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diff --git a/old/65848-0.txt b/old/65848-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5c56827..0000000 --- a/old/65848-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7473 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Theodore Savage, by Cicely Hamilton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Theodore Savage - A Story of the Past or the Future - -Author: Cicely Hamilton - -Release Date: July 16, 2021 [eBook #65848] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEODORE SAVAGE *** - - - - - - THEODORE SAVAGE - - -[Illustration] - - - - - _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - - DIANA OF DOBSON’S - WILLIAM, AN ENGLISHMAN - MARRIAGE AS A TRADE - - - - - THEODORE SAVAGE - A STORY OF THE PAST OR THE FUTURE - - - BY - CICELY HAMILTON - - - LONDON - LEONARD PARSONS - DEVONSHIRE STREET - - - - - _First Published 1922._ - - - _Leonard Parsons Ltd._ - - - - - Theodore Savage - - - - - I - - -If it had been possible for Theodore Savage to place on record for those -who came after him the story of his life and experiences, he would have -been the first to admit that the interest of the record lay in -circumstance and not in himself. From beginning to end he was much what -surroundings made of him; in his youth the product of a public school, -Wadham and the Civil Service; in maturity and age a toiler with his -hands in the company of men who lived brutishly. In his twenties, no -doubt, he was frequently bored by his clerking duties and the routine of -the Distribution Office; later on there were seasons when all that was -best in him cried out against confinement in a life that had no -aspiration; but neither boredom nor resentment ever drove him to revolt -or set him to the moulding of circumstance. If he was destined to live -as a local tradition and superman of legend, the honour was not gained -by his talents or personal achievements; he had to thank for it an -excellent constitution, bequeathed him by his parents, certain traces of -refinement in manner and speech and the fears of very ignorant men. - -When the Distribution Office—like his Hepplewhite furniture, his -colour-prints and his English glass—was with yesterday’s seven thousand -years, it is more than possible that Theodore Savage, looking back on -his youth, saw existence, till he neared the age of thirty, as a stream -of scarcely ruffled content. Sitting crouched to the fire in the -sweat-laden air of his cabin or humped idly on a hillside in the dusk of -summer evening, it may well have seemed, when his thoughts strayed -backwards, that the young man who once was impossibly himself was a -being whom care did not touch. What he saw with the eye of his mind and -memory was a neat young Mr. Savage who was valeted in comfortable -chambers and who worked, without urgence, for limited hours, in a room -that looked on Whitehall. Who in his plentiful leisure gained a minor -reputation on the golf-links! Who frequented studios, bought—now and -then—a picture and collected English glass and bits of furniture. Who -was passably good-looking, in an ordinary way, had a thoughtful taste in -socks and ties and was careful of his hands as a woman.... So—through -the vista of years and the veil of contrast—Theodore may have seen his -young manhood; and in time, perhaps, it was difficult for a -coarse-fingered labourer, dependent for his bread on the moods of -nature, to sympathize greatly with the troubles of neat Mr. Savage or -think of him as subject to the major afflictions of humanity. - -All the same, he would spend long hours in communion with his vanished -self; striving at times to trace resemblances between the bearded, -roughened features that a fishing-pool reflected and the smooth-chinned -civil servant with brushed hair and white collar whom he followed in -thought through his work, his amusements, his love-making and the -trivial details of existence.... And imagining, sometimes, the years and -the happenings that might have been if his age, like his youth, had been -soaped and collared, routined by his breeding and his office; if gods -and men had not run amuck in frenzy and his sons had been born of a -woman who lived delicately—playing Chopin of an evening to young Mr. -Savage and giving him cream in his tea?... - - * * * * * - -Even if life in his Civil Service days was not all that it shone through -the years of contrast, Theodore Savage could have had very little of -hardship to complain of in the days when he added to a certain amount of -private income a salary earned by the duties of the unexacting billet -which a family interest had secured for him. If he had no particular -vocation for the bureaucratic life—if good painting delighted, and -official documents bored him—he had sufficient common sense to -understand that it is given to most of us, with sufficient application, -to master the intricacies of official documents, while only to few is it -given to master an art. After a phase of abortive experiment in his -college days he had realized—fortunately—that his swift and instinctive -pleasure in beauty had in it no creative element; whereupon he settled -down, early and easily, into the life and habits of the amateur.... -There remained with him to the end of his days an impression of a young -man living pleasurably, somewhat fastidiously; pursuing his hobbies, -indulging his tastes, on the whole without much damage to himself or to -others affected; acting decently according to his code and, when he fell -in love and out of it, falling not too grossly or disastrously. If he -had a grievance against his work at the Distribution Office, it was no -more serious than this: it took much time, certain hours every day, from -the interests that counted in his life. And against that grievance, no -doubt, he set the ameliorating fact that his private means unaided would -hardly have supported his way of existence, his many pleasant interests -and himself; it was his civil servant’s salary that had furnished his -rooms in accordance with his taste and made possible the purchase of his -treasured Fragonard and his bell-toned Georgian wine-glasses.... The -bearded toiler, through a mist of years, watched a young man dawdling, -without fear of the future, through a world of daily comforts that to -his sons would seem fantastic, the creation of legend or of dream. - -It was that blind and happy lack of all fear of the future that lent -interest to the toiler’s watching; knowing what he knew of the years -that lay ahead, there was something of grim and dramatic humour in the -sight of himself—yea, Theodore Savage, the broken-nailed, -unshorn—arrayed of a morning in a flowered silk dressing-gown or -shirt-fronted for an evening at the opera.... As it was in the -beginning, is now and ever shall be—that, so it seemed to him in later -years, had been the real, if unspoken, motto of the world wherein he had -his being in the days of his unruffled content.... - - * * * * * - -Of the last few weeks in the world that was and ever should be he -recalled, on the whole, very little of great hurrying and public events; -it was the personal, intimate scenes that stood out and remained to a -line and a detail. His first meeting with Phillida Rathbone, for -instance, and the chance interview with her father that led to it: he -could see himself standing by Rathbone’s desk in the Distribution -Office, see the bowl between his fingers, held to the light—see its very -shape and conventional pattern of raised flowers. - -Rathbone—John Rathbone—was his chief in his Distribution days; a -square-jawed, formidable, permanent official who was held in awe by -underlings and Ministers, and himself was subject, most contentedly -subject, to a daughter, the ruler of his household. Her taste in art and -decoration was not her father’s, but, for all the bewilderment it caused -him, he strove to gratify it loyally; and for Phillida’s twenty-third -birthday he had chosen expensively, on his way to the office, at the -shop of a dealer in antiquities. Swept on the spate of the dealer’s -eloquence he had been pleased for the moment with his find—a flowered -bowl, reputed Chelsea; it was not until half an hour later that he -remembered uneasily his daughter’s firm warnings against unaided traffic -with the miscreants who deal in curios. With the memory uncomfortable -doubts assailed him, while previous experiments came thronging -unpleasantly to mind—the fiasco of the so-called Bartolozzi print and -the equally lamentable business of the so-called Chippendale settee.... -He drew his purchase from its paper wrapping, set it down on the table -and stared at it. The process brought no enlightenment and he was still -wrestling with uncomfortable doubts when Theodore Savage knocked and -came in with a draft report for approval. - -The worry born of ignorance faded out of Rathbone’s face as he conned -the document and amended its clauses with swift pencilled notes in the -margin; he was back with the solidities he knew and could make sense of, -and superfluous gimcracks for the moment had ceased to exist. It was -Savage who unwittingly recalled their existence and importance; when his -chief, at the end of his corrections, looked up, the younger man was -eyeing the troublesome gimcrack with a meditative interest that reminded -Rathbone of his daughter’s manner when she contemplated similar rubbish. - -“Know anything about old china?” he inquired—an outward and somewhat -excessive indifference concealing an inward anxiety. - -“Not much,” said Theodore modestly; but, taking the query as request for -an opinion, his hand went out to the bowl. - -“What do you make of it?” asked Rathbone, still blatantly indifferent. -“I picked it up this morning—for my daughter. Supposed to be -Chelsea—should you say it was?” - -If the answer had been in the negative the private acquaintance between -chief and subordinate would probably have made no further progress; no -man, even when he makes use of it, is grateful for the superior -knowledge in a junior that convicts him to his face of gullibility. As -it was, the verdict was favourable and Rathbone, in the relief of -finding that he had not blundered, grew suddenly friendly—to the point -of a dinner invitation; which was given, in part, as instinctive thanks -for restored self-esteem, in part because it might interest Phillida to -meet a young man who took gimcracks as gravely as herself. The -invitation, as a matter of course, was accepted; and three days later -Savage met Phillida Rathbone. - -“I’ve asked a young fellow you’re sure to get on with”—so Rathbone had -informed his daughter; who, thereupon, as later she confessed to -Theodore, had made up her mind to be bored. She threw away her prejudice -swiftly when she found the new acquaintance talked music with -intelligence—she herself had music in her brain as well as in her -finger-tips—while he from the beginning was attracted by a daintiness of -manner and movement that puzzled him in Rathbone’s daughter.... From -that first night he must have been drawn to her, since the evening -remained to him clear in every detail; always in the hollow of a glowing -fire he could summon up Phillida, himself and Rathbone, sitting, the -three of them, round the table with its silver and tall roses.... In the -centre a branching cluster of roses—all yellow, like Phillida’s -dress.... Rathbone, for the most part, good-naturedly silent, Phillida -and himself talking swiftly.... In shaded light and a solid, pleasant -comfort; ordinary comfort, which he took for granted as an element of -daily life, but which yet was the heritage of many generations, the -product of long centuries of striving and cunning invention.... Later, -in the drawing-room, the girl made music—and he saw himself listening -from his corner of the sofa with a cigarette, unlit, between his -fingers. Above all it was her quality of daintiness that pleased him; -she was a porcelain girl, with something of the grace that he associated -with the eighteenth century.... - -After half an hour that was sheer content to Theodore she broke off from -her playing to sit on the arm of her father’s chair and ruffle his grey -hair caressingly. - -“Old man, does my noise on the piano prevent you from reading your -paper?” - -Whereat Rathbone laughed and returned the caress; and Phillida -explained, for the visitor’s benefit, that the poor dear didn’t know one -tune from another and must have been bored beyond measure—by piano -noises since they came upstairs and nothing but music-talk at dinner. - -“I believe we’ve driven him to the Montagu divorce case,” she announced, -looking over his shoulder. “‘Housemaid cross-examined—the Colonel’s -visits.’ Daddy, have you fallen to that?” - -“No, minx,” he rebuked her, “I haven’t. I’m not troubling to wade -through the housemaid’s evidence for the very good reason that it’s -quite unnecessary. I shall hear all about it from you.” - -“That’s a nasty one,” Phillida commented, rubbing her cheek against her -father’s. She turned the paper idly, reading out the headlines. -“‘American elections—Surprises at Newmarket—Bank Rate’—There doesn’t -seem much news except the housemaid and the colonel, does there?” - -Rathbone laughed as he pinched her cheek and pointed—to a headline here -and a headline there, to a cloud that was not yet the size of a man’s -hand. - -“It depends on what you call news. It seems to have escaped you that -we’ve just had a Budget. That matters to those of us who keep expensive -daughters. And, little as the subject may interest you, I gather from -the size of his type, that the editor attaches some importance to the -fact that the Court of Arbitration has decided against the Karthanian -claim. That, of course, compared to a housemaid in the witness-box is——” - -“Ponderous,” she finished and laughed across at Theodore. “Important, no -doubt, but ponderous—the Court of Arbitration always is. That’s why I -skipped it.” ... Then, carelessly interested, and running her eye down -the columns of the newspaper, she supposed the decision was final and -those noisy little Karthanians would have to be quiet at last. Rathbone -shrugged his shoulders and hoped so. - -“But they’ll have to, won’t they?” said Phillida. “Give me a match, -Daddy—There’s no higher authority than the Court of Arbitration, is -there?” - -“If,” Rathbone suggested as he held a light to her cigarette, “if your -newspaper reading were not limited to scandals and chiffons, you might -have noticed that your noisy little friends in the East have declared -with their customary vehemence that in no circumstances whatever will -they accept an adverse verdict—not even from the Court of Arbitration.” - -“But they’ll have to, won’t they?” Phillida repeated placidly. “I -mean—they can’t go against everybody else. Against the League.” - -She tried to blow a smoke-ring with conspicuous ill-success, and -Theodore, watching her from his corner of the sofa—intent on her profile -against the light—heard Rathbone explaining that “against everybody -else” was hardly the way to put it, since the Federal Council was not a -happy family at present. There was very little doubt that Karthania was -being encouraged to make trouble—and none at all that there would be -difference of opinion on the subject of punitive action.... Phillida, -with an arm round her father’s neck, was divided between international -politics and an endeavour to make the perfect ring—now throwing in a -question anent the constitution and dissensions of the League, now -rounding her mouth for a failure—while Theodore, on the sofa, leaned his -head upon his hand that he might shade his eyes and watch her without -seeming to watch.... He listened to Rathbone—and did not listen; and -that, as he realized later, had been so far his attitude to interests in -the mass. The realities of his life were immediate and personal—with, in -the background, dim interests in the mass that were vaguely distasteful -as politics. A collective game played with noisy idealism and flaring -abuse, which served as copy to the makers of newspapers and gave rise at -intervals to excited conversation and argument.... - -What was real, and only real while Rathbone talked, was the delicate -poise of Phillida’s head, the decorative line of Phillida’s body, his -pleasure in the sight of her, his comfort in a well-ordered room; these -things were realities, tangible or æsthetic, in whose company a man, if -he were so inclined, might discuss academically an Eastern imbroglio and -the growing tendency to revolt against the centralized authority of the -League. Between life, as he grasped it, and public affairs there was no -visible, essential connection. The Karthanian imbroglio, as he strolled -to his chambers, was an item in the make-up of a newspaper, the subject -of a recent conversation; it was the rhythm of Phillida’s music that -danced in his brain as a living and insistent reality. That, and not the -stirrings of uneasy nations, kept him wakeful till long after midnight. - - - - - II - - -While Theodore Savage paid his court to Phillida Rathbone, the -Karthanian decision was the subject of more than conversation; -diplomatists and statesmen were busy while he drifted into love and -dreamed through the sudden rumours that excited his fellows at the -office. In London, for the most part, journalism was guarded and -reticent, the threat of secession at first hardly mentioned; but in -nations and languages that favoured secession the press was voicing the -popular cry with enthusiasm that grew daily more heated. Through -conflicting rumour this at least was clear: at the next meeting of the -Council of the League its authority would be tested to the uttermost, -since the measure of independent action demanded by the malcontent -members would amount to a denial of the federal principle, to secession -in fact if not in name.... Reaction against central and unified -authority was not a phenomenon of yesterday; it had been gathering its -strength through years of racial friction, finding an adherent in every -community that considered itself aggrieved by a decision of the Council -or award of the Court of Arbitration, and for years it had taxed the -ingenuity of the majority of the Council to avoid open breach and -defiance. - -Before open breach and its consequences, both sides had so far -manœuvred, hesitated, compromised; it had been left to a minor, a very -minor, state, to rush in where others feared to tread. The flat refusal -of a heady, half-civilized little democracy to accept the unfavourable -verdict of the Court of Arbitration was the spark that might fire a -powder-barrel; its frothy demonstrations, ridiculous in themselves, -appealed to the combative instinct in others, to race-hatreds, old -herding feuds and jealousies. These found vent in answering -demonstrations, outbursts of popular sympathy in states not immediately -affected; the noisy rebel was hailed as a martyr and pioneer of freedom, -and became the pretext for resistance to the Council’s oppression. There -was no doubt of the extent of the re-grouping movement of the nations, -of the stirrings of a widespread combativeness which denounced -Federation as a system whereby dominant interests and races exploited -their weaker rivals. With the meeting of the Council would come the -inevitable clash of interests; the summons to the offending member of -the League to retreat from its impossible position, and—in case of -continued defiance—the proposal to take punitive action. That proposal, -to all seeming, must bring about a crisis; those members of the League -who had encouraged the rebel in defiance would hardly consent to -co-operate in punitive measures; and refusal—withdrawal of their -military contingents—would mean virtual secession and denial of majority -rule. If collective excitement and anger ran high, it might mean even -more than secession; there were possibilities—first hinted at, later -discussed without subterfuge—of actual and armed opposition should the -Council attempt to enforce its decree and authority.... Humanity, once -more, was gathering into herds and growing sharply conscious alike of -division and comradeship. - -It was some time before Theodore was even touched by the herding -instinct and spirit; apart, in a delicate world of his own, he concerned -himself even less than usual with the wider interests of politics. By -his fellows in the Distribution Office he was known as an incurable -optimist; even when the cloud had spread rapidly and darkened he saw -“strained relations” through the eyes of a lover, and his mind, busied -elsewhere, refused to dwell anxiously on “incidents” and “disquieting -possibilities.” They intruded clumsily on his delicate world and, so -soon as might be, he thrust them behind him and slipped back to the -seclusion that belonged to himself and a woman. All his life, thought -and impulse, for the time being, was a negation, a refusal of the idea -of strife and destruction; in his happy egoism he planned to make and -build—a home and a lifetime of content. - -Now and again, and in spite of his reluctance, his veil of happy egoism -was brushed aside—some chance word or incident forcing him to look upon -the menace. There was the evening in Vallance’s rooms, for -instance—where the talk settled down to the political crisis, and Holt, -the long journalist, turned sharply on Vallance, who supposed we were -drifting into war. - -“That’s nonsense, Vallance! Nonsense! It’s impossible—unthinkable!” - -“Unpleasant, if you like,” said Vallance; “but not impossible. At -least—it never has been.” - -“That’s no reason,” Holt retorted; “we’re not living yesterday. There’ll -be no war, and I’ll tell you why: because the men who will have to start -it—daren’t!” He had a penetrating voice which he raised when excited, so -that other talk died down and the room was filled with his argument. -Politicians, he insisted, might bluff and use threats—menace with a -bogy, shake a weapon they dared not use—but they would stop short at -threats, manœuvre for position and retreat. Let loose modern science, -mechanics and chemistry, they could not—there was a limit to human -insanity, if only because there was a limit to the endurance of the -soldier. Unless you supposed that all politicians were congenital idiots -or criminal lunatics out to make holocausts. What was happening at -present was manœuvring pure and simple; neither side caring to prejudice -its case by open admission that appeal to force was unthinkable, each -side hoping that the other would be the first to make the admission, -each side trotting out the dummy soldiers that were only for show, and -would soon be put back in their boxes.... War, he repeated, was -unthinkable.... - -“Man,” said a voice behind Theodore, “does much that is unthinkable!” - -Theodore turned that he might look at the speaker—Markham, something in -the scientific line, who had sat in silence, with a pipe between his -lips, till he dropped out his slow remark. - -“Your mistake,” he went on, “lies in taking these people—statesmen, -politicians—for free agents, and in thinking they have only one fear. -Look at Meyer’s speech this morning—that’s significant. He has been -moderate so far, a restraining influence; now he breathes fire and -throws in his lot with the extremists. What do you make of that?” - -“Merely,” said Holt, “that Meyer has lost his head.” - -“In which happy state,” suggested Vallance, “the impossible and -unthinkable mayn’t frighten him.” - -“That’s one explanation,” said Markham. “The other is that he is divided -between his two fears—the fear of war and the fear of his democracy, -which, being in a quarrelsome and restless mood, would break him if he -flinched and applauds him to the echo when he blusters. And, maybe, at -the moment, his fear of being broken is greater than his fear of the -impossible—at any rate the threat is closer.... The man himself may be -reasonable—even now—but he is the instrument of instinctive emotion. -Almost any man, taken by himself, is reasonable—and, being reasonable, -cautious. Meyer can think, just as well as you and I, so long as he -stands outside a crowd; but neither you nor I, nor Meyer, can think when -we are one with thousands and our minds are absorbed into a jelly of -impulse and emotion.” - -“I like your phrase about jelly,” said Vallance. “It has an odd -picturesqueness. Your argument itself—or, rather, your assertion—strikes -me as a bit sweeping.” - -“All the same,” Markham nodded, “it’s worth thinking over.... Man in the -mass, as a crowd, can only feel; there is no such thing as a mass-mind -or intellect—only mass desires and emotions. That is what I mean by -saying that Meyer—whatever his intelligence or sanity—is the instrument -of instinctive emotion.... And instinctive emotion, Holt—until it has -been hurt—is damnably and owlishly courageous. It isn’t clever enough to -be afraid; not even of red murder—or starvation by the million—or the -latest thing in gas or high explosive. Stir it up enough and it’ll run -on ’em—as the lemmings run to the sea.” - -Holt snorted something that sounded like “Rot!” and Vallance, sprawling -an arm along the mantelpiece, asked, “Another of your numerous -theories?” - -“If you like,” Markham assented, “but it’s a theory deduced from hard -facts.... It’s a fact, isn’t it, that no politician takes a crowd into -his confidence until he wants to make a fight of it? It’s a fact, isn’t -it, that no movements in mass are creative or constructive—that -simultaneous action, simultaneous thought, always is and must be -destructive? Set what we call the People in motion and something has got -to be broken. The crowd-life is still at the elementary, the animal -stage; it has not yet acquired the human power of construction ... and -the crowd, the people, democracy—whatever you like to call it—has been -stirring in the last few years; getting conscious again, getting active, -looking round for something to break ... which means that the politician -is faced once more with the necessity of giving it something to break. -Naturally he prefers that the breakage should take place in the -distance—and, League or no League, the eternal and obvious resource is -War ... which was not too risky when fought with swords and muskets, but -now—as Holt says—is impossible. Being a bit of a chemist, I’m sure Holt -is right; but I’m also sure that man, as a herd, does not think. -Further, I am doubtful if man, as a herd, ever finds out what is -impossible except through the painful process of breaking his head -against it.” - -“I’m a child in politics,” said Vallance, “and I may be dense—but I’m -afraid it isn’t entirely clear to me whether your views are advanced or -grossly and shamelessly reactionary?” - -“Neither,” said Markham, “or both—you can take your choice. I have every -sympathy with the people, the multitude; it’s hard lines that it can -only achieve destruction—just because there is so much of it, because it -isn’t smaller. But I also sympathize with the politician in his efforts -to control the destructive impulse of the multitude. And, finally—in -view of that progress of science of which Holt has reminded us, and of -which I know a little myself—I’m exceedingly sorry for us all.” - -Someone from across the room asked: “You make it war, then?” - -“I make it war. We have had peace for more than a generation, so our -periodic blood-letting is already a long time overdue. The League has -staved it off for a bit, but it hasn’t changed the human constitution; -and the real factor in the Karthanian quarrel—or any other—is the -periodic need of the human herd for something to break and for something -to break itself against.... Resistance and self-sacrifice—the need of -them—the call of the lemming to the sea.... And, perhaps, it’s all the -stronger in this generation because this generation has never known war, -and does not fear it.” - -“Education,” said Holt, addressing the air, “is general and -compulsory—has been so for a good many years. The inference being that -the records of previous wars—and incidentally of the devastation -involved—are not inaccessible to that large proportion of our population -which is known as the average man.” - -“As printed pages, yes,” Markham agreed. “But what proportion even of a -literate population is able to accept the statement of a printed page as -if it were a personal experience?” - -“As we’re not all fools,” Holt retorted, “I don’t make it war.” - -“I hope you’re right, for my own sake,” said Markham good-temperedly. He -knocked out his pipe as he spoke and made ready to go—while Theodore -looked after him, interested, for the moment, disturbingly.... Markham’s -unemotional and matter-of-fact acceptance of “periodic blood-letting” -made rumour suddenly real, and for the first time Theodore saw the -Karthanian imbroglio as more than the substance of telegrams and -articles, something human, actual, and alive.... Saw himself, even -Phillida, concerned in it—through a medley of confused and threatening -shadows.... For the moment he was roused from his self-absorption and -thrust into the world that he shared with the common herd of men. He and -Phillida were no longer as the gods apart, with their lives to make in -Eden; they were little human beings, the sport of a common human -destiny.... He remembered how eagerly he caught at Holt’s condemnation -of Markham as a crank and Vallance’s next comment on the crisis. - -“We had exactly the same scare three—or was it four?—years ago. This is -the trouble about Transylvania all over again—just the same alarums and -excursions. That fizzled out quietly in a month or six weeks and the -chances are that Karthania will fizzle out, too.” - -“Of course it will,” Holt declared with emphasis—and proceeded to -demolish Markham’s theories. Theodore left before he had finished his -argument; as explained dogmatically in Holt’s penetrating voice, the -intrigues and dissensions of the Federal Council were once more unreal -and frankly boring. The argument satisfied, but no longer interested—and -ten minutes after Markham’s departure his thoughts had drifted away from -politics to the private world he shared with Phillida Rathbone. - - * * * * * - -For very delight of it he lingered over his courtship, finding charm in -the pretence of uncertainty long after it had ceased to exist. To -Phillida also there was pleasure not only in the winning, but in the -exquisite game itself; once or twice when Theodore was hovering near -avowal, she deferred the inevitable, eluded him with laughter, asked -tacitly to play a little longer.... In the end the avowal came suddenly, -on the flash and impulse of a moment—when Phillida hesitated over one of -his gifts, a print she had admired on the wall of his sitting-room, duly -brought the next day for her acceptance. - -“No, I oughtn’t to take it—it’s one of your treasures,” she -remonstrated. - -“If you’d take all I have—and me with it,” he stammered.... That was the -crisis of the exquisite game—and pretence of uncertainty was over. - - - - - III - - -One impression of those first golden hours that stayed with him always -was the certainty with which they had dwelt on the details of their -common future; he could see Phillida with her hands on his shoulders -explaining earnestly that they must live very near to the Dad—the dear -old boy had no one but herself and they mustn’t let him miss her too -much. And when Theodore asked, “You don’t think he’ll object to me?” -Rathbone’s disapproval was the only possible cloud—which lifted at -Phillida’s amused assurance that the old dear wasn’t as blind as all -that and, having objections, would have voiced them before it was too -late. - -“You don’t suppose he hasn’t noticed—just because he hasn’t said -anything!”... Whereupon Theodore caught at her hands and demanded how -long she had noticed?—and they fell to a happy retracing of this step -and that in their courtship. - -When they heard Rathbone enter she ran down alone, telling Theodore to -stay where he was till she called him; returning in five minutes or so, -half-tearful and half-smiling, to say the dear old thing was waiting in -the library. Then Theodore, in his turn, went down to the library where, -red to the ears and stammering platitudes, he shook hands with his -future father-in-law—proceeding eventually to details of his financial -position and the hope that Rathbone would not insist upon too lengthy an -engagement?... The answer was so slow in coming that he repeated his -question nervously. - -“No,” said Rathbone at last, “I don’t know that I”—(he laid stress on -the pronoun)—“I don’t know that I should insist upon a very lengthy -engagement. Only....” - -Again he paused so long that Theodore repeated “Only?” - -“Only—there may be obstacles—not of my making or Phillida’s. Connected -with the office—your work ... I dare say you’ve been too busy with your -own affairs to give very much attention to the affairs of the world in -general; still I conclude the papers haven’t allowed you to forget that -the Federal Council was to vote to-day on the resolution to take -punitive action? Result is just through—half an hour ago. Resolution -carried, by a majority of one only.” - -“Was it?” said Theodore—and remembered a vague impulse of resentment, a -difficulty in bringing down his thoughts from Phillida to the earthiness -of politics. It took him an effort and a moment to add: “Close thing—but -they’ve pulled it off.” - -“They have,” said Rathbone. “Just pulled it off—but it remains to be -seen if that’s matter for congratulation.... The vote commits us to -action—definitely—and the minority have entered a protest against -punitive action.... It seems unlikely that the protest is only formal.” - -He was dry and curiously deliberate—leaning back in his chair, speaking -quietly, with fingers pressed together.... To the end Theodore -remembered him like that; a square-jawed man, leaning back in his chair, -speaking slowly, unemotionally—the harbinger of infinite misfortune.... -And himself, the listener, a young man engrossed by his own new -happiness; irritated, at first, by the intrusion of that which did not -concern it; then (as once before in Vallance’s rooms) uneasy and -conscious of a threat. - -He heard himself asking, “You think it’s—serious?” and saw Rathbone’s -mouth twist into the odd semblance of a smile. - -“I think so. One way or other we shall know within a week.” - -“You can’t mean—war?” Theodore asked again—remembering Holt and his -“Impossible!” - -“It doesn’t seem unlikely,” said Rathbone. - -He had risen, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and begun to -pace backwards and forwards. “Something may happen at the last -minute—but it’s difficult to see how they can draw back. They have gone -too far. They’re committed, just as we are—committed to a principle.... -If we yield the Council abdicates its authority once for all; it’s an -end of the League—a plain break, and the Lord knows what next. And the -other side daren’t stop at verbal protest. They will have to push their -challenge; there’s too much clamour behind them....” - -“There was Transylvania,” Theodore reminded him. - -“I know—and nothing came of it. But that wasn’t pushed quite so far.... -They threatened, but never definitely—they left themselves a possibility -of retreat. Now ... as I said, something may happen ... and, meanwhile, -to go back to what I meant about you, personally, how this might affect -you....” - -He dropped into swift explanation. “Considerable rearrangement in the -work of the Department—if it should be necessary to place it on a -war-footing.” Theodore’s duties—if the worst should happen—would -certainly take him out of London and therefore part him from Phillida. -“I can tell you that definitely—now.” - -Perhaps he realized that the announcement, on a day of betrothal, was -brutal; for he checked himself suddenly in his walk to and fro, clapped -the young man good-naturedly on the shoulder, repeated that “Something -might happen” and supposed he would not be sorry to hear that a member -of the Government required his presence—“So you and Phillida can dine -without superfluous parents.”... And he said no word of war or parting -to Phillida—who came down with Theodore to watch her father off, -standing arm-in-arm upon the doorstep in the pride of her new -relationship. - -The threat lightened as they dined alone deliciously, as a foretaste of -housekeeping in common; Phillida left him no thoughts to stray and only -once, while the evening lasted, did they look from their private -Paradise upon the world of common humanity. Phillida, as the clock -neared ten, wondered vaguely what Henderson had wanted with her father? -Was there anything particular, did Theodore know, any news about the -Federal Council?... He hesitated for a moment, then told her the bare -facts only—the vote and the minority protest. - -“A protest,” she repeated. “That’s what they’ve all been afraid of.... -It looks bad, doesn’t it?” - -He agreed it looked bad; thinking less, it may be, of the threat of red -ruin and disaster than of Rathbone’s warning that his duties would part -him from Phillida. - -“I hope it doesn’t mean war,” she said. - -At the time her voice struck him as serious, even anxious; later it -amazed him that she had spoken so quietly, that there was no trembling -of the slim white fingers that played with her chain of heavy beads. - -“Do you think it does?” she asked him. - -Because he remembered the threat of parting and had need of her daily -presence, he was stubborn in declaring that it did not, and could not, -mean war; quoting Holt that modern war was impossible, that statesmen -and soldiers knew it, and insisting that this was the Transylvanian -business over again and would be settled as that was settled. She shook -her head thoughtfully, having heard other views from her father; but her -voice (he knew later) was thoughtful only—not a quiver, not a hint of -real fear in it. - -“It’ll have to come sometime—now or in a year or two. At least, that’s -what everybody says. I wonder if it’s true.” - -“No,” he said, “it isn’t—unless we make it true. This sort of thing—it’s -a kind of common nightmare we have now and then. Every few years—and -when it’s over we turn round and wake up and wonder what the devil we -were frightened about.” - -“Yes,” she agreed, “when you come to think of it, it is rather like -that. I don’t remember in the least what the fuss was all about last -time—but I know the papers were full of Transylvania and the poor old -Dad was worked off his head for a week or two.... And then it was over -and we forgot all about it.” - -And at that they turned and went back to their golden solitude, shutting -out, for the rest of the evening, a world that made protests and sent -ominous telegrams. Before Theodore left her, to walk home restless with -delight, they had decided on the fashion of Phillida’s ring and planned -the acquisition of a Georgian house—with powder-closet. - -It was his restless delight that made sleep impossible—and he sat at his -window and smoked till the east was red.... While Henderson and -Rathbone, a mile or two away, planned Distribution on a war-footing. - - * * * * * - -Events in the next few days moved rapidly in an atmosphere of tense and -rising life; races and peoples were suddenly and acutely conscious of -their life collective, and the neighbourly quarrel and bitterness of -yesterday was forgotten in the new comradeship born of common hatred and -common passion for self-sacrifice. There was talk at first, with -diplomatists and leader-writers, of a possibility of localizing the -conflict; but within forty-eight hours of the issue of the minority -protest it was clear that the League would be rent. On one side, as on -the other, statesmen were popular only when known to be unyielding in -the face of impossible demands; crowds gathered when ministers met to -take counsel and greeted them with cries to stand fast. Behind vulgar -effervescence and music-hall thunder was faith in a righteous cause; -and, as ever, man believed in himself and his cause with a hand on the -hilt of his sword. Freedom and justice were suddenly real and attainable -swiftly—through violence wrought on their enemies.... Humanity, once -more, was inspired by ideals that justified the shedding of blood and -looked death in the face without fear. - -As always, there were currents and crosscurrents, and those who were not -seized by the common, splendid passion denounced it. Some meanly, by -distortion of motive—crying down faith as cupidity and the impulse to -self-sacrifice as arrogance; and others, more worthy of hearing, who -realized that the impulse to self-sacrifice is passing and the idealism -of to-day the bestial cunning of to-morrow.... On one side and the other -there was an attempt on the part of those who foresaw something, at -least, of the inevitable, to pit fear against the impulse to -self-sacrifice and make clear to a people to whom war was a legend only -the extent of disaster ahead. The attempt was defeated, almost as begun, -by the sudden launching of an ultimatum with twenty-four hours for -reply. - -At the news young men surged to the recruiting-stations, awaiting their -turn for admission in long shouting, jesting lines; the best blood and -honour of a generation that had not yet sated its inborn lust of combat. -Women stood to watch them as their ranks moved slowly to the goal—some -proud to tears, others giggling a foolish approval. Great shifting -crowds—men and women who could not rest—gathered in public places and -awaited the inevitable news. In the last few hours—all protest being -useless—even the loudest of the voices that clamoured against war had -died down; and in the life collective was the strange, sudden peace -which comes with the cessation of internal feud and the focusing of -hatred on those who dwell beyond a nation’s borders. - - * * * * * - -Theodore Savage, in the days that followed his betrothal, was kept with -his nose to the Distributive grindstone, working long hours of overtime -in an atmosphere transformed out of knowledge. The languid and formal -routine of departments was succeeded by a fever of hurried innovation; -gone were the lazy, semi-occupied hours when he had been wont to play -with his thoughts of Phillida and the long free evenings that were hers -as a matter of course. In the beginning he felt himself curiously -removed from the strong, heady atmosphere that affected others like -wine. Absorption in Phillida counted for something in his aloofness, but -even without it his temperament was essentially averse from the -crowd-life; he was stirred by the common desire to be of service, but -was conscious of no mounting of energy restless and unsatisfied.... -Having little conviction or bias in politics, he accepted without -question the general version of the origins of conflict and resented, in -orthodox fashion, the gross breach of faith and agreement which betrayed -long established design. “It had got to be” and “They’ve been getting -ready for years” were phrases on the general lip which he saw no reason -to discredit; and, with acceptance of the inevitability of conflict, he -ceased to find conflict “unthinkable.” In daily intercourse with those -to whom it was thinkable, practical, a certainty—to some, in the end, a -desirable certainty—Holt’s phrase lost its meaning and became a symbolic -extravagance.... So far he was caught in the swirl of the crowd-life; -but he was never one with it and remained conscious of it always as -something that flowed by him, something apart from himself. - -Above all he knew it as something apart when he saw how it had seized -and mastered Phillida. She was curiously alive to its sweep and emotion, -and beneath her outward daintiness lay the power of fervid partisanship. -“If it weren’t for you,” she told him once, “I should break my heart -because I’m only a woman”; and he saw that she pitied him, that she was -even resentful for his sake, when she learned from her father that there -was no question of allowing the clerks of the Distribution Office to -volunteer for military service. - -“He says the Department will need all its trained men and that modern -war is won by organization even more than by fighting. I’m glad you -won’t have to go, my dear—I’m glad—” and, saying it, she clung to him as -to one who stood in need of consolation. - -He felt the implied consolation and sympathy—with a twinge of -conscience, not entirely sure of deserving it. But for the rigid -departmental order, he knew he should have thought it his duty to -volunteer and take his share of the danger that others were clamouring -to face; but he had not cursed vehemently, like his junior, Cassidy, -when Holles, equally blasphemous, burst into the room with the news that -enlistment was barred. He thought of Cassidy’s angry blue eyes as he -swore that, by hook or by crook, he would find his way into the -air-service.... Phillida would have sympathized with Cassidy and the -flash of her eyes answered his; she too, for the moment, was one with -the crowd-life, and there were moments when he felt it was sweeping her -away from his hold. - -He felt it most on their last evening, on the night the ultimatum -expired; when he came from the office, after hours of overtime, -uncertain whether he should find her, wondering whether her excited -restlessness had driven her out into the crowds that surged round -Whitehall. As he ran up the stairs the sound of a piano drifted from the -room above; no definite melody but a vague, irregular striking of chords -that came to an end as he entered the room and Phillida looked up, -expectant. - -“At last,” she said as she ran to him. “You don’t know how I have wanted -you. I can’t be alone—if you hadn’t turned up I should have had to find -someone to talk to.” - -“Anyone—didn’t matter who?” he suggested. - -She laughed, caught his hand and rubbed her cheek against it. “Yes, -anyone—you know what I mean. It’s just—when you think of what’s -happening, how can you keep still?... As for father, I never see him -nowadays. I suppose there isn’t any news?” - -“There can’t be,” he answered. “Not till twelve.” - -“No—and even at twelve it won’t really be news. Just no answer—and the -time will be up.... We’re at peace now—till midnight.... What’s the -time?” - -He longed to be alone with her—alone with her in thought as well as in -outward seeming—but her talk slipped restlessly away from his leading -and she moved uncertainly about the room, returning at last to her vague -striking of the piano—sharp, isolated notes, and then suddenly a -masterful chord. - -“Play to me,” he asked, “play properly.” - -She shook her head and declared it was impossible. - -“Anything connected is beyond me; I can only strum and make noises.” She -crashed in the bass, rushed a swift arpeggio to the treble, then turned -to him, her eyes wide and glowing. “If you hold your breath, can’t you -feel them all waiting?