
historians, nor the most erudite of naval experts, has ever given a
picture so instantly convincing as the famous passage of his oration
which showed us, first, the British Fleet on the morning of Trafalgar;
then, Nelson going into action; then, the great sailor's dying
apotheosis of Duty; and, finally, England's reception of her dead hero's
body. The delivery of this much-quoted passage was a matter of moments
only, but from where I stood I saw streaming eyes in women's faces, and
that stiff, unwinking stare on men's faces which indicates tense effort
to restrain emotion.

And so, with a fine directness and simplicity of progress, he carried us
down through the century to its stormy close, with vivid words of
tribute for the sturdy pioneers of Victorian reform who fought for and
built the freest democracy in the world, and gave us the triumphant
enlightenment which illumined Victoria's first Jubilee.

"'But isn't Duty a rather early Victorian sort of business, and out of
date, anyhow?' said my young countryman in Calgary. To the first half of
his question there can be no answer but 'Yes.' To deny it were to
slander our fathers most cruelly. But what of the question's second
half? Our fathers have no concern with the answering of that. Is Duty
'out of date,' my friends? If so, let us burn our churches. If so, let
the bishops resign their bishoprics. If so, let us lower for ever the
flag which our fathers made sacred from pole to pole. If so, let Britain
admit--as well first as last--that she has retired for ever from her
proud place among the nations, and is no more to be accounted a Power
in Christendom; for that is no place for a people with whom Duty is out
of date.

"'And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest,
to offer upon mine altar?... But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me,
for them that honour me I will honour, and them that despise me shall be
lightly esteemed. _Behold the days come that I will cut off thine
arm!_'"

It was almost unbearable. No one had guessed the man had such a voice.
He had recited that passage quietly. Then came the rolling thunder of
the: "Behold the days come that I will cut off thine arm!" A woman in
the centre of the hall cried aloud, upon a high note. The roar of German
artillery in North London never stirred Londoners as this particular
sentence of God's Word stirred them in the Albert Hall.

And then, in a voice keyed down again to calm and tender wisdom, the
words of the Scriptural poet stole out over the heads of the perturbed
people, stilling their minds once more into the right receptive vein:
"'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.'"

Like balm, the stately words fell upon the people, as a light to lighten
their darkness, as an end and a solution to a situation found
intolerable. But, though calm resolve was in George Stairs's gift that
day, he suffered no complaisance; and, by this time, he held that great
assembly in the hollow of his hand. It was then he dealt with the
character of our own century, as distinguished from that of the
Victorian era. It was then his words taught me, personally, more than
all he had said besides.

I will not quote from a passage which has been incorporated in hundreds
of school-books. It is generally admitted that the end and purpose
underlying the civil and national code of our age has never since been
more admirably stated than on the day of its first enunciation in the
Albert Hall by George Stairs. His words were glowing when he showed us
how the key-note of our fathers' age had been the claiming and
establishing of rights and privileges. His words stung like whip-thongs
when he depicted our greedy, self-satisfied enjoyment of those rights
and privileges, with never a thought, either of the various obligations
pertaining to them, or of our plain duty in the conservation for our
children of all that had been won for us. Finally, his words were living
fire of incentive, red wine of stimulation, when he urged upon us the
twentieth-century watchword of Duty, and the loyal discharge of
obligations.

"Theirs, an age crowned by well-won triumph, was the century of claimant
demand; ours is the century of grateful obedience. Theirs was the age of
claims; ours the age of Duty. Theirs the century of rights; ours the
century of Duty. Theirs the period of brave, insistent constructive
effort; ours the period of Duty--Duty--Duty!

"In fighting to obtain all that they won for us, our fathers pledged
themselves--and us--to be fit recipients, true freemen. For a moment,
misled by the glare of wealth and pleasure, we have played the
caitiff's part; grasped freemen's privileges, without thanks, and with
repudiation of the balancing duties and obligations without which no
rights can survive. And--'Behold, the days come that I will cut off
thine arm!'

"The God of our fathers trusted them, in our behalf; and we played
traitor. So God smote England, through the arrogant war-lords of another
people. That blow, self-administered, is Heaven's last warning to
England. In truth, the blow was ours, yours and mine; we ourselves it
was who played the traitor and struck a cruel blow at Britain's heart.
Unworthy sons of valiant sires, we snatched our wages and shirked our
work; seized the reward and refused the duty. God in His mercy gave us
many warnings; but we hid our faces and pursued our selfish ends.
'Behold, the days come----'

"But God stayed His hand. England lies bloody but unbroken. There can be
no more warnings. The time for warnings has gone by. There can be no
more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will ye be men--or
helots and outcasts? Will you choose Duty, and the favour of God's
appointed way for us, of progress and of leadership; or will you
choose--pleasure, swift decay, annihilation? Upon your heads be it! Our
fathers nobly did their part. Upon your choice hangs the future of our
race, the fate of your children, the destiny of God's chosen people, who
have paltered with strange gods, blasphemed the true faith, and stepped
aside from the white path--the Only Way: Duty!"

He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the great organ rose and
swelled mightily, filling the hall with the strains of the British
National Anthem. Every soul in the building stood erect, and following
the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the British hymn as it was
never sung before. As the last note throbbed into silence in the hall's
dome, George Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the anthem,
advanced, with hand uplifted.

"God helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely will help us, do we
choose Duty, or pleasure? Choose, my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it
pleasure?"

It was a severe test to put to such an assembly, to a congregation of
all classes of London society. There was a moment of silence in which I
saw George Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which seemed
to cloud my vision. And then the answer came, like a long, rolling clap
of thunder:

"Duty!"

And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in prayer, as the Bishop
dismissed the people with a benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in
a hoarse voice.




VIII

THE PREACHERS

    There are who ask not if thine eye
    Be on them; who in love and truth
    Where no misgiving is, rely
    Upon the genial sense of youth:
    Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,
    Who do thy work, and know it not:
    O! if through confidence misplaced
    They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


It was with something of a shock that I learned, while endeavouring to
make my way through a dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's
dressing-room, that my friend, George Stairs, was lying unconscious in a
fainting fit. But my anxiety was not long-lived. Several doctors had
volunteered their services, and from one of them I learned that the
fainting fit was no more than the momentary result of an exceptional
strain of excitement.

Within half an hour, Stairs and Reynolds were both resting comfortably
in a private sitting-room at a neighbouring hotel, and there I visited
them, with Constance Grey and Mrs. Van Homrey, and John Crondall. Stairs
assured us that his fainting was of no consequence, and that he felt
perfectly fit and well again.

"You see it was something of an ordeal for me, a nobody from nowhere, to
face such an assembly."

"Well," said John Crondall, "I suppose that at this moment there is not
a man in London who is much more a somebody, and less a nobody from
nowhere."

"You think we succeeded, then?"

"My dear fellow! I think your address of this afternoon was the most
important event England has known this century. Mark my words, that
great thunder of 'Duty!' that you drew from them--from a London
audience, mind--is to have more far-reaching results for the British
Empire than the acquisition of a continent."

"No, no, my dear Crondall, you surely overrate the thing," said Stairs,
warm colour spreading over his pale face.

"Well, you can take my deliberate assurance that in my opinion you
achieved more for your country this afternoon than it has been my good
fortune to achieve in the whole of a rather busy life."

Stairs protested, blushing like a girl. But we know now that, so far at
all events as his remarks were prophetic, John Crondall was absolutely
right; though whether or not the new evangel could have achieved what it
did without the invasion is another matter.

Myself, I believe nothing could have been more triumphantly successful,
more pregnant with great possibilities for good, than the event of that
afternoon. Yet I was assured that fully two thousand five hundred more
people crowded into the hall for the evening service than had been
there to hear Stairs's address. And I had thought the huge place crowded
in the afternoon. As before, the service began and ended with the
National Anthem; but in the evening the great assembly was thrilled to
its heart by the Australian _prima donna's_ splendid singing of
Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_ in the setting specially composed for this
occasion by Doctor Elgar.

I saw very many faces that I had seen at the first service, but I
believe that there was a far greater proportion of poorer folk present
than there had been in the afternoon. The President of the
Congregational Union presided, and the address was delivered by Arthur
Reynolds.

As with Stairs, so with Reynolds, Duty was the gist and heart of the
Message delivered--Duty, plain living, simplicity; these they both urged
to be the root of the whole matter. Both men gave substantially the same
Message, there can be no doubt of that; but there were differences, and
upon the whole I am inclined to think that Reynolds's address was more
perfectly adapted to his hearers than Stairs's would have been if his
had been given that evening. Reynolds's diction in public speaking was
not quite his conversational speech, because nothing like slang, nothing
altogether colloquial crept into it, but its simplicity was notable; it
was the diction of a frank, earnest child. There were none of the
stereotyped phrases of piety; yet I never heard a more truly pious and
deeply religious discourse.

The social and political aspects of Duty were more cursorily treated by
Reynolds than its moral and religious aspect. There was nothing
heterodox in the view put forward by this preacher from oversea. A man
may find salvation in this world and the next through love and faith, he
said in effect; but the love and faith must be of the right sort. The
redemption of the world was the world's greatest miracle; but it did not
offer mankind salvation in return for a given measure of psalm-singing,
sentimentalizing, and prayerful prostrations. Christianity was something
which had to be lived, not merely contemplated. Love and faith were
all-sufficient, but they must be the true love and faith, of which Duty
was the legitimate offspring. The man who thought that any form of piety
which permitted the neglect of Duty, would win him either true peace in
this life or salvation in the next, was as pitifully misled as the man
who indulged himself in a vicious life with a view to repentance when he
should be too near his demise to care for indulgence.

"But, even if one could put aside all thought of God and the life
compared with which this life is but an instant of time; even then there
would be nothing left really worth serious consideration besides Duty.
Dear friends, you who listen so kindly to the man who comes to you from
across the sea, I ask you to look about you in the streets and among the
people you know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy. In
this connection I dare not speak of the land of my birth, because,
though it is yours as truly as it is mine, and we are all
blood-brothers, yet I might be thought guilty of a vain partiality. But
I do say that I cannot think the majority of the people of England are
really happy. I do not believe the majority of Londoners are happy. I am
sure that the majority of those who spend an immense amount of money
here in the West End of London, are not one whit happier than the
average man who works hard for a few pounds a week.

"If I am certain of anything in this world, I am certain that the
pursuit of pleasure never yet brought real happiness to any intelligent
human being, and never will. True, I have met some happy people in
London, even now, when England lies wounded from a cruel blow--a blow
which I believe may prove the greatest blessing England ever knew. But
those happy people are not running after pleasure or concentrating their
intelligence upon their own gratification. No, no; those happy people
are strenuously, soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as
Christians and British citizens. They are happy because of that.

"Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that, even apart from God's
will and the all-sacrificing love of His Son, _there is absolutely no
real happiness in this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty_. If
you profess you love a woman, but shirk your duty by her, of what worth
is such love? Is God of less importance to you? Is Eternity of less
importance? Are King and Country, and the future of our race and the
millions who depend on us for light and guidance and protection, of less
importance? As God hears me, _nothing_ is of _any_ importance, beside
the one thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to life, here
and hereafter. That one thing is Duty."

The evening congregation was more demonstrative than that of the
afternoon, and though I do not think the impression produced by
Reynolds's address was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs--it
could hardly have been that--its effects were more noticeable. The great
crowd that streamed out of the hall after the Benediction had been
pronounced, testified in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's
assertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the very depths of
London's heart as no other missioners had ever stirred them.

By George Stairs's invitation, Mrs. Van Homrey, Constance, Crondall,
myself, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson, joined the preachers that
evening, quite informally, at their very modest supper board. It must
have been a little startling to a _bon vivant_ like Sir Herbert to find
that the men who had stormed London, supped upon bread and cheese and
celery and cold rice pudding, and, without a hint of apology, offered
their guests the same Spartan entertainment. But it was quite a
brilliant function so far as mental activity and high spirits were
concerned. We were discussing the possibilities of the Canadian
preachers' pilgrimage, and Crondall said:

"I know that some of you think I take too sanguine a view, but, mark my
words, these meetings to-day are the beginning of the greatest
religious, moral, and national revival that the British people have ever
seen. I am certain of it. Your blushes are quite beside the point,
Stairs; they are wholly irrelevant; so is your modesty. Why, my dear
fellow, you couldn't help it if you tried. You two men are the
mouthpiece of the hour. The hour having come, you could not stay its
Message if you tried, nor check the tide of its effect. I know my
London. In a matter of this kind--a moral movement--London is the
hardest place in the kingdom to move, because its bigness and variety
make it so many-sided. Having achieved what you have achieved to-day in
London, I say nothing can check your progress. My counsel is for no more
than a week in London; two days more in the west, three in the east, and
one in the south; and then a bee-line due north through England, with a
few days in all big centres."

"Well," said Reynolds, "whatever happens after to-night, I just want to
say what George Stairs has more than once said to me, and that is, that
to-day's success is three parts due to Mr. Crondall for every one part
due to us."

"And to his secretary," said Stairs. "It really is no more than bare
truth. Without you, Crondall, there would have been no Albert Hall for
us."

"And no Bishop," added Reynolds.

"And no great personages."

"_And_ no columns and columns of newspaper announcements."

"In point of fact, there would have been none of the splendid
organization which made to-day possible. I recognize it very clearly. If
this is to prove the beginning of a really big movement, then it is a
beginning in which _The Citizens_ and their founder have played a very
big part. You won't find that we shall forget that; and I know Reynolds
is with me when I say that we shall leave no word unsaid, or act
undone, which could make our pilgrimage helpful to _The Citizens'_
campaign. I tell you, standing before that vast assembly to-day, it was
borne in upon me as I had not felt it before, that your aims and ours
are inseparable. We cannot succeed without your succeeding, nor you
without our succeeding. Our interpretation of Christianity, our Message,
is Duty and simple living, and unless the people will accept that
Message they will never achieve what you seek of them. On the other
hand, if they will answer your call they will be going a long way toward
accepting and acting upon our Message."

"I am mighty thankful that has come home to you, Stairs," said Crondall.
"I felt it very strongly when I first asked you to come and talk things
over. Your pilgrimage is going to wake up England, morally. It will be
our business to see that newly waked England choose the right direction
for the first outlay of its energy. The thing will go far--much farther
than I have said, and far beyond England's immediate need. But, of
course, we mustn't lose sight of that immediate need. If I am not greatly
mistaken, one of the first achievements of this movement will be the safe
steering of the British public through the General Election. With the New
Year I hope to see a real Imperial Parliament sitting. By that I mean a
strong Government administering England from the House of Commons, while
some of its members sit in an Imperial Chamber--Westminster Hall--and
help elected representatives of every one of the Colonies to govern the
Empire. My belief is there will be no such thing as an Opposition in the
House. Why should England continue to waste its time and energy over
pulling both ways in every little job its legislators have to tackle? It
sterilizes the efforts of the good men, and gives innumerable openings
to the fools and cranks and obstructionists. You will find the very
names of the old futile cross-purposes of party warfare will fall into
the limbo which has swallowed up the pillory, the stocks, and Little
Englandism. With deference to the cloth present in the person of our
reverend friends here, let me quote you what to me is one of the most
strikingly interesting passages in the Bible: '_The vile person shall be
no more called liberal._' It will become clear to all men that the only
possible party, the only people who can possibly stand for progress,
movement, advance, are those who stand firm for Imperial Federation."