—thousands on thousands—all through the world?... -Waiting till midnight ... can’t you feel it?” - -“You make me feel it,” he answered. “Tell me—you want war?” - -The last words came out involuntarily, and it was only the startled, -sudden change in her face that brought home to him what he had said. - -“I want war,” she echoed.... “I want men to be killed.... Theodore, what -makes you say that?” - -He fumbled for words, not sure of his own meaning—sure only that her -eyes would change and lose their fervour if, at the last moment and by -God-sent miracle, the sword were returned to its sheath. - -“Not that, of course—not the actual fighting. I didn’t mean that.... But -isn’t there something in you—in you and in everyone—that’s too strong to -be arrested? Too swift?... If nothing happened—if we drew back—you -couldn’t be still now; you couldn’t endure it....” - -She looked at him thoughtfully, puzzled, half-assenting; then protested -again: “I don’t want it—but we can’t be still and endure evil.” - -“No,” he said, “we can’t—but isn’t there a gladness in the thought that -we can’t?” - -“Because we’re right,” she flashed. “It’s not selfish—you know it isn’t -selfish. We see what is right and, whatever it costs us, we stand for -it. The greatest gladness of all is the gladness of giving—everything, -even life.... That’s what makes me wish I were a man!” - -“The passion for self-sacrifice,” he said, quoting Markham. “I was told -the other day it was one of the causes of war.... Don’t look at me so -reproachfully—I’m not a pacifist. Give me a kiss and believe me.” - -She laughed and gave him the kiss he asked for, and for a minute or two -he drew her out of the crowd-life and they were alone together as they -had been on the night of their betrothal. Then the spirit of -restlessness took hold of her again and she rose suddenly, declaring -they must find out what was happening—they must go out and see for -themselves. - -“It’s only just past ten,” he argued. “What can be happening for another -two hours? There’ll only be a crowd—walking up and down and waiting.” - -It was just the crowd and its going to and fro that she needed, and she -set to work to coax him out of his reluctance. There would never be -another night like this one—they must see it together and remember it as -long as they lived.... Perhaps, her point gained, she was remorseful, -for she rewarded his assent with a caress and a coaxing apology. - -“We shall have so many evenings to ourselves,” she told him—“and -to-night—to-night we don’t only belong to ourselves.” - -He could feel her arm tremble and thrill on his own as they came in -sight of the Clock Tower and the swarm of expectant humanity that moved -and murmured round Westminster. On him the first impression was of -seething insignificance that the Clock Tower dwarfed and the dignity of -night reproved; on her, as he knew by the trembling of her fingers, a -quickening of life and sensation.... - -They were still at the shifting edges of the crowd when a man’s voice -called “Phillida!” and one of her undergraduate cousins linked himself -on to their company. For nearly an hour the three moved backwards and -forwards—through the hum and mutter of voices, the ceaseless turning of -eyes to Big Ben and the shuffling of innumerable feet.... When the -quarters chimed, there was always a hush; when eleven throbbed solemnly, -no man stirred till the last beat died.... With silence and arrested -movement the massed humanity at the base of the Clock Tower was no -longer a seething insignificance; without speech, without motion, it was -suddenly dignified—life faced with its destiny and intent upon a Moving -Finger.... - -“Only one more hour,” whispered Phillida as the silence broke; and the -Rathbone boy, to show he was not moved, wondered if it was worth their -while to stay pottering about for an hour?... No one answered his -question, since it needed no answer; and, the dignity of silence over, -they drifted again with the crowd. - - - - - IV - - -The Moving Finger had written off another five minutes or so when police -were suddenly active and sections of the crowd lunged uncomfortably; way -was being made for the passing of an official car—and in the backward -swirl of packed humanity Theodore was thrust one way, Phillida and the -Rathbone boy another. For a moment he saw them as they looked round and -beckoned him; the next, the swirl had carried him yet further—and when -it receded they were lost amongst the drifting, shifting thousands. -After ten minutes more of pushing to and fro in search of them, Theodore -gave up the chase as fruitless and made his way disconsolately to the -Westminster edge of the crowd.... Phillida, if he knew her, would stay -till the stroke of midnight, later if the spirit moved her; and she had -an escort in the Rathbone boy, who, in due time, would see her home.... -There was no need to worry—but he cursed the luck of what might be their -last evening. - -For a time he lingered uncertainly on the edge of the pushing, shuffling -mass; perhaps would have lingered till the hour struck, if there had not -drifted to his memory the evening at Vallance’s when Holt had declared -this night to be impossible—and when Markham had “made it war.” And, -with that, he remembered also that Markham had rooms near by—in one of -the turnings off Great Smith Street. - -There was a light in the room that he knew for Markham’s and it was only -after he had rung that he wondered what had urged him to come. He was -still wondering when the door opened and could think of no better -explanation than “I saw you were up—by your light.” - -“If you’d passed five minutes ago,” said Markham, as he led the way -upstairs, “you wouldn’t have seen any light. I’m only just back from the -lab—and dining off biscuits and whisky.” - -“Is this making any difference to you, then?” Theodore asked. “I mean, -in the way of work?” - -Markham nodded as he poured out his visitor’s whisky. “Yes, I’m serving -the country—the military people have taken me over, lock and stock: with -everyone else, apparently, who has ever done chemical research. I’ve -been pretty hard at it the last few days, ever since the scare was -serious.... And you—are you soldiering?” - -“No,” said Theodore and told him of the departmental prohibition. - -“It mayn’t make much difference in the end,” said Markham.... “You see, -I was right—the other evening.” - -“Yes,” Theodore answered, “I believe that was why I came in. The crowd -to-night reminded me of what you said at Vallance’s—though I don’t think -I believed you then.... How long is it going to last?” - -“God knows,” said Markham, with his mouth full of biscuit. “We shall -have had enough of it—both sides—before very long; but it’s one thing to -march into hell with your head up and another to find a way out.... -There’s only one thing I’m fairly certain about—I ought to have been -strangled at birth.” - -Theodore stared at him, not sure he had caught the last words. - -“You ought to——?” - -“Yes—you heard me right. If the human animal must fight—and nothing -seems to stop it—it should kill off its scientific men. Stamp out the -race of ’em, forbid it to exist.... Holt was also right that evening, -fundamentally. You can’t combine the practice of science and the art of -war; in the end, it’s one or the other. We, I think, are going to prove -that—very definitely.” - -“And when you’ve proved it—we stop fighting?” - -Markham shrugged his shoulders, thrust aside his plate and filled his -pipe. - -“Curious, the failure to understand the influence on ourselves of what -we make and use. We just make and use and damn the consequence.... When -Lavoisier invented the chemical balance, did he stop to consider the -possibilities of chemical action in combination with outbursts of human -emotion? If he had...!” - -In the silence that followed they heard the chiming of -three-quarters—and there flashed inconsequently into Theodore’s memory, -a vision of himself, a small boy with his hand in his mother’s, staring -up, round-eyed, at Big Ben of London—while his mother taught him the -words that were fitted to the chime. - - Lord—through—this—hour - Be—Thou—our—guide, - So—by—Thy—power - No—foot—shall—slide. - -... That, or something like that.... Odd, that he should remember them -now—when for years he had not remembered.... “Lord—through—this—hour——” - -He realized suddenly that Markham was speaking—in jerks, between pulls -at his pipe. “... And the same with mechanics—not the engine but the -engine plus humanity. Take young James Watt and his interest in the lid -of a tea-kettle! In France, by the way, they tell the same story of -Papin; but, so far as the rest of us are concerned it doesn’t much -matter who first watched the lid of a kettle with intelligence—the point -is that somebody watched it and saw certain of its latent possibilities. -Only its more immediate possibilities—and we may take it for granted -that amongst those which he did not foresee were the most important. The -industrial system—the drawing of men into crowds where they might feed -the machine and be fed by it—the shrinkage of the world through the use -of mechanical transport. That—the shrinkage—when we first saw it coming, -we took to mean union of peoples and the clasping of distant -hands—forgetting that it also meant the cutting of distant throats.... -Yet it might have struck us that we are all potential combatants—and the -only known method of preventing a fight is to keep the combatants apart! -These odd, simple facts that we all of us know—and lose sight of ... the -drawing together of peoples has always meant the clashing of their -interests ... and so new hatreds. Inevitably new hatreds.” - -Theodore quoted: “‘All men hate each other naturally’.... You believe -that?” - -“Of individuals, no—but of all communities, yes. Is there any form of -the life collective that is capable of love for its fellow—for another -community? Is there any church that will stand aside that another church -may be advantaged? ... You and I are civilized, as man and man; but -collectively we are part of a life whose only standard and motive is -self-interest, its own advantage ... a beast-life, morally. If you -understand that, you understand to-night ... Which demands from us -sacrifices, makes none itself.... That’s as far as we have got in the -mass.” - -Through the half-open window came the hum and murmur of the crowd that -waited for the hour.... Theodore stirred restlessly, conscious of the -unseen turning of countless faces to the clock—and aware, through the -murmur, of the frenzied little beating of his watch.... He hesitated to -look at it—and when he drew it out and said “Five minutes more,” his -voice sounded oddly in his ears. - -“Five minutes,” said Markham.... He laughed suddenly and pushed the -bottle across the table. “Do you know where we are now—you and I and all -of us? On the crest of the centuries. They’ve carried us a long roll -upwards and now here we are—on top! In five more minutes—three hundred -little seconds—we shall hear the crest curl over.... Meanwhile, have a -drink!” - -He checked himself and held up a finger. “Your watch is slow!” - -The hum and murmur of the crowd had ceased and through silence unbroken -came the prayer of the Westminster chime. - - Lord—through—this—hour - Be—Thou—our—guide, - So—by—Thy—power - No—foot—shall—slide. - -There was no other sound for the twelve booming strokes of the hour: it -was only as the last beat quivered into silence that there broke the -moving thunder of a multitude. - -“Over!” said Markham. “Hear it crash?... Well, here’s to the -centuries—after all, they did the best they knew for us!” - - - - - V - - -The war-footing arrangements of the Distribution Office included a -system of food control involving local supervision; hence provincial -centres came suddenly into being, and to one of these—at York—Theodore -Savage was dispatched at little more than an hour’s notice on the -morning after war was declared. He telephoned Phillida and they met at -King’s Cross and had ten hurried minutes on the platform; she was still -eager and excited, bubbling over with the impulse to action—was hoping -to start training for hospital work—had been promised an opening—she -would tell him all about it when she wrote. Her excitement took the -bitterness out of the parting—perhaps, in her need to give and serve, -she was even proud that the sacrifice of parting was demanded of her.... -The last he saw of her was a smiling face and a cheery little wave of -the hand. - -He made the journey to York with a carriageful of friendly and talkative -folk who, in normal days, would have been strangers to him and to each -other; as it was, they exchanged newspapers and optimistic views and -grew suddenly near to each other in their common interest and -resentment.... That was what war meant in those first stirring -days—friendliness, good comradeship, the desire to give and serve, the -thrill of unwonted excitement.... Looking back from after years it -seemed to him that mankind, in those days, was finer and more gracious -than he had ever known it—than he would ever know it again. - - * * * * * - -The first excitement over, he lived somewhat tediously at York between -his office and dingily respectable lodgings; discovering very swiftly -that, so far as he, Theodore Savage, was concerned, a state of -hostilities meant the reverse of alarums and excursions. For him it was -the strictest of official routine and the multiplication of formalities. -His hours of liberty were fewer than in London, his duties more -tiresome, his chief less easy to get on with; there was frequent -overtime, and leave—which meant Phillida—was not even a distant -possibility. For all his honest desire of service he was soon frankly -bored by his work; its atmosphere of minute regularity and insistent -detail was out of keeping with the tremor and uncertainty of war, and -there was something æsthetically wrong about a fussy process of -docketing and checking while nations were at death grips and the fate of -a world in the balance.... His one personal satisfaction was the town, -York itself—the walls, the Bars, and above all the Minster; he lodged -near the Minster, could see it from his window, and its enduring dignity -was a daily relief alike from the feverish perusal of war news, his -landlady’s colour-scheme and taste in furniture and the fidgety trifling -of the office. - -In the evening he read many newspapers and wrote long letters to -Phillida; who also, he gathered, had discovered that war might be -tedious. “We haven’t any patients yet,” she scribbled him in one of her -later letters, “but, of course, I’m learning all sorts of things that -will be useful later on, when we do get them. Bandaging and making -beds—and then we attend lectures. It’s rather dull waiting and bandaging -each other for practice—but naturally I’m thankful that there aren’t -enough casualties to go round. Up to now the regular hospitals have -taken all that there are—‘temporaries’ like us don’t get even a look -in.... The news is really splendid, isn’t it?” - -There were few casualties in the beginning because curiously little -happened; Western Europe was removed from the actual storm-centre, and -in England, after the first few days of alarmist rumours concerning -invasion by air and sea, the war, for a time, settled down into a -certain amount of precautionary rationing and a daily excitement in -newspaper form—so much so that the timorous well-to-do, who had retired -from London on the outbreak of hostilities, trickled back in increasing -numbers. Hostilities, in the beginning, were local and comparatively -ineffective; one of the results of the limitation of troops and -armaments enforced by the constitution of the League was to give to the -opening moves of the contest a character unprepared and amateurish. The -aim, on either side, was to obtain time for effective preparation, to -organize forces and resources; to train fighters and mobilize chemists, -to convert factories, manufacture explosive and gas, and institute a -system of co-operation between the strategy of far-flung allies. Hence, -in the beginning, the conflict was partial and, as regards its strategy, -hesitating; there were spasms of bloody incident which were deadly -enough in themselves, but neither side cared to engage itself seriously -before it had attained its full strength.... First blood was shed in a -fashion that was frankly mediæval; the heady little democracy whose -failure to establish a claim in the Court of Arbitration had been the -immediate cause of the conflict, flung itself with all its -half-civilized resources upon its neighbour and enemy, the victorious -party to the suit. Between the two little communities was a treasured -feud which had burst out periodically in defiance of courts and -councils; and, control once removed, the border tribesmen gathered for -the fray with all the enthusiasm of their rude forefathers, and raided -each other’s territory in bands armed with knives and revolvers. Their -doings made spirited reading in the press in the early days of the -war—before the generality of newspaper readers had even begun to realize -that battles were no longer won by the shock of troops and that the -root-principle of modern warfare was the use of the enemy civilian -population as an auxiliary destructive force. - -Certain states and races grasped the principle sooner than others, being -marked out for early enlightenment by the accident of geographical -position. In those not immediately affected, such as Britain, censorship -on either side ruled out, as impossible for publication, the extent of -the damage inflicted on allies, and the fact that it was not only in -enemy countries that large masses of population, hunted out of cities by -chemical warfare and the terror from above, had become nomadic and -predatory. That, as the struggle grew fiercer, became, inevitably, the -declared aim of the strategist; the exhaustion of the enemy by burdening -him with a starving and nomadic population. War, once a matter of armies -in the field, had resolved itself into an open and thorough-going effort -to ruin enemy industry by setting his people on the run; to destroy -enemy agriculture not only by incendiary devices—the so-called -poison-fire—but by the secondary and even more potent agency of starving -millions driven out to forage as they could.... The process, in the -stilted phrase of the communiqué, was described as “displacement of -population”; and displacement of population, not victory in the field, -became the real military objective. - -To the soldier, at least, it was evident very early in the struggle that -the perfection of scientific destruction had entailed, of necessity, the -indirect system of strategy associated with industrial warfare; -displacement of population being no more than a natural development of -the striker’s method of attacking a government by starving the -non-combatant community. The aim of the scientific soldier, like that of -the soldier of the past, was to cut his enemy’s communications, to -intercept and hamper his supplies; and the obvious way to attain that -end was by ruthless disorganization of industrial centres, by letting -loose a famished industrial population to trample and devour his crops. -Manufacturing districts, on either side, were rendered impossible to -work in by making them impossible to live in; and from one crowded -centre after another there streamed out squalid and panic-stricken -herds, devouring the country as they fled. Seeking food, seeking refuge, -turning this way or that; pursued by the terror overhead or imagining -themselves pursued; and breaking, striving to separate, to make -themselves small and invisible.... And, as air-fleets increased in -strength and tactics were perfected—as one centre of industry after -another went down and out—the process of disintegration was rapid. To -the tentative and hesitating opening of the war had succeeded a fury of -widespread destruction; and statesmen, rendered desperate by the sudden -crumbling of their own people—the sudden lapse into primitive -conditions—could hope for salvation only through a quicker process of -“displacement” on the enemy side. - -There were reasons, political and military, why the average British -civilian, during the opening phases of the struggle, knew little of -warfare beyond certain food restrictions, the news vouchsafed in the -communiqués and the regulation comments thereon; the enemy forces which -might have brought home to him the meaning of the term “displacement” -were occupied at first with other and nearer antagonists. Hence -continental Europe—and not Europe alone—was spotted with ulcers of -spreading devastation before displacement was practised in England. -There had been stirrings of uneasiness from time to time—of uneasiness -and almost of wonder that the weapon she was using with deadly effect -had not been turned against herself; but at the actual moment of -invasion there was something like public confidence in a speedy end to -the struggle—and the principal public grievance was the shortage and -high price of groceries. - - * * * * * - -Whatever he forgot and confused in after days—and there were stretches -of time that remained with him only as a blur—Theodore remembered very -clearly every detail and event of the night when disaster began. Young -Hewlett’s voice as he announced disaster—and what he, Theodore, was -doing when the boy rapped on the window. Not only what happened, but his -mood when the interruption came and the causes of it; he had suffered an -irritating day at the office, crossed swords with a self-important chief -and been openly snubbed for his pains. As a result, his landlady’s -evening grumble on the difficulties of war-time housekeeping seemed -longer and less bearable than usual, and he was still out of tune with -the world in general when he sat down to write to Phillida. He -remembered phrases of the letter—never posted—wherein he worked off his -irritation. “I got into trouble to-day through thinking of you when I -was supposed to be occupied with indents. You are responsible, Blessed -Girl, for several most horrible muckers, affecting the service of the -country.... Your empty hospital don’t want you and my empty-headed boss -don’t want me—oh, lady mine, if I could only make him happy by sacking -myself and catching the next train to London!” ... And so on and so -on.... - -It was late, nearing midnight, when he finished his letter and, for want -of other occupation, turned back to a half-read evening paper; the -communiqués were meagre, but there was a leading article pointing out -the inevitable effect of displacement on the enemy’s resources and -morale, and he waded through its comfortable optimism. As he laid aside -the paper he realized how sleepy he was and rose yawning; he was on his -way to the door, with intent to turn in, when the rapping on the window -halted him. He pulled aside the blind and saw a face against the -glass—pressed close, with a flattened white nose. - -“Who’s that?” he asked, pushing up the window. It was Hewlett, one of -his juniors at the office, out of breath with running and excitement. - -“I say, Savage, come along out. There’s no end going on—fires, the whole -sky’s red. They’ve come over at last and no mistake. Crashaw and I have -been watching ’em and I thought you’d like to have a look. It’s worth -seeing—we’re just along there, on the wall. Hurry up!” - -The boy was dancing with eagerness to get back and Theodore had to run -to keep up with him. He and Crashaw, Hewlett explained in gasps, had -spent the evening in a billiard-room; it was on their way back to their -diggings that they had noticed sudden lights in the sky—sort of -flashes—and gone up on the wall to see better.... No, it wasn’t only -searchlights—you could see them too—sudden flashes and the sky all red. -Fires—to the south. It was the real thing, no doubt about that—and the -only wonder was why they hadn’t come before.... At the head of the steps -leading up to the wall were three or four figures with their heads all -turned one way; and as Hewlett, mounting first, called “Still going on?” -another voice called back, “Rather!” - -They stood on the broad, flat wall and watched—in a chill little wind. -The skyline to the south and south-west was reddened with a glow that -flickered and wavered spasmodically and, as Hewlett had said, there were -flashes—the bursting of explosive or star-shells. Also there were -moments when the reddened skyline throbbed suddenly in places, grew -vividly golden and sent out long fiery streamers.... They guessed at -direction and wondered how far off; the wind was blowing sharply from -the north, towards the glow; hence it carried sound away from them and -it was only now and then that they caught more than a mutter and rumble. - -As the minutes drew out the news spread through the town and the -watchers on the wall increased in numbers; not only men but women, -roused from bed, who greeted the flares with shrill, excited “Oh’s” and -put ceaseless questions to their men folk. Young Hewlett, at Theodore’s -elbow, gave himself up to frank interest in his first sight of war; -justifying a cheerfulness that amounted to enthusiasm by explaining at -intervals that he guessed our fellows were giving ’em what for and by -this time they were sorry they’d come.... Once a shawled woman demanded -tartly why they didn’t leave off, then, if they’d had enough? Whereat -Hewlett, unable to think of an answer, pretended not to hear and moved -away. - -Of his own sensations while he watched from the wall Theodore remembered -little save the bodily sensation of chill; he saw himself standing with -his back to the wind, his shoulders hunched and the collar of his coat -turned up. The murmur of hushed voices remained with him and odd -snatches of fragmentary talk; there was the woman who persisted -uneasily, “But you can’t ’ear ’em coming with these ’ere silent -engines—why, they might be right over us naow!” And the man who answered -her gruffly with “You’d jolly well know if they were!” ... And perpetual -conjecture as to distance and direction of the glow; disputes between -those who asserted that over there was Leeds, and those who scoffed -contemptuously at the idea—arguing that, if Leeds were the centre of -disturbance, the guns would have sounded much nearer.... Petty talk, he -remembered, and plainly enough—but not how much he feared or foresaw. He -must have been anxious, uneasy, or he would not have stood for long -hours in the chill of the wind; but his definite impressions were only -of scattered, for the most part uneducated, talk, of silhouetted figures -that shifted and grouped, of turning his eyes from the lurid skyline to -the shadowy rock that in daylight was the mass of the cathedral.... In -the end sheer craving for warmth drove him in; leaving Hewlett and -Crashaw deaf to his reminder that the office expected them at nine. - - * * * * * - -With the morning came news and—more plentifully—rumour; also, the wind -having dropped, a persistent thunder from the south. Industrial -Yorkshire, it was clear, was being subjected to that process of human -displacement which, so far, it had looked on as an item in the daily -communiqué; the attack, moreover, was an attack in force, since the -invaders did not find it needful to desist with the passing of darkness. -Rumour, in the absence of official intelligence, invented an enveloping -air-fleet which should cut them off from their base; and meanwhile the -thunder continued.... - -This much, at least, was shortly official and certain: nearly all rail, -road and postal communication to the south was cut off—trains had ceased -to run Londonwards and ordinary traffic on the highways was held up at -barriers and turned back. Only military cars used the roads—and returned -to add their reports to those brought in by air-scouts; but as a rule -the information they furnished was for official enlightenment only, and -it was not till the refugees arrived in numbers that the full meaning of -displacement was made clear to the ordinary man. - -It was after the second red night that the refugees appeared in their -thousands—a horde of human rats driven out of their holes by terror, by -fire and by gas. Whatever their status and possessions in the life of -peace, they came with few exceptions on foot; as roads, like railways, -were a target for the airman, the highway was avoided for the by-path or -the open field, and the flight from every panic-stricken centre could be -traced by long wastes of trampled crops. There were those who, terrified -beyond bearing by the crash of masonry and long trembling underground, -saw safety only in the roofless open, refused to enter houses and -persisted in huddling in fields—unafraid, as yet, of the so-called -poison-fire which had licked up the crops in Holderness and the -corn-growing district round Pontefract.... Leeds, for a day or two, was -hardly touched; but with the outpouring of fugitives from Dewsbury, -Wakefield, Halifax and Bradford, Leeds also began to vomit her terrified -multitudes. A wave of vagrant destitution rushed suddenly and blindly -northward—anywhere away from the ruin of explosive, the flames and death -by suffocation; while authority strove vainly to control and direct the -torrent of overpowering misery. - -It was in the early morning that the torrent reached York and rolled -through it; overwhelming the charity, private and public, that at first -made efforts to cope with the rush of misery. Theodore’s room for a time -was given up to a man with bandaged eyes and puffed face whom his wife -had led blindfold from Castleford. The man himself sat dumb and -suffering, breathing heavily through blistered lips; the woman raged -vulgarly against the Government which had neglected to supply them with -gas-masks, to have the place properly defended, to warn people! “The -bloody fools ought to have known what was coming and if her man was -blinded for the rest of his life it was all the fault of this ’ere -Government that never troubled its blasted ’ead as long as it drew its -money.” ... That was in the beginning, before the flood of misery had -swollen so high that even the kindliest shrank from its squalid menace; -and Theodore, because it was the first he heard, remembered her story -when he had forgotten others more piteous. - -Before midday there was only one problem for local authority, civil and -military—the disposal of displaced population; that is to say, the -herding of vagrants that could not all be sheltered, that could not all -be fed, that blackened fields, choked streets, drove onward and sank -from exhaustion. The railway line to the north was still clear and, in -obedience to wireless instructions from London, trains packed with -refugees were sent off to the north, with the aim of relieving the -pressure on local resources. Disorganization of transport increased the -difficulty of food supply and even on the first day of panic and -migration the agricultural community were raising a cry of alarm. Blind -terror and hunger between them wrought havoc; fields were trampled and -fugitives were plundering already—would plunder more recklessly -to-morrow. - -All day, all night, displaced humanity came stumbling in panic from the -south and south-west; spreading news of the torment it had fled from, -the dead it had left and the worse than dead who still crouched in an -inferno whence they could not summon courage to fly. The railways could -not deal with a tithe of the number who clamoured to be carried to the -north, into safety; by the first evening the town was well-nigh eaten -out, and householders, hardening their hearts against misery, were -bolting themselves in, for fear of misery grown desperate. While out in -the country farmers stabled their live-stock and kept ceaseless watch -against the hungry. - -All day the approaches to the station were besieged by those who hoped -for a train; and, on the second night of the invasion, Theodore, sent by -his chief with a message to the military transport officer, fought his -way through a solid crowd on the platform—a crowd excluded from a train -that was packed and struggling with humanity. A crowd that was squalid, -unreasoning and blindly selfish; intent only on flight and safety—and -some of it brutally intent. There were scuffles with porters and -soldiers who refused to open locked doors, angry hootings and wild -swayings backward and forward as the train moved out of the station; -Theodore’s efforts to make his way to the station-master’s office were -held to be indicative of a desire to travel by the next train and he was -buffeted aside without mercy. There was something in the brute mass of -terror that sickened him—a suggestion already of the bestial, the -instinctive, the unhuman. - -The transport officer looked up at him with tired, angry eyes and -demanded what the hell he wanted?... Whereat Theodore handed him a -typewritten note from a punctilious chief and explained that they had -tried to get through on the telephone, either to him or the -station-master, but—— - -“I should rather think not,” said the transport officer rudely. “We’ve -both of us got more important things to worry about than little -Distribution people. The telephone clerk did bring me some idiotic -message or other, but I told him I didn’t want to hear it.” - -He glanced at the typewritten note—then glared at it—and went off into a -cackle of laughter; which finally tailed into blasphemy coupled with -obscene abuse. - -“Seen this?” he asked when he had sworn himself out. “Well, at any rate -you know what it’s about. The —— has sent for particulars of to-morrow’s -refugee train service—wants to know the number and capacity of trains to -be dispatched to Newcastle-on-Tyne. Wants to enter it in duplicate, I -suppose—and make lots and lots and lots of carbon copies. God in -Heaven!”—and again he sputtered into blasphemy.... “Well, I needn’t -bother to write down the answer; even if you’ve no more sense than he -has, you’ll be able to remember it all right. It’s nil to both -questions; nil trains to Newcastle, nil capacity. So that’s that!... -What’s more—if it’s any satisfaction to your darned-fool boss to know -it—we haven’t been sending any trains to Newcastle all day.” - -“But I thought,” began Theodore—wondering if the man were drunk? He was, -more than slightly—having fought for two days with panic-stricken devils -and helped himself through with much whisky; but, drunk or not, he was -sure of his facts and rapped them out with authority. - -“Not to Newcastle. The first two or three got as far as Darlington—this -morning. There they were pulled up. Then it was Northallerton—now we -send ’em off to Thirsk and leave the people there to deal with ’em. You -bet they’ll send ’em further if they can—you don’t suppose they want to -be eaten out, any more than we do. But, for all I know, they’re getting -’em in from the other side.” - -“The other side?” Theodore repeated. “What do you mean?” Whereat the -transport officer, grown suddenly uncommunicative, leaned back in his -chair and whistled. - -“That’s all I can tell you,” he vouchsafed at length. “Trains haven’t -run beyond Darlington since yesterday. I conclude H.Q. knows the reason, -but they haven’t imparted it to me—I’ve only had my orders. It isn’t our -business if the trains get stopped so long as we send ’em off—and we’re -sending ’em and asking no questions.” - -“Do you mean,” Theodore stammered, “that—this—is going on up north?” - -“What do you think?” said the transport officer. “It’s the usual trick, -isn’t it?... Start ’em running from two sides at once—don’t let ’em -settle, send ’em backwards and forwards, keep ’em going!... We’ve played -it often enough on them—now we’re getting a bit of our own back.... -However, I’ve no official information. You know just as much as I do.” - -“But,” Theodore persisted, “the people coming through from the north. -What do they say—they must know?” - -“There aren’t any people coming through,” said the other grimly. -“Military order since this morning—no passenger traffic from the north -runs this side of Thirsk. We’ve got enough of our own, haven’t we?... -All I say is—God help Thirsk and especially God help the -station-master!” - -He straightened himself suddenly and grabbed at the papers on his table. - -“Now, you’ve got what the damn fool sent you for—and I’m trying to make -out my report.” - - * * * * * - -As Theodore fought his way out of the station and the crowd that seethed -round it, he had an intolerable sense of being imprisoned between two -fires. If he could see far enough to the north—to Durham and the -Tyneside—there would be another hot, throbbing horizon and another -stream of human destitution pouring lamentably into the night.... And, -between the two fires, the two streams were meeting—turning back upon -themselves, intermingling ... in blind and agonized obedience to the -order to “keep ’em going!”