"And then?" said Constance, leaning forward, her face illumined by her
shining eyes. Crondall drew a long breath.

"And then--then Britain will have something to say to the Kaiser."

As we rose from the table, George Stairs laid his hand on Reynolds's
shoulder.

"Deep waters these, my friend," said he, "for simple parsons from the
backwoods. But our part is plain, and close at hand. Our work is to make
the writing on the wall flame till all can read and feel: Duty first,
last, and all the time. 'The conclusion of the whole matter.'"

"Yes, yes; that's so," said Reynolds, thoughtfully. And then he added,
as it were an afterthought: "But was that remark about vile people no
more being called liberal really scriptural, I wonder--I wonder!"

"Without a doubt," said Crondall, with a broad grin. "You look up Isaiah
XXXII. 5. You will find it there, written maybe three thousand years
ago, fitting to-day's situation like a glove."

On the way out to South Kensington, where I accompanied the ladies, I
asked Constance what she thought of my old chum, George Stairs.

"Why, Dick," she said, "he makes me feel that an English village can
still produce the finest type of man that walks the earth. But, as
things have been, in our time, I'm glad this particular man didn't
remain in his native village--aren't you?"

"Yes," I agreed, with a half-sad note I could not keep out of my voice.
"I suppose Colonial life has taught him a lot."

"Oh, he is magnificent!"

"And look at John Crondall!"

"Ah, John is a wonderful man; Empire-taught, is John."

"And I suppose the man who has never lived the outside life in the big,
open places can never----"

And then I think she saw what had brought the twinge of sadness to me;
for she touched my arm, her bright eyes gleamed upon me, and--

"You're a terribly impatient man, Dick," she said, with a smile. "It
seems to me you've trekked a mighty long way from _The Mass_ office
in--how many weeks is it?"




IX

THE CITIZENS

    Serene will be our days, and bright
    And happy will our nature be
    When love is an unerring light,
    And joy its own security.
    And they a blissful course may hold
    Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold,
    Live in the spirit of this creed,
    Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


Charles Corbett's _History of the Revival_ is to my mind the most
interesting book of this century. There are passages in it which leave
me marvelling afresh each time I read them, that any writer, however
gifted, could make quite so intimate a revelation, without personal
knowledge of the inside workings of the movement he describes so
perfectly. But it is a fact that Corbett never spoke with Stairs or
Reynolds, or Crondall; neither, I think, was he personally known to any
member of the executive of _The Citizens_. Yet I know from my own
working experience of the Revival, both in connection with the
pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers and the campaign of _The Citizens_,
that Corbett's descriptions are marvellously accurate and lifelike, and
that the conclusions he draws could not have been made more correct and
luminous if they had been written by the leaders of the great joint
movement themselves.

The educational authorities were certainly well advised in making
Corbett's great work the base from which the contemporary history
text-books for use in the national schools were drawn. Your modern
students, by the way, would find it hard to realize that, even at the
time of the Revival, our school-children were obliged to waste most of
the few hours a week which were devoted to historical studies, to the
wearisome memorizing of dates and genealogies connected with the Saxon
Heptarchy. As a rule they had no time left in which to learn anything
whatever of the progress of their own age, or the nineteenth-century
development of the Empire. At that time a national schoolboy destined to
earn his living as a soldier or a sailor, or a tinker or a tailor,
sometimes knew a little of the Saxon kings of England, or even a few
dates connected with the Norman Conquest, and the fact that Henry VIII.
had six wives. But he had never heard of the Reform Bill, and knew
nothing whatever of the incorporation of India, Australia, South Africa,
or Canada.

I suppose the most notable and impressive intimation received by the
British public of the fact that a great religious, moral, and social
revival had begun among them, was contained in Monday morning's
newspapers, after the first great Albert Hall services. The recognized
chief among imperialistic journals became from the beginning the organ
of the new movement. Upon that Monday morning I remember that this
journal's first leading article was devoted to the Message of the
Canadian preachers, its second to the coming of the various Colonial
delegates for the Westminster Hall Conference. For the rest, the centre
of the paper was occupied by a four-page supplement, with portraits,
describing fully, and reporting verbatim the Albert Hall services. The
opening sentences of the leading article gave the public its cue:

"There can be little doubt, we think, that yesterday's services at the
Albert Hall mark the inauguration of a national movement in morals,
which, before it has gone far, is as likely to earn the name of the
Revolution as that of Revival. A religious, moral, and social revolution
is what we anticipate as the result of the mission of the Canadian
preachers. Never before has London been so stirred to its moral and
emotional depths. In such a movement the provincial centres are not
likely to prove less susceptible than the metropolis."

As a matter of fact, I had occasion to know that Mr. James Bryanstone,
the preachers' secretary (in whose name John Crondall had carried out
the whole work of organization, while I served him as secretary and
assistant) received during that Monday no fewer than thirty-four
separate telegraphic invitations from provincial centres subsequently
visited by Stairs and Reynolds. It was, as Crondall had said: The time
was ripe, and the Canadian preachers were the mouthpiece of the hour.
Their Message filled them, and England was conscious of its need of that
Message.

On Monday and Tuesday the afternoon and evening services at the Albert
Hall were repeated. Thousands of people were unable to obtain admission
upon each occasion. Some of these people were addressed by friends of
John Crondall's and _The Citizens_, within the precincts of the hall. On
Tuesday morning, sunrise found a great throng of people waiting to
secure places when the hall should open. On both days members of the
Royal Family were present, and on Tuesday the Primate of England
presided over the service addressed by Stairs.

During all this time, John Crondall was working night and day, and I was
busy with him in organizing the recruiting campaign of _The Citizens_.
The Legion of Frontiersmen, and the members of some scores of rifle
clubs, had been enrolled _en bloc_ as members, and applications were
pouring in upon us by every post from men who had seen service in
different parts of the world, and from men able to equip themselves
either as mounted or foot riflemen. On Tuesday evening the Canadian
preachers announced that their next day services would be held at the
People's Palace, in the East End. But I fancy that, among the packed
thousands who attended _The Citizens'_ first public meeting at the
Albert Hall on Wednesday afternoon, many came under the impression that
they were to hear the Canadian preachers.

The man of all others in England most fitted for the office, presided
over that first meeting, in full review uniform, and wearing the sword
which had been returned to him by General Baron von Fuechter, after the
historic surrender at the Mansion House on Black Saturday. The great
little Field Marshal rose at three o'clock and stood for full five
minutes, waiting for the tempest of cheering which greeted him to
subside, before he could introduce John Crondall to that huge audience.
Even when the Field Marshal began to speak he could not obtain complete
silence. As one burst of cheering rumbled to its close, another would
rise from the hall's far side like approaching thunder, swelling as it
came.

It seemed the London public was trying to make up to its erstwhile hero
for its long neglect of his brave endeavours to warn them against the
evils which had actually befallen. At last, not to waste more time, the
little Field Marshal drew his sword, and waved it above his head till a
penetrant ray of afternoon sunlight caught and transformed the blade
into a streak of living flame.

"There is a stain on it!" he shouted, shaking the blade. "It belongs to
you--to England--and there's a stain on it; got on Black Saturday. Now
silence, for the man who's for wiping out all stains. Silence!"

It was long since the little man had delivered himself of such a roar,
as that last "Silence!" There were one or two Indian veterans in the
hall who remembered the note. It had its effect, and John Crondall
stood, presently, before an entirely silent and eagerly expectant
multitude, when he began his explanation of the ends and aims of _The
Citizens_. I remember he began by saying:

"I cannot pretend to be a Canadian preacher--I wish I could." And here
there was another demonstration of cheering. One realized that afternoon
that the Canadians had lighted a fire in London that would not easily
be put out. "No, I am a native of your own London," said Crondall; "but
I admit to having learned most of the little I know in Canada, South
Africa, India, and Australia. And if there is one thing I have learned
very thoroughly in those countries, it is to love England. She has no
braver or more devoted sons and lovers within her own shores than our
kinsmen oversea. You will find we shall have fresh proofs of that very
soon. Meantime, just in passing, I want to tell you this: You have read
something in the papers of _The Citizens_, the organization of
Britishers who are sworn to the defence of Britain. I am here to tell
you about them. Well, in the past fortnight, I have received two hundred
and forty cable messages from representative citizens in Canada, South
Africa, Australia, India, and other parts of the Empire, claiming
membership, and promising support through thick and thin, from thousands
of our kinsfolk oversea. So, before I begin, I give you the greeting of
men of our blood from all the ends of the earth. They are with us heart
and hand, my friends, and eager to prove it. And now I am going to tell
you something about _The Citizens_."

But before that last sentence had left Crondall's lips, we were in the
thick of another storm of cheering. The religious character of the
Canadian preachers' meetings had been sufficient to prevent these
outbursts of popular feeling; but now the public seemed to welcome the
secular freedom of _The Citizens'_ gathering, as an opportunity for
giving their feelings vent. I am not sure that it was John Crondall's
message from the Colonies that they cheered. They were moved, I am sure,
by a vague general approval of the idea of a combination of citizens for
British defence. But their cheering I take to have been produced by
feelings they would have been hard put to it to define in any way. They
had been deeply stirred by the teaching of the Canadian preachers. In
short, they had been seized by the fundamental tenets of the simple
faith which has since come to be known to the world as "British
Christianity"; and they were eager to find some way in which they could
give tangible expression to the faith that was burgeoning within them;
stirring them as young mothers are stirred, filling them with resolves
and aspirations, none the less real and deep-seated because they were as
yet incoherent and shapeless.

I am only quoting the best observers of the time in this description of
public feeling when John Crondall made his great recruiting speech for
_The Citizens_. The event proved my chief to have been absolutely right
in his reckoning, absolutely sound in his judgment. He had urged from
the beginning that _The Citizens_ and the Canadian preachers had a
common aim. "But you teach a general principle," he had said to George
Stairs, "while we supply the particular instance. We must reap where you
sow; we must glean after you; we must follow you, as night follows day,
as accomplishment follows preparation--because you arouse the sense of
duty, you teach the sacredness of duty, while we give it particular
direction. It's you who will make them _Citizens_, my dear fellow--for
what you mean by a true Christian is what I mean by a true citizen--our
part is to swear them in. Or, as you might say, you prepare, and we
confirm. Those that won't come up to your standard as Christians, won't
be any use to us as _Citizens_."

Just how shrewdly John Crondall had gauged the matter perhaps no one
else can realize, even now, so clearly as those who played a recorder's
part in the recruiting campaign, as I did from that first day in the
Albert Hall, with Constance Grey's assistance, and, later on, with the
assistance of many other people. At a further stage, and in other
places, we made arrangements for enrolling members after every meeting.
Upon this occasion we were unable to face the task, and, instead, a card
was given to every applicant, for subsequent presentation at _The
Citizens'_ headquarters in Victoria Street, where I spent many busy
hours, with a rapidly growing clerical staff, swearing in new members,
and booking the full details of each man's position and capabilities,
for registration on the roster.

We had no fees of any kind, but every new member was invited to
contribute according to his means to _The Citizens'_ equipment fund.
During the twenty-four hours following that first meeting at the Albert
Hall, over twenty-seven thousand pounds was received in this way from
new members. But we enrolled many who contributed nothing; and we
enrolled a few men to whom we actually made small payments from a
special fund raised privately for that purpose. All this last-named
minority, and a certain proportion of other members, went directly into
camp training on the estates of various wealthy members, who themselves
were providing camp equipment and instructors, while, in many cases,
arranging also for employment which should make these camps as nearly as
might be self-supporting.

Among the list of people who agreed to deliver addresses at our meetings
we now included many of the most eloquent speakers, and some of the most
famous names in England. But I am not sure that any of them ever evoked
the same storms of enthusiasm, the same instant and direct response that
John Crondall earned by his simple speeches. Heart and soul, John
Crondall was absorbed in the perfection and furtherance of the
organization he had founded, and when he sought public support he was
irresistible.

In those first days of the campaign there were times when John Crondall
was so furiously occupied, that his bed hardly knew the touch of him,
and I could not exchange a word with him outside the immediate work of
our hands. This was doubtless one reason why I took a certain idea of
mine to Constance Grey, instead of to my chief. Together, she and I
interviewed Brigadier-General Hapgood, of the Salvation Army, and, on
the next day, the venerable chief of that remarkable organization,
General Booth. The proposition we put before General Booth was that he
should join hands with us in dealing with that section of our would-be
members who described themselves as unemployed and without resources.

For five minutes the old General stroked his beard, and offered
occasional ejaculatory interrogations. I pointed out that the converts
of the Canadian preachers (for whom the General expressed unbounded
admiration and respect) flocked to our standard, full of genuine
eagerness to carry out the gospel of duty and simple living. Suddenly,
in the middle of one of my sentences, this commander-in-chief of an army
larger than that of any monarch in Christendom made up his mind, and
stopped me with a gesture.

"We will do it," he said. "Yes, yes, I see what you would say. Yes, yes,
to be sure, to be sure; that is quite so. We will do it. Come and see me
again, and I will put a working plan before you. Good day--God bless
you!"

And we were being shown out. It was all over in a few minutes; but that
was the beginning of the connection between the Salvation Army and that
section of _The Citizens_ whose members lacked both means and
employment. According to a safe and conservative estimate, we are told
that the total number of sworn _Citizens_ subsequently handled by the
Salvation Army was six hundred and seventy-five thousand. We supplied
the instructors, officers, and all equipment; the Salvation Army carried
out all the other work of control, organization, and maintenance, and
made their great farm camps so nearly self-supporting as to be
practically no burden upon _The Citizens'_ funds. The effect upon the
men themselves was wholly admirable. Every one of them was a genuinely
unemployed worker, and the way they all took their training was
marvellous.

I think Constance Grey was as pleased as I was with the praise we won
from John Crondall over this. A little while before this time I should
have felt jealous pangs when I saw her sweet face lighten and glow at a
word of commendation from John Crondall. But my secretaryship was
teaching me many things. No other woman could ever mean to me one tithe
of all that Constance Grey meant. Of that I was very sure. To think of
such women as handsome Beatrice Blaine or Sylvia Wheeler, in a vein of
comparison, was for me like comparing the light of a candle in a distant
window with the moon herself. The mere sound of Constance's voice
thrilled me as nothing else could. But I am glad to remember now that I
no longer knew so small an emotion as jealousy where she was concerned.

John Crondall was the strongest man of all the men I knew; Constance was
the sweetest woman. Here was a natural and fitting comradeship. I
thought of my chief as the mate of the woman I loved. My heart ached at
times. But I am glad and proud that I had no jealousy.