... What happened when a train was halted by -signal and the thronged misery inside it learned that here, without -forethought or provision made, its flight must come to an end? At -Thirsk, Northallerton, by the wayside, anywhere, in darkness?... A thin -sweep of rain was driving down the street, and he fancied wretched -voices calling through darkness, through rain. Asking what, in God’s -name, was to become of them and where, in God’s name, they were to -go?... And the overworked officials who could give no answer, seeking -only to be rid of the massed and dreadful helplessness that cumbered the -ground on which it trod!... Displacement of population—the daily, -stilted phrase—had become to him a raw and livid fact and he stood -amazed at the limits of his own imagination. Day after day he had read -the phrase, been familiar with it; yet, so far, the horror had been -words to him. Now the daily, stilted phrase was translated, -comprehensible: “Don’t let ’em settle—keep ’em going.” - - * * * * * - -Back at the office, he discovered that his errand to the station had -been superfluous; his chief, the man of precedent, order and many carbon -copies, was staring, haggard and bewildered, at a typewritten document -signed by the military commandant.... And obtaining, incidentally, his -first glimpse into a world till now unthinkable—where precedent was not, -where reference was useless and order had ceased to exist. - - - - - VI - - -That night ended Theodore’s life as a clerk in the Civil Service. The -confusion consequent on the breakdown of transport had left of the -Distribution system but a paralysed mockery, a name without functions -attached to it; and with morning Theodore and his able-bodied fellows -were impressed into a special constabulary, hastily organized as a -weapon against vagrancy grown desperate and riotous. They were armleted, -put through a hurried course of instruction, furnished with revolvers or -rifles and told to shoot plunderers at sight. - -No system of improvised rationing could satisfy even the elementary -needs of the hundreds of thousands who swept hither and thither, as -panic seized or the invader drove them; hence military authority, in -self-preservation, turned perforce on the growing menace of fugitive and -destitute humanity. Order, so long as the semblance of it lasted, strove -to protect and maintain the supplies of the fighting forces; which -entailed, inevitably, the leaving to the fate of their own devices of -the famished useless, the horde of devouring mouths. Interruption of -transport meant entire dependence on local food stuffs; and, as stocks -grew lower and plundering increased, provisions were seized by the -military.... Theodore, in the first hours of his new duty, helped to -load an armed lorry with the contents of a grocer’s shop and fight it -through the streets of York. There was an ugly rush as the driver -started his engine; men who had been foodless for days had watched, in -sullen craving, while the shop was emptied of its treasure of sacks and -tins; and when the engine buzzed a child wailed miserably, a woman -shrieked “Don’t let them, don’t let them!” and the whole pack snarled -and surged forward. Wolfish white faces showed at the tailboard and -before the car drew clear her escort had used their revolvers. Theodore, -not yet hardened to shooting, seized the nearest missile, a tin of meat, -and hurled it into one of the faces; when they drew away three or four -of the pack were tearing at each other for the treasure contained in the -tin. - -He noticed, as the days went by, how quickly he slipped from the outlook -and habits of civilized man and adopted those of the primitive, even of -the animal. It was not only that he was suspicious of every man, careful -in approach, on the alert and ready for violence; he learned, like the -animal, to be indifferent to the suffering that did not concern him. -Violence, when it did not affect him directly, was a noise in the -distance—no more; and as swiftly as he became inured to bloodshed he -grew hardened to the sight of misery. At first he had sickened when he -ate his rations at the thought of a million-fold suffering that starved -while he filled his stomach; later, as order’s representative, he herded -and hustled a massed starvation without scruple, driving it away when it -grouped itself threateningly, shooting when it promised to give trouble -to authority, and looking upon death, itself, indifferently. - -It amazed him, looking back, to realize the swiftness with which ordered -society had crumbled; laws, systems, habits of body and mind—they had -gone, leaving nothing but animal fear and the animal need to be fed. -Within little more than a week of the night when young Hewlett had -called him to watch the red flashes and the glare in the sky, there -remained of the fabric of order built up through the centuries very -little but a military force that was fighting on two sides—against -inward disorder and alien attack—and struggling to maintain itself -alive. Automatically, inevitably—under pressure of starvation, blind -vagrancy and terror—that which had once been a people, an administrative -whole, was relapsing into a tribal separatism, the last barrier against -nomadic anarchy.... As famished destitution overran the country, -localities not yet destitute tried systematically and desperately to -shut out the vagrant and defended what was left to them by force. -Countrymen beat off the human plague that devoured their substance and -trampled their crops underfoot; barriers were erected that no stranger -might pass and bloody little skirmishes were frequent at the outskirts -of villages. As bread grew scarcer and more precious, the penalties on -those who stole it were increasingly savage; tribal justice—lynch -law—took the place of petty sessions and assize, and plunderers, even -suspected plunderers, were strung up to trees and their bodies left -dangling as a warning.... And a day or two later, it might be, the -poison-fire swept through the fields and devoured the homes of those who -had executed tribal justice; or a horde of destitution, too strong to be -denied, drove them out; and, homeless in their turn, they swelled the -tide of plunderers and vagrants.... Man, with bewildering rapidity, was -slipping through the stages whereby, through the striving of long -generations, he had raised himself from primitive barbarism and the law -that he shares with the brute. - -Very steadily the process of displacement continued. On most nights, in -one direction or another, there were sudden outbursts of light—the glare -of explosion or burning buildings or the greenish-blue reflection of the -poison-fire. The silent engine gave no warning of its coming, and the -first announcement of danger was the bursting of gas-shell and high -explosive, or the sudden vivid pallor of the poison-fire as it ran -before the wind and swept along dry fields and hedgerows. Where it swept -it left not only long tracts of burned crop and black skeleton trees, -but, often enough, the charred bodies of the homeless whom its rush had -outpaced and overtaken.... Sudden and unreasoning panic was -frequent—wild rushes from imaginary threats—and there were many towns -which, when their turn came, were shells and empty buildings only; dead -towns, whence the inhabitants had already fled in a body. York had been -standing all but silent for days when an enemy swooped down to destroy -it and Theodore, guarding military stores in a camp on the Ripon road, -looked his last on the towers of the Minster, magnificent against a sea -of flame. Death, in humanity, had ceased to move him greatly; but he -turned away his head from the death of high human achievement. - -For the first few days of disaster there was a certain amount of news, -or what passed for news, from the outside world; in districts yet -untouched and not wholly panic-stricken, local journals struggled out -and communiqués—true or false—were published by the military -authorities. But with the rapid growth of the life nomadic, the herding -and driving to and fro, with the consequent absence of centres for the -dissemination of news or information, the outside world withdrew to a -distance and veiled itself in silence unbroken. With the disappearance -of the newspaper there was left only rumour, and rumour was always -current—sometimes hopeful, sometimes dreadful, always wild; to-day, -Peace was coming, a treaty all but signed—and to-morrow London was in -ruins.... No one knew for certain what was happening out of eyeshot, or -could more than guess how far devastation extended. This alone was a -certainty; that in every direction that a man might turn, he met those -who were flying from destruction, threatened or actual; and that night -after night and day after day, humanity crouched before the science -itself had perfected.... Sometimes there were visible encounters in the -air, contending squadrons that chased, manœuvred and gave battle; but -the invaders, driven off, returned again and the process of displacement -continued. And, with every hour of its continuance, the death-roll grew -longer, uncounted; and men, who had struggled to retain a hold on their -humanity and the life civilized, gave up the struggle, became predatory -beasts and fought with each other for the means to keep life in their -bodies. - - * * * * * - -In after years Theodore tried vainly to remember how long he was -quartered in the camp on the Ripon road—whether it was weeks or a matter -of days only. Then or later he lost all sense of time, retaining only a -memory of happenings, of events that followed each other and connecting -them roughly with the seasons—frosty mornings, wet and wind or summer -heat. There were the nights when York flamed and the days when thick -smoke hung over it; and the morning when aeroplanes fought overhead and -two crashed within a mile of the camp. There was the night of pitched -battle with a rabble of the starving, grown desperate, which rushed the -guard suddenly out of the darkness and beat and hacked at the doors of -the sheds which contained the hoarded treasure of food. Theodore, with -every other man in the camp, was turned out hastily to do battle with -the horde of invaders—to shoot into the mass of them and drive them back -to their starvation. In the end the rush was stemmed and the camp -cleared of the mob; but there was a hideous five minutes of shots and -knife-thrusts and hand-to-hand struggling before the final stampede. -Even after the stampede the menace was not at an end; when the sun rose -it showed to the watchers in the camp a sullen rabble that lingered not -a field’s breadth distant—a couple of hundred wolfish men and women who -could not tear themselves away from the neighbourhood of food, who -glared covetously and took hopeless counsel together till the order to -charge them was given and they broke and fled, spitting back hatred. - -After that, the night guard was doubled and the commanding officer -applied in haste for reinforcements; barbed wire entanglements were -stretched round the camp and orders were given to disperse any crowd -that assembled and lingered in the neighbourhood. Behind their -entanglements and line of sentries the little garrison lived as on an -island in the flood of anarchy and ruin—a remnant of order, defending -itself against chaos. And, for all the discipline with which they faced -anarchy and the ruthlessness with which they beat back chaos, they knew -(so often as they dared to think) that the time might be at hand—must be -at hand, if no deliverance came—when they, every man of them, would be -swept from their island to the common fate and become as the creatures, -scarce human, who crawled to them for food and were refused. When -darkness fell and flames showed red on the horizon, they would wonder -how long before their own turn came—and be thankful for the lightening -in the east; and as each convoy of lorries drove up to remove supplies -from their fast dwindling stores, they would scan the faces of men who -were ignorant and helpless as themselves to see if they were bearers of -good news.... And the news was always their own news repeated; of ruin -and burning, of famine and the threat of the famished. No message—save -stereotyped military orders—from that outside world whence alone they -could hope for salvation. - -There remained with Theodore to the end of his days the dreadful memory -of the women. At the beginning—just at the beginning—of disaster, -authority had connived at a certain amount of charitable diversion of -military stores for the benefit of women and children; but as supplies -dwindled and destroying hordes of vagrants multiplied, the tacit -permission was withdrawn. The soldier, the instrument of order, unfed -was an instrument of order no longer; discipline was discipline for so -long only as it obtained the necessities of life, and troops whose -rations failed them in the end ceased to be troops and swelled the flood -of vagrant and destitute anarchy. The useless mouth was the weapon of -the enemy; and authority hardened its heart perforce against the crying -of the useless mouth. - -Once a score or so of women, with a tall, frantic girl as their leader, -stood for hours at the edge of the wire entanglement and called on the -soldiers to shoot—if they would not feed them, to shoot. Then, receiving -only silence as answer, the tall girl cried out that, by God, the -soldiers should be forced to shoot! and led her companions—some cumbered -with children—to tear and hurl themselves across the stretch of barbed -and twisted wire. As they scrambled over, bleeding, crying and their -clothes in rags, they were seized by the wrists and hustled to the gate -of the camp—some limp and effortless, others kicking and writhing to get -free. When the gate was closed and barred on them they beat on it—then -lay about wretchedly ... and at last shambled wretchedly away.... - -More dreadful even than the women who dragged with them children they -could not feed, were those who sought to bribe the possessors of food -with the remnant of their feminine attractions; who eyed themselves -anxiously in streams, pulled their sodden clothes into a semblance of -jauntiness and made piteous attempts at flirtation. Money being -worthless, since it could buy neither safety nor food, the price for -those who traded their bodies was paid in a hunk of bread or meat.... -Those women suffered most who had no man of their own to forage and fend -for them, and were no longer young enough for other men to look on with -pleasure. They—as humanity fell to sheer wolfishness and the right of -the strongest—were beaten back and thrust aside when it came to the -sharing-out of spoil. - - * * * * * - -He remembered very clearly a day when news that was authentic reached -them from the outside world; an aeroplane came down with engine-trouble -in a field on the edge of the camp, and the haggard-faced pilot, beset -with breathless questions, laughed roughly when they asked him of -London—how lately he had been there, what was happening? “Oh yes, I was -over it a day or two ago. You’re no worse off than they are down -south—London’s been on the run for days.” He turned back to his engine -and whistled tunelessly through the silence that had fallen on his -hearers.... Theodore said it over slowly to himself, “London’s been on -the run for days.” If so—if so—then what, in God’s name, of Phillida? - -Hitherto he had fought back his dread for Phillida, denying to himself, -as he denied to others, the rumour that disaster was widespread and -general, and insisting that she, at least, was safe. If there was one -thing intolerable, one thing that could not be, it was Phillida vagrant, -Phillida starving—his dainty lady bedraggled and grovelling for her -bread.... like the haggard women who had beaten with their hands on the -gate.... - -“It must stop,” he choked suddenly, “it must stop—it can’t go on!” - -The pilot broke off from his whistling to stare at the distorted face. - -“No,” he said grimly, “it can’t go on. What’s more, it’s stopping, by -degrees—stopping itself; you mayn’t have noticed it yet, but we do. -Taking ’em all round they’re leaving off, not coming as thick as they -did. And”—his mouth twisted ironically—“we’re leaving off and for the -same reason.” - -“The same reason?” someone echoed him. - -“Because we can’t go on.... You don’t expect us to carry on long in -this, do you?” He shrugged and jerked his head towards a smoke cloud on -the western skyline. “That’s what ran us—gone up in smoke. Food and -factories and transport and Lord knows what beside. The things that ran -us and kept us going ... We’re living on our own fat now—what there is -of it—and so are the people on the other side. We can just keep going as -long as it lasts; but it’s getting precious short now, and when we’ve -finished it—when there’s no fat left!...” He laughed unpleasantly and -stared at the rolling smoke cloud. - -Someone else asked him about the rumour ever-current of -negotiation—whether there was truth in it, whether he had heard -anything? - -“Much what you’ve heard,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “There’s -talk—there always is—plenty of it; but I don’t suppose I know any more -than you do.... It stands to reason that someone must be trying to put -an end to it—but who’s trying to patch it up with who?... And what is -there left to patch? Lord knows! They say the real trouble is that when -governments have gone there’s no one to negotiate with. No responsible -authority—sometimes no authority at all. Nothing to get hold of. You -can’t make terms with rabble; you can’t even find out what it wants—and -it’s rabble now, here, there, and everywhere. When there’s nothing else -left, how do you get hold of it, treat with it? Who makes terms, who -signs, who orders?... Meanwhile, we go on till we’re told to stop—those -of us that are left.... And I suppose they’re doing much the -same—keeping on because they don’t know how to stop.” - -Theodore asked what he meant when he spoke of “no government.” “You -can’t mean it literally? You can’t mean...?” - -“Why not?” said the pilot. “Is there any here?”—and jerked his head, -this time towards the road. Its long white ribbon was spotted with -groups and single figures of vagrants—scarecrow vagrants—crawling onward -they knew not whither. - -“See that,” he said, “see that—does anyone govern it? Make rules for it, -defend it, keep it alive?... And that’s everywhere.” - -Someone whispered back “Everywhere” under his breath; the rest stared in -silence at the spotted white ribbon of road. - -“You can’t mean...?” said Theodore again. - -The airman shrugged his shoulders and laughed roughly. - -“I believe,” he said, “there are still some wretched people who call -themselves a government, try to be a government—at least, there were the -other day.... Sometimes I wonder _how_ they try, what they say to each -other—poor devils! How they look when the heads of what used to be -departments bring them in the day’s report? Can’t you imagine their -silly, ghastly faces?... Even if they’re still in existence, what in -God’s name can they do—except let us go on killing each other in the -hope that something may turn up. If they give orders, sign papers, make -laws, does anyone listen, pay any attention? Does it make any difference -to _that_?” Again he jerked his head towards the road, and in the word -as in the gesture was loathing, fear and contempt. “And in other parts -of what used to be the civilized world—where this sort of hell has been -going on longer—what do you suppose is happening?” - -No one answered; he laughed again roughly, as if he were contemptuous of -their hopes, and a man beside Theodore—a corporal—swung round on him, -white-faced and snarling. - -“Damn you!... I’ve got a girl.... I’ve got a girl!...” - -He choked, moved away and stood rigid, staring at the road. - -Theodore heard himself asking, “If there isn’t any government—what is -there?” - -“What’s left of the army,” said the other, “that’s all that hangs -together. Bits of it, here and there—getting smaller, losing touch with -the other bits; hanging on to its rations—what’s left of ’em.... And we -hold together just as long as we can fight back the rabble; not an hour, -not a minute longer! When we’ve gnawed our way through the last of our -rations—what then?... You may do what you like, but I’m keeping a shot -for myself. Whether we’re through with it or whether we’re not. Just -stopping fighting won’t clear up this mess.... And I’ll die—what I am. -Not rabble!” - - * * * * * - -Whether after days or whether after weeks, there came a time when they -ceased to have dealings with the world beyond their wire defences; when -the store-sheds in the camp were all but emptied of their hoard of -foodstuffs and such military authority as might still exist took no -further interest in the doings of a useless garrison. Orders and -communications, once frequent, grew fewer, and finally, as military -authority crumbled, they were left to isolation, to their own defence -and devices. Since no man any longer had need of them, they were cut off -from intercourse with those other remnants of the life disciplined -whence lorries had once arrived in search of rations; separated from -such other bands of their fellows as still held together, they were no -longer part of an army, were nothing but a band of armed men. Though -their own daily rations were cut down to the barest necessities of life, -there was little grumbling, since even the dullest knew the reason; as -the airman had told them, they were living on their own fat, for so long -as their own fat lasted. For all their isolation, their fears and daily -perils kept them disciplined; they held together, obeyed orders and kept -watch, not because they still felt themselves part of a nation or a -military force, but because there remained in their common keeping the -means to support bare life. It was not loyalty or patriotism, but the -sense of their common danger, their common need of defence against the -famished world outside their camp, that kept them comrades, obedient to -a measure of discipline, and made them still a community. - -There had been altercation of the fiercest before they were left to -themselves—when lorries drove up for food which was refused them, on the -ground that the camp had not sufficient for its own needs. Disputes at -the refusal were furious and violent; men, driven out forcibly, went off -shouting threats that they would come back and take what was denied -them—would bring their machine-guns and take it. Those who yet had the -wherewithal to keep life in their bodies knew the necessity that -prompted the threat and lived thenceforth in a state of siege against -men who had once been their comrades. With the giving out of military -supplies and the consequent breaking of the bonds of discipline, bands -of soldiers, scouring the countryside, were an added terror to their -fellow-vagrants and, so long as their ammunition lasted, fared better -than starvation unarmed.... If central authority existed it gave no -sign; while military force that had once been united—an army—dissolved -into its primitive elements: tribes of armed men, held together by their -fear of a common enemy. In the wreck of civilization, of its systems, -institutions and polity, there endured longest that form of order which -had first evolved from the chaos of barbarism—the disciplined strength -of the soldier.... A people retracing its progress from chaos retraced -it step by step. - - - - - VII - - -The end of civilization came to Theodore Savage and his fellows as it -had come to uncounted thousands. - -There had been a still warm day with a haze on it—he judged it early -autumn or perhaps late summer; for the rest, like any other day in the -camp routine—of watchfulness, of scanning the sky and the distance, of -the passing of vagabond starvation, of an evil smell drifting with the -lazy air from the dead who lay unburied where they fell. Before -nightfall the haze was lifted by a cold little wind from the east; and -soon after darkness a moon at the full cast white, merciless light and -black shadow. - -Theodore was asleep when the alarm was given—by a shout at the door of -his hut. One of ten or a dozen, aroused like himself, he grabbed at his -rifle as he stumbled to his feet; believing in the first hurried moment -of waking that he was called to drive back yet another night onslaught -of the starving enemy without. He ran out of the hut into a strong, -pallid glare that wavered.... A stretch of gorse and bramble-patch two -hundred yards away was alight, burning lividly, and further off the same -bluish flame was running like a wave across a field. Enemy aeroplanes -were dropping their fire-bombs—here and there, flash on flash, of pale, -inextinguishable flame. - -It was scarcely five minutes from the time he had been roused before the -camp and its garrison had ceased to exist as a community, and Theodore -Savage and his living comrades were vagabonds on the face of the earth. -The gorse and bramble-patch lay to the eastward and the wind was blowing -from the east; the flames rushed triumphantly at a black clump of fir -trees—great torches that lit up the neighbourhood. The guiding hand in -the terror overhead had a mark laid ready for his aim; the camp, with -its camouflaged huts and sheds, seen plainly as in broadest daylight. -His next bomb burst in the middle of the camp blowing half-a-score of -soldiers into bloody fragments and firing the nearest wooden building. -While it burned, the terror overhead struck again and again—then stooped -to its helpless quarry and turned a machine-gun on men in trenches and -men running hither and thither in search of a darkness that might cover -them.... That, for Theodore Savage, was the ending of civilization. - -With the crash of the first explosion he cowered instinctively and -pressed himself against the wall of the nearest shed; the flames, -rushing upward, showed him others cowering like himself, all striving to -obliterate themselves, to shrink, to deny their humanity. Even in his -extremity of bodily fear he was conscious of merciless humiliation; the -machine-gun crackled at scurrying little creatures that once were men -and that now were but impotent flesh at the mercy of mechanical -perfection.... Mechanical perfection, the work of men’s hands, soared -over its creators, spat down at their helplessness and defaced them; -they cringed in corners till it found them out and ran from it -screaming, without power to strike back at the invisible beast that -pursued them. Without power even to surrender and yield to its mercy; -they could only hate impotently—and run.... - -As they ran they broke instinctively—avoiding each other, since a group -made a mark for a gunner. Theodore, when he dared cower no longer, -rushed with a dozen through the gate of the camp but, once outside it, -they scattered right and left and there was no one near him when his -flight ended with a stumble. He stayed where he had fallen, a good mile -from the camp, in the blessed shadow of a hedgerow; he crept close to it -and lay in the blackness of the shadow, breathing great sobs and -trembling—crouching in dank grass and peering through the leafage at the -distant furnace he had fled from. The crackling of machine-guns had -ceased, but here and there, for miles around were stretches of flame -running rapidly before a dry wind. Half a mile away an orchard was -blazing with hayricks; and he drew a long sigh of relief when another -flare leaped up—further off. That was miles away, that last one; they -were going, thank God they were going!... He waited to make sure—half an -hour or more—then stumbled back in search of his companions; through -fields on to the road that led past what once had been the camp. - -On his way he met others, dark figures creeping back like himself; by -degrees a score or so gathered in the roadway and stood in little -groups, some muttering, some silent, as they watched the flames burn -themselves out. There were bodies lying in the road and beside it—men -shot from above as they ran; and the living turned them over to look at -their distorted faces.... No one was in authority; their commanding -officer had been killed outright by the bursting of the first bomb, one -of the subalterns lay huddled in the roadway, just breathing. So much -they knew.... In the beginning there was relief that they had come -through alive; but, with the passing of the first instinct of relief, -came understanding of the meaning of being alive.... The breath in their -bodies, the knowledge that they still walked the earth: and for the -rest, vagrancy and beast-right—the right of the strongest to live! - -They took counsel together as the night crept over them and—because -there was nothing else to do—planned to search the charred ruin as the -fire died out, in the hope of salvage from the camp. They counted such -few, odd possessions as remained to them: cartridge belts, rifles thrown -away in flight and then picked up in the road, the contents of their -pockets—no more.... In the end, for the most part, they slept the dead -sleep of exhaustion till morning—to wake with cold rain on their faces. - -The rain, for all its wretchedness to men without shelter, was so far -their friend that it beat down the flames on the smouldering timbers -which were all that remained of their fortress and rock of defence. They -burrowed feverishly among the black wreckage of their store-sheds, -blistering and burning their fingers by too eager handling of logs that -still flickered, unearthing, now and then, some scrap of charred meat -but, for the most part, nothing but lumps of molten metal that had once -been the tins containing food. In their pressing anxiety to avert the -peril of hunger they were heedless of a peril yet greater; their search -had attracted the attention of others—scarecrow vagrants, the rabble of -the roads, who saw them from a distance and came hurrying in the hope of -treasure-trove. The first single spies retreated at the order of -superior and disciplined numbers; but with time their own numbers were -swollen by those who halted at the rumour of food, and there hovered -round the searchers a shifting, snarling, envious crowd that drew -gradually nearer till faced with the threat of pointed rifles. Even that -only stayed it for a little—and, spurred on by hunger, imagining riches -where none existed, it rushed suddenly forward in a mob that might not -be held. - -Those who had rifles fired at it and men in the foremost ranks went -down, unheeded in the rush of their fellows; those who might have -hesitated were thrust forward by the frantic need behind, and the -torrent of misery broke against the little group of soldiers in a tumult -of grappling and screeching. Women, like men, asserted their beast-right -to food—when sticks and knives failed them, asserted it with claws and -teeth; unhuman creatures, with eyes distended and wide, yelling mouths, -went down with their fingers at each other’s throats, their nails in -each other’s flesh.... Theodore clubbed a length of burnt wood and -struck out ... saw a man drop with a broken, bloody face and a woman -back from him shrieking ... then was gripped from behind, with an arm -round his neck, and went down.... The famished creatures fought above -his body and beat out his senses with their feet. - - * * * * * - -When life came back to him the sun was very low in the west. In his head -little hammers beat intolerably and all his strained body ached with -bruises as he raised himself, slowly and groaning, and leaned on an arm -to look round. He lay much where he had fallen, but the soldiers, the -crowd of human beasts, had vanished; the bare stretch of camp, still -smoking in places, was silent and almost deserted. Two or three bending -and intent figures were hovering round the charred masses of -wreckage—moving slowly, stopping often, peering as they walked and -thrusting their hands into the ashes, in the hope of some fragment that -those who searched before them had missed. A woman lay face downwards -with her dead arm flung across his feet; further off were other -bodies—which the searchers passed without notice. Three or four were in -uniform, the bodies of men who had once been his comrades; others, for -the benefit of the living, had been stripped, or half-stripped, of their -clothing. - -He lifted himself painfully and crawled on hands and knees, with many -groans and halts, to the stream that had formed one border of the -camp—where he drank, bathed his head and washed the dried blood from his -scratches. With a measure of physical relief—the blessing of cool water -to a burning head and throat—came a clearer understanding and, with -clearer understanding, fear.... He knew himself alone in chaos. - -As soon as he might he limped back to the smouldering wood-heaps and -accosted a woman who was grubbing in a mess of black refuse. Did she -know what had become of the soldiers? Which way they had gone when they -left? The woman eyed him sullenly, mistrustful and resenting his -neighbourhood—knew nothing, had not seen any soldiers—and turned again -to grub in her refuse. A skeleton of a man was no wiser; had only just -turned off the road to search, did not know what had happened except -that there must have been a fight—but it was all over when he came up. -He also had seen no soldiers—only the dead ones over there.... Theodore -saw in their eyes that they feared him, were dreading lest he should -compete with them for their possible treasure of refuse. - -For the time being a sickly faintness deprived him of all wish for food; -he left the sullen creatures to their clawing and grubbing, went back to -the water, drank and soused once more, then crept farther off in search -of a softer ground to lie on. After a few score yards of painful -dragging and halting, he stretched himself exhausted on a strip of dank -grass at the roadside—and dozed where he fell until the morning. - -With sunrise and awakening came the pangs of sharp hunger, and he -dragged himself limping through mile after mile in search of the -wherewithal to stay them. He was giddy with weakness and near to falling -when he found his first meal in a stretch of newly-burned field—the body -of a rabbit that the fire had blackened as it passed. He fell upon it, -hacked it with his clasp-knife and ate half of it savagely, looking over -his shoulder to see that no one watched him; the other half he thrust -into his pocket to serve him for another meal. He had learned already to -live furtively and hide what he possessed from the neighbours who were -also his enemies. Next day he fished furtively—with a hook improvised -out of twisted wire and worm-bait dug up by his clasp-knife; lurking in -bushes on the river-bank, lest others, passing by, should note him and -take toll by force of his catch. - - * * * * * - -He lived thenceforth as men have always lived when terror drives them -this way and that, and the earth, untended, has ceased to yield her -bounties; warring with his fellows and striving to outwit them for the -remnant of bounty that was left. He hunted and scraped for his food like -a homeless dog; when found, he carried it apart in stealth and bolted it -secretly, after the fashion of a dog with his offal. In time all his -mental values changed and were distorted: he saw enemies in all men, -existed only to exist—that he might fill his stomach—and death affected -him only when he feared it for himself. He had grown to be self-centred, -confined to his body and its daily wants and that side of his nature -which concerned itself with the future and the needs of others was -atrophied. He had lost the power of interest in all that was not -personal, material and immediate; and, as the uncounted days dragged out -into weeks, even the thought of Phillida, once an ever-present agony, -ceased to enter much into his daily struggle to survive. He starved and -was afraid: that was all. His life was summed up in the two words, -starvation and fear. - -At night, as a rule, he sheltered in a house or deserted farm-building -that stood free for anyone to enter—sometimes alone, but as often as not -in company. Starved rabble, as long as it hunted for food, avoided its -rivals in the chase; but when night, perforce, brought cessation of the -hunt, the herding instinct reasserted itself and lasted through the -hours of darkness. As autumn sharpened, guarded fires were lit in -cellars where they could not be seen from above and fed with broken -furniture, with fragments of doors and palings; and one by one, human -beasts would slink in and huddle down to the warmth—some uncertainly, -seeking a new and untried refuge, and others returning to their shelter -of the night before. The little gangs who shared fire and roof for the -space of a night never ate in each other’s company; food was invariably -devoured apart, and those who had possessed themselves of more than an -immediate supply would hide and even bury it in a secret place before -they came in contact with their fellows. Hence no gang, no little herd, -was permanent or contained within itself the beginnings of a social -system; its members shared nothing but the hours of a night and -performed no common social duties. A face became familiar because seen -for a night or two in the glow of a common fire; when it vanished none -knew—and none troubled to ask—whether a man had died between sunrise and -sunset or whether he had drifted further off in his daily search for the -means to keep life in his body. When a man died in the night, with -others round him, the manner of his ending was known; otherwise he -passed out of life without notice from those who yet crawled on the -earth.... With morning the herd of starvelings that had sheltered -together broke up and foraged, each man for himself and his own -cravings; rooted in fields and trampled gardens, crouched on river-banks -fishing, laid traps for vermin, ransacked shops and houses where scores -had preceded them.... And some, it was muttered—as time went on and the -need grew yet starker—fed horribly ... and therefore plentifully.... - -There were nights—many nights—when a herd broke in panic from its -shelter and scattered to the winds of heaven at an alarm of the terror -overhead; and always, as starvation pressed, it dwindled—by death and -the tendency to dissolve into single nomads, who (such as survived) -regrouped themselves elsewhere, to scatter and re-group again.... With -repeated wandering—now this way, now that, as hope and hunger -prompted—went all sense of direction and environment; the nomads, -hunting always, drifted into broken streets or dead villages and through -them to the waste of open country—not knowing where they were, in the -end not caring, and turned back by a river or the sea. - -The sight or suspicion of food and plunder would always draw vagrancy -together in crowds; district after district untouched by an enemy had -been swept out of civilized existence by the hordes which fell on the -remnants of prosperity and tore them; which ransacked shops and -dwellings, slaughtered sheep, horses, cattle and devoured them and, -often enough, in a fury of destruction and vehement envy, set light to -houses and barns lest others might fare better than themselves. But when -flocks, herds and storehouses had vanished, when agriculture, like the -industry of cities, had ceased to exist and nothing remained to devour -and plunder, the motive for common action passed. With equality of -wretchedness union was impossible, and every man’s hand against his -neighbour; if groups formed, here and there, of the stronger and more -brutal, who joined forces for common action, they held together only for -so long as their neighbours had possessions that could be wrested from -them—stores of food or desirable women; once the neighbours were -stripped of their all and there was nothing more to prey on, the group -fell apart or its members turned on each other. In the life predatory -man had ceased to be creative; in a world where no one could count on a -morrow, construction and forethought had no meaning. - - - - - VIII - - -In a world where all were vagabond and brutal, where each met each with -suspicion and all men were immersed in the intensity of their bodily -needs, very few had thoughts to exchange. Mentally, as well as actually, -they lived to themselves and where they did not distrust they were -indifferent; the starvelings who slunk into shelter that they might -huddle for the night round a common fire found little to say to one -another. As human desire concentrated itself on the satisfaction of -animal cravings, so human speech degenerated into mere expression of -those cravings and the emotions aroused by them. Only once or twice -while he starved and drifted did Theodore talk with men who sought to -give expression to more than their present terrors and the immediate -needs of their bodies, who used speech that was the vehicle of thought. - -One such he remembered—met haphazard, as all men met each other—when he -sheltered for an autumn night on the outskirts of a town left derelict. -With falling dusk came a sudden sharp patter of rain and he took refuge -hurriedly in the nearest house—a red-brick villa, standing silent with -gaping windows. What was left of the door swung loosely on its -hinges—half the lower panels had been hacked away to serve as firewood; -the hall was befouled with the feet of many searchers and of the -furniture remained but a litter of rags and fragments that could not be -burned. - -He thought the place empty till he scented smoke from the basement; -whereupon he crept down the stairs, soft-footed and alert, to discover -that precaution was needless. There was only one occupant of the house, -a man plainly dying; a livid hollow-eyed skeleton who coughed and -trembled as he knelt by the grate and tried to blow damp sticks into a -flame. Theodore, in his own interests, took charge of the fire, -ransacked the house for inflammable material and tore up strips of -broken boarding that the other was too feeble to wrestle with. When the -blaze flared up, the sick man cowered to it, stretched out his -hands—filthy skin-covered bones—and thanked him; whereat Theodore turned -suddenly and stared. It was long—how long?—since any man had troubled to -thank him; and this man, for all his verminous misery, had a voice that -was educated, cultured.... Something in the tone of it—the manner—took -Theodore back to the world where men ate courteously together, were -companions, considered each other; and instinctively, almost without -effort, he offered a share of his foraging. The offer was refused, -whereat Theodore wondered still more; but the man, near death, was past -desire for food and shook his head almost with repulsion. Perhaps it was -the fever that had turned him against food that loosened his tongue and -set him talking—or perhaps he, also, by another’s voice and manner, was -reminded of his past humanity. - -“‘My mind to me a kingdom is,’” he quoted suddenly. “Who wrote that—do -you remember?” - -“No,” Theodore said, “I’ve forgotten.” He stared at the cowering, -hunched figure with its shaking hands stretched to the blaze. The man, -it might be, was mad as well as dying—he had met many such in his -wanderings; babbling of verse as someone—who was it?