X

SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE

    I, loving freedom and untried,
    No sport of every random gust,
    Yet being to myself a guide,
    Too blindly have reposed my trust;
    And oft, when in my heart was heard
    Thy timely mandate, I deferred
    The task, in smoother walks to stray,
    But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


It has often been said of the Canadian preachers that they conferred the
gift of eloquence upon all their converts. It is certainly a fact that
long before Stairs and Reynolds had traversed half the length of
England, disciples of theirs were winning converts to "British
Christianity"--as the religion of Duty and simple living came to be
called--in every county in the kingdom.

In the same way, the progress of _The Citizens'_ recruiting campaign was
made marvellously rapid and triumphant in character by reason of the
enthusiastic activity of all new adherents. During the second of John
Crondall's great meetings in Birmingham, for example, we received
telegraphic greeting from the chairmen presiding over one hundred and
ninety-eight other meetings then being held for the furtherance of our
cause in different parts of the country. And, in many cases, those who
addressed these meetings were among the most famous public speakers in
England.

In most towns we spent no more than twenty-four hours, in others no more
than twelve hours, and in some we stayed only a third of that time. In
one memorable day we addressed immense gatherings in four different
towns, and travelled one hundred and thirty miles to boot. But in each
one of those towns, as in every centre visited, we left a properly
organized committee at work, with arrangements for frequent meetings,
and the swearing in of new members.

The Canadian preachers spent only one day in many of the places they
visited. But in large centres they stayed longer, because, after the
first week of the pilgrimage, the attendances at their meetings became
unmanageably large, owing to the arrangements made by railway companies,
who ran special trains to tap the outlying parts of every district
visited. Advance agents--a hard-working band, many of whom were
well-to-do volunteers--prepared the way in every detail for the progress
of both the Canadians and ourselves, and local residents placed every
possible facility at our disposal.

Never in the history of religious revivals in England has anything been
known to equal the whole-souled enthusiasm with which the new evangel of
Duty was welcomed as the basis of our twentieth-century national life.
The facts that the Canadian preachers were rarely seen apart, and that
the teaching of each was identical with that of the other, combined with
the general knowledge that one represented the Church of England and
the other a great Nonconformist body; these things divested the
pilgrimage of any suggestion of denominationalism, and lent it the same
urgent strength of appeal for members of all sects, and members of none.
This seems natural enough to us now, ours being a Christian country. But
it was regarded then as a wonderful testimony to the virtue of the new
teaching, because at that time sectarian differences, animosities even,
were very clearly marked, and led far more naturally to opposition and
hostility between the representatives of different denominations than to
anything approaching united effort in a common cause.

It was during the day we spent in York that chance led to my witnessing
an incident which greatly affected me. My relations with my chief, John
Crondall, were not such as to call for the observance of much ceremony
between us. Accordingly, it was with no thought of interference with his
privacy that I blundered into my chief's sitting-room to announce the
number of new members we had enrolled after the meeting. John Crondall
was standing on the hearth-rug, his right hand was resting on Constance
Grey's shoulder, his lips were touching her forehead.

For an instant I thought of retreat. But the thing seemed too clumsy.
Accordingly, having turned to close the door, with deliberation, I
advanced into the room with some awkward remark about having thought my
chief was alone, and produced my figures of the enrolment of new
members. After a few moments Constance left us, referring to some errand
she had in view. I did not look at her, and John Crondall plunged at
once into working talk. As for me, I was acutely conscious that I had
seen Crondall kiss Constance; but my chief made no sign to show me
whether or not he was aware that I had seen this.

Although I thought I had accustomed myself to the idea of these two
being predestined mates, I realized now that no amount of reasoning
would ever really reconcile me to the practical outworking of the idea.
Of course, my feeling about it would be described as jealousy pure and
simple. Perhaps it was; but I cherish the idea that it was some more
kindly shade of feeling. I know it brought no hint of resentment or
weakening in my affection for John Crondall; and most assuredly I
harboured no unkind thought of Constance. But I loved her; every pulse
in me throbbed love and longing at her approach. Again and again I had
demonstrated to myself my own unworthiness of such a woman; the natural
affinity between Constance and Crondall. Yet now, the sight of that kiss
was as the sound of a knell in my heart; it filled me with an aching
lament for the death of----of something which had still lived in me,
whether admitted or not, till then.

For days after that episode of the kiss I lived in hourly expectation of
a communication from John Crondall. Our relations were so intimate that
I felt certain he would not withhold his confidence for long. But day
succeeded day in our strenuous, hurried life, and no word came to me
from my chief regarding any other thing than our own work. Indeed, I
thought I detected a certain new sternness in John Crondall's demeanour,
an extra rigid concentration upon work, which carried with it, for me,
a suggestion of his being unwilling to meet one upon any other than the
working footing. I was surprised and a little hurt about this, because
of late there had been no reservations in the confidence with which my
chief treated me. Also, I could not see any possible reason for secrecy
in such a matter; it might as well be told first as last, I thought. And
I watched Constance with a brooding eye for signs she never made, for a
confidence which did not come from either of my friends.

The thing possessed my mind, and must, I fear, have interfered
materially with my work. But after a time the idea came to me that these
two had decided to allow our joint work to take precedence of their
private happiness, and to put aside their own affairs until the aims of
_The Citizens_ had been attained. I recalled certain little indications
I myself had received from Constance before John Crondall's return from
South Africa, to the effect that personal feeling could have no great
weight with her, while our national fate hung in the balance. And, by
dulling the edge of my expectancy, this conclusion somehow eased the
ache which had possessed me since the day of the kiss to which chance
had made me a witness. But it did not altogether explain to me the new
reserve, the hint of stiffness in John Crondall's manner; and, rightly
or wrongly, I knew when I took Constance's hand in mine, or met the gaze
of her shining eyes, that I did so as a devout lover, and not merely as
a friend.




XI

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

    Through no disturbance of my soul
    Or strong compunction in me wrought,
    I supplicate for thy controul;
    But in the quietness of thought:
    Me this unchartered freedom tires;
    I feel the weight of chance desires:
    My hopes no more must change their name;
    I long for a repose that ever is the same.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


From the first, the courtesy of the Press was securely enlisted in _The
Citizens'_ favour by John Crondall. For many months the _Standard_, now
firmly established as the principal organ of the reform movement,
devoted an entire page each day to the progress of our campaign and the
pilgrimage of our forerunners--the Canadian preachers. John Crondall had
gone thoroughly into the matter at the beginning with the editor of this
journal, and the key-note thus given was taken by the Press of the whole
country.

The essence of our treatment by the newspapers lay in their careful
avoidance of all matter which would be likely to earn for the movement
the hostility of Germany, or of the officers in command of the German
forces in England. Our language took on a new and special meaning in
the columns of the newspapers, where reports of our campaign were
concerned. Such adjectives as "social," "moral," and the like were made
to cover quite special meanings, as applied to the organization of _The
Citizens_. So ably was all this done, that the German authorities
regarded the whole movement as social and domestic, with a direct
bearing upon the General Election, perhaps, but none whatever upon
international politics or Anglo-German relations.

In Elberfeld's ponderous history we are given the text of a despatch to
the Kaiser in which General Baron von Fuechter assured his Imperial
master that any interference with _The Citizens_ and their meetings
would be gratuitous and impolitic:

"Their aims being purely social and domestic, and those of a
quasi-religious Friendly Society, resembling something between their
'Band of Hope' and their 'Antediluvian Buffaloes.' The English have a
passion for this kind of child's play, and are absurdly impatient of
official surveillance. Their incorrigible sentimentality is soothed by
such movements as those of the Canadian preachers and _The Citizens_;
but even the rudiments of discipline or efficient cooerdination are
lacking among them. Combination against us would be impossible for them,
for this is a country of individualists, among whom the matter of
obligations to the State is absolutely not recognized. There is no trace
of military feeling among the people, and in my opinion the invasion
might safely have been attempted five, if not ten years, before it was.
The absence of any note of resentment in their newspapers against our
occupation has been quite marked since their preoccupation with the
Canadian preachers and _The Citizens_. The people accept it in the most
matter-of-course manner, and are already entirely absorbed once more in
their own affairs, and even in their sports. British courage and
independence have been no more than a myth for many years past--a bubble
which your Majesty's triumphantly successful policy has burst for ever."

Another important feature, alike of our campaign and the pilgrimage of
the preachers, was their positively non-party and non-sectarian
character. John Crondall had been firm upon this point from the
beginning. I remember his saying at the first meeting of the executive
of _The Citizens_:

"Our party government, party conflict, here in England, have sapped the
vitality of the British Empire long enough. I believe the invasion has
scotched the thing, and we must be very careful to do nothing that might
help to bring it to life again. A Radical, as such, is neither better
nor worse than a Conservative. It does not matter two pins what becomes
of the Conservative organization, or the Liberal party, as parties. I
should be delighted never to hear of either again. Our business is the
Empire's business; and we want the people of the Empire with us--the
whole lot of them--as one solid party."

Accordingly, no mention of any political party was ever heard at our
meetings. We made no appeal to any given section of the community, but
only to the British public as a whole. We aimed at showing that there
could be no division in national affairs, save the division which
separates citizens and patriots from men worthy of neither name. And
that is why Maurice Hall, in his famous _British Renaissance_, was able
to write that:

"The General Elections of the invasion year were practically directed
and decided by two forces: the influence of _The Citizens_ and the
influence of the Canadian preachers' Duty teaching. Political opinions
and traditions, as previously understood, played no part whatever."

Of course, it seems natural enough now that the British public should be
united in matters of national and imperial import; but those whose
memories are long enough will bear me out in saying that in previous
elections nine voters in ten had been guided, not by any question of the
needs of the country or the Empire, but by their support of this party
or of that, of this colour or of that. Our politicians had strenuously
supported the preposterous faction system, and fanned party rivalry in
every way, because they recognized that it gave them personal power and
aggrandizement, which they had long placed before any consideration of
the common weal. By this they had brought shame and disaster upon the
nation, in precisely the same manner that the same results had been
produced by the same means, when these were used by the oligarchs of the
Dutch Republic, prior to the downfall of the Netherlands.

Indeed, for some time before the invasion our politicians might have
been supposed to be modelling their lives and policy entirely upon those
of the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century; particularly with
regard to their mercenary spoliation of the nation's defence forces, and
their insane pertinacity in clinging to the policy of "cheapness," which
killed both the manufacturing and the agricultural industries of the
country, by allowing other properly protected nations to oust our
producers from all foreign markets, and to swamp our home markets with
their surplus stocks. Down to the minutest detail, the same causes and
actions had produced the same results a century earlier in the
Netherlands; and even as, first, King William of Prussia, and then
revolutionary France, had devastated the Netherlands, so had the
Kaiser's legions overrun England. It was not for lack of warning that
our politicians had blindly followed so fatal a lead. "The Destroyers"
were still being warned most urgently at the very time of the invasion
by public speakers, and in such lucid works as Ellis Barker's _The Rise
and Decline of the Netherlands_.

In spite of the emphatically non-party character of _The Citizens'_
campaign, John Crondall kept in close touch throughout with all his
political friends, and very many members of Parliament were among our
leading workers. My chief's idea was that, when the elections drew near,
we should cease to map out our movements in accordance with those of the
Canadian preachers, and allow them to be guided by the exigencies of the
electoral campaign; bringing all our influence to bear wherever we saw
weakness in the cause of patriotism and reform.

Already we had arrangements made for leading members of _The Citizens_
to address meetings throughout the elections at a good many centres.
But, before the electioneering had gone far, it became evident that more
had already been accomplished than we supposed. Candidates who came
before their constituents with any kind of party programme were either
angrily howled down or contemptuously ignored. Old supporters of "The
Destroyers," who ventured upon temporizing tactics, were peremptorily
faced with demands for straight-out declarations of policy upon the
single issue of patriotic reform and duty to the State. With a single
exception, the actual members of the Cabinet in "The Destroyers'"
Administration refrained from any attempt to secure reelection.

Such an electoral campaign had never before been known in England.
Candidates who, even inadvertently, used such words as "Conservative,"
"Radical," or "Liberal," were hissed into silence. Even the word
"Labour" was taboo, so far as it referred to any political party.
"Duty," "Patriotism," "Defence," "Citizenship," "United Empire,"
"British Federation," and, again, ringing loudly above all other cries,
"Duty"--those were the watchwords and the platforms of the invasion year
elections. The candidate who promised relief from taxation was laughed
at. The candidate who promised legislation directed toward the citizen's
defence of the citizen's hearth and home, was cheered to the echo.

The one member of "The Destroyers'" Administration who sought
reelection, found it well to assert the claims of his youth by making a
public recantation of all his previously expressed views and policy,
and seeking to outdo every one else in the direction of patriotic
reform. Though he gulled nobody, he was listened to good-humouredly, and
defeated with great ease by Abel Winchester, the Australian, who saw
years of work before him, in conjunction with Forbes Thompson, in the
supervision of village rifle corps throughout the country.

In many ways the country had never known a Parliamentary election so
constructive; in one respect it was absolutely destructive. It destroyed
all previously existing political parties. No single member was returned
as the representative of a previously existing party. The voters of
Britain had refused to consider any other than the one issue of
patriotic reform: the all-British policy, as it was called; and the
consequence was, that when Parliament assembled it was found that the
House of Commons could no longer boast possession of an Opposition.

The members of that assembly had been sent to St. Stephens to busy
themselves, in unison, with the accomplishment of a common end; and if
one among them should waste the time of the House by any form of
obstruction, he could only do so by breaking the pledges upon the
strength of which he had been elected. This fact was clearly set forth
in the Speech from the Throne, delivered by the King in person. The
business of Parliament was in full swing before its second sitting was
far advanced. Though then an aged man, the famous statesman to whom the
King had entrusted the task of forming a new Cabinet bore himself with
the vigour of early manhood, and no Prime Minister had ever faced
Parliament with so great a driving power behind him of unity,
confidence, and national sympathy. The fact that for years his name had
been most prominently associated with every movement making for unity
within the Empire; that he had striven valiantly for many years against
the anti-British forces of disintegration; this was admitted to augur
well for the success of the Conference of Colonial representatives then
holding its first sitting in historic Westminster Hall.

Meantime, the patriotic enthusiasm of the general public seemed to have
been greatly heightened by the result of the general elections. By
common consent a note of caution, of warning, took the place of the
stirring note of appeal and stimulation which had formerly characterized
every public address delivered under the auspices of _The Citizens_.
Almost without invitation now the cream of the country's manhood flocked
into our travelling headquarters for enrolment on the roster of _The
Citizens_; and: "Hasten slowly--and silently," became John Crondall's
counsel to all our supporters.

The effect upon the whole public of this counsel of caution and
restraint was one of the most remarkable features of that period; and it
showed, more clearly, I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and
strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian preacher's Duty
teaching. Our relations with the Power to which we were in effect a
people in vassalage, and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the
exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely the people responded
to this demand. In his _History of the Revival_, Charles Corbett says,
with good reason:

"It was the time of waiting, of cautious preparation, of enthusiasm
restrained and harnessed to prudence, which must really be regarded as
the probationary era of the Revival. It is in no sense a depreciation of
the incalculable value of the work done by the Canadian apostles of the
new faith, to say that their splendid efforts might well have proved of
no more than transitory effect, but for that stern, silent period of
repression, of rigid, self-administered discipline, which followed the
access to office of the first Free Government.[1] That period may be
regarded as the crucible in which British Christianity was tested and
proven; in which the steel of the new patriotism was tempered and
hardened to invincible durability. The Canadian preachers awakened the
people; _The Citizens_ set them their task; the period of waiting
schooled them in the spirit of the twentieth century, the key-note of
which is discipline, the meaning of which is Duty."

    [1] This title, applied by the Prince of Wales in a speech delivered
    at the Guildhall to the first Parliament which met without an
    Opposition, remained in use for a number of years afterwards.

I do not regard that as a statement of more than the truth; and I do not
think it would be easy to overrate, either the value of the period or
the excellence of the response to the demand it made upon them. The only
dissatisfied folk were the publicans and the theatre and music-hall
lessees. The special journals which represented the interests of this
class--caterers for public amusement and public dissipation--were full
of covert raillery against what they called the new Puritanism. Their
raillery was no more than covert, however; the spirit of the time was
too strong to permit more than that, and I do not think it produced any
effect worth mentioning.

Here again our difficulties proved real blessings in disguise. The
burden of invasion taxation was heavy; all classes felt the monetary
pinch of it, apart altogether from the humiliation of the German
occupation; and this helped very materially in the development of common
sense ideals regarding economy and simple living. Not for nothing had
John Crondall called the Canadian preachers the mouthpiece of the hour.
One saw very plainly, in every walk of life, a steadily growing love of
sobriety. The thing was perhaps most immediately noticeable in the
matter of the liquor traffic. Throughout the country, those
public-houses and hotels which were in reality only drinking-shops were
being closed up by the score, or converted into other sorts of business
premises, for lack of custom in their old misery-breeding trade. The
consumption of spirits, and of all the more expensive wines, decreased
enormously. It is true there was a slight increase in the consumption of
cider, and the falling off of beer sales was slight. But this was
because a large number of people, who had been in the habit of taking
far less wholesome and more costly beverages, now made use of both beer
and cider. It was not at all evidence that the consumption of alcohol
among the poorer classes maintained its old level. The sales of gin,
for example, fell to less than half the amounts used in the years
before the invasion.

And this was no more than one aspect of the great national progress
toward realization of the ideals of Duty and simple living. Extravagance
of every sort became, not merely unpopular, but hated and despised, as
evidence of unpatriotic feeling. In this, I think, the women of England
deserve the greater meed of gratitude and respect. The change they
wrought in domestic economy was not less than wonderful when one
realizes how speedily it was brought about, and how great was the
change. For in the years immediately preceding the invasion the women
had been sad offenders in this respect, particularly, perhaps, in their
vulgar and ostentatious extravagance in matters of dress. Now, the
placards of the British Commercial Union, exhorting the public to "Buy
British Empire Goods only," became out of date almost as soon as they
were printed, their advice being no longer needed.

No more could one see the wives and daughters of England competing with
their unfortunate sisters of the _demi-monde_ in the extravagance of
their attire. One of the first evidences of the effect of the Canadian
preachers' teaching that I can remember was the notable access of
decorum and simplicity in dress which dominated the fashion of our
clothes. In this, as in sundry other matters, I think we were helped by
the unprecedented number of Colonials who began to flock into England at
this time from Canada, South Africa, and Australia. But, despite the
general desire for economy, it is certain that from that time on the
middle-class folk at all events began to wear better clothes and buy
better commodities generally--articles which lasted longer, and were
better worth using. The reason of this was all a part of the same
teaching, the same general tendency. Shoddy goods, representing the
surplus output of German and American firms, could no longer be sold in
England, however low the prices at which they were offered; and
shopkeepers soon found that they lost standing when they offered such
goods to the public. Thus true economy and true patriotism were served
at one and the same time.

Extravagance in eating, dress, entertainment, and the like, became that
year more disgraceful than drunkenness had been a year before in the
public eye. In the same way we attained to clearer vision and a saner
sense of proportion in very many matters of first-rate social
importance. I remember reading that the market for sixty and seventy
horse-power touring motor-cars had almost ceased to exist, while the
demand for industrial motor-vehicles, and for cars of something under
twenty horse-power, had never been so flourishing.

Before this time we had fallen into incredible extravagance in our
attitude toward all the parasitical occupations, and paid absurd
tributes of respect to many of those who waxed fat upon pandering to our
weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single night's dream, and
incidentally gave rise to a certain amount of complaining from those who
suffered by it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these
complainings than it was to fritter away its time and substance in
drinking-bars or in places of amusement. The famous "Middle-class
Music-halls" faded quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the
most popular of public performers were those--and they were not a
few--who forsook grease-paint for khaki, and posturing on stages for
exercising on rifle-ranges and drill-grounds.

The word "Puritanism" was still a term of reproach then, by virtue of
its old associations; but, as we see things nowadays, there is room only
for gladness in admitting that the wave of feeling which swept through
the homes of England in the wake of the Canadian preachers, _The
Citizens_, and the organizers of the village rifle corps, was in very
truth a mighty revival of Puritanism, backed by the newly awakened
twentieth-century spirit of Imperial patriotism, with its recognition of
the duty of loyalty, not alone to country, but to race and Empire. Yes,
it was true Puritanism--stern, unfaltering Puritanism; and it came to
England not a day too soon. Without it, we could never have been purged
of our insensate selfishness; without it, the loose agglomeration of
states, then called the British Empire, could never have been welded
into the State; without it, the great events of that year would have
been impossible, and the dominion of the English-speaking peoples must,
ere this, have become no more than a matter of historical interest.




XII

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER

    Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
    The Godhead's most benignant grace;
    Nor know we anything so fair
    As is the smile upon thy face:
    Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
    And fragrance in thy footing treads;
    Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;
    And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


I suffered no change so far as Constance Grey's demeanour to me was
concerned; but certainly John Crondall had altered since the day upon
which I had so inopportunely entered his room when Constance was with
him. At times I fancied his change was toward me personally, and I
thought it curiously unlike the man to cherish any sort of unkindness
over an accident. But then, again, at odd times, I watched him with
other men among our now considerable train, and the conclusion was borne
in upon me that the change had nothing to do with me, but was general in
its character. He was more stern, less cheery, and far more reserved
than before.

And this I thought most strange, for it seemed to me that, even though
Constance and my chief might have agreed that nothing like an engagement
between them must come till our work was done, yet the understanding
which could lead to the kiss I had seen was surely warrant enough for a
change of quite another character than this one. I thought of it
whenever I took Constance's hand in greeting her; and I think my eyes
must sometimes have told her what my heart always felt: that in me, this
right to do as Crondall had done would have seemed an entry into
Paradise, let circumstances and conditions be what they might. And with
such a thought I would recall what, to me, would never be the least of
Black Saturday's events: that once Constance Grey had lain in my
arms--unconsciously, it was true; and that upon the same occasion I had
kissed her, and known in that moment that never again could she be as
other women for me.

I was often tempted to speak to Constance of the change I saw in John
Crondall, and one day in Carlisle I yielded to the temptation. At one
and the same time I both craved and dreaded definite news of the
understanding between the woman I loved and the man I liked and
respected more than any other. I wanted Constance's confidence; yet I
felt as though my life would be stripped bare by definite knowledge that
she was betrothed. So, moth-like, I hovered about the perilous subject,
with a nervous endeavour to lend natural composure to my voice.

"Do you notice any particular change in John Crondall of late?" I asked.
And it seemed to me that Constance flushed slightly as she answered me:

"Change? No. Has he changed?"

"Well, he does not seem to be nearly so happy as----" And there I broke
away from a dangerous comparison, and substituted--"as he was awhile
back."

"Really? But what makes you think that?"

"I fancy he is much more reserved--less frank and more preoccupied; not
so jolly, in fact, as he always was. I have thought so for several
weeks."

"I am sorry, very sorry; and I do hope you are mistaken. Of course he is
overworked--we all are; but that never hurt him before; and with things
going so splendidly---- Oh, I hope you are mistaken."

"Perhaps so," I said. "Certainly I think he has every reason to be
happy--to be happy and proud; every reason."

And I stopped at that; but Constance made no sign to me; and I wondered
she did not, for we were very intimate, and she was sweetly kind to me
in those days. Indeed, once when I looked up sharply at her with a
question from some work we were engaged upon, I saw a light in her
beautiful eyes which thrilled my very heart with strange delight. Her
expression had changed instantly, and I told myself I had no sort of
business to be thrilled by a look which was obviously born of reverie,
of thoughts about John Crondall. Such a sweet light of love her eyes
held! I told myself for the hundredth time that no consideration should
ever cloud the happiness of the man who was so fortunate as to inspire
it--to have won the heart which looked out through those shining eyes.

But it must not be supposed that I had much leisure for this sort of
meditation. My feeling for Constance certainly dominated me. Indeed, it
accounted for everything of import in my life--for my general attitude
of mind and, I make no doubt, for my being where I was and playing the
part I did play in _The Citizens'_ campaign. But our life was not one
that admitted of emotional preoccupation of any sort. We were too close
to the working mechanism of national progress. There never was more
absorbing work than the making and enrolment of _Citizens_ at such a
juncture in the history of one's country.

The spirit of our work, no less than that of the Canadian preachers'
teaching, was actually in the air at that time. It dominated English
life, from the mansions of the great landholders to the cottages of the
field-labourers and the tenements of the factory-hands. It affected
every least detail of the people's lives, and coloured all thought and
action in England--a process which I am sure was strengthened by the
remarkable growth of Colonial sentiment throughout the country at this
time. The tide of emigration seemed to have been reversed by some subtle
process of nature: the strong ebb of previous years had become a flow of
immigration. Everywhere one met Canadians, Australians, South Africans,
and an unusual number of Anglo-Indians.

"We've been doing pretty well of late," said one of the Canadians to me
when I commented to him upon this influx into the Old Country of her
Colonial sons; "and I reckon we can most of us spare time to see things
through a bit at Home. The way our folk look at it on the other side is
this: They reckon we've got to worry through this German business
somehow and come out the right way up on the other side, and a good deal
more solid than we went in. We don't reckon there's going to be any more
'Little Englandism' or Cobdenism after this job's once put through; and
that's a proposition we're mighty keenly interested in, you see. We put
most of our eggs into the Empire basket, away back, while you people
were still busy giving Africa to the Boers, and your Navy to the dogs,
and your markets to Germany, and your trade and esteem to any old
foreigner that happened along with a nest to feather. I reckon that's
why we're most of us here; and maybe that's why we mostly bring our
cartridge-belts along. A New South Wales chap told me last night you
couldn't get up a cricket match aboard a P. and O. or Orient boat, not
for a wager--nothing but shooting competitions and the gentle art of
drill. You say 'Shun!' to the next Colonial you meet, and listen for the
click of his heels! Not that we set much store by that business
ourselves, but we learned about the Old Country taste for it in South
Africa, and it's all good practice, anyhow, and good discipline."

But, whatever the motives and causes behind their coming, it is certain
that an astonishingly large number of our oversea kinsmen were arriving
in England each week; and I believe every one of them joined _The
Citizens_. Their presence and the part they played in affairs had a
marked effect upon the spirit of the time. All sorts and conditions of
people, whose thoughts in the past had never strayed far from their own
parishes, now talked familiarly of people, things, and places Colonial.
The idea of our race being one big tribe, though our homes might be
hemispheres apart, seemed to me to take root for the first time in the
minds of the general public at about this period. I spoke of it to John
Crondall, and reminded him how he had urged this idea upon us years
before in Westminster with but indifferent success.

"Ah, well," he said, "they have come to it of their own accord now; and
that means they'll get a better grip of it than any one could ever have
given them. That's part of our national character, and not a bad part."

We were heading southward through Lancashire, when the news reached us
of that extension of the British Constitution which first gave us a
really Imperial Parliament. The country received the news with a
deep-seated and sober satisfaction. Perhaps the majority hardly
appreciated at once the full significance of this first great
accomplishment of the Free Government. But the published details showed
the simplest among us that by this act the congeries of scattered
nations we had called the British Empire were now truly welded into an
Imperial State. It showed us that we English, and all those stalwart
kinsmen of ours across the Atlantic and on the far side of the
Pacific--north, south, east, and west, wherever the old flag flew--were
now actually as well as nominally subjects of one Government, and that
that Government would for the future be composed of men chosen as their
representatives by the people of every country in the Empire; men drawn
together under one historic roof by one firm purpose--the service and
administration of a great Imperial State.

As I say, the realization produced deep-seated satisfaction. Of late we
had learned to take things soberly in England; but there was no room for
doubt about the effect of this news upon the public. The events of the
past half-year, the pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers, the new
devotion to Duty (which seemed almost a new religion though it was
actually but an awakening to the religion of our fathers), the influx
among us of Colonial kinsmen, and the campaign of _The Citizens_; these
things combined to give us a far truer and more keen appreciation of the
news than had been possible before.

Indeed, looking back upon my experience in Fleet Street, I must suppose
the whole thing would have been impossible before. I could imagine how
my _Daily Gazette_ colleagues would have scoffed at the Imperial
Parliament's first executive act, which was the devising of an Imperial
Customs Tariff to give free trade within the Empire, and complete
protection so far as the rest of the world was concerned, with strictly
reciprocatory concessions to such nations as might choose to offer these
to us, and to no others.

Truly Crondall had said that the Canadian preachers accomplished more
than they knew. The sense of duty, individual and national, burned in
England for the first time since Nelson's day: a steady, white flame.
The acceptance by all classes of the community of the Imperial
Parliament's programme of work proved this. The public had been shown
that our duty to the whole Empire, and to our posterity, demanded this
thing. That was enough. Five years before, one year before, the country
had been shown very clearly where its duties lay; and the showing had
not moved five men in a hundred from their blind pursuit of individual
pleasure and individual gain. Army, Navy, Colonies, Imperial
prestige--all might go by the board.

But now, all that was changed. My old friend, Stairs, with Reynolds, and
their following, had given meaning and application to the teaching of
our national chastisement. Religion ruled England once more; and it was
the religion, not of professions and asseverations, but of Duty. The
House of Commons and, more even than our first Free Government, the
Imperial Parliament in Westminster Hall had behind them the absolute
confidence of a united people. If England could have been convinced at
that time that Duty demanded a barefoot pilgrimage to Palestine, I
verily believe Europe would have speedily been dissected by a
thousand-mile column of marching Britishers.

But the Canadian preachers taught a far more practical faith than that;
and, behind them, John Crondall and his workers opened the door upon a
path more urgent and direct than that of any pilgrimage; the path to be
trodden by all British citizens who respected the white hairs of their
fathers, and the innocent trust of their children; the path of Duty to
God and King and Empire; the path for all who could hear and understand
the call of our own blood.