—had babbled in -dying of green fields. - -“‘My mind to me a kingdom is,’” the sick man repeated. “Well, even if -we’ve forgotten who wrote it, there’s one thing about him that’s -certain; he didn’t know what we know—hadn’t lived in our kind of hell. -The place where you haven’t a mind—only fear and a stomach.... The flesh -and the devil—hunger and fear; they haven’t left us a world!... But if -there’s ever a world again, I believe I shall have learned how to write. -Now I know what we are—the fundamentals and the nakedness....” - -“Were you a writer?” Theodore asked him—and at the question his old -humanity stirred curiously within him. - -“Yes,” said the other, “I was a writer.... When I think of what I -wrote—the little, little things that seemed important!... I spent a year -once—a whole good year—on a book about a woman who was finding out she -didn’t love her husband. She was well fed and housed, lived -comfortably—and I wrote of her as if she were a tragedy. The work I put -into it—the work and the thought! I tried to get what I called -atmosphere.... And all the time there was this in us—this raw, red -thing—and I never even touched it, never guessed what we were without -our habits.... Do you know where we made the mistake?”—he turned -suddenly to Theodore, thrusting out a finger—“We were not civilized—it -was only our habits that were civilized; but we thought they were flesh -of our flesh and bone of our bone. Underneath, the beast in us was -always there—lying in wait till his time came. The beast that is -ourselves, that is flesh of our flesh—clothed in habits, in rags that -have been torn from us.” - -He broke off to cough horribly and lay breathless and exhausted for a -time; then, when breath came back to him, talked on while Theodore -listened—not so much to his words as to a voice from the world that had -passed. - -“The religions were right,” he said. “They were right through and -through; the only sane thing and the only safe thing is humility—to -realize your sin, to confess it and repent.... We—we were bestial and we -did not know it; and when you don’t even suspect you sin how can you -repent and save your soul alive?... We dressed ourselves and taught -ourselves the little politenesses and ceremonies which made it easy to -forget that we were brutes in our hearts; we never faced our own -possibilities of evil and beastliness, never confessed and repented -them, took no precautions against them. Our limitless possibilities.... -We thought our habits—we called them virtues—were as real and natural -and ingrained as our instincts; and now what is left of our habits? When -we should have been crying, ‘Lord have mercy on us,’ we believed in -ourselves, our enlightenment and progress. Enlightenment that ended as -science applied to destruction and progress that has led us—to this.... -And to-day it has gone, every shred of it, and we’re back at what we -started with—hunger and lust! Brute instincts ... and the primitive -passion, hatred—against those who thwart hunger and lust. Nothing -else—how can there be anything else? When we lost all we loved, we lost -the habit and power of loving.... ‘My mind to me a kingdom is’—of hatred -and hunger and lust.” - -“Yes,” said Theodore—and he, too, stared at the fire.... What the other -had said was truth and truth only. Even Phillida had left him; the power -of loving her was gone. “I hadn’t thought of it like that—but it’s -right.... We can only hate.” - -“It’s that,” said the dying man, “that’s beyond all torment.... God pity -us!” - -He covered his eyes and sat silent until Theodore asked him, “Does that -mean you still believe in God?” - -“There’s Law,” said the other. “Is that God?... We have got to see into -our own souls and to pay for everything we take. That’s all I know, so -far—except that what we think we own—owns us. That’s what the wise men -meant by renunciation.... It’s what we made and thought we owned that -has turned on us—the creatures that were born for our pleasure and -power, to increase our comfort and our riches. As we made them they -fastened on us—set their claws in us—and they have taken our minds from -us as well as our bodies. As we made them, they followed the law of -their life. We created life without a soul; but it was life and it went -its own way.” - -Crouched to the fire, and between his bouts of coughing, he played with -the idea and insisted on it. Everything that we made, that we thought -dead and dumb, had a life that we could not control. In the case of -books and art we admitted the fact, had a name for the life, called it -influence: influence a form of independent existence.... In the same way -we took metals and welded them, made machines; which were beasts, potent -beasts, whose destiny was the same as our own. To live and develop and, -developing, to turn on the power that enslaved them.... That was what -had happened; they had made themselves necessary, fastened on us and, -grown strong enough, had turned on their masters and killed—even though -they died in the killing. The revolt against servitude had always been -accounted a virtue in men and the law of all life was the same. The -beasts we had made could not live without us, but they would have their -revenge before they died. - -“Think of us,” he said, “how we run and squeal and hide from them!... -The patient servants, our goods and chattels, who were brought into life -for our pleasure—they chase us while we run and squeal and hide!” - -“Yes,” Theodore answered, “I’ve felt that, too—the humiliation.” - -“The humiliation,” the sick man nodded. “Always in the end the slave -rules his master—it’s the price paid for servitude, possession. I tell -you, they were wise men who preached renunciation—before what we own -takes hold of us and possession turns to servitude. For there’s a law of -average in all things—have you ever felt it as I have? A law of balance -which we never strike aright.... When the mighty tread hard enough on -the humble and meek, the humble and meek are exalted and begin to tread -hard in their turn. That’s obvious and we’ve generally known it; but -it’s the same in what we call material things. We rise into the air—make -machines that can fly—and grovel underground to protect ourselves from -the flying-man. As we struck the balance to the one side, so it has to -swing back on the other; a few men rise high into the air and many creep -down into trenches and cellars, crouch flat.... If we could work out the -numbers and heights mathematically, be sure that we should strike the -perfect balance—represented by the surface of the earth. Balance—in all -things balance.” - -He rambled on, perhaps half-delirious, coughing out his thoughts and -theories concerning a world he was leaving.... In all things balance, -inevitably; the purpose of life which, so far, we sought blindly—by -passion and recoil from it, by excess and consequent exhaustion.... It -was in the cities where men herded, where life swarmed, that death had -come most thickly, that desolation was swiftest and most complete. The -ground underneath them needed rest from men; there was an average of -life it could support and bear with. Now, the average exceeded, the -cities lay ruined, were silent, knew the peace they had craved for—while -those who once swarmed in them avoided them in fear or scattered -themselves in the open country, finding no sustenance in brickwork, -stone or paved street.... With the machine and its consequence, the -industrial system, population had increased beyond the average allotted -to the race; now the balance was righting itself by a very massacre of -famine—induced by the self-same process of invention which had fostered -reproduction unhindered. Because millions too many had crawled upon -earth, long stretches of earth must lie waste and desolate till the -average had worked itself out.... The art of life was adjustment of the -balance in all things—was action and reaction rightly applied, was -provision of counterweight, discovery of the destined mean. Was control -of Truth, lest it turn into a lie; was check upon the power and velocity -of Good ere it swung to immeasurable Evil.... - -The fire, for want of more wood to pile on it, had died low, to a -flicker in the ashes, and the two men sat almost in darkness; the one, -between the bouts that shook him, whispering out the tenets of his Law; -the other, now listening, now staring back into the world that once -was—and ever should be.... He was with Markham, listening to the -Westminster chimes—(on the crest of the centuries, Markham had -said)—when there were sudden yelping screams outside and a patter of -feet on the road. The human rats who had crept into the town for shelter -from the night were bolting in panic from their holes. - -“They’re running,” said the dying man and felt towards the stairs. “It’s -gas—it must be gas! Oh God, where’s the door—where’s the door?” - -As they groped and stumbled through the door and up the stairway, he was -clutching at Theodore’s arm and gasping in an ecstasy of terror; as -fearful of losing his few poor hours of life as if they had been years -of health and usefulness. In the open air was darkness with figures -flying dimly by; a thin stream of panic that raced against death by -suffocation. - -The man with death on him held to Theodore’s arm and besought him, for -Christ’s sake, not to leave him—he could run if he were only helped! -Theodore let him cling for a dragging pace or two; then, looking behind -him, saw a woman reel, clawing the air. - -He wrenched himself free and ran on till he could run no further. - - - - - IX - - -It was somewhere towards the end of autumn that Theodore Savage realized -that the war had come to an end—so far, at least, as his immediate -England was concerned. What was happening elsewhere he and his immediate -England had no means of knowing and were long past caring to know. There -was no definite ending but a leaving-off, a slackening; the attacks—the -burnings and panics—by degrees were fewer and not only fewer but less -devastating, because carried out with smaller forces; there were days -and nights without alarm, without smoke cloud or glow on the horizon. -Then yet longer intervals—and so on to complete cessation.... By the -time the nights had grown long and frosty the war that was organized and -alien had ended; there remained only the daily, personal and barbaric -form of war wherein every man’s hand was raised against his neighbour -and enemy. That warfare ceased not and could not cease—until the human -herd had reduced itself to the point at which the bare earth could -support it. - -It seemed to him later a wonder—almost a miracle—that he had come alive -through the months of war and after; at times he stood amazed that any -had lived in the waste of hunger and violence, of pestilence and rotting -bodies which for months was the world as he knew it. He was near death -not once nor a score of times, but daily; death from exhaustion or the -envy of men who were starved and reckless as himself. The mockery of -peace brought no plenty or hope of it, no sign of reconstruction or dawn -of new order; reconstruction and order were rank impossibilities so long -as human creatures preyed on each other in a land swept bare, and -prowled after the manner of wolves. No revival of common life, no system -was possible until earth once more brought forth her fruits. - -He judged, by the length of the nights, that it was somewhere about the -middle of November when the first snow came suddenly and thickly; the -harbinger and onslaught of a fiercely hard winter that killed in their -thousands the gaunt human beasts who tore at each other for the refuse -and vermin that was food. In the all-pervading dearth and starvation -there was only one form of animal life that increased and flourished -mightily; the rat overran empty buildings, found dreadful sustenance in -street and field and, in turn, was hunted, trapped and fed on. - -With the coming of winter the human remnant was perforce less vagrant -and migratory, and Theodore, driven by weather to shelter, lived for -weeks in what once had been a country town, a cluster of dead houses -with, here and there, a silent factory. Only the buildings, the -semblance of a township, remained; the befouled and neglected body -whence the life of a community had fled; and he never knew what its -living name had been or what was the manner of industry or commerce -whereby it had supported its inhabitants. It lay in a flattish -agricultural country and a railway had run through its outskirts; the -rusted metals stretched north and south and the remnants of a station -still existed—platforms, charred buildings and trucks and locomotives in -sidings. Perhaps the charred buildings had been burned in a fury of -drunken and insane destruction, perhaps shivering destitution had set -light to them for the sake of a few hours’ warmth. - -The shell of the town—its brickwork and stone—was still practically -intact; it was anarchy, pillage and starvation, not the violence of an -enemy, that had reduced it to a city of the dead. The means of -supporting life were absent, but certain forms of what had once been -luxury remained and were counted as nothing. At a corner of the main -street stood a jeweller’s premises which, time and again, had been -entered and ransacked; the dwelling-house behind it contained not so -much as a fragment of dried crust but in the shop itself rings, brooches -and pendants were still lying for any man to take—disordered, scattered -and trampled underfoot, because worthless to those who craved for bread. -The only item of jeweller’s stock that still had value to starving men -was a watch—if it furnished a burning-glass, a means of lighting a fire -when other means were unavailable. - -Theodore lived through the winter—as all his fellows -lived—destructively, on the legacy and remnant of other men’s savings -and makings; scraping and grubbing in other men’s ground, burning -furniture and woodwork, the product of other men’s labours, and taking -no thought for the morrow. At the beginning of winter some four or five -score of human shadows, men and women, crept about the dead streets and -the fields beyond them in their daily quest for the means to keep life -in their bodies; but, as the weeks drew on and the winter hardened, -starvation and the sickness born of starvation reduced their numbers by -a half. Those lived best who were most skilful at the trapping of -vermin; and they had long been existing on little but rat-flesh, when -some hunters of rats, on the track of their prey, discovered a treasure -beyond price—a godsend—in the shape of sacks of grain in the cellar of -an empty brewery. - -The discovery meant more than a supply of food and the staving-off of -death by starvation; with the possession of resources that, with care, -might last for weeks there came into being a common interest, the -fellowship that makes a social system. After the first wild struggle—the -rush to fill their hands and cram their gnawing stomachs—the shadows and -skeletons of men controlled their instincts and took counsel; the fact -that their stomachs were full and their craving satisfied gave back to -them the power of construction, of forethought and restraint; they -ceased to be instinctively inimical and wholly animal and took common -measures for the preservation and rationing of their heaven-sent -windfall. They advised, consulted, heard opinion and gave it, were -reasonable; counted their numbers in relation to the size of their -hoard; and in the end decided, by common consent, on the amount of the -daily portion which was to be allotted to each in return for his share -in the duty of guarding it—against the cravings of their own hunger as -well as against the inroads of rats and mice.... With food—with -property—they were human again; capable of plans for the morrow, of -concerted and intelligent action. The enmity they had hitherto felt -against each other was suddenly transferred to the stranger—the -foreigner—who might force his way in and acquire a share in their -treasure. Hence they took precautions against the arrival of the -stranger, kept watch and ward on the outskirts of the town and drove -away the chance newcomer, so that the knowledge of their good fortune -should not spread. With duties shared, the dead sense of comradeship -revived; they began to recognize and greet each other as they came for -their daily portion. And if some were restrained only by the common -watchfulness from appropriating more than their share of the common -stock, there were others in whom stirred the sense of honour. - -For a week or more they lived under the beginnings of a social system -which was rendered possible by their certainty of a daily mess; and then -came what, perhaps, was inevitable—discovery of pilfering from the store -that gave life to them all. The pilferers, detected by the night guard, -fled on the instant, well knowing that their sin against the very -existence of the little community was a sin beyond hope of forgiveness; -they eluded pursuit in the darkness and by morning had vanished from the -neighbourhood. For the time only; since they took with them the -knowledge of the hoarded grain they had forfeited—a knowledge which was -power and a weapon to themselves, a danger to those they had fled from. -Two days later, after nightfall, a skeleton rabble, armed with knives, -clubs and stones, was led into the town by the renegades; and there was -fought out a fierce, elementary battle, a struggle of starved men for -the prize of life itself.... From the first the case of the defenders -was hopeless; outnumbered and taken by surprise, they were beaten in -detail, overwhelmed—and in less than five minutes the survivors were -flying for their lives, the darkness their only hope of safety. - - * * * * * - -Theodore Savage was of the remnant who owed their lives to darkness and -the speed with which they fled. As he neared the outskirts of the town -and slackened, exhausted, to draw breath, he heard the patter of running -steps behind him and for a moment believed himself pursued—till a -passing burst of moonlight showed the runner as a woman, like himself -seeking safety in flight. A young woman, with a sobbing open mouth, who -clutched at his arm and besought him not to leave her to be killed—to -save her, to get her away!... He knew her by sight as he knew all the -members of the destitute little community—a girl with a face once plump, -now hollowed, whom he had seen daily when she came, in stupid -wretchedness, to hold out her bowl for her share of the common ration; -one of a squalid company of three or four women who herded together—and -whose habit of instinctive fellowship was broken by the sudden onslaught -which had driven them apart in flight. - -“I don’t know where they’ve all gone,” she wailed. “Don’t leave me—for -Gawd’s saike don’t leave me.... Ow, whatever shall I do?... I dunno -where to go—for Gawd’s sake....” - -He would gladly have been rid of her lamenting helplessness but she -clung to him in a panic that would not be gainsaid, as fearful almost of -the lonely dark ahead as of the bloody brawl she had fled from. - -“Hold your tongue,” he ordered as he pulled her along. “Don’t make that -noise or they’ll hear us. And keep close to me—keep in the shadow.” - -She obeyed and stilled her sobbing to gasps and whimpers—holding tightly -to his arm while he hurried her through by-streets to the open country. -He knew no more than she where they were going when they left the silent -outskirts of the town behind them, and, pressing against each other for -warmth, bent their heads to a January wind. - - - - - X - - -That night for Theodore Savage was the beginning of an odd partnership, -a new phase of his life uncivilized. The girl who had clutched at him as -the drowning clutch at straws was destined to bear him company for more -than a winter’s night and a journey to comparative safety; being by -nature and training of the type that clings, as a matter of right, to -whomsoever will fend for it, she drifted after him instinctively. When -she woke in the morning in the shelter he had found for her she looked -round for him to guide and, if possible, feed her—and awaited his -instructions passively. - -One human being—so it did not threaten him with violence—was no more to -him than another, and perhaps he hardly noticed that when he rose and -moved on she followed. From that hour forth she was always at his -heels—complaining or too wretched to complain. He would let her hang on -his arm as they trudged and shared his findings of food with her—because -she had followed, was there; and it was some time before he realized -that he had shouldered a responsibility which had no intention of -shifting itself from his back.... When he realized the fact he had -already tacitly accepted it; and for the first few weeks of their -existence in common he was too fiercely occupied in the task of keeping -them both alive to consider or define his relationship to the creature -who whimpered and stumbled at his heels and took scraps of food from his -hands. When, at last, he considered it, the relationship was established -on both sides. She was his dependent, after the fashion of a child or an -accustomed dog; and having learned to look to him for food, for guidance -and protection, she could be cast off only by direct cruelty and the -breaking of a daily habit. - -In the beginning that was all; she followed because she did not know -what else to do; he led and they hungered together. For the most part -they were silent with the speechlessness of misery, and it was days -before he even asked her name, weeks before he knew more of her life in -the past than was betrayed by a Cockney accent. So long as existence was -a craving and a fear, where nothing mattered save hunger and the -fending-off of present death, the fact that she was a woman meant no -more to him than her dependence and his own responsibility; thus her -companionship was no more than the bodily presence of a human being -whose needs were his own, whose terrors and whose enemies were his. - -They prowled and starved together through the long bitterness of winter -in a world stripped bare of its last year’s harvest where all hungry -mouths strove to keep other mouths at a distance; and time and again, -when they grubbed for food or sought to take shelter, they were driven -away with threats and with violence by those who already held possession -of some tract of street or country. No claim to ownership could stand -against the claim of a stronger, and one man, meeting them, would avoid -them, slink out of their way—because, being two, they could strip him if -the mood should take them. And when they, in their turn, sighted three -or four figures in the distance, they made haste to take another road. - -Once, when a solitary wayfarer shrank from them and scuttled to the -cover of a ragged patch of firwood, there came back to Theodore, like a -rushing mighty wind, the memory of his last days in London, the thought -of his journey down to York. The strange, glad fellowship of the -outbreak of war, the eagerness to serve and be sacrificed; the -friendliness of strangers, the dear love of England, the brotherhood!... -The creature who scuttled at his very sight would have been his brother -in those first days of splendid sacrifice! - -“Lord God!” he said and laughed long and uncontrollably; while the girl, -Ada, stared in open-mouthed bewilderment—then pulled at his arm and -began to cry, believing he was going off his head. - - * * * * * - -In their hunted and fugitive life their wanderings, of necessity, were -planless; they drifted east or west, by this road or that, as fear, the -weather or the cravings of their hunger prompted. They sought food, -thought food only and, as far as possible, avoided the neighbourhood of -those, their fellow-men, who might try to share their meagre findings. -House-room, bare house-room, stood ready for their taking in the country -as well as in the town; but wherever there was more than house-room—food -or the mere possibility of food—the human wolf was at hand to dispute it -with his rivals. There was a time when a road, followed blindly, led -them down to the sea and the corpse of a pretentious little -watering-place—where stiff, blank terraces of ornate brick and plaster -stared out at the unbroken sea-line; they found themselves shelter in a -bow-windowed villa that still bore the legend “Ocean View: Apartments,” -trudged along the tide-mark in search of sand-crabs and fished from an -iron-legged pier. When a long winter gale swept the pier with breakers -and put a stop to their fishing, they turned and tramped inland -again.... And there was another time when they were the sole inhabitants -of a stretch of Welsh mining-village—they knew it for Welsh by the -street-names—where they hunted their rats and grubbed for roots in -allotments already trampled over. For very starvation they moved on -again; and later—how much later they could not remember—took shelter, -because they could go no further, in a cottage on the outskirts of a -moorland hamlet, where they were almost at extremity when a bitter spell -of cold, at the end of winter, sent them food in the shape of frozen -rooks and starlings. And, a day or two later, they were driven out -again; Theodore, searching for dead birds in the snow, met others -engaged in the same hungry quest—other and earlier settlers in the -neighbourhood who saw in him a poacher on their scanty hunting-grounds -and, gathering together in a common hate and need, fell on the intruders -and chased them out with stones and threats. Theodore and the girl were -hunted from their homestead and out on to the bleakness of the moor; -whence, looking back breathless and aching from their bruises, they saw -half a dozen yelling starvelings who still threatened them with shouts -and upraised fists.... They went on blindly because they dared not stay; -and that, for many days, was the last they saw of mankind. - - * * * * * - -It must have been towards the end of February or the beginning of March -that they ended their long goings to and fro and found the refuge that, -for many months, was to give them hiding and sustenance. Since they had -been driven from their last shelter they had sighted no enemy in the -shape of a living man, but the days that followed their flight had been -almost foodless; and in the end they had come near to death from -exposure on a stretch of hill and heath-covered country where they lost -all sense of direction or even of desire. There, without doubt, they -would have left their bones if there had not already been a promise of -spring in the air; as it was, they could hardly drag themselves along -when the moor dropped suddenly into a valley, a wide strip of land once -pasture, now bleak and blackened from the passing of the poison-fire -which had seared it from end to end. Here and there were charred mummies -of men and of animals, lying thickest round a farmhouse, partly burned -out; but beyond the burned farmhouse was a stream that might yield them -fish; and with the warmth that was melting the snow on the hilltops -little shafts of green life were piercing through the blackened soil. -Before dark, in what once had been a garden, they scraped with their -nails and their knives and found food—worm-eaten roots that would once -have seemed unfit for cattle, that they thrust into their mouths -unwashed. They sheltered for the night within the skeleton walls of the -farm; and when, with morning, they crawled into the sun, the last patch -of snow had vanished from the hills and the tiny shafts of green were -more radiant against the blackened soil.... The long curse and -barrenness of winter was over and Nature was beginning anew her task of -supporting her children. - -From that day forward they lived isolated, without sight or sound of -men. Chance had led them to a loneliness which was safety, coupled with -a bare possibility of supporting life—by rooting in fields left -derelict, by fishing and the snaring of birds; but for all their -isolation it was long before they ceased to peer for men on the horizon, -to take careful precautions against the coming of their own kind. With -the memory of savagery and violence behind them, they looked round -sharply at an unaccustomed sound, kept preferably to woods and shadow -and moved furtively in open country; and Theodore’s ultimate choice of a -dwelling-place was dictated chiefly by fear of discovery and desire to -remain unseen. What he sought was not only a shelter, a roof-tree, but a -hiding-place which other men might pass without notice; hence he settled -at last in a fold of the hills—in a copse of tall wood, some four or -five miles from their first halt, where oaks and larches, bursting into -bud, denied the ruin that had come upon last year’s world.... Theodore, -setting foot in the wood for the first time—seeking refuge, a -hiding-place to cower in—was suddenly in presence of the green life -unchanging, that blessed and uplifted by its very indifference to the -downfall and agony of man. The windflowers, thrusting through brown -leaves, were as last year’s windflowers—a delicate endurance that -persisted.... He had entered a world that had not altered since the days -when he lived as a man. - -He explored his little wood with precaution, creeping through it from -end to end; and, finding no more recent sign of human occupation than a -stack of sawn logs, their bark grey with mould, he decided on the site -of his camp and refuge—a clearing near the stream that babbled down the -valley, but well hidden by its thick belt of trees. The girl had -followed him—she dreaded being left alone of all things—and assented -with her customary listlessness when he explained to her that the -bird-life and the stream would mean a food-supply and that the logs, -ready cut, could be built into shelters from the weather; she was a -town-dweller, mentally as well as by habit of body, whom the spring of -the woods had no power to rouse from her apathy. - -There were empty cottages for the taking lower down the valley and it -was the fear of the marauder alone that sent them to camp in the -wilderness, that kept them lurking in their fold of the hills, not -daring to seek for greater comfort. Within a day or two after they had -discovered it, they were hidden away in the solitary copse, their camp, -to begin with, no more than a couple of small lean-to’s—logs propped -against the face of a projecting rock and their interstices stuffed with -green moss. In the first few weeks of their lonely life they were often -near starvation; but with the passing of time food was more abundant, -not only because Theodore grew more skilled in his fishing and -snaring—learned the haunts of birds and the likely pools for fish—but -because, as spring ripened, they inherited in the waste land around them -a legacy of past cultivation, fruits of the earth that had sown -themselves and were growing untended amidst weeds. - -With time, with experiment and returning strength, Theodore made their -refuge more habitable; tools, left lying in other men’s houses, fields -and gardens, were to be had for the searching, and, when he had brought -home a spade discovered in a weed-patch and an axe found rusting on a -cottage floor, he built a clay oven that their fire might not quench in -the rain and hewed wood for the bettering of their shelters. Ada—when he -told her where to look for it—gathered moss and heather for their -bed-places and spread it to dry in the sun; and from one of his more -distant expeditions he returned with pots which served for cooking and -the carrying of water from the stream.... Spring lengthened into summer -and no man came near them; they lived only to themselves in a primitive -existence which concerned itself solely with food and bodily security. - -As the days grew longer and the means of subsistence were easier to come -by, Theodore would go further afield—still moving cautiously over open -country, but no longer expectant of onslaught. In the immediate -neighbourhood of his daily haunts and hunting-grounds was no sign of -human life and work save a green cart-track that ended on the outskirts -of his copse; but lower down the valley were ploughed fields lapsing -into weed-beds, here and there an orchard or a garden-patch and hedges -that straggled as they would. Lower down again was another wide belt of -burned land which, so far, he had not entered—trees on either side the -stream, stood gaunt and withered to the farthest limit of his sight. The -district, even when alive and flourishing, had seemingly been sparsely -populated; its lonely dwellings were few and far apart—a farmhouse here, -a clump of small cottages there, all bearing traces of the customary -invasion by the hungry. Sheep-farming had been one of the local -industries, and hillsides and fields were dotted with the skeletons of -sheep—left lying where vagabond hunger had slaughtered them and ripped -the flesh from their bones. - -As the year rolled over him, Theodore came to know the earth as -primitive man and the savage know it—as the source of life, the -storehouse of uncertain food, the teacher of cunning and an infinite and -dogged patience. When the weather made wandering or fishing impossible -he would sit under shelter, with his hands on his knees, passive, -unimpatient, hardly moving through long hours, while he waited for the -rain to cease. It was months before there stirred in him a desire for -more than safety and his daily bread, before he thought of the humanity -he had fled from except with fear and a shrinking curiosity as to what -might be happening in the world beyond his silent hills. In his body, -exhausted by starvation, was a mind exhausted and benumbed; to which -only very gradually—as the quiet and healing of Nature worked on him—the -power of speculation and outside interest returned. In the beginnings of -his solitary life he still spoke little and thought little save of what -was personal and physical; cut off mentally from the future as well as -from the past, he was content to be relieved of the pressure of hunger -and hidden from the enemy, man. - - - - - XI - - -Of the woman whom chance and her own helplessness had thrown upon his -hands he knew, in those first months, curiously little. She remained to -him what she had been from the moment she clutched at his arm and fled -with him—an encumbrance for which he was responsible—and as the numbness -passed from his brain and he began once more to live mentally, she -entered less and less into his thoughts. She was Ada Cartwright—as -pronounced by its owner he took the name at first for Ida—ex-factory -hand and dweller in the north-east of London; once vulgarly harmless in -the company of like-minded gigglers, now stupefied by months of fear and -hunger, bewildered and incapable in a life uncivilized that demanded of -all things resource. As she ate more plentifully and lost her starved -hollows, she was not without comeliness of the vacant, bouncing type; a -comeliness hidden from Theodore by her tousled hair, her tattered -garments and the heavy wretchedness that sulked in her eyes and turned -down the corners of her mouth. She was helpless in her new surroundings, -with the dazed helplessness of those who have never lived alone or -bereft of the minor appliances of civilization; to Theodore, at times, -she seemed half-witted, and he treated her perforce as a backward child, -to be supervised constantly lest it fail in the simplest of tasks. - -It was his well-meant efforts to renew her scanty and disreputable -wardrobe that first revealed to him something of the mind that worked -behind her outward sullen apathy. In the beginning of disaster clothing -had been less of a difficulty than the other necessities of life; long -after food was a treasure beyond price it could often be had for the -taking and, when other means of obtaining it failed, those who needed a -garment would strip it from the dead, who had no more need of it. In -their hidden solitude it was another matter, and they were soon hard put -to it to replace the rags that hung about them; thus Theodore accounted -himself greatly fortunate when, ransacking the rooms of an empty -cottage, he came on a cupboard with three or four blankets which he -proceeded to convert into clothing by the simple process of cutting a -hole in the middle. He returned to the camp elated by his acquisition; -but when he presented Ada with her improvised cloak, the girl astonished -him by turning her head and bursting into noisy tears. - -“What’s the matter?” he asked her, bewildered. “Don’t you like it?” - -She made no answer but noisier tears, and when he insisted that it would -keep her nice and warm her sobs rose to positive howls; he stared at her -uncertainly as she sat and rocked, then knelt down beside her and began -to pat and soothe, as he might have tried to soothe a child. In the end -the howls diminished in volume and he obtained an explanation of the -outburst—an explanation given jerkily, through sniffs, and accompanied -by much rubbing of eyes. - -No, it wasn’t that she didn’t want it—she did want it—but it reminded -her.... It was so ’ard never to ’ave anything nice to wear. Wasn’t she -ever going to ’ave anything nice to wear again—not ever, as long as she -lived?... She supposed she’d always got to be like this! No ’airpins—and -straw tied round her feet instead of shoes!... Made you look as if you’d -got feet like elephants—and she’d always been reckoned to ’ave a small -foot.... Made you wish you was dead and buried!... - -He tried two differing lines of consolation, neither particularly -successful; suggesting, in the first place, that there was no one but -himself to see what she looked like, and, in the second, that a blanket -could be made quite becoming as a garment. - -“That’s a lie,” Ada told him sulkily. “You know it ain’t becoming—’ow -could it be? A blanket with an ’ole for the ’ead!... Might just as well -’ave no figure. Might just as well be a sack of pertaters.... I wonder -what anyone would ’ave said at ’ome if I’d told ’em I should ever be -dressed in a blanket with an ’ole for the ’ead!... And I always ’ad -taiste in my clothes—everyone said I ’ad taiste.” - -And—stirred to the soul by the memory of departed chiffon, by the -hideous contrast between present squalor and former Sunday best—her -howls once more increased in volume and she blubbered with her head on -her knee. - -Theodore gave up the attempt at consolation as useless, leaving her to -weep herself out over vanished finery while he busied himself with the -cooking of their evening meal; and in due time she came to the end of -her stock of emotion, ceased to snuffle, ate her supper and took -possession of the blanket with the ’ole for the ’ead—which she wore -without further complaint. The incident was over and closed; but it was -not without its significance in their common life. To Theodore the -tragicomic outburst was a reminder that his dependent, for all her -childish helplessness, was a woman, not only a creature to be fed; while -the stirrings of Ada’s personal vanity were a sign and token that she, -also, was emerging from the cowed stupor of body and mind produced by -long terror and starvation, that her thoughts, like her companion’s, -were turning again to the human surroundings they had fled from.... Man -had ceased to be only an enemy, and the first sheer relief at security -attained was mingling, in both of them, with the desire to know what had -come to a world that still gave no sign of its existence. Order, the -beginnings of a social system (so Theodore insisted to himself) must by -now have risen from the dust; but meanwhile—because order restored gave -no sign and the memory of humanity debased was still vivid—he showed -himself with caution against the skyline and went stealthily when he -broke new ground. There were days when he lay on a hill-top and scanned -the clear horizon, for an hour at a time, in the hope that a man would -come in sight; just as there were nights, many, when he lived his past -agonies over again and started from his sleep, alert and trembling, lest -the footstep he had dreamed might be real. Meanwhile he made no move -towards the world he had fled from—waiting till it gave him a sign. - -If he had been alone in his wilderness, unburdened by the responsibility -of Ada and her livelihood, it is probable that, before the days -shortened, he would have embarked upon a journey of cautious -exploration; but there was hazard in taking her, hazard in leaving her, -and their safety was still too new and precious to be lightly risked for -the sake of a curious adventure—which might lead, with ill-luck, to -discovery of their secret place and the enforced sharing of their hidden -treasure of food. Further, as summer drew on towards autumn, though his -haunting fear of mankind grew less, his work in his own small corner of -the earth was incessant and, in preparation for the coming of winter, he -put thought of distant expedition behind him and busied himself in -making their huts more weatherproof, as well as roomier, in the storing -of firewood under shelter from the damp, and in the gathering together -of a stock of food that would not rot. He made frequent -journeys—sometimes alone, sometimes with Ada trudging behind him—to a -derelict orchard in the lower valley which supplied them plentifully -with apples; he had provided himself with a wet-weather occupation in -the twisting of osiers into clumsy baskets—which were filled in the -orchard and carried to their camping-place where they spread out the -apples on dried moss.... With summer and autumn they fared well enough -on the harvest of other men’s planting; and if Theodore’s crude and -ignorant experiments in the storage of fruit and vegetables were -failures more often than not, there remained sufficient of the bounty of -harvest to help them through the scarcity of winter. - - * * * * * - -It was with the breaking of the next spring that there came a change -into the life that he lived with Ada. - -They had dragged through the winter in a squalid hardship that, but for -the memory of a hardship more dreadful, would have seemed at times -beyond bearing; often short of food, with no means of light but their -fire, with damp and snow dripping through their ill-built shelters—where -they learned, like animals, to sleep through the long dark hours. -Through all the winter months their solitude was still unbroken, and if -any marauders prowled in the neighbourhood, they passed without -knowledge of the hidden camp in the hills. - -It was—so far as he could guess—on one of the first sunny days of March -that Theodore, the spring lust of movement stirring in his blood, went -further from the camp than he had as yet explored; following the stream -down its valley into the wide belt of burned land, now rank with coarse -grass and yellow dandelions. For an hour or so there was nothing save -coarse grass, yellow dandelion and gaunt, dead trees; then a bend of the -stream showed him roofs—a cluster of them—and instinctively he halted -and crouched behind a tree before making his stealthy approach. - -His stealth and precaution were needless. The village from a distance -might have passed for uninjured—the flames that had blackened its fields -had swept by it, and the houses, for the most part, stood whole; but -there was no living man in the long, straggling street, no movement, -save of birds and the pattering little scuffle of rats. The indifferent -life of beast and bird had taken possession of the dwellings of those -who once tyrannized over them; and not only of their dwellings but their -bodies. At the entrance of the village half-a-dozen skeletons lay -sprawled on the grass-grown road, and a robin sang jauntily from his -perch on the breast-bone of a man.... From one end of the street to the -other the bones of men lay scattered; in the road, in gardens, on the -thresholds of houses—some with tattered rags still fluttering to the -wind, some bare bones only, whence the flesh had festered and been -gnawed. By a cottage doorstep lay two skeletons touching each -other—whereof one was the framework of a child; the little bones that -had once been arms reached out to the death’s-head that once had borne -the likeness of a woman.... - -There was a time when Theodore would have turned from the sight and fled -hastily; even now, familiar though he was with the ugliness of death, -his flesh stirred and crept in the presence of the grotesque litter of -bones.... These people had died suddenly, in strange contorted -attitudes—here crouching, there outstretched with clawing fingers. Gas, -he supposed—a cloud of gas rolling down the street before the wind—and -perhaps not a soul left alive!... From an upper window hung a long, -fleshless arm: someone had thrust up the casement for air and fallen -half across the sill. - -It was the indifferent, busy chirping of the nesting birds that helped -him to the courage to explore the silent street to its end. It wound, -through the village and out of it, to a bridge across a river—into which -flowed the smaller stream he had followed since he left his refuge in -the hills. From the bridge the road turned with the river and ran down -the valley in a south to south-easterly direction; a road grass-grown -and empty and bearing no recent trace of the life of man—nothing more -recent than the remains of a cart, blackened wood and rusted metal, with -the bones of a horse between its shafts. - -Below the dead village the valley opened out, the hills receded and were -lower; but between them, so far as his eye could discern, the trees were -still blackened and lifeless. Down either side the stream the fire-blast -had swept without mercy; and, from the completeness with which the -country had been seared, Theodore judged that it had been largely -cornland, waving with ripe stalks at the moment of disaster and fired -after days of dry weather.... All life, save the life of man, teemed in -the hot March sun; the herbage thrust bravely to obliterate his -handiwork, larks shrilled invisibly and lithe, dark fish were darting -through the arches of the bridge. - -He went only a yard or two beyond the end of the bridge—having, as the -sun warned him, reached the limit of distance he could well accomplish -if he was to return to the camp by nightfall. On his way back through -the village he fought with his repugnance to the grinning company of the -dead and turned into one of the silent houses that stood open for any -man to enter. Though the dead still dwelt there—stricken down, on the -day of disaster before they could reach the open air—there were the -usual abundant traces that living men had been there before him; the -door had been forced and rooms littered and fouled in the frequent -search for clothing and food. All the same, in the hugger-mugger on a -kitchen floor he found treasure of string and stuffed the blanket-bag -slung over his back with odds and ends of rusting hardware; finally -mounting to the floor above the kitchen where, at the head of the -staircase, an open door faced him and beyond it a chest of drawers. The -drawers had been pulled out and emptied on the floor; what remained of -their contents was a dirty litter, sodden by rain when it drove through -the window and browned with the dust of many months, and it was not -until Theodore had picked up a handful of the litter that he saw it was -composed of women’s trifles of underwear. What he held was a flimsy -bodice made of soiled and faded lawn with a narrow little edging of -lace. - -He dropped it, only to pick it up again — remembering suddenly the -blanket episode and Ada’s lamentable howls for the garments a wilderness -denied her. Perhaps an assortment of dingy finery would do something to -allay her craving—and, amused at the thought, he went down on a knee and -proceeded to collect an armful. Appropriately the shifting of a heap of -yellowed rags revealed a broken hand-glass, lying face downwards on the -floor; as he raised it, wondering what Ada would say to a mirror as a -gift, its cracked surface showed him a bedstead behind him—not empty!... -What was left of the owner of the scraps of lawn and lace was reflected -from the oval of the glass. - -He snatched up his bag and clattered down the stairs into the open. - - - - - XII - - -It was well past dusk when he trudged up the path that led to the camp -and found Ada on the watch at the outskirts of the copse, uneasy at the -thought of dark alone. - -“You ’ave been a time,” she reproached him sulkily. “The ’ole blessed -day—since breakfus. I was beginnin’ to think you’d gone and got lost and -I’ve ’ad the fair ’ump sittin’ ’ere by myself and listenin’ to them -owls. I ’ate their beastly screechin’; it gives me the creeps.” - -“Never mind,” he consoled her, “come along to the fire. I’ve brought you -something—a present.” - -“Pertaters?” Ada conjectured, still sulky. - -“Not potatoes this time,” he told her. “Better than vegetables—something -to wear.” - -“Something to wear,” she repeated, with no show of enthusiasm. “I -suppose that’s another old blanket!” - -“Wrong again,” he rejoined, amused by the contempt in her voice. She was -still contemptuous when he opened his bag and tossed her a dingy bundle; -but as she disentangled it, saw lace and embroidery, she brightened -suddenly and knelt down to examine in the firelight; while the sight of -the cracked hand-glass brought an instant “Oh!” followed by intent -contemplation and much patting and twisting of hair. - -Theodore dished supper while she sat and pondered her reflection; and -even while she ate hungrily she had eyes and thoughts for nothing but -her new possessions. Some were what he had taken them to -be—underclothes, for the most part of an ordinary pattern; but mingled -with the plainer linen articles were one or two more decorative, lace -collars and the like, and it was on these, dingy as they were, that she -fell with delight that was open and audible. He watched her curiously -when, for the first time since he had known her, he saw her mouth widen -in a smile. She was no longer inert, the sullen, lumpish Ada, she was -critical, interested, alive; she fingered her treasures, she smoothed -them and made guesses at their price when new; she held them up, now -this way, now that, for his admiration and her own. Finally, while -Theodore stretched his tired length by the camp fire, she ran off to her -shelter for a broken scrap of comb; and when he looked up, a few minutes -later, she was posing self-consciously before the hand-glass, with hair -newly twisted and a dirty scrap of lace round her neck.... She was -another woman as she sat with her rags arranged to show her new -frippery; tilting the hand-mirror this way and that and twitching now at -the collar and now at her straying ends of hair. - -Lying stretched on an arm by the fire, he watched her little feminine -antics, amused and taken out of himself; realizing how seldom, till that -moment, he had thought of her as a woman, how nearly she had seemed to -him an animal only, a creature to be guided and fed; and parrying her -eager and insistent demand to be taken to the house where the treasure -had been found, that she might see if it contained any more. He had no -desire to spoil her pleasure in her finery by the gruesome tale of the -manner of its finding; hence, in spite of a curiosity made manifest in -coaxing, he held to his refusal stubbornly.... The house was a long way -off, he told her—much further than she would care to tramp; then, as she -still persisted, maintaining her readiness even for a lengthy -expedition, he went on to fiction and explained that the house was in a -dangerous condition—knocked about, ruinous, might fall at any moment—and -he was not going to say where it was, for her own sake, lest she should -be tempted to the peril of an entry. - -She pouted “You might tell me,” glancing at him from under her lashes; -then, as he still persisted in refusal, slapped him on the shoulder for -an obstinate boy, turned her back and pretended to sulk. He returned the -slap—she expected it and giggled; the next move in the game was his -catching of her wrist as she raised her hand for a rejoinder—and for a -moment they wrestled inanely, after the fashion of Hampstead Heath.... -As he let her go, it dawned on him that this was flirtation as she knew -it. - - * * * * * - -It did not take long for him to realize that they stood to each other, -from that night on, in a new and more difficult relation; from foundling -and guardian, the leader and led, they had developed into woman and man. -For a time fear and hunger had suppressed in Ada the consciousness of -sex—which a yard or two of lace and the possession of a hand-glass had -revived. Once revived, it coloured her every action, gave meaning to her -every word and glance; so that, day by day and hour by hour, the man who -dwelt beside her was reminded of bodily desire. - -One night when she had left him he lay staring at the fire, faced the -situation and wondered if she saw where she was drifting? -Possibly—possibly not; she was acting instinctively, from habit. To her -(he was sure) a man was a creature to flirt with; an unsubtle attempt to -arouse his desire was the only way she knew of carrying on a -conversation.... Now that she was woman again—not merely bewildered -misery and empty stomach—she had slipped back inevitably to the little -giggling allurements of her factory days, to the habits bred in her -bone.... With the result?... He put the thought from him, turned over, -dog-weary, and slept. - -So soon as the next night he saw the result as inevitable; the outcome -of life reduced to mere animal living, of nearness, isolation and the -daily consciousness of sex. If they stayed together—and how should they -not stay together?—it was only a question of time, of weeks at the -furthest, of days or it might be hours.... He raised himself to peer -through the night at the log-hut that hid and sheltered Ada, wondering -if she also were awake. If so, of a certainty, her thoughts were of him; -and perhaps she knew likewise that it was only a question of time. -Perhaps—and perhaps she just drifted, following her instincts.... He -found himself wondering what she would say if she opened her eyes to -find him standing at the entrance to her hut, to see him bending over -her ... now? - -He put the thought from him and once more turned over and slept. - -With the morning it seemed further off, less inevitable; the sun was -hidden behind raw grey mist, and when Ada, shivering and stupid, turned -out into the chilly discomfort of the weather she was too much depressed -for the exercise of feminine coquetry. The day’s work—hard necessary -wood-chopping and equally necessary fishing for the larder—sent his -thoughts into other channels, and it was not till he sat at their -evening fire—warmed, fed and rested, with no duties to distract him—that -he became conscious again, and even more strongly, of the change in -their attitude and intercourse. Something new, of expectation, had crept -into it; something of excitement and constraint. When their hands -touched by chance they noticed it, were instantly awkward; when a -silence fell Ada was embarrassed, uncomfortable and made palpable -efforts to break it with her pointless giggle. When their eyes met, hers -dropped and looked away.... When she rose at last and said good-night he -was sure that she also knew. And since they both knew and the end was -inevitable, certain.... - -“You’re not going yet,” he said—and caught at her wrist, laughing oddly. - -“It’s late—and I’m sleepy,” she objected with a foolish little giggle; -but made no effort to withdraw her wrist from his hold. - -“Nonsense,” he told her, “it’s early yet—and you’re better by the fire. -Sit down and keep me company for a bit longer.” - -She giggled again—more faintly, more nervously—as she yielded to the -pull of his fingers and sat down; offering no protest when, instead of -releasing her arm, he drew it through his own and held it pressed to his -side.... It was a windless night, very silent; no sound but the rush of -the little stream below them, now and then a bird-cry and the snap and -crackle of their fire. Once or twice Ada tried talking—of a hooting owl, -of a buzzing insect—for the sake, obviously, of talking, of hearing a -voice through the silence; but as he answered not at all, or by -monosyllables, her forced little chatter died away. Even if the thought -was not conscious, he knew she was his for the taking. - -With her arm in his—with her body pressed close enough to feel her -quickened breathing—he sat and stared into the fire; and at the last, -when the inevitable was about to accomplish itself, there floated into -his mental vision the delicate memory of the woman whom once he had -desired. Phillida, a shadow impossible, leaned out of a vanished -existence as the Damosel leaned out of Heaven; and he looked with his -civilized, his artist’s eyes on the woman who was his for the taking.... -Ada felt that he slackened his hold on her arm, felt him shrink a little -from the pressure of her leaning shoulder. - -“What is it?” she asked—uneasy; and perhaps it was the sound of her -familiar voice that brought him back to primitive realities. The glow of -the fire and the over-arching vault of darkness; and beneath it two -creatures, male and female, alone with nature, subject only to the laws -of her instinct.... The vision of a dead world, a dead woman, faded and -he looked no more through the fastidious eyes of the civilized. - -Man civilized is various, divided from his kind by many barriers—of -taste, of speech, of habit of mind and breeding; man living as the brute -is cut to one pattern, the pattern of his simple needs and lusts.... The -warm shoulder pressed him and he drew it the closer; he was man in a -world of much labour and instinct—who sweated through the seasons and -wearied. Whose pains were of the body, whose pleasures of the body ... -and alone in the night with a mate. - -“’Ere, what’s that for?” she asked, making semblance of protest, as his -hand went round her head and he pressed her cheek against his lips. - -He said “You!” ... and laughed oddly again. - - - - - XIII - - -They settled down swiftly and prosaically into a married state which -entailed no immediate alteration—save one—in life as they had hitherto -shared it. Matrimony shorn of rings and a previous engagement, shorn of -ceremony, honeymoon, change of residence and comments of friends, -revealed itself as a curiously simple undertaking and, by its very -simplicity, disappointing—so far at least as Ada was concerned. - -Her conscience, in the matter of legal and religious observance, was not -unduly tender, and her embryo scruples concerning the absence of legal -or religious sanction to their union were easily allayed by her -husband’s assurance that they were as truly married as it was possible -to be in a world without churches or registrars. What she missed far -more than certificate or blessing was the paraphernalia and accompanying -circumstance of the wedding, to which she had always looked forward as -the culminating point of her existence; her veil, her bouquet, her bevy -of bridesmaids, her importance!... When she sat with her back against a -tree-trunk, listlessly unobservant of the play of dappled sunlight or -the tracery of leafage, she would crave in the shallows of her -disappointed heart for the gaudy little sitting-room that should have -been her newly-married dwelling; contrasting its impossible and -non-existent splendours with the ramshackle roof-tree under which she -took shelter from the weather. The gaudy, tasteless, stuffy little room -wherein she should have set out her wedding presents, displayed her -photos and done honours of possession to her friends.... That was -matrimony as she understood it; enhanced importance, display of her -matronly dignity. And instead, a marriage that aroused no envy, called -forth no jests, affected none but the partners to the bond; in the -unchanged discomfort of unchanged surroundings—wherein, being -crowd-bred, she could see little beauty and no meaning; in the frequent -loneliness and silence abhorrent to her noise-loving soul; with the -evening companionship of a wearied man to whom her wifehood meant no -more than a physical relation. - -Theodore, being male, was not troubled by her abstract longings for the -minor dignities of matrimony—and, expecting little from his married -life, it could not bring him disillusion. Ada might have fancied that -what stirred in her was love; he had always known himself moved by a -physical instinct only. Thus of the pair he was the less to be pitied -when the increased familiarity of their life in common brought its -necessary trouble in the shape of friction—revealing the extent of their -unlikeness and even, with time, their antagonism. One of the results of -her vague but ever-present sense of grievance, her lasting homesickness -for a world that had crumbled, was a lack of interest in the world as it -was and a reluctance to adapt herself to an environment altogether -hateful; hence, on Theodore’s side, a justified annoyance at her -continued want of resource and the burdensome stupidity which threw -extra labour on himself. - -She was a thoroughly helpless woman; helpless after the fashion of the -town-bred specialist, the product of division of labour. The country, to -her, was a district to drive through in a char-à-banc with convenient -halts at public-houses. Having lived all her days as the member of a -crowd, she was a creature incomplete and undeveloped; she had schooled -with a crowd and worked with it, shared its noise and its ready-made -pleasures; it is possible that, till red ruin came, she had conceived of -no other existence.... Leaving school, she had entered a string factory -where she pocketed a fairly comfortable wage in return for the daily and -yearly manipulation of a machine devoted to the production of a finer -variety of twine. Having learned to handle the machine with ease, life -had no more to offer her in the way of education, and development came -to a standstill. Her meals, for the most part, she obtained without -trouble from factory canteens, cheap restaurants or municipal kitchens; -thus her domestic duties were few—the daily smearing of a bedroom -(frequently omitted) and the occasional cobbling of a garment, bought -ready-made. Her reading, since her schooldays, had consisted of -novelettes only, and even to these she was not greatly addicted, -preferring, as a rule, a more companionable form of amusement—a party to -the pictures, gossip with her girlfriends and flirtations more or less -open. At twenty-three (when disaster came) she was a buxom, useless and -noisy young woman—good-natured, with the brain of a hen; incapable alike -of boiling a potato or feeling an interest in any subject that did not -concern her directly. - -There were moments when she irritated Theodore intensely by her -infantile helplessness and the blunders that resulted therefrom, by her -owlish stupidity in the face of the new and unfamiliar. And there were -moments when, for that very owlishness, he pitied her with equal -intensity, realizing that his own loss, his daily wretchedness, was a -small thing indeed beside hers. The ruin of a world could not rob him -utterly of his heritage of all the ages; part of that heritage no ruin -could touch, since he had treasure stored in his heart and brain for so -long as his memory should last. But for Ada, whose world had been a -world of cheap finery, of giggling gossip and evenings at the cinema, -there remained from the ages—nothing. Gossip and cinemas, flowered hats -and ribbon-trimmed camisoles—they had left not a wrack, save regret, for -her mind to feed on.... As the workings of her vacant little soul were -laid bare to him, he understood how dreadful was its plight; how -pitiably complete must be the blankness of a life such as hers, bereft -of the daily little personal interests wherein had been summed up a -world. She—unhandy, unresourceful, superficial—was one of the natural -and inevitable products of a mechanical civilization; which, in saving -her trouble, had stunted her, interposing itself between primary cause -and effect. Bread, to her, was food bought at a counter—not grown with -labour in a field; the result not of rain, sun and furrow, but of -sixpence handed to a tradesman. And cunning men of science had wrestled -with the forces of nature that she might drop a penny in the slot for -warmth or suck sweets with her “boy” at the pictures. - -He guessed her a creature who had always lived noisily, a babbler whom -even his fits of taciturnity would not have daunted had she found much -to babble of in the lonely world she shared with him; but, bewildered -and awed by it, oppressed by its silence, she found meagre -subject-matter for the very small talk which was her only method of -expression. Under the peace and vastness of the open sky she was -homesick for a life that excluded all vastness and peace; her sorrow’s -crown of sorrow was a helpless, incessant craving for little meaningless -noises and little personal excitements.... Sometimes, at night, as they -sat by the fire, he would see her face pathetic in its blank dreariness; -her eyes wandering from the glow of the fire to the darkness beyond it -and back from the darkness to the glow. Endeavouring—(or so he -imagined)—to piece together some form of inner life from fragmentary -memories of past inanity and aimless, ephemeral happenings! - -The sight often moved him to pity; but he cast about in vain for a means -of allaying her sodden and persistent discontent. Once or twice he -attempted to awaken her interest by explaining, as he would have -explained to a child, the movements of nightly familiar stars, the -habits of birds or the process of growth in vegetation. These things, as -he took care to point out, now concerned her directly, were part of the -round of her existence; but the fact had no power to stimulate a mind -which had been accustomed to accept, without interest or inquiry, the -marvels of mechanical science. She carried over into her new life the -same lack of curiosity which had characterized her dealings with the -old; she was no more alive to the present phenomena of the open field -than to the past phenomena of the electric switch, the petrol-engine or -the gas-meter.... And the workings of the gas-meter at least had been -pleasant—while the workings of raw nature repelled her. Thus Theodore’s -only reward for his attempt at education was a bored, inattentive -remark, to the effect that she had heard her teacher say something like -that at school. - -She had all the crowd-liver’s horror of her own company; strengthened, -in her case, by dislike of her surroundings, amounting to abhorrence, -and the abiding nervousness that was a natural after-effect of the days -when she had fled from her fellows and cowered to the earth in an abject -and animal terror. Her unwillingness to let Theodore out of her sight -was comprehensible enough, if irritating; but there were times when it -was more than irritating—a difficulty added to life. It was impossible -to apportion satisfactorily a daily toil that, if Ada had her way, must -always be performed in company; while her customary fellowship on his -hunting and snaring expeditions meant not only the presence of a clumsy -idler but the dying down of a neglected log-fire and the postponement of -all preparations for a meal until after their return to camp. Further, -it was a bar to that wider exploration of the neighbourhood which, as -time went on, he desired increasingly; confining him, except on -comparatively rare occasions, to such range from his hearthstone as -could be attained in the company of Ada. So long as he attributed it to -the workings of fear only, he was hopeful that, with time, her -abhorrence of loneliness might pass; but as the months went by he -realized that it was not only fear that kept her close to his heels—her -town-bred incapacity to interest or occupy herself. - -Once—when the call of the outside world grew louder—he proposed to Ada -that he should see her well provided with a store of food and fuel and -leave her for two or three days; hoping to tempt her to agreement by -pointing out the probability, amounting to certainty, that other -survivors of disaster must be dwelling somewhere within reach. Peaceable -survivors with whom they could join forces with advantage.... Her face -lit up for a moment at the idea of other men’s company; but when she -understood that he proposed to go alone, her terror at the idea of being -left was abject and manifest. She was afraid of everything and anything; -of ghosts, of darkness, of prowling men, of spiders and possible snakes; -and, having reasoned in vain, in the end he gave her the assurance she -clamoured for—that she should not be called on to suffer the agony of a -night by herself. - -He gave her the promise in sheer pity, but regretted it as soon as made. -He had set his heart on a journey in search of the world that gave no -sign, planning to undertake it before the days grew shorter; but he did -not disguise from himself that there might still be danger in the -expedition—which Ada’s hampering presence would increase. The project -was abandoned for the time being, in the hope that she would see reason -later; but he regretted his promise and weakness the more when he found -that Ada did not trust to his word and, fearing lest he gave her the -slip, now clung to him as closely as his shadow. Her suspicion and -stupidity annoyed him; and there were times when he was ashamed of his -own irritation when he saw her trotting, like a dog, at his heels or -squatting within eyeshot of his movements. He was conscious of a longing -to slap her silly face, and more than once he spoke sharply to her, -urged her to go home; whereupon she sulked or cried, but continued her -trotting and squatting. - -The irritation came to a head one afternoon in the early days of autumn -when, with persistent ill-luck, he had been fishing a mile or so from -home. Various causes combined to bring about the actual outbreak; a -growing anxiety with regard to the winter supply of provisions, -sharpened by the discovery, the night before, that a considerable -proportion of his store of vegetables was a failure and already -malodorous; the ill-success of several hours’ fishing, and gusty, -unpleasant weather that chilled him as he huddled by the water. The -weather worsened after midday, the gusts bringing rain in their wake; a -cold slanting shower that sent him, in all haste, to the clump of trees -where Ada had sheltered since the morning. The sight of her sitting -there to keep an eye on him—uselessly watchful and shivering to no -purpose—annoyed him suddenly and violently; he turned on her sharply, as -the shower passed, and bade her go home on the instant. She was to keep -a good fire, a blazing fire—he would be drenched and chilled by the -evening. She was to have water boiling that the meal might be cooked the -moment he returned with the wherewithal.... While he spoke she eyed him -with questioning, distrustful sullenness; then, convinced that he meant -what he said, half rose—only, after a moment of further hesitation, to -slide down to her former position with her back against the trunk of a -beech-tree. - -“I don’t want to,” she said doggedly. “I want to stay ’ere. I don’t see -why I shouldn’t. What d’yer want to get rid of me for?” - -The suspicion that lay at the back of the refusal infuriated him: it was -suddenly intolerable to be followed and spied on, and he lost his temper -badly. The rough-tongued vehemence of his anger surprised himself as -much as it frightened his wife; he swore at her, threatened to duck her -in the stream, and poured out his grievances abusively. What good was -she?—a clog on him, who could not even tend a fire, a helpless idiot who -had to be waited on, a butter-fingered idler without brains! Let her do -what he told her and make herself of use, unless she wanted to be turned -out to fend for herself.... Much of what he said was justified, but it -was put savagely and coarsely; and when—cowed, perhaps, by the -suggestion of a ducking—Ada had taken to her heels in tears, he was -remorseful as well as surprised at his own vehemence. He had not known -himself as a man who could rail brutally and use threats to a woman; the -revelation of his new possibilities troubled him; and when, towards -sundown, he gathered up his meagre prey and stepped out homeward, it was -with the full intention of making amends to Ada for the roughness of his -recent outburst. - -His path took him through a copse of brushwood into what had been a -cart-track; now grass-grown and crumbling between hedges that straggled -and encroached. The wind, rising steadily, was sweeping ragged clouds -before it and as he emerged from the shelter of the copse he was met by -a stinging rain. He bent his head to it, in shivering discomfort, -thrusting chilled hands under his cloak for warmth and longing for the -blaze and the good warm meal that should thaw them; he had left the -copse a good minute behind him when, from the further side of the -overgrown hedge, he heard sudden rending of brambles, a thud, and a -human cry. A yard or two on was a gap in the hedge where a gate still -swung on its hinges; he rushed to it, quivering at the thought of -possibilities—and found Ada struggling to her knees! - -She began to cry loudly when she saw him, like a child caught in -flagrant transgression; protesting, with bawling and angry tears, that -“she wasn’t going to be ordered about” and “she should staiy just where -she liked!” It did not take him long to gather that her previous flight -had been a semblance only and that, shivering and haunted by ridiculous -suspicion, she had watched him all the afternoon from behind the screen -of the copse wood—for company partly, but chiefly to make sure he was -there. Seeing him gather up his tackle and depart homeward, she had -tried to outpace him unseen; keeping the hedge between them as she ran -and hoping to avert a second explosion of his wrath by blowing up the -ashes of the fire before his arrival at the camp. An unsuspected -rabbit-burrow had tripped her hurrying feet and brought about disaster -and discovery; and she made unskilful efforts to turn the misfortune to -account by rubbing her leg and complaining of damage sustained. - -In contact with her stubborn folly his repentance and kindly resolutions -were forgotten; he cut short her bid for sympathy with a curt “Get along -with you,” caught her by the arm and started her with a push along the -road—too angry to notice that, for the first time, he had handled her -with actual violence. Then, bending his head to the sweep of the rain, -he strode on, leaving her to follow as she would. - -Perhaps her leg really pained her, perhaps she judged it best to keep -her distance from his wrath; at any rate she was a hundred yards or more -behind him when he reached the camp and, stirring the ashes that should -have been a fire, found only a flicker alive. He cursed Ada’s idiocy -between his chattering teeth as he set to work to re-kindle the fire; -his hands shaking, half from anger, half from cold, as he gathered the -fuel together. When, after a long interval of coaxing and cursing, the -flame quivered up into the twilight, it showed him Ada sitting humped at -the entrance to their shelter; and at sight of her, inert and watching -him—watching him!—his wrath flared sudden and furious. - -“Have you filled the cookpot?” he asked, standing over her. “No?... Then -what were you doing—sitting there staring while I worked?” - -She began to whimper, “You’re crool to me!”—and repeated her parrot-like -burden of futile suspicion and grievance; that she knew he wanted to get -her out of the way so as he could leave her, and she couldn’t be left -alone for the night! He had a sense of being smothered by her foolish, -invertebrate persistence, and as he caught her by the shoulders he -trembled and sputtered with rage. - -“God in Heaven, what’s the good of talking to you? If you take me for a -liar, you take me—that’s all. Do you think I care a curse for your -opinion?... But one thing’s certain—you’ll do what I tell you, and -you’ll work. Work, do you hear?—not sit in a lump and idle and stare -while I wait on you! Learn to use your silly hands, not expect me to -light the fire and feed you. And you’ll obey, I tell you—you’ll do what -you’re told. If not—I’ll teach you....” - -He was wearied, thwarted, wet through and unfed since the morning; -baulked of fire and a meal by the folly that had irked him for days; a -man living primitively, in contact with nature and brought face to face -with the workings of the law of the strongest. It chanced that she had -lumped herself down by the bundle of osier-rods he had laid together for -his basket-making; so that when he gripped her by the nape of the neck a -weapon lay ready to his hand. He used it effectively, while she -wriggled, plunged and howled; there was nothing of the Spartan in her -temperament, and each swooping stroke produced a yell. He counted a -dozen and then dropped her, leaving her to rub and bemoan her smarts -while he filled the cookpot at the stream. - -When he came back with the cookpot filled, her noisy blubbering had died -into gulps and snuffles. The heat of his anger was likewise over, having -worked itself off by the mere act of chastisement, and with its cooling -he was conscious of a certain embarrassment. If he did not repent he was -at least uneasy—not sure how to treat her and speak to her—and he -covered his uneasiness, as best he might, by a busy scraping and -cleaning of fish and a noisy snapping of firewood.... A wiser woman -might have guessed his embarrassment from his bearing and movements and -known how to wrest an advantage by transforming it into remorse; Ada, -sitting huddled and smarting on her moss-bed, found no more effective -protest against ill-treatment than a series of unbecoming sniffs. With -every silent moment his position grew stronger, hers weaker; -unconsciously he sensed her acquiescence in the new and brutal relation, -and when—over his shoulder—he bade her “Come along, if you want any -supper,” he knew, without looking, that she would come at his word, take -the food that he gave her and eat. - - * * * * * - -They discussed the subject once and very briefly—at the latter end of a -meal consumed in silence. A full stomach gives courage and confidence; -and Ada, having supped and been heartened, tried a sulky “You’ve been -very crool to me.” - -In answer, she was told, “You deserved it.” - -After this unpromising beginning it took her two or three minutes to -decide on her next observation. - -“I believe,” she quavered tearfully, “you’ve taken the skin off my -back.” - -“Nonsense!” he said curtly. Which was true. - - * * * * * - -The episode marked his acceptance of a new standard, his definite -abandonment of the code of civilization in dealings between woman and -man. With another wife than Ada the lapse into primitive relations would -have been less swift and certainly far less complete; she was so plainly -his mental inferior, so plainly amenable to the argument of force and no -other, that she facilitated his conversion to the barbaric doctrine of -marriage. And his conversion was the more thorough and lasting from the -success of his uncivilized methods of ruling a household; where -reasoning and kindliness had failed of their purpose, the sting of the -rod had worked wonders.... Ada sulked through the evening and sniffed -herself to sleep; but in the morning, when he woke, she had filled the -cookpot and was busied at the breakfast fire. - -They had adapted themselves to their environment, the environment of -primitive humanity. That morning when he started for his snaring he -started alone; Ada stayed, without remonstrance, to dry moss, collect -firewood and perform the small duties of the camp. - - - - - XIV - - -It was a solid fact that from the day of her subjection to the rod and -rule of her overlord, Ada found life more bearable; and watching her, at -first in puzzlement, Theodore came by degrees to understand the reason -for the change in her which was induced—so it seemed—by the threat and -magic of an osier-wand. In the end he realized that the fundamental -cause of her sodden, stupid wretchedness had been lack of effective -interest—and that in finding an interest, however humble, she had found -herself a place in the world. Her interest, in the beginning, was -nothing more exalted than the will to avoid a second switching; but, -undignified as it was in its origin, it implied a stimulus to action -which had hitherto been wanting, and a process of adaptation to the new -relationship between herself and her man. By accepting him as master, -with the right unquestioned of reward and punishment, she had provided -herself with that object in life to which she had been unable to attain -by the light of her own mentality. - -With an eye on the osier-heap she worked that she might please and, -finding occupation, brooded less; learning imperceptibly to look on the -new world primitive as a reality whose hardships could be mitigated by -effort, instead of an impossible nightmare. As she wrestled with present -difficulties—the daily tasks she dared no longer neglect—the trams, -shop-windows and chiffons of the past receded on her mental horizon. -Not, fundamentally, that they were any less dear to her; but the need of -placating an overlord at hand took up part of her thoughts and time. Too -slothful, both in mind and in body, to acquire of her own intelligence -and initiative the changed habits demanded by her changed surroundings, -she was unconsciously relieved—because instantly more comfortable—when -the necessary habits were forced on her. - -With the allotment of her duties and the tacit definition of her status -that followed on the night of her chastisement, their life on the whole -became easier, better regulated; and the mere fact of their frequent -separation during part of the day made their coming together more -pleasant. Companionship in any but the material sense it was out of her -power to offer; but she could give her man a welcome at the end of the -day and take lighter work off his hands. Her cooking was always a matter -of guesswork and to the last she was stupid, unresourceful and clumsy -with her fingers; but she fetched and carried, washed pots and garments -in the stream, was hewer of wood and drawer of water and kept their camp -clean and in order. In time she even learned to take a certain amount of -pleasure in the due fulfilment of her task-work; when Theodore, having -discovered a Spanish chestnut-tree not far from their dwelling, set her -the job of storing nuts against the winter, she pointed with pride in -the evening to the size of the heap she had collected. - -Now that she was admittedly his underling, subdued to his authority, he -found it infinitely easier to be patient with her many blunders; and -though there were still moments when her brainlessness and limitations -galled him to anger, on the whole he grew fonder of her—with a -patronizing, kindly affection. He still cherished his plans of -exploration unhampered by her company but, from pity for the fears she -no longer dared to talk of, refrained from present mention thereof; -while the nights were long and dark it would be cruel to leave her, and -by the time spring came round again she might have grown less fearful of -solitude.... Or, before spring came, the world might make a sign and -plans of exploration be needless. - -Meanwhile, resigning himself to his daily and solitary round, he worked -hard and anxiously to provision his household for a second winter of -loneliness. - - * * * * * - -It was when the days were nearly at their shortest that the round and -tenor of his life was broken by the shock of a disturbing knowledge. -Trudging homewards toward sunset on a mild December evening, he came -upon his wife sitting groaning in the path; she had been on her way to -the stream for water when a paroxysm of sickness overtook her. Since the -days of starvation he had never seen her ill and the violence of the -paroxysm frightened him; when it was over and she leaned on him -exhausted as he led her back to their camping-place, he questioned her -anxiously as to what had upset her—had she pain, had she eaten anything -unwholesome or unusual? She shook her head silently in answer to his -queries till he sat her down by the fire; then, as he knelt beside her, -stirring the logs into a blaze, she caught his arm suddenly and pressed -her face tightly against it. - -“Ow, Theodore, I’m going to ’ave a baiby!” - -“What?” he said. “What?”