XIII

ONE SUMMER MORNING

    To humbler functions, awful Power!
    I call thee: I myself commend
    Unto thy guidance from this hour;
    O, let my weakness have an end!
    Give unto me, made lowly wise,
    The spirit of self-sacrifice;
    The confidence of reason give;
    And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.

                                              _Ode to Duty._


Winter rushed past us like a tropical squall that year, and, before one
had noted the beautiful coming of spring, young summer was upon the
land. For me, serving as I did the founder and leader of _The Citizens_,
life was filled as never before. I had never even dreamed of a life so
compact of far-reaching action, of intimate relation with great causes.

I know now that the speed and strenuousness of it was telling upon all
of us. But we did not realize it then. John Crondall seemed positively
tireless. The rest of us had our moments of exhaustion, but never, I
think, of depression. Our work was too finely productive and too richly
rewarded for that. But we were thin, and a little fine-drawn, like
athletes somewhat overtrained.

Published records have analyzed our progress through the country, the
Canadian preachers' and our own; but nothing I have read, or could tell,
gives more than a pale reflection of that triumphal progress, as we
lived it. In our wake, harlots forsook harlotry to learn something of
nursing by doing the rough domestic work of hospitals; famous misers and
money-grubbers gave fortunes to _The Citizens'_ cause, and peers' sons
left country mansions to learn defensive arts, in the ranks; drunkards
left their toping for honest work, and actresses sold their wardrobes to
provide funds for village rifle corps.

There was no light sentiment, no sort of hysteria, at the back of these
miracles. Be it remembered that the streets of English towns had never
been so orderly; public-houses and places of amusement had never been so
empty; churches and chapels had never been one-half so full. During that
year, as the records show, it became the rule in many places for curates
and deacons to hold services outside the churches and chapels, while
packed congregations attended the services held within. And it was then
that, for the first time, we saw parsons leading the young men of their
flocks to the rifle-ranges, and competing with them there.

The lessons we learned in those days will never, I suppose, seem so
wonderful to any one else as to those of us who had lived a good slice
of our lives before the lessons came; before the need of them was felt
or understood. "For God, our Race, and Duty!" Conceive the stirring
wonder of the watchword, when it was no more than a month old!

The seasons rushed by us, as I said. But one short conversation served
to mark for me the coming of summer. We had reached the Surrey hills in
our homeward progress toward London. On a Saturday night we held a huge
meeting in Guildford, and very early on Sunday morning I woke with a
curiously insistent desire to be out in the open. Full of this
inclination I rose, dressed, and made my way down to the side entrance
of the hotel, where a few servants were moving about drowsily. As I
passed out under a high archway into the empty, sunny street, with its
clean Sabbath hush, Constance Grey stepped out from the front entrance
to the pavement.

"I felt such a longing to be out in the open this morning," she said,
when we had exchanged greeting. "It's months since I had a walk for the
walk's sake, and now I mean to climb that hill that we motored over from
Farnham--the Hog's Back, as they call it."

We both thought it deserved some more beautiful name, when we turned on
its crest and looked back at Guildford in the hollow, shining in summer
morning haze.

"Now surely that's King Arthur's Camelot," said Constance.

And then we looked out over the delectable valley toward the towers of
Charterhouse, across the roofs of two most lovable hamlets, from which
blue smoke curled in delicate spirals up from the bed of the valley,
through a nacreous mist, to somewhere near our high level.

We gazed our fill, and I only nodded when Constance murmured:

"It's worth a struggle, isn't it?"

I knew her thought exactly. It was part of our joint life, of the cause
we both were serving. I had been pointing to some object across the
valley, and as my hand fell it touched Constance's hand, which was cool
and fresh as a flower. Mine was moist and hot. I never was more at a
loss for words. I took her hand in mine and held it. So we stood, hand
in hand, like children, looking out over that lovely English valley. My
heart was all abrim with tenderness; but I had no words. I had been a
good deal moved by the curious instance of telepathic sympathy or
understanding which had brought me from my bed that morning and led to
our meeting.

"You have given me so much, taught me so much, Constance," I said at
last.

"No, no; I am no teacher," she said. "But I do think God has taught all
of us a good deal lately--all our tribe--Dick."

There was a rare hint of nervousness in her voice; and I felt I knew the
cause. I felt she must be thinking of John Crondall. And yet, if my life
had depended on it, I could not help saying:

"It is love that taught me."

Constance drew her hand away gently.

"Would not the Canadian preachers say we meant the same thing?" she
said. I had my warning; but, though haltingly, the words would come,
now.

"Ah, Constance, it is love of you, I mean--love of you. Oh, yes, I
know," I hurried on now. "I know. Have no fear of me. I understand. But
it is love of you, Constance, that rules every minute of my life. I
couldn't alter that if I tried; and--and I would not alter it if I had
to die for it. But--you must forgive me. Tell me you do not want me to
stop loving you, Constance. You see, I do not ask any more of you. I
understand. But--let me go on loving you, dear heart, because that means
everything to me. It has guided me in everything I have done since that
day you came to me in _The Mass_ office. Constance, you do not really
want me to stop loving you?"

I was facing her now; kneeling to her, in my mind, though not in fact.
Her head was bowed toward me. Then she raised her glorious eyes, and
gave to me the full tender sweetness of them.

"No, Dick," she said, quite firmly, but soft and low; "I don't want you
ever to stop loving me."

Whatever else Fate brings or takes from me, I shall never lose the
lovely music of those words. That is mine for ever.




XIV

"FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY"

    Soldiers, prepare! Our cause is Heaven's cause;
    Soldiers, prepare! Be worthy of our cause:
    Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky:
    Prepare, O troops that are to fall to-day!
                        Prepare, prepare.

    Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice;
    The Norman William, and the learned Clerk,
    And Lion-Heart, and black-browed Edward, with
    His loyal queen shall rise, and welcome us!
                        Prepare, prepare.

                                              BLAKE.


We had two other meetings before finally taking train for London; but
virtually our campaign was brought to an end at Guildford. Our
peregrination ended there, but the Canadian preachers continued their
pilgrimage till long afterwards. Scores of rich men were anxious to
finance these expounders of the new teaching, and even to build them
churches. But Stairs and Reynolds were both agreed in wanting no
churches. Their mission was to the public as a whole.

When we returned to our headquarters in London, the membership of _The
Citizens_ stood within a few hundreds of three million and a half of
able-bodied men. And still new members were being sworn in every day.
Some few of these members had contributed as much as five thousand
pounds to our funds. Very many had contributed a fifth of that sum, and
very many more had given in hundreds of pounds. There were some who gave
us pence, and they were very cordially thanked, giving as they did from
the slenderest of purses. There were women who had sold dresses and
jewels for us, hundreds of them; and there were little children whose
pocket-money had helped to swell the armament and instruction funds.
Joseph Farquharson, the well-known coal and iron magnate, who had been
famous for his "Little England" sentiments--a man who had boasted of his
parochialism--must have learned very much from the invasion and the
teaching of the new movement. He gave one hundred thousand pounds to
_The Citizens_ after John Crondall's first address in Newcastle.

When Crondall attended the famous Council at the War Office, he did so
as the founder and representative of the most formidable organization
ever known in England. He had no official standing at the Council: he
took his seat there as an unofficial commoner. Yet, in a sense, he held
the defensive strength of Britain in his hand. But several of the
Ministers and officials who formed that Council were members of our
Executive, and our relations with the Government were already well
defined and thoroughly harmonious. It was from the War Office that we
received the bronze badge which was supplied to every sworn _Citizen_
and bore our watchword--"For God, our Race, and Duty"; and the
Government had given substantial aid in the matter of equipment and
instruction. But now John Crondall represented three million and a half
of British men, all sworn to respond instantly to his call as President
of the Executive. And every _Citizen_ had some training--was then
receiving some training.

"The Canadian preachers waked and inspired the people; we swore them
in," said John Crondall modestly. "Their worth is the faith in them, and
their faith spells Duty. That's what makes _The Citizens_ formidable."

"The grace of God," Stairs called it; and so did many others.

Crondall bowed to that, and added a line from his favourite poet: "Then
it's the grace of God in those 'Who are neither children nor gods, but
men in a world of men!'" he said.

No wise man has ever doubted, so far as I know, that simple piety,
simple religion, "British Christianity," was the motive force at work
behind the whole of the revival movement. Without that foundation, the
enduring results achieved must have been impossible. But this was
entirely unlike any previously known religious revival, in that it
supplied no emotional food whatever. There was no room for
sentimentality, still less for hysteria, in the acceptation of George
Stairs's message from that "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," whose
name is Duty. Tears and protestations were neither sought nor found
among converts to the faith which taught all to be up and doing in
Duty's name.

From the records, I know that eight weeks passed after the famous
Council at the War Office before England spoke. When I say that during
that time I acted as my chief's representative in controlling an office
of over ninety clerks (all drilled men and fair shots), besides several
times traversing the length and breadth of the kingdom on special
missions, it will be understood that the period was to me a good deal
more like eight days. During that time, too, I was able to help
Constance Grey in her organization of the women helpers' branch of _The
Citizens_, in which over nine thousand members were enrolled. Constance
had an executive committee of twenty-five volunteer workers, who spent
money and energy ungrudgingly in helping her.

We kept in close touch with the heads of provincial committees during
the whole of that period, and several times we communicated by means of
printed circular letters, franked gratis for us by the War Office, with
every single _Citizen_.

Then came the day of the now historic telegram which the Post Office was
authorized to transmit to every sworn _Citizen_ in the kingdom:

"Be ready! 'For God, our Race, and Duty.'"

This was signed by John Crondall, and came after some days of detailed
instruction and preparation.

It has been urged by some writers that the Government was at fault in
the matter of its famous declaration of war with Germany. It has been
pointed out that for the sake of a point of etiquette, the Government
had no right to yield a single advantage to an enemy whose conduct
toward us had shown neither mercy nor courtesy. There is a good deal to
be said for this criticism; but, when all is said and done, I believe
that every Englishman is glad at heart that our Government took this
course. I believe it added strength to our fighting arm; I believe it
added weight and consequence to the first blows struck.

Be that as it may, there was no sign of hesitancy or weakness in the
action of the Government when the declaration had once been made; and it
speaks well for the deliberate thoroughness of all preparations that,
twenty-four hours after the declaration, every one of the nine German
garrisons in the kingdom was hemmed in by land and by sea. On the land
side the Germans were besieged by more than three million armed men.
Almost the whole strength of the British Navy was then concentrated upon
the patrolling of our coasts generally, and the blockading of the
German-garrisoned ports particularly. Thirty-six hours had not passed
when the German battle-ships _Hohenzollern_ and _Kaiserin_, and the
cruisers _Elbe_ and _Deutschland_, were totally destroyed off Portsmouth
and Cardiff respectively; Britain's only loss at that time being the
_Corfe Castle_, almost the smallest among the huge flotilla of armed
merchantmen which had been subsidized and fitted out by the Government
that year.

I believe all the authorities had admitted that, once it was known that
our declaration had reached Berlin, the British tactics could not have
been excelled for daring, promptitude, and devastating thoroughness. It
is true that Masterman, in his well-known _History of the War_, urges
that much loss of life might have been spared at Portsmouth and
Devonport "if more deliberate and cautious tactics had been adopted,
and the British authorities had been content to achieve their ends a
little less hurriedly." But Masterman is well answered by the passage in
General Hatfield's Introduction to Low's important work, which tells us
that:

"The British plan of campaign did not admit of leisurely tactics or
great economy. Britain was striking a blow for freedom, for her very
life. Failure would have meant no ordinary loss, but mere extinction.
The loss of British life in such strongly armed centres as Portsmouth
was very great. It was the price demanded by the immediate end of
Britain's war policy, which was to bring the enemy to terms without the
terrible risks which delay would have represented, for the outlying and
comparatively defenceless portions of our own Empire. When the price is
measured and analyzed in cold blood, the objective should be as
carefully considered. The price may have been high; the result purchased
was marvellous. It should be borne in mind, too, that Britain's military
arm, while unquestionably long and strong (almost unmanageably so,
perhaps), was chiefly composed of what, despite the excellent
instructive routine of _The Citizens_, must, from the technical
standpoint, be called raw levies. Yet that great citizen army, by reason
of its fine patriotism, was able in less than one hundred hours from the
time of the declaration, to defeat, disarm, and extinguish as a fighting
force some three hundred thousand of the most perfectly trained troops
in the world. That was the immediate objective of Britain's war policy;
or, to be exact, the accomplishment of that in one week was our object.
It was done in four days; and, notwithstanding the unexpected turn of
events afterwards, no military man will ever doubt that the achievement
was worth the price paid. It strengthened Britain's hand as nothing else
could have strengthened it. It gave us at the outset that unmistakable
lead which, in war as in a race, is of incalculable value to its
possessors."

And, the General might have added, as so many other writers have, that
no civilized and thinking men ever went more cheerfully and bravely to
their deaths, or earned more gladly the eternal reward of Duty
accomplished, than did _The Citizens_, the "raw levies," with their
stiffening of regulars, who fell at Portsmouth and Devonport. They were
not perfectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or one must
suppose they would have paid some heed to General Sir Robert Calder's
repeated orders to retire. But they were British citizens of as fine a
calibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they carried the Sword of
Duty that day into the camp of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not
learned, till it was written in his blood for survivors to read, that
England had awakened from her long sleep. For my part, if retrospective
power were mine, I would not raise a finger to rob those stern converts
of their glorious end.

It is easy to be wise after the event, but no Government could have
foretold the cynical policy adopted by Berlin. No one could have guessed
that the German Government would have said, in effect, that it was
perfectly indifferent to the fate of nearly three hundred thousand of
its own loyal subjects and defenders, and that Britain might starve or
keep them at her own pleasure. After all, the flower of the German Army
was in England, and only a Government to the last degree desperate,
unscrupulous, and cynical could have adopted Germany's callous attitude
at this juncture.

Britain's aim was not at all the annihilation of Germany, but the
freeing of her own soil; and it was natural that our Government should
have acted on the assumption that this could safely be demanded when we
held a great German army captive, by way of hostage. The British aim was
a sound one, and it was attained. That it did not bring about the
results anticipated was due to no fault in our Government, nor even to
any lack of foresight upon their part; but solely to the cynical
rapacity of a ruler whose ambition had made him fey, or of a Court so
far out of touch with the country which supported it as to have lost its
sense of honour.

In the meantime, though saddled with a huge army of prisoners, and the
poorer by her loss of eighteen thousand gallant citizens, Britain had
freed her shores. In an even shorter time than was occupied over the
invasion, the yoke of the invader had been torn in sunder, and not one
armed enemy was left in England. And for our losses--the shedding of
that British blood partook of the nature of a sacrament; it was
life-giving. By that fiery jet we were baptized again. England had found
herself. Once more His people had been found worthy to bear the Sword of
the Lord. Britain that had slept, was wide-eyed and fearless again, as
in the glorious days which saw the rise of her Empire. Throughout the
land one watchword ran: "For God, our Race, and Duty!" We had heard and
answered to the poet's call:

    Strike--for your altars and your fires;
    Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
    God, and your native land!

I find it easy to believe and read between the lines of the grim
official record which told us that outside Portsmouth "white-haired men
smiled over the graves of their sons, and armed youths were heard
singing triumphant chants while burying their fathers."

Meantime, simple folk in the southern country lanes of Dorset and of
Hampshire (Tarn Regis yokels among them, no doubt) heard the dull,
rumbling thunder of great guns at sea, and the talk ran on naval
warfare.




XV

"SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"

    Yea, though we sinned--and our rulers went from righteousness--
    Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garment's hem.

       .       .       .       .       .       .

        Hold ye the Faith--the Faith our fathers sealed us;
        Whoring not with visions--overwise and overstale.
            Except ye pay the Lord
            Single heart and single sword,
        Of your children in their bondage shall he ask them treble-tale!

                                              RUDYARD KIPLING.


The learned German, Professor Elberfeld, has told the world, in
sentences of portentous length and complication, that "the petty
trader's instincts which form the most typical characteristic of the
British race" came notably to the fore in our treatment of the German
prisoners of war who were held under military surveillance in the
British ports which they had garrisoned.

The learned professor notes with bitter contempt that no wines, spirits,
cigars, or "other customary delicacies" were supplied to our prisoners,
and that the German officers received very little more than the rations
served to their men. The professor makes no mention of one or two other
pertinent facts in this connection; as, for example, that none of these
"customary delicacies" were supplied to the British troops. We may
endure his reproaches with the more fortitude, I think, when we remember
that the German Government absolutely ignored our invitation to send
weekly shipments of supplies under a white flag for the towns they had
garrisoned on British soil.

It is known that the officers in command of the German forces in England
had previously maintained a very lavish and luxurious scale of living;
in the same way that, since the invasion of England, extravagance was
said to have reached unparallelled heights in Germany itself. But the
British Government which had reached depletion of our own supplies, by
assisting our prisoners to maintain a luxurious scale of living while
held as hostages, would certainly have forfeited the confidence of the
public, and justly so. Upon the whole, it is safe to say that German
sneers at British parsimony and Puritanism may fairly be accepted as
tribute, and, as such, need in no sense be resented.

As soon as we received Germany's cynical reply to Britain's demand for a
complete withdrawal of all the invasion claims, it became evident that
the war was to be a prolonged and bitter one, and that no further
purpose could be served by the original British plan of campaign, which,
as its object had been the freeing of our own soil, had been based on
the assumption that the defeat and capture of the invader's forces would
be sufficient. Troops had to be despatched at once to South Africa,
where German overlordship had aroused the combined opposition of the
Boers and the British. This opposition burst at once into open
hostility immediately the news of England's declaration of war reached
South Africa. While the Boers and the British, united in a common cause,
were carrying war into German Southwest Africa, troops from German East
Africa were said to have landed in Delagoa Bay, and to be advancing
southward.

In all this, the British cause was well served by Germany's initial
blunder; by the huge mistake which cost her four-fifths of her naval
strength at a blow. This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly
traceable to one cause: the national arrogance which, since the
invasion, had approached near to madness; which had now led Germany into
contemptuously underrating the striking power still remaining in the
British Navy. It was true that, prior to the invasion, our Navy had been
consistently starved and impoverished by "The Destroyers." It was that,
of course, which had first earned them their title. But Germany herself,
when she struck her great blow at England, hardly wounded the British
Navy at all. Her cunning had drawn our ships into a Mediterranean
impasse when they were sadly needed upon our coasts, and her strategy
had actually destroyed one British line of battle-ship, one cruiser, and
two gunboats. But that was the whole extent of the naval damage
inflicted by her at the time of the invasion. But the lesson she gave at
the same time was of incalculable value to us. The ships she destroyed
had been manned by practically untrained, short-handed crews, hurriedly
rushed out of Portsmouth barracks. Yet German arrogance positively
inspired Berlin with the impression that the Navies of the two countries
had tried conclusions, and that our fleet had been proved practically
ineffective.

Prior to the invasion our Navy had indeed reached a low ebb. Living
always in barracks, under the pernicious system gradually forced upon
the country by "The Destroyers" in the name of economy, our bluejackets
had fallen steadily from their one high standard of discipline and
efficiency into an incompetent, sullen, half-mutinous state, due solely
to the criminal parsimony and destructive neglect of an Administration
which aimed at "peace at any price," and adopted, of all means, the
measures most calculated to provoke foreign attack. But, since the
invasion, an indescribable spirit of emulation, a veritable fury of
endeavour, had welded the British fleet into a formidable state of
efficiency.

First "The Destroyers," actuated by a combination of panic and remorse,
and then the first Free Government, representing the convinced feeling
of the public, had lavished liberality upon the Navy since the invasion.
Increased pay, newly awakened patriotism, the general change in the
spirit of the age, all had combined to fill the Admiralty recruiting
offices with applicants. Almost all our ships had been kept practically
continuously at sea. "The Destroyers'" murderous policy in naval matters
had been completely reversed, and our fleet was served by a great
flotilla of magnificently armed leviathans of the Mercantile Marine,
including two of the fastest steamships in the world, all subsidized by
Government.

We know now that exact official records of these facts were filed in
the Intelligence Department at Berlin. But German arrogance prohibited
their right comprehension, and Britain's declaration of war was
instantly followed by an Imperial order which, in effect, divided the
available strength of the German Navy into eight fleets, and despatched
these to eight of the nine British ports garrisoned by German troops,
with orders of almost childish simplicity. These ports were to be taken,
and British insurrection crushed, ashore and afloat.

If the German Navy had been free of its Imperial Commander-in-Chief, and
of the insensate arrogance of his entourage, it could have struck a
terrible blow at the British Empire, while almost the whole fighting
strength of our Navy was concentrated upon the defence of England. As it
was, this fine opportunity was flung aside, and with it the greater part
of Germany's fleet. Divided into eight small squadrons, their ships were
at the mercy of our concentrated striking force. Our men fell upon them
with a Berserker fury born of humiliation silently endured, and followed
by eight or nine months of the finest sort of sea-training which could
possibly be devised.

The few crippled ships of the German fleet which survived those terrible
North Sea and Channel engagements must have borne with them into their
home waters a bitter lesson to the ruler whom they left, so far as
effective striking power was concerned, without a Navy.

Here, again, critics have said that our tactics showed an extravagant
disregard of cost, both as to men and material. But here also the
hostile critics overlook various vital considerations. The destruction
of Germany's sea-striking power at this juncture was worth literally
anything that Britain could give; not perhaps in England's immediate
interest, but in the interests of the Empire, without which England
would occupy but a very insignificant place among the powers of
civilization.

Then, too, the moral of our bluejackets has to be considered. Since the
invasion and the sinking of the _Dreadnought_, ours had become a Navy of
Berserkers. The Duty teaching, coming after the invasion, made running
fire of our men's blood. They fought their ships as Nelson's men fought
theirs, and with the same invincible success. It was said the
_Terrible's_ men positively courted the penalty of mutiny in time of war
by refusing to turn in, in watches, after forty-two hours of continuous
fighting. There remained work to be done, and the "Terribles" refused to
leave it undone.

The commander who had lessened the weight of the blow struck by
Britain's Navy, in the interests of prudence or economy, would have
shown himself blind to the significance of the new spirit with which
England's awakening had endowed her sons; the stern spirit of the
twentieth-century faith which gave us for watchword, "For God, our Race,
and Duty!"

With the major portion of our Navy still in fighting trim, and
twenty-five-knot liners speeding southward laden with British troops, it
speedily became evident that Germany's chance of landing further troops
in South Africa was hardly worth serious consideration, now that her
naval power was gone. On the other hand, it was known that the enemy
had already massed great bodies of troops in East and Southwest Africa,
and it became the immediate business of the British Admiralty to see
that German oversea communications should be cut off.

Further, we had to face ominous news of German preparations for
aggression in the Pacific and in the near East, with persistent rumours
of a hurriedly aggressive alliance with Russia for action in the Far
East. The attitude of Berlin itself was amazingly cynical, as it had
been from the very time of the unprovoked invasion of our shores. In
effect, the Kaiser said:

"You hold a German Army as prisoners of war, and you have destroyed my
Navy; but you dare not invade my territory, and I defy you to hit upon
any other means of enforcing your demands. You can do nothing further."

The British demands, made directly the German troops in England were in
our hands, were, briefly, for the complete withdrawal of the whole of
claims enforced by Germany at the time of the invasion.

That, then, was the position when I returned to our London headquarters
from a journey I had undertaken for my chief in connection with the work
of drafting large numbers of _Citizens_ back from the camps into private
life. Various questions had to be placed in writing before every
_Citizen_ as to his attitude in the matter of possible future calls made
upon his services. I had only heard of seven cases of men physically fit
failing to express perfect readiness to respond to any future call for
active service at home or abroad, in case of British need. Here was a
shield of which I knew both sides well. The thing impressed me more than
I can tell, or most folk would understand nowadays. I knew so well how
the god of business (which served to cover all individual pursuit of
money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove the utter
impracticability of this--one short year before. I looked back toward my
Fleet Street days, and I thanked God for the awakening of England, which
had included my own awakening.

My return to London was a matter of considerable personal interest to
me, for Constance Grey was there, having been recalled by John Crondall
from her active superintendence of nursing at Portsmouth.




XVI

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA

    There is a Pride whose Father is Understanding, whose Mother is
    Humility, whose Business is the Recognition and Discharge of Duty.
    That is the true Pride.--MERROW'S _Essays of the Time_.


I was impatient to reach London, but I should have been far more
impatient if I had known that Constance Grey stood waiting to meet me on
the arrival platform at Waterloo.

"They told me your train at the office," she said, as I took one of her
hands in both of mine, "and I could not resist coming to give you the
news. Don't say you have had it!"

"No," I told her. "My best news is that Constance has come to meet me,
and that I am alive to appreciate the fact very keenly. Another trifling
item is that, so far as I can tell, practically every member of _The
Citizens_ would respond to-morrow to a call for active service in
Timbuctoo--if the call came. I tell you, Constance, this is not reform,
it's revolution that has swept over England. We call our membership
three and a half millions; it's fifty millions, really. They're all
_Citizens_, every mother's son of them; and every daughter, too."

We were in a cab now.

"But what about my news?" said Constance.

"Yes, tell me, do. And isn't it magnificent about the Navy? How about
those 'Terrible' fellows? Constance, do you realize how all this must
strike a man who was scribbling and fiddling about disarmament a year
ago? And do you realize who gave that man decent sanity?"

"Hush! It wasn't a person, it was a force; it was the revolution that
brought the change."

"Ah, well, God bless you, Constance! I wish you'd give me the news."

"I will, directly you give me a chance to get in a word. Well, John is
at Westminster, in consultation with the Foreign Office people, and
nothing definite has been done yet; but the great point is, to my
thinking, that the offer should ever have been made."

"Why, Constance, whatever has bewitched you? I never knew you to begin
at the end of a thing before."

And indeed it was unlike Constance Grey. She was in high spirits, and
somehow this little touch of illogical weakness in her struck me as
being very charming. She laughed, and said it was due to my persistent
interruptions. And then she gave me the news.

"America has offered to join hands with us."

"Never!"

"Yes. The most generous sort of defensive alliance, practically without
conditions, and--'as long as Great Britain's present need endures.'
Isn't it splendid? John Crondall regards it as the biggest thing that
has happened; but he is all against accepting the offer."

There had been vague rumours at the time of the invasion, and again, of
a more pointed sort, when Britain declared war. But every one had said
that the pro-German party and the ultra-American party were far too
strong in the United States to permit of anything beyond expressions of
good-will. But now, as I gathered from the copy of the _Evening
Standard_ which Constance gave me:

"The heart of the American people has been deeply stirred by two
considerations: Germany's unwarrantable insolence and arrogance, and
Britain's magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat, in
fighting for her independence. The patriotic struggle for
independence--that is what has moved the American people to
forgetfulness of all jealousies and rivalries. The rather indiscreet
efforts of the German sections of the American public have undoubtedly
hastened this offer, and made it more generous and unqualified. The
suggestion that any foreign people could hector them out of generosity
to the nation from whose loins they sprang, finally decided the American
public; and it is fair to say that the President's offer of alliance is
an offer from the American people to the British people."

"But how about the Monroe Doctrine?" I said to Constance, after running
through the two-column telegram from Washington, of which this passage
formed part.

"I don't know about that; but you see, Dick, this thing clearly comes
from the American people, not her politicians and diplomatists only.
That is what gives it its tremendous importance, I think."

"Yes; to be sure. And why does John Crondall want the offer declined?"

"Oh, he hadn't time to explain to me; but he said something about its
being necessary for the new Britain to prove herself, first; our own
unity and strength. 'We must prove our own Imperial British alliance
first,' he said."

"I see; yes, I think I see that. But it is great news, as you say--great
news."

How much John Crondall's view had to do with the Government's decision
will never be known, but we know that England's deeply grateful Message
pointed out that, in the opinion of his Majesty's Imperial Government,
the most desirable basis for an alliance between two great nations was
one of equality and mutual respect. While in the present case there
could be nothing lacking in the affection and esteem in which Great
Britain held the United States, yet the equality could hardly be held
proven while the former Power was still at war with a nation which had
invaded its territory. The Message expressed very feelingly the deep
sense of grateful appreciation which animated his Majesty's Imperial
Government and the British people, which would render unforgettable in
this country the generous magnanimity of the American nation. And,
finally, the Message expressed the hope, which was certainly felt by the
entire public, that those happier circumstances which should equalize
the footing of the two nations in the matter of an alliance would
speedily come about.

To my thinking, our official records contain no document more moving or
more worthy of a great nation than that Message, which, as has so
frequently been pointed out, was in actual truth a Message from the
people of one nation to the people of another nation--from the heart of
one country to the heart of another country. The Message of thanks, no
less than the generous offer itself, was an assertion of blood-kinship,
an appeal to first principles, a revelation of the underlying racial and
traditional tie which binds two great peoples together through and
beneath the whole stiff robe of artificial differences which separated
them upon the surface and in the world's eyes.

The offer stands for all time a monument to the frank generosity and
humanity of the American people. And in the hearts of both peoples there
is, in my belief, another monument to certain sturdy qualities which
have gone to the making and cementing of the British Empire. The shape
that monument takes is remembrance of the Message in which that kindly
offer was for the time declined.

The declining of the American offer has been called the expression of a
nation's pride. It was that, incidentally. First and foremost--and this,
I think, is the point which should never be forgotten--it was the
expression of a nation's true humility. Pride we had always with us in
England, of the right sort and the wrong sort; of the sort that adds to
a people's stature, and sometimes, of late, of the gross and senseless
sort that leads a people into decadence. But in the past year we had
learned to know and cherish that true pride which has its foundations in
the rock of Duty, and is buttressed all about and crowned by that
quality which St. Peter said earned the grace of God--humility.