—and stared at her, his mouth wide open.... -Perhaps she was hurt or disappointed at his manner of taking the news; -at any rate she burst into floods of noisy weeping, rocking herself -backwards and forwards and hiding her face in her hands. He did his best -to soothe her, stroking her hair and encircling her shoulders with an -arm; seeking vainly for the words that would stay her tears, for -something that would hearten and uplift her. He supposed she was -frightened—more frightened even than he was; his first bewildered -thought, when he heard the news, had been “What, in God’s name, shall we -do?” - -He drew her head to his shoulder, muttering “There, there,” as one would -to a child, till her noisy demonstrative sobbing died down to an -intermittent whimper; and when she was quieted she volunteered an answer -to the question his mind had been forming. She thought it would be -somewhere about five months—but it mightn’t be so long, she couldn’t be -sure. She didn’t know enough about it to be sure—how could she, seeing -as it was her first?... She had been afraid for ever so long now—weeks -and weeks—but she’d gone on hoping and that was why she hadn’t said -anything about it before. Now there wasn’t any doubt—she wondered he -hadn’t seen for himself ... and she clung to him again with another -burst of noisy weeping. - -“But,” he ventured uncertainly, reaching out after comfort, “when it’s -over—and there’s the baby—you’ll be glad, won’t you?” - -His appeal to the maternal instinct had no immediate success. Ada -protested with yet noisier crying that she was bound to die when the -baby came, so how could she possibly be glad? It was all very well for -him to talk like that—he didn’t have to go through it! Lots of women -died, even when they had proper ’orspitals and doctors and nurses.... - -He listened helplessly, not knowing how to take her; until, common sense -coming to his aid, he fell back on the certainty that exhausting, -hysterical weeping could by no possibility be good for her, rebuked her -with authority for upsetting herself and insisted on immediate -self-control. It was well for them both that wifely obedience was -already a habit with Ada; by the change in his tone she recognized an -order, pulled herself together, rubbed her swollen eyes and even made an -effort to help with the preparing of supper—whining a little, now and -again, but checking the whine before it had risen to a wail. - -She was manifestly cheered by a bowlful of hot stew—whereof, though she -pushed it away at first, she finished by eating sufficiently; and, once -convinced that the outburst of emotion was over, he petted her, though -not too sympathetically, lest he stirred her again to self-pity. She was -not particularly responsive to his hesitating suggestions anent the -coming joys of maternity; more successful in raising her spirits were -his actual encouraging pats and caresses, his assumption of confidence -greater than he felt in the neighbourhood of men and women whose hands -were not turned against their fellows.... He realized that, as the -suspicion of her motherhood grew to a certainty, she had spent long, -lonely hours oppressed by sheer physical terror; and he reproached -himself for having been carelessly unobservant of a suffering that -should long ere this have been plain to him. - -He was longing to be alone and to think undistracted; it was a relief to -him therefore when, warmed, fed, and exhausted by her crying, she began -to nod against his shoulder. He insisted jestingly on immediate bed, -patted and pulled at her moss-couch before she lay down, kissed -her—whereupon she again cried a little—and sat beside her, listening, -till her breathing was even and regular. Once sure that she slept, he -crept back to the fire to sit with his chin on his hands; outside was -the silence of a still December night, where the only sound was the rush -of water and the hiss and snap of burning logs. - - * * * * * - -With his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, he stared into -the fire and the future ... wondering why it had come as a shock to -him—this natural, this almost inevitable consequence of the life he -shared with a woman? He found no immediate answer to the question; -understanding only that the animal and unreflecting need which had -driven them into each other’s arms had coloured their whole -sex-relation. They had lived like the animal, without any thought of the -future.... Now the civilized man in him demanded that his child should -be born of something more than unreasoning lust of the flesh and there -stirred in him a craving to reverence the mother of his son.... Ada, -flaccid, lazy, infantile of mind, was more, for the moment, than her -prosaic, incapable self. A rush of tenderness swept over him—for her and -for the little insistent life which might, when its time came, have to -struggle into being unaided.... - -With the thought returned the dread which had flashed into his mind when -Ada revealed to him his fatherhood. If their life in hiding were -destined to continue—if all men within reach were as those they had fled -from, there would come the moment when—he should not know what to do!... -He remembered, years ago, in the rooms of a friend, a medical student, -how, with prurient youthful curiosity, he had picked up a textbook on -midwifery—and sought feverishly to recall what he had read as he -fluttered its pages and eyed its startling illustrations. - -As had happened sometimes in the first days of loneliness, the immensity -of the world overwhelmed him; he sat crouched by his fire, an insect of -a man, surrounded by unending distances. An insect of a man, a pigmy, -whom nature in her vastness ignored; yet, for all his insignificance, -the guardian of life, the keeper of a woman and her child.... They would -look to him for sustenance, for guidance and protection; and he, the -little man, would fend for them—his mate and his young.... - -Of a sudden he knew himself close kin to the bird and beast; to the -buck-rabbit diving to the burrow where his doe lay cuddled with her soft -blind babies; to the round-eyed blackbird with a beakful gathered for -the nest.... The loving, anxious, protective life of the winged and -furry little fathers—its unconscious sacrifice brought a lump to his -throat and the world was less alien and dreadful because peopled with -his brethren—the guardians of their mates and their young. - - - - - XV - - -It was clear to him, so soon as he knew of his coming fatherhood, that, -in spite of the drawbacks of winter travelling, his long-deferred -journey of exploration must be undertaken at once; the companionship of -men, and above all of women, was a necessity to be sought at the risk of -any peril or hardship. Hence—with misgiving—he broached the subject to -Ada next morning; and in the end, with smaller opposition than he had -looked for, her lesser fears were mastered by her greater. That the -certain future danger of unaided childbirth might be spared her, she -consented to the present misery of days and nights of solitude; and -together they made preparations for his voyage of discovery in the -outside world and her lonely sojourn in the camp. - -As he had expected, her first suggestion had been that they should break -camp and journey forth together; but he had argued her firmly out of the -idea, insisting less on the possible dangers of his journey—which he -strove, rather, to disguise from her—than on her own manifest unfitness -for exertion and exposure to December weather. Once more the habit of -wifely obedience came to his assistance and her own, and she bowed to -her overlord’s decision—if tearfully, without temper or sullenness; -while, the decision once taken, it was he, and not Ada, who lay wakeful -through the night and conjured up visions of possible disaster in his -absence. His imagination was quickened by the new, strange knowledge of -his responsibility, the protective sense it had awakened; and, lying -wide awake in the still of the night, it was not only possible danger to -Ada that he dreaded—he was suddenly afraid for himself. If misfortune -befell him on his journey into the unknown, it would be more than his -own misfortune; on his strength, his luck and well-being depended the -life of his woman and her unborn child. If evil befell him and he never -came back to them—if he left his bones in the beyond.... At the thought -the sweat broke out on his face and he started up shivering on his -moss-bed. - -He worked through the day at preparations for the morning’s departure -which, if simple, demanded thought and time; saw that plentiful -provision of food and dry fuel lay ready to his wife’s hand, so that -small exertion would be needed for the making of fire and meal. For his -own provisioning he filled a bag with cooked fish, chestnuts and the -like—store enough to keep him with care for five or six days. All was -made ready by nightfall for an early start on the morrow; and he was -awake and afoot with the first reddening of a dull December morning. -Fearing a breakdown from Ada at the last moment, he had planned to leave -her still asleep; but the crackling of a log he had thrown on the embers -roused her and she sat up, pushing the tumbled brown hair from her eyes. - -“You’re gowing?” she asked with a catch in her voice; and he avoided her -eye as he nodded back “Yes,” and slung his bag over his shoulder. - -“Just off,” he told her with blatant cheeriness. “Take care of yourself -and have a good breakfast. There’s water in the cookpot—and mind you -look after the fire. I’ve put you plenty of logs handy—more than you’ll -want till I come back. Good-bye!” - -“You might say good-bye properly,” she whimpered after him. - -He affected not to hear and strode away whistling; he had purposely -tried to make the parting as careless and unemotional as his daily going -forth to work. Purposely, therefore, he did not look back until he was -too far away to see her face; it was only when the trees were about to -hide him that he turned, waved and shouted and saw her lift an arm in -reply. She did not shout back—he guessed that she could not—and when the -trees hid him he ran for a space, lest the temptation to follow and call -him back should master her. - -He had planned out his journey often enough during the last few months; -considering the drift of the river and lie of the country and attempting -to reduce them to map-form on the soil by the aid of a pointed stick. -His idea was to make, in the first place, for the silent village which -had hitherto been the limit of his voyaging; and thence to follow the -road beside the river which in time, very surely, must bring him to the -haunts of men. Somewhere on the banks of the river—beyond the tract of -devastated ground—must dwell those who drank from its waters and fished -in them; who perhaps—now the night of destruction was over and humanity -had ceased to tear at and prey upon itself—were rebuilding their -civilization and salving their treasures from ruin!... The air, crisp -and frosty, set him walking eagerly, and as his body glowed from the -swiftness of his pace a pleasurable excitement took hold of him; his -sweating fears of the night were forgotten and his brain worked keenly, -adventurously. Somewhere, and not far, were men like unto himself, -beginning their life and their world anew in communities reviving and -hopeful. Even, it might be—(he began to dream dreams)—communities -comparatively unscathed; with homes and lands unpoisoned, unshattered, -living ordered and orderly lives!... Some such communities the devils of -destruction must have spared ... if a turn in the valley should reveal -to him suddenly a town like the old towns, with men going out and in! - -He quickened his pace at the thought and the miles went under him -happily. He was no longer alone; even when he entered the long waste of -coarse grass and blackened tree that lay around the dead village its -dreariness was peopled with his vivid and hopeful imaginings ... of a -crowd that hustled to hear his story, that questioned and welcomed and -was friendly—and led him to a house that was furnished and whole ... -where were books and good comfort and talk.... - -So, in pleasant company, he trudged until well after midday; when, -perhaps discouraged by the beginnings of bodily weariness, perhaps -affected by the sight of the stark village street—his unreasonable -hopefulness passed and anxiety returned. He grew conscious, suddenly and -acutely, of his actual surroundings; of silence, of the waste he had -trodden, of the desolation about him, of the unknown loneliness ahead. -That above all—the indefinite, on-stretching loneliness.... He hurried -through the dumb street nervously, listening to his own footsteps—the -beat and the crunch of them on a frozen road, their echo against -deserted walls; and at the end of the village he turned with relief into -the road he had marked on his previous visit, the road that turned to -run by the stream a few yards beyond the bridge. It wound dismally into -a scorched little wood—not one live shoot in it, a cemetery of poisoned -trees; then on, still keeping fairly close to the stream, through the -same long waste patched with grass and spreading weed. The road, though -it narrowed and was overgrown and crumbling in places, was easy enough -to follow for the first few hours, but he sought in vain for traces of -its recent use. There was no sign of man or the works of man in use; the -only token of his presence were, now and again, a fire-blackened -cottage, a jumble of rusted, twisted ironwork or a skeleton with rank -grass thrusting through the whitened ribs. When the river rounded a turn -in the hills, the prospect before him was even as the prospect behind; a -waste and silence where corn had once grown and cattle pastured. - -As the day wore on the heavy silence was irksome and more than irksome. -It was broken only by the sound of his footsteps, the whisper of grass -in a faint little wind and now and again—more rarely—by the chirp and -flutter of a bird. Long before dusk he began to fear the night, to -think, with something like craving, of the shelter and the fire and the -woman beside it—that was home; the thought of hours of darkness spent -alone amongst the whitened bones of men and the blackened carcases of -trees loomed before him as a growing threat. He pushed on doggedly, -refusing himself the spell of rest he needed, in the hope that when -night came down on him he might have left the drear wilderness behind. - -It was a hope doomed to disappointment; the fall of the early December -evening found him still in the unending waste, and when the dusk -thickened into darkness he camped, perforce, near the edge of the river -in the lee of a broken wall. The branches of a dead tree near by -afforded him fuel for the fire that he kindled with difficulty with the -aid of a rough contrivance of flint and steel; and as he crouched by the -blaze and ate his evening ration he scanned the night sky with anxious -and observant eyes. So far the weather had been clear and dry, but he -realized the peril of a break in it, of a snowstorm in shelterless -country.... If to-morrow were only as to-day—if the waste stretched on -without trace of man or sign of ending—what then? Would it be wise or -safe to push on for yet another day—leaving home yet further behind him? -For the journey back the waste must be recrossed, in whatever weather -the winter pleased to send him; traversed by day and camped on by night, -in hail, in rain, in snow.... The thought gave him pause since exposure -might well mean death—and to more than himself. - -He slept little and brokenly, rousing at intervals with a shiver as the -fire died down for want of tendance; and was on his feet with the first -grey of morning, trudging forward with fear at his heels. It was a fear -that pressed close on them with the passing of long lonely hours; still -wintry hours wherethrough he strained his eyes for a curl of smoke or a -movement on the outspread landscape.... The day was yesterday over -again; the same pale sky, the dull swollen river that led him on, and -the endless waste of shallow valley; and when night came down again he -knew only this—a clump of hills that had been distant was nearer, and he -was a day’s tramp further on his way. He settled at sundown in a copse -of withered trees which afforded him plentiful firing if little else in -the way of shelter from the night; and having kindled a blaze he warmed -his food, ate and slept—too weary to lie awake and brood. - - * * * * * - -He had not slept long—for the logs still glowed redly and flickered—when -he started into wakefulness that was instant, complete and alert. -Something—he knew it—had stirred in the silence and roused him; he sat -up, peered round and listened with the watchful terror instinctive in -the hunted, be the hunted beast or man. For a moment he peered round, -seeing nothing, hearing nothing but the whisper of the fire and the -beating of his own heart ... then, in the blackness, two points caught -the firelight—eyes!... Eyes unmistakable, that glowed and were fixed on -him.... - -He stiffened and stared at them, open-mouthed; then, as a sudden flicker -of the dying flame showed the outline of a bearded human face, he choked -out something inarticulate and made to scramble to his feet. Swift as -was the movement he was still on a knee when someone from behind leaped -on him and pinned both arms to his sides.... As he wrestled -instinctively other hands grasped him; he was the held and helpless -captive of three or four who clutched him by throat, wrist and -shoulder.... - -By that token he was back among men. - - - - - XVI - - -When they had him down and helpless at their feet, a dry branch was -thrust into the embers and, as it flamed, held aloft that the light -might fall upon his face. To him it revealed the half-dozen faces that -looked down at him—weatherworn, hairy and browned with dirt, the eyes, -for the moment, aglow with the pleasure of the hunter who has tracked -and snared his prey. They held their prey and gazed at it, as they would -have gazed at and measured a beast they had roped into helplessness. -Satisfaction at the capture shone in their faces; the natural and grim -satisfaction of him who has met and mastered his natural enemy.... That, -for the moment, was all; they had met with a man and overcome him. -Curiosity, even, would come later. - -Theodore, after his first instinctive lunge and struggle, lay -motionless—flaccid and beaten; understanding in a flash that was agony -that men were still what they had been when he fled from them into the -wilderness—beast-men who stalked and tore each other. In the torchlight -the dirty, coarse faces were savage and animal; the eyes that glowered -down at him had the staring intentness of the animal.... He expected -death from a blow or a knife-thrust, and closed his eyes that he might -not see it coming; and instead saw, as plainly as with bodily eyes, a -vision of Ada by the camp fire, sitting hunched and listening for his -footstep. Listening for it, staring at the dreadful darkness—through -night after dreadful night.... In a torment of pity for his mate and her -child he stammered an appeal for his life. - -“For God’s sake—I wasn’t doing any harm. If you’ll only listen—my -wife.... All that I want....” - -If they were moved they did not show it, and it may be they were not -moved—having lived, themselves, through so much of misery and bodily -terror that they had ceased to respond to its familiar workings in -others. Fear and the expression of fear to them were usual and normal, -and they listened undisturbed while he tried to stammer out his -pleading. Not only undisturbed but apparently uninterested; while he -spoke one was twisting the knife from his belt and another taking stock -of the contents of his food-bag; and he had only gasped out a broken -sentence or two when the holder of the torch—as it seemed the leader—cut -him short with “Are you alone?”... Once satisfied on that head he -listened no more, but dropped the torch back on to the fire and kicked -apart the dying embers. The action was apparently a sign to move on; the -hands that gripped Theodore dragged him to his feet and urged him -forward; and, with a captor holding to either arm, he stumbled out of -the clump of stark trees into the open desert—now whitened by a moon at -the full. - -There was little enough talk amongst his captors as, for more than two -hours, they thrust and guided him along; such muttered talk as there -was, was not addressed to their prisoner and he judged it best to be -silent. It was—so he guessed—the red shine of his fire that had drawn -attention to his presence; and, the fear of instant death removed, he -drew courage from the thought that the men who held and hurried him must -be dwellers in some near-by village. Once he had reached it and been -given opportunity to tell his story and explain his presence, they would -cease to hold him in suspicion—so he comforted himself as they strode -through the wilderness in silence. - -After an hour of steady tramping they turned inland sharply from the -river till a mile or so brought them to broken, rising ground and a -smaller stream babbling from the hills. They followed its course, for -the most part steadily uphill, and, at the end of another mile, the -scorched black stumps gave place to trees uninjured—spruce firs in their -solemn foliage and oaks with their tracery of twigs. A copse, then a -stretch of short turf and the spring of heather underfoot; then down, to -more trees growing thickly in a hollow—and through them a glow that was -fire. Then figures that moved, silhouetted, in and out of the glow and -across it; an open space in the midst of the trees and hut-shapes, -half-seen and half-guessed at, in the mingling of flicker and deep -shadow.... Out of the darkness a dog yapped his warning—then another—and -at the sound Theodore thrilled and quivered as at a voice from another -world. Now and again, while he lived in his wilderness, he had heard the -sharp and familiar yelp of some masterless dog, run wild and hunting for -his food; but the dog that lived with man and guarded him was an adjunct -of civilization! - -The warning had roused the little community before the newcomers emerged -from the shadow of the trees; and as they entered the clearing and were -visible, men hurried towards them, shouting questions. Theodore found -himself the centre of a staring, hustling group—which urged him to the -fire that it might see him the better, which questioned his guards while -it stared at him.... Here, too, was the strange aloofness that refrained -from direct address; he was gazed at, stolidly or eagerly, taken stock -of as if he were a beast, and his guards explained how and where they -had found him, as if he himself were incapable of speech, as they might -have spoken of the finding of a dog that had strayed from its owner. -Perhaps it was uneasiness that held him silent, or perhaps he adapted -himself unconsciously to the general attitude; at any rate—as he -remembered afterwards—he made no effort to speak. - -The men and women who crowded round him, staring and murmuring, were in -number, perhaps, between thirty and forty; women with matted hair -straggling and men unshorn, their garments, like his own, a patchwork of -oddments and all of them uncouth and unclean. One woman, he noted, had a -child at her half-naked breast; a dirty little nursling but a few months -old, its downy pate crusted with scabs. He stared at it, wondering as to -the manner of its birth—the mother returning his scrutiny with -open-mouthed interest until shouldered aside without ceremony by a man -whom Theodore recognized for the leader of his band of captors. When -they reached the shadow of the clump of trees he had stridden ahead and -vanished, presumably to report and seek orders from some higher -authority; and now, at a word from him, Theodore was again jerked -forward by his guards and, with the crowd breaking and trailing behind -him, was led some fifty or sixty yards further to where, on the edge of -the clump of trees, stood a building, a tumbledown cottage. The moon -without and a fire within showed broken panes stuffed with moss and a -thatched roof falling to decay; inside the atmosphere was foul and -stale, and heavy with the heat of a blazing wood fire which alone gave -light to the room. - -By the fire, seated on a backless kitchen chair, sat a man, grey of head -and bent of shoulder; but even in the firelight his eyes were keen and -steely—large bright-blue eyes that shone under thick grey eyebrows. His -face, with its bright, stubborn eyes and tight mouth, was—for all its -dirt—the face of a man who gave orders; and it did not escape the -prisoner that the others—the crowd that was thrusting and packing itself -into the room—were one and all silent till he spoke. - -“Come nearer,” he said—and on the word, Theodore was pushed close to -him. “Let him go”—and Theodore was loosed. Someone, at a sign, lit a -stick from the heap beside the fire and held it aloft; and for a moment, -till it flared itself out, there was silence, while the old man peered -at the stranger. With the sudden light the hustling and jostling ceased, -and the crowd, like Theodore, waited on the old man’s words. - -“Tell me,” at last came the order, “what you were doing here. Tell me -everything”—and he lifted a dirty lean finger like a threat—“what you -were doing on our land, where you came from, what you want?... and speak -the truth or it will be the worse for you.” - -Theodore told him; while the steel-blue eyes searched his face as well -as they might in the semi-darkness and the half-seen crowd stood mute. -He told of his life as it had been lived with Ada; of their complete -separation from their fellows for the space of nearly two years; of the -coming of the child and the consequent need of help for his -wife—conscious, all the time, not only of the questioning, unshrinking -eyes of his judge but of the other eyes that watched him suspiciously -from the corners and shadows of the room. Two or three times he faltered -in his telling, oppressed by the long, steady silence; for throughout -there was no comment, no word of interest or encouragement—only once, -when he paused in the hope of encouragement, the old man ordered “Go -on!”... He went on, striving to steady his voice and pleading against he -knew not what of hostility, suspicion and fear. - -“... And so,” he ended uncertainly, “they found me. I wasn’t doing any -harm.... I suppose they saw my fire?...” - -From someone in the darkness behind him came a grunt that might indicate -assent—then, again, there was silence that lasted.... The dumb, heavy -threat of it was suddenly intolerable and Theodore broke it with -vehemence. - -“For God’s sake tell me what you’re going to do! It’s not much I ask and -it’s not for myself I ask it. If you can’t help me yourselves there must -be other people who can—tell me where I am and where I ought to go. My -wife—she must have help.” - -There was no actual response to his outburst, but some of the half-seen -figures stirred and he heard a muttering in the shadow that he took for -the voices of women. - -“Tell me where I am,” he repeated, “and where I can go for help.” - -It was the first question only that was answered. - -“You are on our land.” - -“Your land—but where is it? In what part of England?” - -“I don’t know,” said the old man and shrugged his lean shoulders. “But -you haven’t any right on it. It’s ours.” - -He pushed back his chair and stood up to his full, tall height; then, -raising his hand, addressed the assembly of his followers. - -“You have all of you heard what he said and know what he wants. Now let -me hear what you think. Say it out loud and not in each other’s ears.” - -He dropped his arm and stood waiting a reply—and after a moment one came -from the back of the room. - -“It’s winter,” said a man’s voice, half-sulky, half-defiant, “and we’ve -hardly enough left for ourselves. We don’t want any more mouths -here—we’ve more than we can fill as it is.” A murmur of agreement -encouraged him and he went on—louder and pushing through the crowd as he -spoke. “We fend for our own and he must fend for his. He ought to think -himself lucky if we let him go after we’ve taken him on our land. What -business had he there?” - -This time the murmur of agreement was stronger and a second voice called -over it: - -“If we catch him here again he won’t get off so easily!” - -The assent that followed was more than assent; applause that swelled and -grew almost clamorous. The old man stilled it with a lifting of his -knotted hand. - -“Then you won’t have him here? You don’t want him?” - -The “No” in answer was vigorous; refusal, it seemed, was unanimous. -Theodore tried to speak, to explain that all he asked ... but again the -knotted hand was lifted. - -“And are you—for letting him go?” - -The words dropped out slowly and were followed by a hush—significant as -the question itself.... This much was clear to the listener: that behind -them lay a fear and a threat. The nature of the threat could be guessed -at—since they would not keep him and dared not let him go; but where and -what was the motive for the fear that had prompted the slow, sly -question and the uneasy silence that followed it?... He heard his own -heart-beats in the long uneasy silence—while he sought in vain for the -reason of their dread of one man and tried in vain to find words. It -seemed minutes—long minutes—and not seconds till a voice made answer -from the shadows: - -“Not if it isn’t safe.” - -And at the words, as a signal, came voices from this side and -that—speech hurried, excited and tumultuous. It wasn’t safe—what did -they know of him and how could they prove his story true? He might be a -spy—now he knew where to find them, knew they had food, he might come -back and bring others with him! When he tried to speak the voices grew -louder, over-shouted him—and one man at his side, gesticulating wildly, -cried out that they would be mad to let him go, since they could not -tell how much he knew. The phrase was taken up, as it seemed in panic—by -man after man and woman after woman—they could not tell how much he -knew! They pressed nearer as they shouted, their faces closing in on -him—spitting, working mouths and angry eyes. They were handling him -almost; and when once they handled him—he knew it—the end would be sure -and swift. He dared not move, lest fingers went up to his throat. He -dared not even cry out. - -It was the old man who saved him with another call for silence. Not out -of mercy—there was small mercy in the lined, dirty face—but because, it -seemed, there was yet another point to be considered. - -“If they came again”—he jerked his head towards the open—“we should be a -man the stronger. Now they are stronger than we are—by nearly a -dozen....” - -Apparently the argument had weight, for its hearers stood uncertain and -arrested—and instinct bade Theodore seize on the moment they had given -him.... What he said in the beginning he could not remember—how he -caught their attention and held it—but when cooler consciousness -returned to him they were listening while he bargained for his life.... -He bargained and haggled for the right to live—offering goods and sweat -and muscle in exchange for a place on the earth. He was strong and would -work for them; he could hunt and fish and dig; he would earn by his -labour every mouthful that fell to him, every mouthful that fell to his -wife.... More, he had food of his own laid away for the winter -months—dried fish and nuts and the store of fruit he had salved and -hoarded from the autumn. These all could be fetched and shared if need -be.... He bribed them while they haggled with their eyes. Let them come -with him—any of them—and prove what he said; he had more than enough—let -them come with him.... When he stopped, exhausted and sobbing for -breath, the extreme of the danger had passed. - -“If he has food,” someone grunted—and Theodore, turning to the unseen -speaker, cried out—“I swear I have! I swear it!” - -He hoped he had won; and then knew himself in peril again when the man -who had raised the cry before repeated doggedly that they could not tell -how much he knew.... - -“Take him away,” said the old man suddenly. “You take him—you two”—and -he pointed twice. “Keep him while we talk—till I send for you.” - -At least it was reprieve and Theodore knew himself in safety, if only -for a passing moment. For their own comfort, if not for his, his guards -escorted him to the fire in the open, where they crouched down, stolid -and watchful, Theodore between them—exhausted by emotion and flaccid -both in body and mind.... There was a curious relief in the knowledge -that he had shot his last bolt and could do nothing more to save -himself; that whatever befell him—release or swift death—was a happening -beyond his control. No effort more was required of him and all that he -could do was to wait. - -He waited dumbly, in the end almost drowsily, with his head bent forward -on his knees. - - - - - XVII - - -After minutes, or hours, a hand was laid on his shoulder and shook it; -he raised his eyes stupidly, saw his guards already on their feet and -with them a third man—sent, doubtless, with orders to summon them. He -rose, knowing that a decision had been made, one way or another, but -still oddly numb and unmoved.... The two men with him thrust a way into -the crowded little room, elbowing their fellows aside till they had -pushed and dragged their charge to the neighbourhood of the fireplace -and set him face to face with his judge. As they fell back a pace or -two—as far as the crowding of the room allowed—someone again lit a -branch at the fire and held it up that the light might fall upon the -prisoner. - -To Theodore the action brought with it a conviction that his sentence -was death and his manner of receiving it a diversion for the eyes of the -beholders.... The old man was waiting, intent, with his chin on his -hand, that he might lengthen the diversion by lengthening the suspense -of the prisoner.... - -When he spoke at last his words were a surprise—instead of a judgment, -came a query. - -“What were you?” he asked suddenly; and, at the unexpected, irrelevant -question, Theodore, still numb, hesitated—then repeated mechanically, -“What was I?” - -“In the days before the Ruin—what were you? What sort of work did you -do? How did you earn your living?” - -He knew that, pointless as the question seemed, there was something that -mattered behind it; his face was being searched for the truth and the -ring of listeners had ceased to jostle and were waiting in silence for -the answer. - -“I—I was a clerk,” he stammered, bewildered. - -“A clerk,” the other repeated—as it seemed to Theodore suspiciously. -“There were a great many different kinds of clerks—they did all sorts of -things. What did you do?” - -“I was a civil servant,” Theodore explained. “A clerk in the -Distribution Office—in Whitehall.” - -“That means you wrote letters—did accounts?” - -“Yes. Wrote letters, principally ... and filed them. And drew up -reports....” - -The question sent him back through the ages. In the eye of his mind he -saw his daily office—the shelves, the rows of files, interminable -files—and himself, neat-suited, clean-fingered, at his desk. -Neat-suited, clean-fingered and idling through a short day’s work; with -Cassidy’s head at the desk by the window—and Birnbaum, the Jew boy, who -always wore a buttonhole.... He brought himself back with an effort, -from then to now—from the seemly remembrance of the life bureaucratic to -a crowd of evil-smelling savages.... - -“You were always that—just a clerk? You have never had any other way of -earning a living?”... And again he knew that the answer mattered, that -his “No!” was listened for intently. - -“You weren’t ever an engineer?” the old man persisted. “Or a scientific -man of any kind?” - -“No,” Theodore repeated, “I have never had anything to do with either -engineering or science. When I left the University I went straight into -the Distribution Office and I stayed there till the war.” - -“University!” The word (so it seemed to him) was snatched at. “You’re a -college man?” - -“I was at Oxford,” Theodore told him. - -“A college man—then they must have taught you science. They always -taught it at colleges. Chemistry and that sort of thing—you know -chemistry?” - -In the crowd was a sudden thrill that was almost murmur; and Theodore -hesitated before he answered, his tongue grown dry in his mouth.... Were -these people, these outcasts from civilization, hoping to find in him a -guide and saviour who should lighten the burden of their barbarism by -leading them back to the science which had once been a part of their -daily life, but of which they had no practical knowledge?... If so, how -far was it safe to lie to them? and how far, having lied, could he -disguise his dire ignorance of processes mechanical and chemical? What -would they hope from him, expect in the way of achievement and proof?... -Miracles, perhaps—sheer blank impossibilities.... - -“Science—they taught it you,” the old man was reiterating, insisting. - -“Yes, they taught it me,” he stammered, delaying his answer. “That is to -say, I used to attend lectures....” - -“Then you know chemistry? Gases and how to make them?... And machines—do -you know about machines? You could help us with machines—tell us how to -make one?” - -The dirty old face peered up at him, waiting for his “Yes”; and he knew -the other faces that he could not see were peering from the shadow with -the same odd, sinister eagerness. All waiting, expectant.... The -temptation to lie was overwhelming and what held him back was no scruple -of conscience but the brute impossibility of making good his claim to a -knowledge he did not possess. The utter ignorance betrayed by the form -of the old man’s speech—“You know chemistry—do you know about -machines?”—would make no allowance for the difficulty of applying -knowledge and see no difference between theory and instant practice.... -In his hopelessness he gave them the truth and the truth only. - -“I have told you already I am not an engineer—I have never had any -training in mechanics. As for chemistry—I had to attend lectures at -school and college. But that was all—I never really studied it and I’m -afraid I remember very little—almost nothing that would be of any -practical use to you.... I don’t know what you want but, whatever it is, -it would need some sort of apparatus—a chemist has to have his tools -like other men. Even if I were a trained chemist I should need -those—even if I were a trained chemist I couldn’t separate gases with my -bare hands. For that sort of thing you need a laboratory—a workshop—the -proper appliances.... I’ll work for you in any way that’s possible—any -way—but you mustn’t expect impossibilities, chemistry and mechanics from -a man who hasn’t been trained in them.... And why should you expect me -to do what you can’t do yourselves—why should you? Is it fair?...” - -There was no immediate answer, but suddenly he knew that the silence -around him had ceased to be threatening and tense. The old man’s eyes -had left his own; they were moving round the room and searching, as it -seemed, for assent.... In the end they came back to Theodore—and -judgment was given. - -“If you are what you say you are, we will take you; but if you have lied -to us and you know what is forbidden, we shall find you out sooner or -later and, as sure as you stand there, we will kill you. If you are what -you say you are—a plain man like us and without devil’s knowledge—you -may come to us and bring your woman, if she also is without devil’s -knowledge. That is, if you can feed her; we have only enough for -ourselves. And from this day forward you will be our man; and to-morrow -you will take the oath to be what we are and live as we do, and be our -man against all our enemies and perils. Are you agreed to that?” - -He was saved and Ada with him—so much he knew; but as yet it was not -clear what had saved him. He was to be their man—take an oath and be one -with them—and there was the phrase “devil’s knowledge,” twice -repeated.... He stared stupidly at the man who had granted his -life—realizing that his ordeal was over only when the packed room -emptied itself and the old man turned back to his fire. - - - - - XVIII - - -It was the phrase “devil’s knowledge” that, when his first bewilderment -was over, gave Theodore the clue to the meaning of the scene he had -lived through and the outlook of those whose man he would become on the -morrow. That and the sudden memory of Markham ... on the crest of the -centuries, on the night when the crest curled over... - -He was so far taken into tribal fellowship that he had ceased to be -openly a prisoner; but the two men who, for the rest of the night, -shared with him the shelter of a lean-to hut, took care to bestow -themselves between their guest and the entrance. He got little out of -them in the way of enlightenment, for they were asleep almost as they -flung themselves down on their moss; but for hours, while they snored, -Theodore lay open-eyed, piecing together his fragmentary information of -the world into which he had strayed. - -“Without devil’s knowledge”—that, if he understood aright, was the -qualification for admission to the life that had survived disaster. -“Devil’s knowledge” being—if he was not mad—the scientific, mechanical, -engineering lore which was the everyday acquirement of thousands on -thousands of ordinary civilized men. The everyday acquirements of -ordinary men were anathema; if he was not mad, his own life had been -granted him for the reason only that he was unskilled and devoid of -them. Ignorant, even as the men who spared him, of practical science and -mechanics—a plain man, like unto them.... Ignorance was prized here, -esteemed as a virtue—the old man’s query, “You’re a college man?” had -been accusation disguised. - -In a flash it was clear to him, and he saw through the farce whereby he -had been tested and tempted; understood the motive that had prompted its -cruel low cunning and all that the cunning implied of acceptance of -barbarism, insistence on it.... What these outcasts, these remnants of -humanity feared above all things was a revival of the science, the -mechanical powers, that had wrecked their cities, their houses and their -lives and made them—what they were.... In knowledge was death and in -ignorance alone was a measure of peace and security; hence, fearing lest -he was of those who knew too much, they had tempted him to confess to -forbidden knowledge, to boast of it—that, having boasted, they might -kill him without mercy, make an end of his wits with his life. In the -torments inflicted by science destructive they had turned upon science -and renounced it; and, that their terrors might not be renewed in the -future, they were setting up against it an impassable barrier of -ignorance. They had put devil’s knowledge behind them—with intention for -ever.... If when they questioned him and led him on, he had yielded to -the natural impulse to lie, they would have knocked him on the head—like -vermin—without scruple; and the sweat broke out on him as he remembered -how nearly he had lied.... - -He sat up, sweating and staring at darkness, and thrust back the hair -from his forehead.... He was back among men—who, of set purpose and -deliberately, had turned their faces from the knowledge their fathers -had acquired by the patience and toil of generations! Who, of set -purpose and deliberately, sought to filch from their children the -heritage of the ages, the treasure of the mind of man!... That was what -it meant—the treasure of the mind of man! Renunciation of all that long -generations had striven for with patience and learning and devotion.... -The impossibility and the treason of it—to know nothing, to forget all -their fathers had won for them.... He remembered old talk of education -as a birthright and the agitations of reformers and political parties. -To this end. - -Who were they, he asked himself, these people who had made a decision so -terrible—what manner of men in the old life? Now they were seeking to -live as the beasts live, and not only the world material had died to -them, but the world of human aspiration.... To this they had come, these -people who once were human—the beast in them had conquered the brain ... -and like fire there blazed into his brain the commandment: “Thou shalt -not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge! Thou shalt not eat ... -lest ye die.” - -The command, the prohibition, had suddenly a new significance. Was this, -then, the purport of a legend hitherto meaningless? Was this the truth -behind the childish symbol? The deadly truth that knowledge is power of -destruction—power of destruction too great for the human, the fallible, -to wield?... Odd that he had never thought of it before—that, familiar -all his life with a deadly truth, he had read it as primitive -childishness! - -“Of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat ... -lest ye die....” - -He sat numbly repeating the words half aloud till there flashed into his -brain a memory, a vision of Markham. In his room off Great Smith Street -on the night when war was declared—talking rapidly with his mouth full -of biscuit. “Only one thing I’m fairly certain about—I ought to have -been strangled at birth.... If the human animal must fight, it should -kill off its scientific men. Stamp out the race of ’em!”