For my part, I see in that Message the ripe fruit of the Canadian
preachers' teaching; the crux and essence of the simple faith which came
to be called "British Christianity." I think the spirit of it was the
spirit of the general revival in England that came to us with the
Canadian preachers; even as so much other help, spiritual and material,
came to us from our kinsmen of the greater Britain overseas, which,
before that time, we had never truly recognized as actually part, and by
far the greater part, of our State.




XVII

THE PENALTY

    We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
    Cannot be truly followed.

                                              _Othello._


It would be distinctly a work of supererogation for me to attempt to
tell the story of the Anglo-German war--of all modern wars the most
remarkable in some ways, and certainly the war which has been most
exhaustively treated by modern historians. A. Low says in the concluding
chapter of his fine history:

"Putting aside the fighting in South Africa, and after the initial
destruction of both the German Navy and its Army in England (as
effective forces), we must revert to the wars of more than a century ago
to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There can be no doubt
that at the time of the invasion of England Germany's effective fighting
strength was enormous. Its growth had been very rapid; its decline must
be dated from General von Fuechter's occupation of London on Black
Saturday.

"At that moment everything appeared to bode well for the realization of
the Emperor's ambition to be Dictator of Europe, as the ruler of by far
the greatest Power in the Old World. From that moment the German people,
but more particularly the German official and governing class, and her
naval and military men, would appear to have imbibed of some
distillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and found it too
heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at
length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness
led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we
ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our
extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of slower
growth. Certain it is, that before ever an English shot was fired the
fighting strength of Germany waned rapidly from the period of the
invasion. By some writers this has been attributed to the insidious
spread of Socialism. But it must be remembered that the deterioration
was far more notable in the higher than in the lower walks of life; and
most of all it was notable among the naval and military official
nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the divine privileges of
ancient pedigrees.

"When the German army of occupation in England was disarmed, prisoners
in barracks and camps, and the German Navy had, to all intents and
purposes, been destroyed, the Imperial German Government adopted the
extraordinary course of simply defying England to strike further blows.
Germany practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were ever landed
in South Africa, and the German troops already engaged there had no
other choice than to continue fighting, though left entirely without
Imperial backing), but emphatically refused to consider the extremely
moderate terms offered by Britain, which, at that time, did not even
include an indemnity. But this extraordinary policy was not so purely
callous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things in this world, it
had its different component parts. There was the cynical arrogance of
the Prussian Court upon the one side; but upon the other side there was
the ominous disaffection of the lesser German States, and the rampant,
angry Socialism of the lower and middle classes throughout the Empire,
which had become steadily more and more virulent from the time of the
reactionary elections of the early part of 1907, in which the Socialists
felt that they had been tricked by the Court party. In reality Germany
had two mouthpieces. The Court defied Britain; the people refused to
back that defiance with action."

For a brief summary of the causes leading up to the strange half-year
which followed our receipt of the American offer of assistance, I think
we have nothing more lucid than this passage of Low's important work.
That the forces at work in Germany, which he described from the
vantage-point of a later date, were pretty clearly understood, even at
that time, by our Government, is proved, I think, by the tactics we
adopted throughout that troublous period.

In South Africa our troops, though amply strong, never adopted an
aggressive line. They defended our frontiers, and that defence led to
some heavy fighting. But, after the first outbreak of hostilities, our
men never carried the war into the enemy's camp. There was a
considerable party in the House of Commons which favoured an actively
aggressive policy in the matter of seizing the Mediterranean
strongholds ceded to Germany at the time of the invasion. It was even
suggested that we should land a great _Citizen_ army in Germany and
enforce our demands at the point of the sword.

In this John Crondall rendered good service to the Government by
absolutely refusing to allow his name to be used in calling out _The
Citizens_ for such a purpose. But, in any case, wiser counsels prevailed
without much difficulty. There was never any real danger of our
returning to the bad old days of a divided Parliament. The gospel of
Duty taught by the Canadian preachers, and the stern sentiment behind
_The Citizens'_ watchword, had far too strong a hold upon the country
for that.

Accordingly, the Government policy had free play. No other policy could
have been more effective, more humane, or more truly direct and
economical. In effect, the outworking of it meant a strictly defensive
attitude in Africa, and in the north a naval siege of Germany.

Germany had no Navy to attack, and, because they believed England would
never risk landing an army in Germany, the purblind camarilla who stood
between the Emperor's arrogance and the realities of life assumed that
England would be powerless to carry hostilities further. Or if the
Imperial Court did not actually believe this, it was ostensibly the
Government theory, the poor sop they flung to a disaffected people while
filling their official organs with news of wonderful successes achieved
by the German forces in South Africa.

But within three months our Navy had taught the German people that the
truth lay in quite another direction. The whole strength of the British
Navy which could be spared from southern and eastern bases was
concentrated now upon the task of blocking Germany's oversea trade.
Practically no loss of life was involved, but day by day the ocean-going
vessels of Germany's mercantile marine were being transferred to the
British flag. The great oversea carrying trade, whose growth had been
the pride of Germany, was absolutely and wholly destroyed during that
half-year. The destruction of her export trade spelt ruin for Germany's
most important industries; but it was the cutting off of her imports
which finally robbed even the German Emperor of the power to shut his
eyes any longer to the fact that his Empire had in reality ceased to
exist.

The actual overthrow of monarchical government in Prussia was not
accomplished without scenes of excess and violence in the capital. But,
in justice to the German people as a whole, it should be remembered that
the revolution was carried out at remarkably small cost; that the people
displayed wonderful patience and self-control, in circumstances of
maddening difficulty, which were aggravated at every turn by the
Emperor's arbitrary edicts and arrogant obtrusion of his personal will,
and by the insolence of the official class. One must remember that for
several decades Germany had been essentially an industrial country, and
that a very large proportion of her population were at once strongly
imbued with Socialistic theories, and wholly dependent upon industrial
activity. Bearing these things in mind, one is moved to wonder that the
German people could have endured so long as they did the practically
despotic sway of a Ruler who, in the gratification of his own insensate
pride, allowed their country to be laid waste by the stoppage of trade,
and their homes to be devastated by the famine of an unemployed people
whose communications with the rest of the world were completely severed.

That such a ruler and such a Court should have met with no worse fate
than deposition, exile, and dispersal is something of a tribute to the
temperate character of the Teutonic race. Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, Saxony,
and the southern Grand Duchies elected to retain their independent forms
of government under hereditary rule; and to this no objection was raised
by the new Prussian Republic, in which all but one of the northern
principalities were incorporated.

Within, forty-eight hours of the election of Dr. Carl Moeller to the
Presidency of the new Republic, hostilities ceased between Great Britain
and Germany, and three weeks later the Peace was signed in London and
Berlin. Even hostile critics have admitted that the British terms were
not ungenerous. The war was the result of Germany's unprovoked invasion
of our shores. The British terms were, in lieu of indemnity, the cession
of all German possessions in the African continent to the British Crown,
unreservedly. For the rest, Britain demanded no more than a complete and
unqualified withdrawal of all German claims and pretensions in the
matter of the Peace terms enforced after the invasion by General Baron
von Fuechter, including, of course, the immediate evacuation of all those
points of British territory which had been claimed in the invasion
treaty, an instrument now null and void.

The new Republic was well advised in its grateful acceptance of these
terms, for they involved no monetary outlay, and offered no obstacle to
the new Government's task of restoration. At that early stage, at all
events, the Prussian Republic had no colonial ambitions, and needed all
its straitened financial resources for the rehabilitation of its home
life. (In the twelve months following the declaration of war between
Great Britain and Germany, the number of Germans who emigrated reached
the amazing total of 1,134,378.)

To me, one of the most interesting and significant features of the
actual conclusion of the Peace--which added just over one million square
miles to Britain's African possessions, and left the Empire, in certain
vital respects, infinitely richer and more powerful than ever before in
its history--is not so much as mentioned in any history of the war I
have ever read, though it did figure, modestly, in the report of the
Commissioner of Police for that year. As a sidelight upon the
development of our national character since the arrival of the Canadian
preachers and the organization of _The Citizens_, this one brief passage
in an official record is to my mind more luminous than anything I could
possibly say, and far more precious than the fact of our territorial
acquisitions:

"The news of the signature of the Peace was published in the early
editions of the evening papers on Saturday, 11 March. Returns show that
the custom of the public-houses and places of entertainment during the
remainder of that day was 37-1/2 per cent. below the average Saturday
returns. Divisional reports show that the streets were more empty of
traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, than on any ordinary week-day.
Police-court cases on the following Monday were 28-1/2 per cent. below
the average, and included, in the metropolitan area, only five cases of
drunkenness or disorderly conduct. All reports indicate the prevalence
throughout the metropolitan area of private indoor celebrations of the
Peace. All London churches and chapels held Thanksgiving Services on
Sunday, 12 March, and the attendances were abnormally large."

Withal, I am certain that the people of London had never before during
my life experienced a deeper sense of gladness, a more general
consciousness of rejoicing. Not for nothing has "British Christianity"
earned its Parisian name of "New Century Puritanism." As the President
of the French Republic said in his recent speech at Lyons: "It is the
'New Century Puritanism' which leads the new century's civilization, and
maintains the world's peace."




XVIII

THE PEACE

    Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage!
    (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
                For the Lord our God Most High
                He hath made the deep as dry,
    He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth.

                                              RUDYARD KIPLING.


At a very early stage of the war with Germany, before the end of the
first month, in fact, it became evident that, our own soil having once
been freed, this was to be a maritime and not a land war. A little later
on it was made quite clear that there would be no need to draw further
upon our huge reserve force of _Citizen_ defenders. It was then that
John Crondall concentrated his efforts upon giving permanent national
effect to our work of the previous year.

Fortunately, the Government recognized that it would be an act of
criminal wastefulness and extravagance to allow so splendid a defensive
organization as ours to lapse because its immediate purpose had been
served. Accordingly, special legislation, which was to have been
postponed for another session, was now hurried forward; and long before
the German Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England was
secure in the possession of that permanent organization of home defence
which, humanly speaking, has made these shores positively impregnable,
by converting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of the Empire,
into a nation in arms. There is no need for me to enlarge now upon the
other benefits, the mental, moral, and physical advancement which this
legislation has given us. Our doctors and schoolmasters and clergymen
have given us full and ample testimony upon these points.

Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act, which guaranteed
military training as a part of the education of every healthy male
subject, the great majority of _The Citizens_ had returned to private
life. Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of special cases,
every one of _The Citizens_ remained members of the organization. And it
was that fact which provided incessant employment, not alone for John
Crondall and myself, and our headquarters staff, during the progress of
the war, but for our committees throughout the country.

Before reentering private life, every _Citizen_ was personally
interviewed and given the opportunity of being resworn under conditions
of permanent membership. The new conditions applied only to home
defence, but they included specific adherence to our propaganda for the
maintenance of universal military training. They included also a
definite undertaking upon the part of every _Citizen_ to further our
ends to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State
legislation, to secure military training for his own sons, and to abide
by _The Citizens'_ Executive in whatever steps it should take toward
linking up our organization, under Government supervision, with the
regular national defence force of the country.

It should be easy to understand that this process involved a great deal
of work. But it was work that was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the
passage into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which superseded the
National Defence Act, after the peace had been signed, we were able to
present the Government with a nucleus consisting of a compact working
organization of more than three million British _Citizens_. These
_Citizens_ were men who had undergone training and seen active service.
They were sworn supporters of universal military training, and of a
minimum of military service as a qualification for the suffrage.

All political writers have agreed that the knowledge of what was taking
place in England, with regard to our organization, greatly strengthened
the hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task of framing
and placing upon the Statute Book those two great measures which have
remained the basis of politics and defence throughout the Empire: the
Imperial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary Representation Act.
At the time there were not wanting critics who held that a short reign
of peace would bring opposition to legislation born of a state of war;
but if I remember rightly we heard the last of that particular order of
criticism within twelve months of the peace, it being realized once and
for all then, that the maintenance of an adequate defence system was to
be regarded, not so much as a preparation for possible war, as the one
and only means of preventing war.

Constance Grey worked steadily throughout the progress of the war, and
it was owing almost entirely to her efforts that the Volunteer Nursing
Corps, which she had organized under _Citizens'_ auspices, was placed on
a permanent footing. Admirable though this organization was as a nursing
corps, its actual value to the nation went far beyond the limits of its
nominal scope. By her tireless activity, and as a result of her own
personal enthusiasm, Constance was able before the end of the war to
establish branches of her corps in every part of the country, with a
committee and headquarters in all large centres. Meetings were held
regularly at all these headquarters, every one of which was visited in
turn by Constance herself; and in the end _The Citizens' Nursing Corps_,
as this great league of Englishwomen was always called, became a very
potent force, an inexhaustible spring of what the Prime Minister called
"the domestic patriotism of Britain."

In the earliest stage of this work of hers Constance had to cope with a
certain inertia on the part of her supporters, due to the fact that no
active service offered to maintain their enthusiasm. But Constance's
watchword was, "Win mothers and sisters, and the fathers and brothers
cannot fail you." It was in that belief that she acted, and before long
the Nursing Corps might with equal justice have been called _The Women
Citizens_. It became a great league of domestic patriots, and it would
not be easy to overstate the value of its influence upon the rising
generation of our race.

War has always been associated in men's minds with distress and want,
and that with some reason. But after the first few months of the
Anglo-German war it became more and more clearly apparent that this war,
combined with the outworking of the first legislation of the Imperial
Parliament, was to produce the greatest commercial revival, the greatest
access of working prosperity, Britain had ever known. Two main causes
were at work here; and the first of them, undoubtedly, was the
protection afforded to our industries by Imperial preference. The time
for tinkering with half-measures had gone by, and, accordingly, the
fiscal belt with which the first really Imperial Parliament girdled the
Empire was made broad and strong. The effect of its application was
gradual, but unmistakable; its benefits grew daily more apparent as the
end of the war approached.

Factories and mills which had long lain idle in the North of England
were hastily refitted, and they added every day to the muster-roll of
hands employed. Our shipping increased by leaps and bounds, but even
then barely kept pace with the increased rate of production. The price
of the quartern loaf rose to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the
wages of labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent., and the
demand exceeded the supply. Thousands of acres of unprofitable
grass-land and of quite idle land disappeared under the plough to make
way for corn-fields. Wages rose in all classes of work; but that was not
of itself the most important advance. The momentous change was in the
demand for labour of every kind. The statistics prove that while wages
in all trades showed an average increase of 19-1/2 per cent.,
unemployment fell during the year of the Peace to a lower level than it
had ever reached since records were instituted.

In that year the cost of living among working people was 5-1/2 per cent.
higher than it had been five years previously. The total working
earnings for the year were 38-1/2 per cent. greater than in any previous
year. Since then, as we know, expenditure has fallen considerably; but
wages have never fallen, and the total earnings of our people are still
on the up grade.