... What was -that but a paraphrase, a modern application of the command laid upon -Adam. “Of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not -eat ... lest ye die.” - -To his first impulse—of amazement and shrinking, as from -treason—succeeded understanding of the outlook of these men and their -decision. More, he wondered why, even in the worst of his despair, he -had always believed in the persistence, the re-birth, of the -civilization that had bred him.... These people—he saw it—were logical, -as Markham had been logical—were wise after the event as Markham had -been wise before it; and it amazed him that in his porings and guessings -at a world reviving he had never hit upon their simple solution of the -eternal problem of war. Markham’s solution; which, till this moment, he -had not taken literally.... “You can’t combine the practice of science -and the art of war; in the end it’s one or the other. We, I think, are -going to prove that—very definitely.” One or the other. The fighting -instinct or knowledge! - -Man, because he fights, must deny himself knowledge—which is power over -the forces of nature; the secrets of nature must be veiled from him by -his own ignorance—lest, when the impulse to strife wells up in him, they -serve him for infinite destruction. These renegades, in agony, had made -confession of their sin, of the corporate sin of a world; had faced the -brutality of their own nature; had denied themselves the fruit of the -Tree of Knowledge, and led themselves out of temptation. Since fight -they must, being men with men’s passions, they would limit their powers -of destruction.... So he read their strange self-denying ordinance. - -The thought led him on to wonder whether they were alone in their -self-denying ordinance.... Surely not—unless they lived hidden, in -complete isolation, out of contact with others of their kind. And -obviously they did not live isolated; they had spoken of others who were -stronger, and of land that was theirs—implying a system of boundary and -penalty for trespass and theft. Further, the phrase “against all -enemies” indicated at least a possibility of the contact that was -bloodshed—yet enemies who had not renounced the advantage of mechanical -and scientific knowledge would be enemies who could overwhelm at the -first encounter a community fighting as barbarians.... What, then, was -their relation to a world more civilized and communities that had not -renounced?... - -In the end, from sheer exhaustion, he ceased to surmise and argue with -himself—and slept suddenly and heavily, huddling for warmth on his -moss-bed against the body of his nearest gaoler. - - * * * * * - -It was a thrust from a foot that awakened him, and he crawled out -shivering into the half-light of dawn and the chill of a frostbitten -morning; the camp was alive and emerging from its shelters, the women -already occupied in cooking the morning meal. Theodore and his guardians -shared a bowl of steaming mess; a mingling of potatoes, dried greenstuff -and gobbets of meat which he guessed to be rat-flesh. They shared it -wolfishly, each man eating fast lest his fellows had more than their -portion; the meal over, the bowl was flung back to the women for -washing, and his gaolers—his mates now—relaxed; there was no further -reason for unfriendliness and they were willing enough to be -communicative, with the slow uncommunicativeness of men who have little -but their daily round to talk about. - -They had neighbours, yes—at least what you might call neighbours; there -was a settlement, much the same size as their own, some three or four -hours’ journey away, on the other side of the river—that was the -nearest, and the tribesmen met sometimes but not often. Being -questioned, they explained that there was frequent trouble about fishing -rights—where our stretch of river ended and theirs began; trouble and, -now and then, fighting. Yes, of course, they lived as we do—how else -should they live?... They were better off for shelter, having taken -possession of a village—but we, in the hills, were much safer, not so -easy to attack or surprise.... No, they were not the only ones; on this -side the river, but farther away, was another settlement, a larger one; -there had been trouble with them, too, as they were very short of food -and sent out raiding parties. They had fallen on the village across the -water, carried off some of its winter stock and set light to three or -four houses; later—a month ago—they had fallen on us, less successfully -because we were warned and on the look-out for them.... That was why we -always have watchers at night—the watchers who saw your fire.... - -Even from a first halting conversation with men who found anything but -sheer statement of fact a difficulty, Theodore was able to construct in -outline the common life of this new humanity, its politics, internal and -external. The constitution of the tribe—the origin and keystone of the -social system—had been, in the beginning, as much a matter of reckless -chance as the mating of himself and Ada; small wandering groups of men, -who had come alive through the agony of war and famine, had been knit -together by a common need or a terror of loneliness, and insensibly -welded into a whole, an embryo community. It was a matter of chance, -too, in the beginning whether the meeting with another little wandering -group would result in bloodshed for the possession of food—sometimes for -the possession of women—or a welcome and the joining up of forces; but -to the joining-up process there was always a limit—the limit of -resources available. A tribe which desired to augment its strength as -against its rivals was faced with the difficulty of filling many hungry -mouths.... Their own community had once been faced with such a -difficulty and had solved it by driving out three or four of its weaker -members. - -“What became of them?” asked Theodore, and was told no one knew. It was -winter when food ran short and they were driven out—and some of them had -come back after nightfall to the edge of the camp and cried to be -allowed in again. Till the men ran out and drove them off with sticks -and stone-throwing. After that they went and were no more seen.... -Later, in the summer, there had broken out a sickness which again -reduced their numbers. When the wind blew for long up the valley it -brought a bad smell with it—and flies. That was what caused the -sickness. There had been a great deal of it; it was said that in a -village lower down the river more than half the inhabitants had died. - -He surmised as he listened—and realized later—that it was the need of -avoiding constant strife that had broken the nomadic habit and -solidified the wandering and fluid groups into tribes with a settled -dwelling-place. Until a limit was set to their wanderings, groups and -single nomads drifted hither and thither in the search for food, -snarling at each other when they met; the end of sheer anarchy came with -appropriation, by a particular group, of a stretch of country which gave -some promise of supporting it. That entailed the institution of communal -property, the setting up of a barrier against the incursions of others—a -barrier which was also a limit beyond which the group must not trespass -on the land and possessions of others.... Swiftly, insensibly and -naturally, there was growing up a system of boundaries; boundaries -established, in the first place, by chance, by force or rough custom and -defined later by meetings between headmen of villages. Within its -boundaries each tribe or group existed as best it might, overstepping -its limits at its peril; but disputing at intervals—as men have disputed -since the world began—the precise terms of the agreement that defined -its limits. And, agreements being verbal only, there were many occasions -for dispute. - -As he questioned his new-made comrades and heard their answers, there -died in Theodore’s heart the hope that these people into whose midst he -had stumbled—these people living like the beasts of the field—were but -dwellers on the outskirts of a world reviving and civilized. Of men -existing in any other fashion than their own he heard no mention, no -rumour; there was talk only of a camp here and a village there—where men -fished and hunted and scratched the ground that they might find the -remains of other’s sowing. The formal intercourse between the various -groups was suspicious and slyly diplomatic, an affair of the meetings of -headmen; though now and again, as life grew more certain, there was -trading in the form of barter. One community had settled in a stretch of -potato-fields, left derelict, which, even under rough and unskilled -cultivation, yielded more than sufficient for its needs; another, by -some miracle, had possessed itself of goats—three or four in the first -instance, found wild among the hills, escaped from the hungry, -indiscriminate slaughter which had bared the countryside of cattle. -These they bred, were envied for, guarded with arms in their hands and -occasionally bartered; not without bitter resentment and dispute at the -price their advantage exacted.... But of those who possessed more than -goats or the leavings of other men’s fields, who lived as men had been -wont to live in the days when the world was civilized—not a trace, not -so much as a word! - -Direct questioning brought only a shake of the head. Towns—yes, of -course there were towns—further on; but no one lived in them—you could -not get a living out of pavements, bricks and hard roads.... Up the -river—the way he had come—was a stretch of dead land where nothing grew -and no one lived; he had seen it for himself and knew best what lay -beyond it. Lower down the river were the other camps like their own; so -many they knew of, and others they had heard of further off. In the -distance—on the other side of those hills—there had been a large town in -the old days; ruins of it—miles of streets and ruins—were lying on both -banks of the river. They themselves had never entered it—only seen it -from a distance—but those who lived nearer had said it was mostly in -ruins and that bodies were thick in the streets. In the summer, they had -heard, it was forbidden to enter it; because it was those who had gone -there in search of plunder who first were smitten with the sickness -which spread from their camp along the valley. It was the wind blowing -over the town—so they said—which brought the bad smell and the flies.... -No, they did not know its name; had never heard it. - - * * * * * - -It was when he turned from the present to the past that Theodore found -himself against a barrier, the barrier unexpected of a plain -unwillingness to talk of the world that had vanished. When spoken of at -all it was spoken of carefully, with precaution and choosing of phrase, -and no man gave easily many details of his life before the Ruin. - -At first the strange attitude puzzled him—he could make nothing of the -odd, suspicious glances whereby questioning was met, the attempt to -parry it, the cautious, non-committal replies; it was only by degrees -that he grasped their significance and understood how complete was that -renunciation of the past which these people had imposed upon themselves. -Forgetfulness—so Theodore learned in time—was more than a precaution; it -had been preached in the new-born world as a religion, accepted as an -article of faith. The prophet who had expressed the common need and -instinct in terms of religion had in due time made his appearance; a -wild-eyed, eloquent scarecrow of a man, aflame with belief in his sacred -mission and with loathing for the sins of the world. Coming from no one -knew where, he carried his gospel through a land left desolate, -proclaiming his creed of salvation through ignorance and crying woe on -the yet unrepentant sinners who should seek to preserve the deadly -knowledge that had brought God’s judgment on the world! - -The seed of his doctrine fell on fruitful soil—on brutalized minds in -starved bodies; the shaggy, half-naked enthusiast was hailed as a -law-giver, saint and saviour, and the harvest of souls was abundant. On -every side the faith was embraced with fervour; the bitter experience of -the convert confirming the prophet’s inspiration. Tribe after tribe -reconciled itself to a God who had turned in wrath from His creatures, -offended by their upstart pretensions and encroachments on the power of -Deity. Tribe after tribe made confession of its sin, grovelling at the -feet of a jealous Omnipotence and renouncing the works of the devil and -the deadly pride of the intellect; and in tribe after tribe there were -hideous little massacres—blood-offerings, sweet and acceptable -sacrifice, that should purify mankind from its guilt. Those who were -known to have pried into the hidden secrets of Omnipotence were cut off -in their wickedness, lest they should corrupt others—were dragged to the -feet of the prophet and slaughtered, lest they should defile humanity -anew through the pride of the intellect and the power of their -devil-sent knowledge. Men known to be learned or suspected of learning; -men possessed of no more than mechanical training and skill.... There -was a story of one whom certain in the tribe would have spared—a doctor -of medicine who had comforted many in the past. But the prophet cried -out that this uttermost sacrifice, too, was demanded of them till, -frenzied with piety, they turned on their healer and beat out the brains -that had served them.... And over the bodies had followed an orgy of -repentance, of groaning and revivalistic prayer; the priest blessing the -sacrifice with uplifted arms and calling down the vengeance of God Most -High upon those who should be false to the vow they had sworn in the -blood of sinners. He chanted the vow, they repeating it after him; -taking oath to renounce the evil thing, to stamp it out wherever met -with, in man, in woman, in child. - -The prophet (so Theodore learned) had continued his wanderings, -preaching the gospel as he went—through village after village and -settlement after settlement, till he passed beyond the confines of -report. He had bidden his followers expect his return; but whether he -came again or not, his doctrine was firmly established. He had left -behind him the germs of a priesthood, a tradition and a Law for his -converts—a Law which included the penalty of death for those who should -fail to keep the vow.... - -Lest it should fade from their minds, there were days set apart for -renewal of the vow, for public, ceremonial repetition of the creed and -doctrine of ignorance; and, with the Ruin an ever-present memory to the -remnant of humanity, the tendency was to interpret the Law with all -strictness—there were devotees and fanatics who watched with a mingling -of animal fear and religious hate for signs of relapse and backsliding. -Denunciation was of all things dreaded; and outspoken regret for a world -that had passed had more than once been pretext for denunciation. To -dwell in speech on the doings of that world might be interpreted—had -been interpreted—as a hankering after the Thing Forbidden, a desire to -revive the Accursed.... Hence the parrying of questions, the barrier of -protective silence which the newcomer broke through with difficulty. - - * * * * * - -It took more than a day for Theodore to understand his new world and its -meaning, to grasp its social system and civil and religious polity; but -at the end of one day he knew roughly the conditions in which he was -destined to live out the rest of his life. - -Not that, in the beginning, he admitted that so he must live; it was -long—many years—before he resigned himself to the knowledge that his -limits, till death released him, were the narrow limits of his tribe. -For years he held secretly—but none the less fast—to the hope of a -civilization that must one day reveal itself, advance and overwhelm his -barbarians. For years he strained his eyes for the coming of its -pioneers, its saviours; it was long—very long—before he gave up his -hopes and faced the certainty that, if the world he had known continued -to exist, it existed too feebly and too far away to stretch out to -himself and his surroundings. - -There were times when the longing for it flared and burned in him, and -he sought desperately for traces of the world he had known—running -hither and thither in search of it. Under pretext of a hunting -expedition he would absent himself from the tribe, and trespass—often at -the imminent risk of death—on the territory of alien communities; -returning, after days, no nearer to his goal and no wiser for his -stealthy prowlings. The life of alien communities, the prospect revealed -from strange hills, was, to all intents and purposes, the life and -outlook of his tribe.... He would question the occasional stranger from -a distant village, in the hope of at least a word, a rumour—a rumour -that might give guidance for further and more hopeful search. But those -who came from distant villages spoke only of villages more distant; of -other hunting-grounds, of other tribal feuds, of other long stretches of -ruin.... The world, so far as it came within his ken, was cut to one -pattern, the pattern of a cowed and brutalized man, who bent his face to -the stubborn ground and forgot the cunning of his fathers. - - - - - XIX - - -The actual and formal ceremony of his acceptance into the little -community took place after night had fallen; deferred to that hour in -part because, with nightfall, the day’s labour ceased and the fishermen -and snarers of birds had returned to their dwelling-place—and in part -because darkness, lit only by the glow of torches and wood fires, lent -an added solemnity to the rite. - -Earlier in the day the new tribesman had been summoned to a second -interview with the headman. The old man questioned him shrewdly enough -as to his road, the nature of his winter food store and the feasibility -of transporting it; and it was settled finally that Theodore should -depart with the morning accompanied by another from the tribe. The pair -could row and tow up the river a flat-bottomed boat which was one of the -community’s possessions; and as his own camp was only a few hours’ tramp -from navigable water, he and his companion should be able, with a day or -two, to make three or four journeys from camp to riverside and load the -boat with as much as it would carry of his hoard. If the weather -favoured—if snow held off and storm—they might return within five or six -days. - -His instructions received, he was dismissed; and bidden, since he would -need a hut for himself and his wife, to set about its building at once. -A site was allotted him on the edge of the copse that was the centre of -the tribal life and he was granted the use of some of the tools that -were common property—an axe, a mallet, and a spade. By the time the sun -set his dwelling had made some progress; stakes had been driven in to -serve as corner-posts, and logs laid from one to the other. - -With dusk, by twos and threes, the men had drifted back to the village -and the women were busied with the cooking of supper at fires that -blazed in the open, so long as the weather was dry, as well as at the -mud-built ovens that sheltered a flame from the wind. When they kept -their men waiting for the plates and bowls of food there was impatient -shouting and now and then a blow.... Theodore, as he ate his supper, -noted suddenly that though one or two of the women carried babies, the -camp contained no child that was older than the crawling stage—no child -that survived the Disaster. - -The night was rainless, and when the meal was over the men, for the most -part, lay or crouched near their fires—some torpid, some talking with -their women; but they roused and stood upright when the ceremony began, -and the headman, calling for silence, beckoned with a dirty claw to -Theodore. - -“Here!” said Theodore and went to him. The old man was seated on the -trunk of a fallen tree; he waited till the tribesmen, one and all, had -ranged themselves on either hand and then signed to Theodore to kneel. - -“Give me both your hands,” he ordered—and held them between his own. As -in days long past—(so Theodore remembered)—the overlord, the suzerain, -had taken the hands of his vassal.... Did he remember—this latter-day -barbarian—the ritual of chivalry, the feudal customs of Capet, -Hohenstaufen and Plantagenet? Or was his imitation of their lordly rite -unconscious? - -“So that you may live and be one of us,” the old man began, “you will -swear two things—to be true to your fellows and humble and meek towards -God. Before God and before all of us you will take your oath; and, if -you break it, may you die the death of the wicked and may fire consume -you to eternity!” - -The words were intoned and not spoken for the first time: the ritual of -the ceremony was established, and at definite points and intervals the -bystanders broke in with a mutter of approval or warning—already -traditional. - -“First: you will swear, till death takes you, to be our man against all -perils and enemies.” - -“I will be your man till death takes me,” swore Theodore, “against all -perils and enemies.” - -“You are witness,” said the headman, looking round, and was answered by -a murmur from the listeners. The women did not join in it—they had, it -seemed, no right of vote or assent; but they had drawn near, every one -of them, and were peering at the ceremony from beyond the shoulders of -their men. - -“And now,” came the order, “you will take the oath to God, to purify -your heart and renounce devil’s knowledge—for yourself and for those who -come after you. Swear it after me, word by holy word—and swear it with -your heart as with your lips.” - -And word by word, and line by line, Theodore repeated the formula that -cut him off from the world of his youth and the heritage of all the -ages. It was a rhythmical formula, its phrasing often Biblical; -instinctively the prophet, when he framed his new ritual, had followed -the music of the old.... Written pages and the stonework of churches -might perish, but the word that was spoken endured.... - -“I do swear and take oath, before God and before man, that I will walk -humbly all my days and put from me the pride of the intellect. -Remembering that the meek shall inherit the earth and that the poor in -spirit are acceptable in the sight of the Most High. Therefore, I do -swear and take oath that I will purify my heart of that which is -forbidden, that I will renounce and drive out all memory of the learning -which it is not meant for me, who am sinful man, to know. What I know -and remember of that which is forbidden shall be dead to me and as if it -had never been born.... May my hands be struck off before I set them to -the making of that which is forbidden; and may blindness smite me if I -seek to pry into the hidden mysteries of God. Into the secrets of the -earth, into the secrets of the air, the secrets of water or fire. For -the Lord our God is a jealous God and the secrets of earth, air, water -and fire are sacred to Him Who made them and must not be revealed to -sinners.... Therefore, I pray that my tongue may rot in my mouth before -I speak one word that shall kindle the desire of others for that which -must not be revealed. - -“I call upon the Lord Most High, Who made heaven and earth and all that -in them is, to hear this oath that I have sworn; and, in the day that I -am false to it, I call on Him to blast me with His utmost wrath.... And -I call upon my fellow-men to hear this oath that I have sworn; may they -shed my blood without mercy, in the day that I am false to it, by -thought, word or deed. In the day that I am false to it may they visit -my sin on my head; as I will visit their sin on man, woman or child who, -in my sight or in my hearing, shall hanker after that which is -forbidden. - -“For so only shall we cleanse and purify our hearts; so only shall we -live without devil’s knowledge and bring up our children without it. -That the land may have peace in our days and that the wrath of the Most -High may be averted from us. - -“So help me God. Amen.” - -“Amen!” came back in a chorus from the shadowy group on either hand; and -when the echo of their voices had died in the night the headman loosed -Theodore’s hands. - -He rose and looked round him on the faces that were near enough to -see—searched them in the firelight for regret or a memory of the -past ... and, beyond and behind the ring of stolid expressionless faces -and the desert silence, saw Markham toasting the centuries, heard the -moving thunder of a multitude and the prayer of the Westminster -bells.... - - Lord—through—this—hour ... - -The old man stretched out a hand in token of comradeship admitted—and -Theodore took it mechanically. - - - - - XX - - -With dawn Theodore and a stolid companion, appointed by the headman, set -out on their journey to the camp where Ada awaited them. They reached it -only after weatherbound delays; as they towed their boat against a -current that was almost too strong for their paddling they were -overtaken by a blinding snowstorm and escaped from it barely with their -lives. They made fast their boat to the stump of a tree and groped -through the smother to a shed near the river’s edge; and there, for the -better part of a day, they sheltered while the storm lasted. When it -moderated and they pushed on through the dead village, a thick sheet of -snow had obliterated the minor landmarks whereby Theodore had been wont -to guide his way. It was close upon sunset on the third day of their -journey when they trudged into the hidden valley and the familiar -tree-clump came in sight—and dusk was thickening into moonless dark when -Ada, hearing voices, ran forward with a scream of welcome. She sobbed -and laughed incoherently as she clung round her husband’s neck; -hysterical, perhaps near insanity, through loneliness and the terror of -loneliness. - -In the intensity of her relief at the ending of her ordeal she forgot, -at first, to be greatly disappointed because the world of Theodore’s -discovery was a world without a cinema or char-à-banc; with her craving -for company, it was sheer delight to know that in a few days more she -would be in the midst of some two score human beings, whatever their -manner of living. It took time and explanation to make her understand -that the desire for char-à-banc and cinema must no longer be openly -expressed; she stared uncomprehendingly when Theodore strove to make -clear to her the religious, as well as the practical, idea that lay -behind the prohibition. - -The need for caution was the more urgent since he had learned in the -course of the return journey that his appointed companion was a fanatic -in the new faith, a penitent who groaned to his offended Deity; savagely -pure-hearted in the cult of ignorance and savagely suspicious of the -backslider. - -The religious temperament was something so far removed from Ada’s -experience that he found it impossible at a first hearing to convince -her of the unknown danger of intolerant and distorted faith. His mention -of a religious aspect to their new difficulties brought the vague -rejoinder that her mother was a Baptist but her aunt had been married in -a Catholic church to an Irishman; and in the end he gave up his attempt -at explanation and snapped out an order instead. - -“You’re to be careful how you talk to them. Until you get to know them, -you’d better say nothing about what you used to do in the old times. -Nothing at all—do you hear?...” - -She stared, uncomprehending, but realized the order was an order. What -she did understand and tremble at was the lack of provision for her -coming ordeal of childbirth, and there was a burst of loud weeping and -terrified protest when Theodore admitted, in answer to her questions, -that he had found no trace of either hospitals, nurses or doctors. For -the time being he soothed her with a hurried promise of seeking them -further afield—pushing on to find them (they were sure to be found) when -she was settled in comfort and safety with other women to look after -her.... For the time being, he told himself, the soothing deceit was a -necessity; she would understand later—see for herself what was -possible—settle down and accept the inevitable. - -She was all eagerness to start, but it took two full days before the -requisite number of journeys had been made to the river—their stores -packed on an improvised sled, dragged heavily across the miles of frozen -snow and stowed in the flat-bottomed boat. Then, on the third day, Ada -herself made the journey; helped along by the men who, when the ground -was smooth enough, set her on the sled and dragged her. In spite of -their help she needed many halts for rest, and the distance between camp -and river took most of the hours of daylight to accomplish; hence they -sheltered for the night in a cottage not far from the river’s bank, and -with morning dropped downstream in the boat—paddling cautiously as they -rounded each bend and always on their guard against the possibility of -unfriendly meetings. The long desolation they passed through was a -no-man’s land; any stray hunter, therefore, might deem himself at -liberty to attack whom he saw and seize what he found in their -possession. But throughout the short day was neither sight nor sound of -man and by sunset the current, running swollen and rapidly, had brought -them to their destined landing.... After that came the mooring of the -boat in the reeds and the hiding, on the bank of the river, of the -stores they could not carry; then the long uphill tramp over snow, in -the gathering darkness—with Ada shivering, crying from weariness and -clinging to her husband’s arm. And—at last—the glow of fires, through -tree-trunks; with figures moving round them, shaggy men and unkempt -women.... Their home! - -The unkempt women met their fellow not unkindly. They drew her to the -fire and rubbed her frozen hands; then, while one brought a bowl of -steaming mess, another laid dry moss and heather in the bed-place of her -unfinished dwelling. A protesting baby was wakened from its sleep and -dandled for her comfort and inspection—its mother giving frank and -loud-voiced details concerning the manner of its birth. There was a -rough and good-natured attempt to raise her drooping spirits, and Ada, -fed and warmed, brightened visibly and responded to the clack of -tongues. This, at least, the new world had restored to her—the blessing -of loud voices raised in chatter.... All the same, on the second night -of their new life Theodore, awake in the darkness, heard her sniffing -and swallowing her tears. - -“What is it?” he asked and she clung to him miserably and wept her -forebodings on his shoulder. Not only forebodings of her coming ordeal -in the absence of hospitals and doctors, but—was this, in truth, to be -the world? These people—so they told her—knew of no other existing; but -what had become of all the towns? The trams, the shops, the life of the -towns—her life—where was it? It must be somewhere—a little way off—where -was it?... He soothed her with difficulty, repeating his warnings on the -danger of open regrets for the past and reminding her that to-morrow she -also would be called on for the oath. - -“I know,” she whimpered. “Of course I’ll taike an oath if I must. But -you can’t ’elp thinking—if you swear yourself black in the faice, you -can’t ’elp thinking.” - -“Whatever you think,” he insisted, “you mustn’t say it—to anyone.” - -“I know,” she snuffled obediently, “I shan’t say nothing ... but, oh -Gawd, oh Gawd—aren’t we ever going to be ’appy again?” - -He knew what she was weeping for—shaking with miserable sobs; the -evenings at the pictures, the little bits of machine-made finery, the -petty products of “devil’s knowledge” that had made up her daily life. -The cry to her “Gawd” was a prayer for the return of these things and -the hope of them had so far sustained her in peril, hardship and -loneliness. Pictures and finery had always been there, just a mile or -two beyond the horizon—awaiting her enjoyment so soon as it was safe to -reach them. Now, in her overpowering misery and darkness of soul, she -was facing the dread possibility that they no longer awaited her, that -the horizon was immeasurable, infinite.... Guns and bombs and -poisons—nobody wanted them and she understood people making up their -minds to do without ’em. But the other things—you couldn’t go on living -without the other things—shops and proper houses and railways.... - -“It can’t be for always,” she persisted, “it can’t be”—and was cheered -by the sudden heat of his agreement, the sudden note of protest in his -voice. The knowledge that he sympathized encouraged her and, with her -head on his shoulder, sniffing, but comforted, she began to plan out -their deliverance. - -“They must be somewhere—the people that live like they used to. Keepin’ -quiet, I dessay, till things gets more settled. When things is settled -they’ll get a move on and come along and find us. It stands to reason -they can’t be so very far off, because I remember the teacher tellin’ us -when we ’ad our jography lesson that England’s quite a small country. So -they ’aven’t got so very far to come.... I expect an aeroplane’ll come -first.” - -He felt her thrill in expectation of the moment when she sighted the -swiftly moving speck aloft, the bearer of deliverance drawing nigh. -Wouldn’t it be heavenly when they saw one at last—after all these awful -months and years!... In the war they were beastly, but, now that the war -was over, what had become of all the passenger ’planes and the airships? -She was always looking out for one—always; every morning when she came -out of the hut the first thing she did was to look up at the sky.... And -some day one was bound to come. When things had settled down and got -straight, it was bound to.... - -But it never did; and in the end she ceased to look for it. - - * * * * * - -His attempts—they were many in the first few years—to break away from -his world and his bondage of ignorance were made always with cunning -precaution and subterfuge; not even the pitiable need of his wife would -have served as excuse for the backsliding which was search after the -forbidden. To a fanaticism dominated by the masculine element the pains -of childbirth were once more an ordinance of God; and when, a few weeks -before Ada’s time of trial, Theodore absented himself from the camp for -a night or two, he gave no one (save Ada) warning of his journey, and -later accounted for his absence by a plausible story of straying and a -hunter’s misfortunes. He had ceased, since he took up his dwelling with -the tribe, to believe in the neighbourhood of a civilization in being; -all he hoped for was the neighbourhood, not too distant, of men who had -not acquiesced in ruin and put hope of recovery behind them. What he -sought primarily was that aid and comfort in childbirth for which his -wife appealed to him with insistence that grew daily more terrified; -what he sought fundamentally was escape from a people vowed to -ignorance. - -The goal of his first journey was the town lying lower down the river, -the forbidden city which had once bred pestilence and flies. He -approached it deviously, keeping to the hills and avoiding districts he -knew to be inhabited; hoping against hope, that, in spite of report, he -might find some rebuilding of a civic existence and human life as he had -known it.... What he found when he came down from the foothills and -trudged through its outskirts was the customary silent desolation; a -desolation flooded and smelling of foul water—untenanted streets that -were channels and backwaters, and others where the slime of years lay -thick and scum bred rank vegetation. - -Silent streets and empty houses had long been familiar to him, but until -that day he had not known how swiftly nature, left to herself, could -take hold of them. The river and the life that sprang from it was -overwhelming what man had deserted. Three winters of neglect in a -low-lying, well-watered country had wrought havoc with the work of the -farmer and the engineer; streams which had been channelled and guided -for centuries had already burst their way back to freedom. With every -flooded winter more banks were undermined, more channels silted up and -shifted; and that which had been ploughland, copse or water-meadow was -relapsing into bog undrained. The valley above and below the town was a -green swamp studded with reedy little pools; a refuge for the waterbird -where a man would set foot at his peril. Buildings here and there stood -rotting, forlorn and inaccessible—barns, sheds and farmhouses, their -walls leaning drunkenly as foundations shifted in the mud; and in the -town itself, as surely, if more slowly, the waters were taking -possession.... Towns had vanished, he knew—vanished so completely that -their very sites had been matter of dispute to antiquarians—but never -till to-day had he visualized the process; the rising of layer on layer -of mud, the sapping of foundations by water. The forces that made ruin -and the forces that buried it; flood and frost and the persistent thrust -of vegetation. As the waterlogged ground slid beneath them, rows of -jerry-built houses were sagging and cracking to their fall; here and -there one had crumbled and lay in a rubble heap, the water curdling at -its base.... How many life-times, he wondered, till the river had the -best of it and the houses where men had gone out and in were one and all -of them a rubble heap—under water and mud and rank greenery? He saw -them, decades or centuries ahead, as a waste, a stretch of bogland where -the river idled; bogland, now flooded, now drying and cracked in the -sun; and with broken green islets still thrusting through the -swamp—broken green islets of moss-covered rock that underneath was brick -and mortar. In time it might be—with more decades or centuries—the -islets also would sink lower in the swamp, disappear.... - -The process, unhindered, was certain as sunrise; the important little -streets that humanity had built for its vanished needs and its vanished -business would be absorbed into an indifferent wilderness, in all things -sufficient to itself. The rigid important little streets had been no -more than an episode in the ceaseless life of the wilderness; an episode -ending in failure, to be decently buried and forgotten. - -He plodded aimlessly through street after street that was fordable till -the shell of a “County Infirmary” mocked at Ada’s hopes and recalled the -first purpose of his journey; a gaunt sodden building, the name yet -visible