Another cause of the unprecedented access of prosperity which changed
the face of industrial and agricultural England, was the fact that some
seven-tenths of the trade lost by Germany was now not only carried in
British ships, but held entirely in British hands. Germany's world
markets became Britain's markets, just as the markets of the whole
Empire became our own as the result of preference, and just as the great
oversea countries of the Empire found Britain's home markets, with fifty
million customers, exclusively their own. The British public learned
once and for all, and in one year, the truth that reformers had sought
for a decade to teach us--that the Empire was self-supporting and
self-sufficing, and that common-sense legislative and commercial
recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity for British
subjects the world over.

But, as John Crondall said in the course of the Guildhall speech of his
which, as has often been said, brought the Disciplinary Regiments into
being, "We cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have studiously
fostered through the better part of a century." There was still an
unemployed class, though everything points to the conclusion that before
that first year of the Peace was ended this class had been reduced to
those elements which made it more properly called "unemployable." There
were the men who had forgotten their trades and their working habits,
and there were still left some of those melancholy products of our
decadent industrial and social systems--the men who were determined not
to work.

In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be swept aside by the
same swift, irresistible wave which gave us "British Christianity," _The
Citizens'_ watchword, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of great
prosperity. It was the continued existence of a workless class that gave
us the famous Discipline Bill. At that time the title "Disciplinary
Regiments" had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected with punishment.
In view of that, I shared the feeling of many who said that another name
should be chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments have earned
their honourable place as the most valuable portion of our
non-professional defence forces, every one can see the wisdom of John
Crondall's contention that not the name, but the public estimate of that
name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value and necessity of
discipline was, I suppose, always recognized. Actually, people had come
to connect the word, not with education, not with the equipment of
every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and disgrace.

At first there was considerable opposition to the law, which said, in
effect: No able-bodied man without means shall live without employment.
Indeed, for a few days there was talk of the Government going to the
country on the question. But in the end the Discipline Act became law
without this, and I know of no other single measure which has done more
for the cause of social progress. Its effects have been far-reaching.
Among other things, it was this measure which led to the common-sense
system which makes a soldier of every mechanic and artisan employed upon
Government work. It introduced the system which enables so many men to
devote a part of their time to soldiering, and the rest to various other
kinds of Government work. But, of course, its main reason of existence
is the triumphant fact that it has done away with the loafer, as a
class, and reduced the chances of genuine employment to a minimum. Some
of the best mechanics and artisans in England to-day are men who learned
their trade, along with soldiering and general good citizenship, in one
of the Disciplinary Regiments.

Despite the increase of population, the numerical strength of our police
force throughout the kingdom is 30 per cent. lower to-day than it was
before the Anglo-German war; while, as is well known, the prison
population has fallen so low as to have led to the conversion of several
large prisons into hospitals. The famous Military Training School at
Dartmoor was a convict prison up to three years after the war. There
can be no doubt that, but for the Discipline Bill, our police force
would have required strengthening and prisons enlarging, in place of the
reverse process of which we enjoy the benefit to-day.

Its promoters deserve all the credit which has been paid them for the
introduction of this famous measure; and I take the more pleasure in
admitting this by token that the chief among them has publicly recorded
his opinion that the man primarily responsible for the introduction of
the Discipline Bill was John Crondall. At the same time it should not be
forgotten that we have John Crondall's own assurance that the Bill could
never have been made law but for that opening and awakening of the
hearts and minds of the British people which followed the spreading of
the gospel of Duty by the Canadian preachers.




XIX

THE GREAT ALLIANCE

    Truly ye come of the Blood; slower to bless than to ban;
    Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.

       .       .       .       .       .

    Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether;
    But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.

       .       .       .       .       .

    Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands,
    And the law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.

                                              RUDYARD KIPLING.


During all this time I was constantly with John Crondall, and saw a good
deal of Constance Grey; yet the announcement that I had once expected
every day, the announcement which seemed the only natural sequence to
the kiss of which I had been an unwilling witness, never came. Neither
did any return come, in John Crondall, of his old frank gaiety of
manner. There remained always the shadow of reserve, of gravity, and of
a certain restraint, which dated in my mind from the day of my
inadvertent intrusion upon the scene between himself and Constance.

Knowing John Crondall as I knew him then, it was not possible for me to
think ill of him; but he perplexed me greatly at times. For at times it
did seem to me that I read in Constance's face, when we three were
together, a look that was almost an appeal to my chief--a
half-sorrowful, half-abashed appeal. Then I would recall that kiss, and
in my puzzlement I would think: "John Crondall, if you were any other
man, I should say you----"

And there my thought would stop short. Of what should I accuse him?
There was the kiss, the long silence, John Crondall's stiffness, and
then this look of distress, this hint of appeal, in the face of
Constance. Well! And then my intimate knowledge of my chief would
silence me, giving me assurance that I should never be a good enough man
justly to reproach John Crondall. But it was all very puzzling, and
more, to me, loving Constance as I loved her.

You may judge, then, of my surprise when Crondall came into my room at
_The Citizens'_ headquarters office one morning and said:

"You have been the real secretary for some time, Dick, not only mine,
but _The Citizens'_; so there's no need for me to worry about how you'll
manage. I'm going to America."

"Going to America! Why--when?"

"Well, on Friday, I believe I sail. As to why, I'm afraid I mustn't tell
you about that just yet. I've undertaken a Government mission, and it's
confidential."

"I see. And how long will you be away?"

"Oh, not more than two or three months, I hope."

That simplified the thing somewhat. My chief's tone had suggested at
first that he was going to live in the United States. Even as it was,
however, surely, I thought, he would tell me something now about
himself and Constance. But though I made several openings, he told me
nothing.

While John Crondall was away a new State Under-Secretaryship was
created. It was announced that for the future the Government would
include an Under-Secretary of State for the Civilian Defence Forces,
whose chief would be the Secretary of State for War. A few days later
came the announcement that the first to hold this appointment would be
John Crondall. I had news of this a little in advance of the public, for
my work in connection with _The Citizens'_ organization brought me now
into frequent contact with the War Office, particularly with regard to
supplies and general arrangements for our different village
rifle-ranges.

This piece of news seemed tolerably important to Constance Grey and
myself, and we talked it over with a good deal of interest and
enthusiasm. But before many weeks had passed this and every other item
of news was driven out of our minds by a piece of intelligence which, in
different ways, startled and excited the whole civilized world, for the
reason that it promised to affect materially the destiny of all the
nations of civilization. Every newspaper published some kind of an
announcement on the subject, but the first full, authoritative statement
was that contained in the great _London Daily_ which was now the
recognized principal organ of Imperial Federation. The opening portion
of this journal's announcement read in this way:

"We are able to announce, upon official authority, the completion of a
defensive and commercial Alliance between the British Empire and the
United States of America, which amounts for all practical purposes to a
political and commercial Federation of the English-speaking peoples of
the world.

"Rumours have been current for some time of important negotiations
pending between London and Washington, and, as we pointed out some time
ago, Mr. John Crondall's business in Washington has been entirely with
our Ambassador there.

"The exact terms of the new Alliance will probably be made public within
the next week. In the meantime, we are able to say that the Alliance
will be sufficiently comprehensive to admit United States trade within
the British Empire upon practically British terms--that is to say, the
United States will, in almost every detail, share in Imperial
Preference.

"Further, in the event of any foreign Power declaring war with either
the British Empire or the United States, both nations would share
equally in the conduct of subsequent hostilities, unless the war were
the direct outcome of an effort upon the part of either of the high
contracting parties in the direction of territorial expansion. The
United States will not assist the British Empire to acquire new
territory, but will share from first to last the task of defending
existing British territory against the attack of an enemy. Precisely the
same obligations will bind the British Empire in the defence of the
United States.

"It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the importance to
Christendom of this momentous achievement of diplomacy; and future
generations are little likely to forget the act or the spirit to which
this triumph may be traced: the United States' offer of assistance to
Britain during the late war.

"The advantages of the Alliance to our good friends and kinsmen across
the Atlantic are obviously great, for they are at once given free entry
into a market which has four hundred and twenty millions of customers,
and is protected by the world's greatest Navy and the world's greatest
citizen defence force. Upon our side we are given free entry into the
second richest and most expansive market in the world, with eighty
million customers, and an adequate defence force. Upon a preferential
footing, such as the Alliance will secure to both contracting Powers,
the United States offer us the finest market in the world as an
extension of our own. In our own markets we shall meet the American
producer upon terms of absolute equality, to our mutual advantage, where
a couple of years ago we met him at a cruel disadvantage, to our great
loss.

"We have said enough to indicate the vast and world-wide importance of
the Alliance we are able to announce. But we have left untouched its
most momentous aspect. The new Alliance is a guarantee of peace to that
half of the world which is primarily concerned; it renders a breach of
the peace in the other half of the world far more unlikely than it ever
was before. As a defensive Alliance between the English-speaking
peoples, this should represent the beginning of an era of unexampled
peace, progress, and prosperity for the whole civilized world."

Before I had half-digested this tremendous piece of news, and with never
a thought of breakfast, I found myself hurrying in a hansom to
Constance Grey's flat. In her study I found Constance, her beautiful
eyes full of shining tears, poring over the announcement.




XX

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

    Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
    And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

                                              TENNYSON.


I had hoped to be the bearer of the Alliance news to Constance, and
seeing how deeply she was moved by it made me the more regretful that I
had not arrived at the flat before her morning paper. Constance had been
the first to give me the news of the American offer of help at the
beginning of the war; she had been the first to give me any serious
understanding of the invasion, there in that very room of the little
South Kensington flat, on the fateful Sunday of the Disarmament
Demonstration. Now she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered:

"A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's ever known, Dick,"
she said, and dropped one hand on the paper in her lap.

"Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not? I had hoped to
bring it you, but I might have known you would be at your paper
betimes."

"Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent! I have no words to tell you
how glad I am about this. I see John Crondall's hand here, don't you?"

"Yes," I said; and thought: "Naturally! You see John Crondall
everywhere."

"He was dead against any sort of an Alliance while we were under a
cloud. And he was right. The British people couldn't afford to enter any
compact upon terms of less than perfect equality and independence. But
now--why, Dick, it's a dream come true: the English-speaking peoples
against the world. It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No!
With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And never a hint of
condescension, but just an honourable pact between equals of one stock."

"Yes; and a couple of years ago----"

"A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen who spat at the British
Flag."

"There was a paper called _The Mass_."

Constance smiled up at me. "Do you remember the Disarmament
Demonstration?" she said.

"Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a wretched den, to call on
the person who was assistant editor of _The Mass_?"

"The person! Come! I found him rather nice."

"Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me!"

"Now, there," she said, with a little smile, "I think you might have
changed your tense."

"But I was talking of two years ago, before---- Well, you see, I thought
of you, then, as just an unattached angel from South Africa."

"And now you have learned that my angelic qualities never existed
outside your imagination. Ah, Dick, your explanations make matters much
worse."

"But, no; I didn't say you were the less an angel; only that I thought
of you as unattached, then--you see."

Constance looked down at her paper, and a silence fell between us. The
silence was intolerable to me. I was standing beside her chair, and I
cannot explain just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that the
very outline of her figure and the loose hair of her head seemed at once
intimately familiar and inexpressibly sacred and beautiful to me.
Looking down upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my eyes. It
was as though I feared to lose possession of my faculties. That must
end, I felt, or an end would come to all reserve and loyalty to John
Crondall. And yet--yet something in the curve of her cheek--she was
looking down--held me, drew me out of myself, as it might be into a
tranced state in which a man is moved to contempt of all risks.

"Dear, I loved you, even then," I said; "but then I thought you free."

"So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice was very low; but
there was some quality in it which thrilled me through and through, as I
stood at her side.

"But now, of course, I know---- But why have you never told me,
Constance?"

"I am just as free now as then, Dick."

"Why, Constance! But, John Crondall?"

"He is my friend, just as he is yours."

"But I--but he----"

"Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said, yes. John asked me
to marry him, and when I said I couldn't, he asked me to wait till our
work was done, and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how hard
it was for me? And John is--he is such a splendid man. I could not deny
him, and--that was when you came into the room--don't you
remember--Dick?"

The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my mind swam in clouds. I
only said: "Yes?"

"Oh, Dick, I am ashamed! You know how I respect him--how I like him. He
did ask me again, before he went to America."

"And now--now, you----"

"It hurt dreadfully; but I had to say no, because----"

And there she stopped. She was not engaged to John Crondall. She had
refused him--refused John Crondall! Yet I knew how high he stood in her
eyes. Could it be that there was some one else--some one in Africa? The
suggestion spelled panic. It seemed to me that I must know--that I could
not bear to leave her without knowing.

"Forgive me, Constance," I said, "but is there some one else who--is
there some one else?" To see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee
beside her chair.

"I--I thought there was," she said very sweetly. And as she spoke she
raised her head, and I saw her beautiful eyes, through tears. It was
there I read my happiness. I am not sure that any words could have given
it me, though I found it sweeter than anything else I had known in my
life to have her tell me afterwards in words. It was an unforgettable
morning.

    Why did she love him? Curious fool! be still;
    Is human love the growth of human will?

John Crondall was my best man, as he has been always my best friend. He
insisted on my taking over the permanent secretaryship of _The Citizens_
when he went to the War Office. And since then I hope I have not ceased
to take my part in making our history; but it is true that there is not
much to tell that is not known equally well to everybody.

Assuredly peace hath her victories. Our national life has been a daily
succession of victories since we fought for and won real peace and
overcame the slavish notion that mere indolent quiescence could ever
give security. Our daily victory as a race is the triumph of race
loyalty over individual self-seeking; and I can conceive of no real
danger for the British Empire unless the day came, which God forbid,
when Englishmen forgot the gospel of our "New Century Puritanism"--the
Canadian preachers' teaching of Duty and simple living. And that day can
never come while our _Citizens'_ watchword endures:

    "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY!"

For me, I feel that my share of happiness, since those sombre days of
our national chastisement, since those stern, strenuous months of
England's awakening to the new life and faith of the twentieth century,
has been more, far more, than my deserts. But I think we all feel that
in these days; I hope we do. If we should ever again forget, punishment
would surely come. But it is part of my happiness to believe that, at
long last, our now really united race, our whole family, four hundred
and twenty millions strong, has truly learned the lesson which our great
patriot poet tried to teach in the wild years before discipline came to
us, in the mailed hand of our one-time enemy:

    _God of our fathers, known of old,
      Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
    Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
      Dominion over palm and pine--
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget--lest we forget!_

    _The tumult and the shouting dies;
      The captains and the kings depart:
    Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
      An humble and a contrite heart.
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget--lest we forget!_

       .       .       .       .       .

    _For heathen heart that puts her trust
      In reeking tube and iron shard,
    All valiant dust that builds on dust,
      And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
    For frantic boast and foolish word--
    Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!_


_Amen!_




Transcriber's Note:

    Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without
    note. Archaic, dialect and variant spellings remain as printed.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Message, by Alec John Dawson

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