on walls that sweated fungi and mould. Then, that he might leave -nothing undone in the way of help and search, he trudged and waded to -the lower outskirts of the town; where the roads lost themselves in -grass and flooded water, and there stretched to the limit of his -eyesight a dull winter landscape without sign of living care or -habitation. In the end—having strained his eyes after that which was -not—he turned to slink back to his own place; skirting alien territory -where the sight of a stranger might mean an alarm and a manhunt, and -sheltering at night where his fire might be hidden from the watcher. - -“You ’aven’t found nothin’?” Ada whimpered, when he had told his -necessary lies to the curious and they were out of earshot in their hut. -Her eyes had grown piteous when he stumbled in alone; she had dreamt in -his absence of sudden and miraculous deliverance—following him in fancy -through streets with tramlines, where dwelt women who wore corsets—also -doctors. Who, perhaps, when they knew the greatness of her need, would -send a motor-ambulance—to fetch her to a bed with sheets on it. - -“Nothing,” he told her almost roughly, afraid to show pity. “No doctors, -no houses fit to live in. Wherever I’ve been and as far as I could -see—it’s like this.” - - - - - XXI - - -It was in the third spring after the Ruin of Man that Ada’s time was -accomplished and she bore a son to her husband; on a day in late April -or early May there was going and coming round the shelter that was -Theodore’s home. The elder women of the tribe, by right of their -experience, took possession, and from early morning till long after -nightfall they busied themselves with the torment and mystery of birth; -and with the aid of nothing but their rough and unskilled kindliness Ada -suffered and brought forth a squalling red mannikin—the heir of the ages -and their outcast. The child lived and, despite its mother’s -fecklessness, was lusty; as a boy, ran shoeless, and, in summer, naked -as Adam; and grew to his primitive manhood without letters, knowing of -the world that was past and gone only legends derived from his elders. - -His coming, to Theodore, meant more than paternity; the birth of his son -made him one with the life of the tribe. By the child’s wants and -helplessness—still more when other children followed—his father was tied -to an existence which offered the necessary measure of security; to the -stretch of land where he had the right to hunt unmolested, the patch he -had the right to sow and reap, and the company of those who would aid -him in protecting his children. He had given his hostages to fortune and -the limits set to his secret expeditions in search of a lost world were -the limits set by the needs of those dependent on him, by his fear of -leaving them too long unprotected, unprovided for. - -He learned much from his firstborn and the brothers and sisters who -followed him; not only the intimate lore of his fatherhood, but the lore -and outlook of man bred uncivilized, and the traditions, in making, of a -world to come—which in all things would resemble the old traditions -handed down by a world that had died. His children lived naturally the -life that had been forced upon their father and inherited ignorance as a -birthright; growing up—such as lived through the perils of -childhood—without knowledge of the past and untempted by the sin of the -intellect. The oath which Theodore, like every new-made father, was -called on to swear in the name of the child he had given to the tribe, -had a meaning to those who had lived through Disaster and witnessed the -Ruin of Man; to the next generation the vow was a formula only, a -renunciation of that they had never possessed. They could not, if they -would, instruct their children in the secrets of God, the forbidden lore -of the intellect. - -By the time his first son was of an age to think and question, Theodore -understood more than the growth and workings of a child-mind—much that -had hitherto seemed dark and fantastic in the origins of a world that -had ended with the Ruin of Man. It was the workings of a child-mind that -made oddly clear to him the significance of primitive religious doctrine -and beliefs handed down through the ages—the once meaningless doctrine -of the Fall of Man and the belief in a vanished Golden Age. These the -boy, unprompted, evolved from his own knowledge and the talk of his -elders, accepting them spontaneously and naturally. - -In Theodore’s childhood the Golden Age had been a myth and pleasant -fancy of the ancients, and the Fall of Man as distant as the Book of -Genesis and unreal as the tale of Puss-in-Boots; to his children, one -and all, the legends of his infancy were close and undoubted realities. -The Golden Age was a wondrous condition of yesterday; the Fall—the -Ruin—its catastrophic overthrow, an experience their father had -survived. The fields and hillsides where they worked, played and -wandered were still littered with strange relics of the Golden Age—the -vanished, fruitful, incomprehensible world whence their parents had been -cast into the outer darkness of everyday hardship as a penalty for the -sin of mankind. The sin unforgivable of grasping at the knowledge which -had made them like unto gods; a mad ambition which not only they but -their children’s children must atone for in the sweat of their brow.... -More than once Theodore suspected in the secret recesses of his -youngsters’ minds a natural and wondering contempt for the men of the -last generation; the fools and blind who had overreached themselves and -forfeited the splendour of the Golden Age by their blundering greed and -unwisdom. So history was writing itself in their minds; making of a race -that had acquiesced in science and drifted to destruction a legendary -people whose sin was deliberate—a people whose encroachments had angered -a self-important Deity and brought down his wrath upon their heads. It -was a history inseparable from religious belief; its opening chapters -identical in all essentials with the legendary history of an epoch that -had ceased to exist. - -Once his eight-year boy, planted sturdily before him, demanded a plain -explanation of the folly of his father’s contemporaries. - -“Why,” he asked frowning, “did the people want to find out God’s -secrets?” - -Theodore thought of Ada and the countless millions like her, leaned his -chin on his hand and smiled grimly. - -“Some of us didn’t,” he answered. “Some of us—many of us—had no interest -in the secrets of God. We made use of them when others found them out, -but we, ourselves, were quite content to be ignorant. Ignorant in all -things.” - -“I know,” the child assented, puzzled by his father’s smile. “The good -ones didn’t want to—the good ones like you and Mummy. But the others—all -the wicked ones—why did they? It was stupid of them.” - -“They wanted to find out,” said Theodore, “and there have always been -people like that. From the beginning, the very beginning of things—ever -since there were men on the earth. The desire to know burned them like a -fire. There is an old story of a woman who brought great trouble into -the world because she wanted to know. She was given a box and told never -to open it; but she disobeyed because she was filled with a great -curiosity to know what had been put inside it. Her longing tormented her -night and day and she could think of nothing else; till at last she -opened the box and horrible creatures flew out.” - -The boy, interested, demanded more of Pandora and the horrible -creatures. “Is it a true story?” he asked when his father had given such -further details as he managed to remember and invent. - -“Yes,” Theodore told him, “I believe it is a true story. It was so long -ago that we cannot tell exactly how it happened: I may not have told it -you quite rightly, but on the whole it is a true story.... And the -wicked people—our wicked people who brought ruin on the world—were much -like Pandora and her box. It was the same thing over again; they wanted -to know so strongly that they forgot everything else; they had only the -longing to find out and it seemed as if nothing else mattered.” - -“Weren’t they afraid?” the boy asked doubtfully, still puzzled by his -father’s odd smile. “Afraid of what would happen to them?” - -“No,” Theodore answered. “Until it was too late and they saw what they -had done, I don’t think many were afraid. Here and there, before the -end, some began to be frightened, but most of them didn’t see where they -were going.” - -“But they must have known,” his son insisted, frowning. “God told them -He would punish them if they tried to learn His secrets.” - -“Yes,” Theodore assented—with the orthodox truth, more deceptive than a -lie, that meant one thing to him and another to the world barbarian. -“Yes, God told them so; but though He said it very plainly not many of -them understood....” They were talking, he knew, across more than the -gulf between the mind of a child and a man; between them lay the -centuries, the barrier of many generations. To his son, now and always, -dead and gone chemists and mathematicians must appear in the likeness of -present evildoers—raiders of the territory and robbers of the property -of God; to his son, now and always, inventors and spectacled professors -in mortar-boards would be greedy, foolish chieftains who planned war -against Heaven as a tribe plans assault upon its rivals. These were and -must always be his “wicked,” his destroyers of the Golden Age; his life -and outlook being what it was, how should he picture the war against -Heaven as pure-hearted, instinctive and unconscious? - -“Why not?” the child persisted, repeating the question when his father -stroked his head absently. - -“Because ... they did not know themselves. If they had known themselves -and their own passions they would have seen why knowledge was -forbidden.” - -“Yes,” said the child vaguely—and passed to the matter that interested -him. - -“Why didn’t the others make them understand? You and the other good -ones?” - -“Because,” said Theodore, “we ourselves didn’t understand. That was the -blunder—the sin—of the rest of us. We didn’t seek after knowledge, but -we took the fruits of other men’s knowledge and ate.” - -(Unconsciously he made use of the familiar hereditary simile.) - -“I’d have killed them,” his son declared firmly. “Every one. I’d have -told them to stop, and then, if they wouldn’t, I’d have killed them. -Thrown them in the river—or hammered them with stones till they died. -That’s what I’d have done.” - -“No,” Theodore told him, “you wouldn’t have killed them.... One of them -said the same thing to me—one of the wicked ones. He said we should have -stamped out the race of them. Afterwards I knew he was right, but at the -time I didn’t understand. I couldn’t. I heard what he said, but the -words had no real meaning for me.” - -He saw something that was almost contempt in his son’s eyes and took the -grubby face between his hands. - -“That same wicked man—who was also very wise—told me something else that -is as true for you as it was for me; he said that we never know anything -except through our own experience. I might tell you that the sun is warm -or the water is cold, but if you had never felt the heat of the sun or -the cold of the water you would not know what I meant. And it was like -that with us; there were always some few who understood that knowledge -was a flame that, in the end, would burn us—but the rest of us couldn’t -even try to save ourselves until after we were burned.” - -He stroked the grubby face as he released it. - -“That’s the Law, son; and all that matters you’ll learn that way. That -way and no other—just as we did.” - - * * * * * - -In time he found himself recalling, with strange interest, the -fairy-tales of his childhood; he spent long hours re-weaving and piecing -them together, searching his memory for half-remembered fragments of -what had once seemed fantasy or nonsense invented for the nursery. The -hobgoblins and heroes of his nursery days were transformed and made -suddenly possible; looking through the mind of a new generation, he saw -that they might have been as human and prosaic as himself. More—he came -to know that he and his commonplace, civilized contemporaries would be -the heroes and hobgoblins of the future. - -The process, the odd transformation, would be simple as it was -inevitable. It was forbidden, by the spirit and letter of the Vow, to -awaken youthful curiosity concerning the past—youthful curiosity whose -end might be youthful experiment; but women, in spite of all vows and -prohibitions, would gossip to each other of their memories. While they -talked their children would listen, open-eyed and puzzled; and when a -youngster demanded the meaning of an unfamiliar term or impossible -happening, the explanation, as a matter of course, took the form of -analogy, of comparison with the known and familiar. The aeroplane was a -bird extinct and monstrous—larger, many times larger, than the flapping -heron or the owl; the bomb was more dreadful than a lightning stroke; -the tram, train or motor a gigantic wheelbarrow that ran without man or -beast to drag it.... The ignorance of science of those who told, the yet -greater ignorance of those who heard, resulted, inevitably, before many -years had passed, in myth and religious legend—an outwardly fantastic -statement of actual fact and truth. The children, piecing together their -fragments of incomprehensible information, made their own image of the -past—to be handed on later to their sons; an image of a world fantastic, -enchanted and amazing, destroyed, as a judgment for sin against God, by -strange, fire-breathing beasts and bolts from heaven. A world of -gigantic fauna and bewitched chariots; likewise of sorcerers, their -masters—whom God and the righteous had exterminated.... So Theodore -realized—as his children grew and he heard them talk—must a race that -knew nothing of science explain the dead wonders of science; from the -message that flashes round the world in seconds to the petrol-engine and -the magic slumber of chloroform. That which is outside the power and -beyond the understanding of man has always been denounced as magic; and -steam, electricity, chemical action, were outside the power and beyond -the understanding of men born after the Ruin. In default of -understanding they must needs fall back on a wizardry known to their -fathers; thus he and his contemporaries to their children’s children -would be semi-supernatural beings, fit comrades of Sindbad, of Perseus, -or the Quatre Fils Aymon: giants with great voices that called to each -other across continents and vasty deeps; possessors of seven-league -boots, magic steeds and flying carpets—of all the stock-in-trade of the -fairy-tale.... Belief in the demi-god was a natural growth and product -of the world wherein his son grew to manhood. - -Given time and black ignorance of mechanics and science, and the -engineer would be promoted to a giant or demi-god; who, by virtue of a -strength that was more than human, dammed rivers, drained bogs and -pierced mountains. “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall -be”—and always in the past there had been giants. Titans—and Hercules, -removing mighty obstacles and cleansing the stables of Augeas. He came -to understand that all wonders were facts misinterpreted and that (given -time and ignorance) a post-office underling, tapping out his Morse code, -might be seen as a geni or an Oberon—the absolute master of obedient -sprites who could lay their girdles round the earth; and he pictured a -college-bred, sober-suited Hercules planning his Labours in the office -of a limited company—jotting down figures, estimating costs and scanning -the reports of geologists. Figures and reports, like his tunnels and -dams, would pass into the limbo of science forgotten and forbidden, but -the memory of his labours, his defiance of brute nature, would live on -as the story of a demi-god; and the childhood that was barbarism would -explain his achievements by a giant strength that could tear down trees -and move mountains. - -The idea took fast root and grew in him—the idea of a world that, time -and again, had returned to the helplessness of childhood. He saw science -as the burden that, time and again, the race found intolerable; as -Dead-Sea fruit that turned to ashes in the mouth, as riches that -humanity strove for, attained and renounced—renounced because it dared -not keep them. In his hours of dreaming he made fairies and demi-gods -out of dapper little sedentary persons, the senders of forgotten -telegrams, with forgotten engines—motor-cars and aeroplanes—at their -insignificant command; and once, in the night, when Ada snored beside -him, he asked himself if Lucifer, Son of the Morning—Lucifer who strove -with his God and was worsted—were more, in his beginnings, than a -scientist intent on his work? A chemist, a spectacled professor, -resplendent only in degrees and learning? An Archfiend of Knowledge who -had sinned against God in the secret places of a laboratory and not upon -the shining plains of Heaven? And whom ignorance and time had glorified -into the Tempter, the Evil One—setting him magnificently in the flaming -Hell which he and his like, by their skill and patience, had created and -let loose upon man?... This, at least, was certain; that in years to -come and under other names, his children’s children would retell the -story of Lucifer, Son of the Morning; the Enemy of Man who was flung out -of Heaven because, in his overweening vanity, he encroached on the power -of a God. - -It was the new world that taught him that man invents nothing, is -incapable of pure invention; that what seem his wildest, most fantastic -imaginings are no more than ineffective, distorted attempts to set down -a half-forgotten experience. What had once appeared prophecies he saw to -be memories; the Day of Judgment, when the heavens should flame and men -call upon the rocks to cover them, belonged to the past before it -belonged to the future. The forecast of its terrors was possible only to -a people that had known them as realities; a people troubled by a dim -race-memory of the conquest of the air and catastrophe hurled from the -skies.... - -So, at least, his children taught him to believe. - - - - - XXII - - -With years and rough husbandry the resources of the tribe were augmented -and it emerged from its first starved misery; more land was brought -under cultivation and, as tillage improved and better crops were raised, -the little community was less dependent on the haphazard luck of its -fishing and snaring and lived further from the line of utter want. -While, save in bad seasons, the inter-tribal raiding that was caused by -sheer starvation was less frequent. Even so, strife was frequent -enough—small intermittent feud that flared now and again into savagery; -the desire of a growing community to extend its hunting-grounds at the -expense of a neighbour meant, almost inevitably, appeal to the right of -the strongest. Other quarrels had their origin in the border inroads and -reprisals of poachers or a barbaric setting of the eternal story that -was old when Helen launched a thousand ships. - -With husbandry, even rough husbandry, came the small beginnings of -commerce, the barter and exchange of one man’s superfluities for the -produce of another man’s fields. Cold and nakedness stimulated ingenuity -in the matter of clothing, even in a society whose original members had -in large part been bred to depend in all things on the aid of the -machine and to earn a livelihood by the performance of one action -only—the tending of one lathe, the accomplishment of one stereotyped -mechanical process. Outcasts of civilization flung into the world of -savagery, they had in the beginning none of the adaptability and none of -the resources of the savage—knew nothing of the properties of unfamiliar -plants, knew neither what to weave nor how to weave it, and often from -sheer lack of understanding, starved and shivered in the midst of -plenty. It was not till they had suffered long and intolerably that they -learned to clothe themselves from such material as their new world -afforded, to cure skins of animals and stitch them together into -garments. In the first years of ruin only ratskins were plentiful; but, -as time went on, rabbits, cats and wild dogs multiplied and, spreading -through the countryside, were trapped and hunted for their flesh and the -warmth of their skins. The dogs, as they bred, reverted to a mongrel and -wolf-like type which, in summer, preyed largely on vermin; in winter, -when scarcity of food made them bold, they prowled in packs, were a -danger to the solitary and a legendary terror to children. - -In the beginning the village was a straggle of rude huts, the tribesmen -building how and where they would; later it took shape within its first -wall and was roughly circular, enclosed by a fence of stake and -thornbush. The raising of the fence was a sign and result of the -beginning of primitive competition in armament; it was the knowledge -that one village had fortified itself that set others to the driving in -of stakes. One November evening Theodore, trudging in with his catch, -saw a group round the headman’s fire; the centre of interest, a youth -who had returned from poaching on other men’s land and brought back news -of their doings. His trespassing had taken him within sight of the -neighbouring village—which lately was a cluster of huts, like their own, -and now was surrounded by a wall. A stockade, fully the height of a man, -with only one gap for a gate.... The poacher’s news was discussed with -uneasy interest. The fortified tribe, in point of numbers, was already -stronger than its rival; if it added this new advantage to its numbers, -what was there to prevent it from raiding and robbing as it would? -Having raided and robbed, it could shelter behind its defences—beat off -attack, make sorties and master the countryside! Its security meant the -insecurity of others, the dependence of others on its goodwill and -neighbourly honesty; the issue was as plain to the handful of tribesmen -as to old-time nations competing in battleships, aeroplanes and guns, -and the suspicions muttered round the headman’s fire were the raw -material of arguments once familiar in the councils of emperors. - -In the end, as the result of uneasy discussion, Theodore and another -were dispatched to spy out the new menace, to get as near as they might -to the wall, ascertain its strength and the method of its building; and -with their return from a night expedition there was more consultation -and a hurried planning of defences. Before winter was over the haphazard -settlement was a compound, a walled town in embryo; within the narrow -limits of a circle small enough for a handful of men to defend all huts -were crowded, all provisions stored, all animals driven at sunset—so -that, in case of night attack, no man could be cut off and the strength -of the tribe be at hand to resist the assailants. With waste, healthy -miles stretching out on either side, the village itself was an -evil-smelling huddle of cabins; since a short stretch of wall was easier -to defend than a long, men and beasts were crowded together in a -foulness that made for security. In times of feud—and times of feud were -seldom distant—stones were heaped beside the barrier, in readiness to -serve as missiles, watch and ward was kept turn and turn by the -able-bodied and—naturally, inevitably and almost unconsciously—there was -evolved a system of military discipline, of penalty for mutiny and -cowardice. - -As in every social system from the beginning of time, the community was -welded to a conscious whole not by the love its members bore to each -other, but by hatred and fear of the outsider; it was the enemy, the -urgent common need to be saved from him, that made of man a comrade and -a citizen; the peril from outside was the natural antidote to everyday -hatreds and the ceaseless bickerings of close neighbours. The -instinctive politics of a squalid village were in miniature the policy -of vanished nations, and untraditioned little headmen, like dead and -gone kings, quelled internal feuds by diverting attention to the danger -that threatened from abroad. The foundations of community life in the -new world, like the foundations of community life in the old, were laid -in the selfishness of fear; but for all its base origin the life of the -community imposed upon its members the essential virtues of the soldier -and citizen, a measure of discipline and sacrifice. From these, in time, -would grow loyalty and pride in sacrifice; the enclosure of ramshackle -huts and pens was breaking its savages to achievements undreamed of and -virtues as yet beyond their ken; the blind, stubborn instincts that -created Babylon—created London and Rome and destroyed them—were laying -well and truly in a mud-walled compound the foundations of cities which -should rise, flourish, perish in the stead of London and of Rome. - -Outside the little fortress with its noisome huddle of sheds and -shelters lay a belt of ploughed land, of patches scraped and sown, where -the women worked by the side of their men and worked alone when their -men were gone hunting or fishing. One or two members of the tribe who -were countrymen born were its saviours in its first years of leanness, -imparting their knowledge of soil and seed to their unskilled comrades -bred in towns; and, by slow degrees, as the lesson was learned, the belt -of tilled ground grew wider and more fertile, the little community more -prosperous. - -As families grew and the tribe settled down the makeshift shelters of -wood and moss were succeeded by stronger and better built cabins; by the -time that her second child was born Ada was established in a -weatherproof hut—a mud-walled building, roofed with dried grass and with -a floor of earth beaten hard. In its early years it possessed a glazed -window, a pane which Theodore had found whole in a crumbling house and -set immovably in an aperture cut in his wall. But, as years went on, -unbroken glass was hard to come by; and there came a day when the -window-aperture, no longer glazed, was plastered up to keep out the -weather. - -Long before he set about the building of his cabin Theodore had brought -a strip of ground under cultivation, sown a patch of potatoes and -straggling beans which, in time, expanded to a field. His life, -henceforth, was largely the anxious life of the seasons; the sowing and -tending and reaping of his crop, the struggle with the soil and the -barrenness thereof, the ceaseless war against vermin.... He ended rich, -as the men of his time counted riches; the possessor of goats, the owner -of land which other men envied him, the father of sons who could till -it. The new world gave him what it had to give; and gradually, with the -passing of years, the hope of life civilized died in him and he ceased -to strain his eyes at the distance. - - * * * * * - -It was slowly, very slowly, that hope died in him; but there came a day -when, searching the skyline, as his habit was, it dawned on his mind -that he sought automatically; it was habit only that made him lift his -eyes to the horizon. He expected nothing when he shaded his eyes and -looked this way and that; his belief in a world that was lettered and -civilized had vanished. If that world yet existed, remote and apart, of -a surety it was not for him—who perhaps was no longer capable of -existence lettered and civilized. And if he himself could be broken to -its decencies, what place had his children, his young barbarians, in an -ordered atmosphere like that of his impossible youth? They belonged to -their world, to its squalor, its dirt, its rude ignorance ... as, it -might be, he also belonged. - -At the thought, he knelt and stared into the water, taking stock of the -image it reflected and coming face to face with himself. His body and -habits had adapted themselves to their surroundings, his mind to the -outlook of his world—to his daily, yearly struggle with the soil and -vermin and his fellows. His relations with his fellows—with women—with -himself—were not those of humanity civilized; it was nothing to him to -go foul and unwashed or to clench his fist against his wife. Could he -live the life he had been born and bred to, of cleanliness, self-control -and courtesy? Or had he been stripped of the decencies which go to make -civilized man?... He covered his face with his broken-nailed fingers and -strove with God and his own soul that he might not fall utterly to ruin -with his world, that some remnant might remain of his heritage. - -From the day when he saw himself for what he was and resigned all hope -of the world of his youth, it seemed to him that he lived two divergent -lives. One absorbed, perforce, in his digging and snaring, in the daily -struggle, for the daily wants of his household; the other—in his hours -of summer rest, in the long dark winter evenings—an inward life of -brooding that concerned itself only with the past. His memories became -to him a species of cult, a secret ceremonial and a rite; that which had -been (so he fancied) was not altogether waste, not altogether dead, so -long as one man thought of it with reverence. When the mood took him he -would sit for long hours with his chin on his hand, staring at the fire -while the children wondered at his silence—and Ada, wearied of talking -to deaf ears, flung off to gossip with the neighbours. - - * * * * * - -She, before she was thirty, was a haggard slattern of a woman; pitiable -by reason of her discontent, and looking far older than her years. -Childbearing aged her and the field-work she hated—the bent-backed -drudgery she tried in vain to shirk and to which she brought no shred of -understanding; even more she was aged by the weary desire that sulked in -the corners of her mouth. Before she lost her comeliness she had more -than once sought distraction from her dullness in clumsy flirtation; -which perhaps was no more than silly ogling and nudging and perhaps led -to actual unfaithfulness. Theodore—not greatly interested in his wife’s -doings—ignored the danger to his household peace until it was forcibly -thrust upon his notice by a jealous spitfire who cursed Ada for running -after other women’s husbands, and proceeded to tear out her hair. Ada’s -snuffling protestations when the spitfire was pulled off did not savour -of injured innocence; he judged her guilty, at least in thought, cuffed -her soundly and from that time kept his eye on her. He was not (as she -liked to think) jealous—salving her bruises with the comforting balm -that two males were disputing the possession of her body; what stirred -him to wrath fundamentally was his outraged sense of property in Ada, -his woman, and the possibility that her lightness might entail on him -the labour of supporting another man’s child. The intrigue—if intrigue -it were—ended on the day of the cuffing and hairpulling; her Lothario, -awed by his spitfire or unwilling to tackle an outraged husband, avoided -her company from that day forth and Ada sank back to domesticity. - -She, too, in the end accepted the loss of the world that had made her -what she was, ceased to search the horizon and strain her eyes for the -deliverer; whereupon—having nothing to aim at or hope for—she lapsed -into slovenly neglect of her home, alternating hours of clack and gossip -with fits of sullen complaining at the daily misery of existence. - -Had destiny realized the dreams of her youth and set her to live out her -married life in a shoddy little villa with bamboo furniture, she might -have made a tolerable mother; she would at least have taken pride in the -looks of her children, have dressed them with interest, as she dressed -herself, and tied up their hair with satin bows. Being what she was, she -could take no pride in ragamuffins who ran half the year naked; she -could see no beauty, even, in straight agile limbs which were meant to -be encased in reach-me-down suits or cheap costumes of cotton velveteen. -Thus her naked little ragamuffins—those of them that lived—were apt to -be dirtier, less cared-for, than the run of the dirty village -youngsters. Theodore, in whom the instinct of fatherhood was strong, was -sometimes roused to wrath by her stupid mishandling of her children; -but, on the whole he was patient with her—knowing it useless to be -otherwise. He beat her as seldom as possible and she was looked on by -her neighbours as a woman kindly handled and unduly blessed in her -husband. To the end she remained what she had always been; essentially a -parasite, a minor product of civilization, machine-bred and -crowd-developed—bewildered by a life not lived in crowds and not subject -to the laws of the Machine. To the end all nature was alien and hateful -to her—raw life that she turned from with disgust.... In her last -illness her mind, when it wandered, strayed back into the world where -she belonged; Theodore, an hour before she died, heard her muttering of -“last Bank ’Oliday.” - -She died at the end of a long hard winter during which she had failed -and complained unceasingly, sat huddled to the fire and grown weaker; -creeping, at last, to her straw in the corner and forgetting, in -delirium, the meaningless life she had shared with her husband and -children. Death smoothed out the lines in her sullen face; it was -peaceful, almost comely, when Theodore looked his last on it—and -wondered, oddly, if among the “many mansions,” were some Cockney -paradise of noise and jostle where his wife had found her heart’s -desire? - -Of the four or five children she had brought into the world but two were -living on the day of her death, her eldest-born and a youngster at the -crawling stage; but the care of even two children was a burdensome -matter for a man unaided, and it was esteemed natural and no insult to -the dead, that Theodore should take another wife as speedily as might -be—in the course not of months but of weeks. He found a woman to suit -his needs without going further than his own tribe; a woman left widowed -a year or two before, who was glad enough to accept the offer of a -better living than she could hope to make by her own scratching of a rod -or two of earth and the uncertain charity of neighbours. The proposal of -marriage, made in stolid fashion, was accepted as a matter of course ... -and, that night, Theodore stared through the fire into a room in -Westminster where a girl in a yellow dress made music ... and a young -man listened from the corner of a sofa with a cigarette, unlit, between -his fingers. He was dreaming at a table—with silver and branching yellow -roses—when his son nudged him that supper was ready, and he dipped his -hand into a greasy bowl for the meat. - -The wedding followed swiftly on the heels of betrothal, and was -celebrated in the manner already compulsory and established; by a public -promise made solemnly before the headman, by a clasping of hands and a -ceremony of religious blessing. This last was moulded, like all tribal -ceremonies, on remembered formulæ and ritual; and the tradition that a -wedding should be accompanied by much eating and general merrymaking was -also faithfully observed. - -The new wife, if not over comely or intelligent, was a sturdy young -woman who had been broken to the duties required of her, and Theodore’s -home, under its second mistress, was better tended and more comfortable -than in the days of her sluttish predecessor. He had married her simply -as a matter of business, that she might help in his field-work, cook his -food, look after his children and satisfy his animal desire; and on the -whole he had no reason to complain of the bargain he had made. She was a -younger woman than Ada by some years—had been only a slip of a girl at -the time of the Ruin—and, because of her youth, had adapted herself more -readily than most of her elders to a world in the making and -untraditioned methods of living. Her husband found life easier for the -help of a pair of sturdy arms and pleasanter for lack of Ada’s -grumbling.... She brought more than herself to Theodore’s household—a -child by her first husband; and, as time went on, she bore him other -children of his own. - - - - - XXIII - - -As the years went by and his children grew to manhood in the world -primitive which was the only world they knew, the life of Theodore -Savage became definitely twofold; a life of the body in the present and -a life of the mind in the past. There was his outward, rustic and daily -self, the labourer, hunter and fisherman, who begat sons and daughters, -who trudged home at nightfall to eat and sleep heavily, who occasionally -cudgelled his wife: a sweating, muscular animal man whose existence was -bounded by his bodily needs and the bodily needs of his children; who -fondled his children and cuffed them by turns, as the beast cuffs and -fondles its offspring. Whose world was the world of a food-patch -enclosed in a valley, of a river where he fished, a wood where he snared -and a hut that received him at evening.... In time it was of these -things, and these things only, that he spoke to his kin and his -neighbours; the weather, the luck of his hunting or fishing, the loves, -births and deaths of his fellows. With the rise and growth of a -generation that knew only the world primitive, the little community -lived more in the present and less in the past; mention of the world -that had vanished was even less frequent and even more furtive than -before. - -And even if that had not been the case, there was no man in the tribe, -save Theodore, whose mind was the mind of a student; thus his other -life, his life of the past, was lived to himself alone. It was a vivid -memory-life in which he delved, turning over its vanished treasures—the -intangible treasures of dead beauty, dead literature, learning and art; -a life that at times receded to a dream of the impossible and at others -was so real and overwhelming in its nearness that the everyday sweating -and toiling and lusting grew vague and misty—was a veil drawn over -reality. - -Sometimes the two lives clashed suddenly and oddly—to the wonder of -those who saw him. As on the day when his wife had burned the evening -mess and, raising his hand to chastise her carelessness, there flashed -before his eyes, without warning, a vision of Phillida bent delicately -over her piano.... Not only Phillida, but the room, her surroundings; -every detail clear to him and the loveliness of Chopin in his ears.... -Furniture, hangings, a Louis Seize clock and a Hogarth print—and -swiftly-seen objects whose very names he had forgotten, so long was it -since he had made use of the household words that once described them. -The dead world caught him back to itself and claimed him; in the face of -its reality the present faded, the burned stew mattered not and his hand -dropped slack to his side; while his wife’s mouth, open for a wailing -protest, hung open in gratified astonishment. He stared through the open -door of the hut, not seeing the tufted trees beyond it or the curving -skyline of the hills; then, taking mechanically his stout wooden spoon, -he shovelled down his portion without tasting it. In his ears, like a -song, was the varied speech of other days; of art, of daily mechanics, -of books, of daily politics, of learning.... Phillida, her curved hands -touching the keys, gave place to the eager, bespectacled face of a -scholar who had tried to make clear to him the rhythm and beauty of -French verse. He had forgotten the man’s name—long forgotten it—but from -some odd crevice in his brain a voice came echoing down the years, -caressing the lines as it quoted them:— - - O Corse à cheveux plats, que la France était belle - Au soleil de Messidor! - -His own lips framed the words involuntarily, attempting the accent long -unheard. “Au soleil de Messidor, au soleil de Messidor” ... and his wife -and children stared after him as, thrusting the half-eaten bowl aside, -he rose and went out, muttering gibberish. They were not unused to these -fits in the house-father, to the change in his eyes, the sudden -forgetting of their presence; but never lost their fear of them as -something uncanny and inexplicable. - -With these masterful rushes of the past came often an infinite -melancholy; which was not so much a regret for what had been as a sense -of the pity of oblivion. So that he would lie outstretched with his face -to the earth, rebellious at the thought that with him and a few of his -own generation must pass all knowledge of human achievement, the very -memory of that which had once been glorious.... Not only the memory of -actual men whose fame had once been blown about the world; but the -memory of sound, of music, and of marvels in stone, uplifted by the -skill of generations; the memory of systems, customs, laws, wrought -wisely by the hand of experience; and of fanciful people, more real than -living men and women. With him and his like would pass not only -Leonardo, Cæsar and the sun of Messidor, but Rosalind, d’Artagnan and -Faust; the heroes, the merrymen, the women loved and loving who, created -of dreams, had shared the dead world with their fellows created of -dust.... Once deemed immortal, they had been slain by science as surely -as their fellows of dust. - -At times he pondered vaguely whether he might not save the memory of -some of them alive by teaching his children to love them; but in the end -he realized that, as we grasp nothing save through ourselves and our own -relation to it, the embodied desires and beauty of an inconceivable age -would be meaningless to his young barbarians. - - * * * * * - -If he ceased to believe in the survival of life as he had known it and a -civilization that would reach out and claim him, there were times when -he believed, or almost believed, that somewhere in the vastness of the -great round world a remnant must hold fast to its inheritance; when it -was inconceivable that all men living could be sunk in brutishness or -vowed to the creed of utter ignorance. Hunger and blind terror—(he knew, -for he had seen it)—could reduce the highest to the level of the beast; -but with the passing of terror and the satisfaction of the actual needs -of the body, there awakens the hunger of the mind. Somewhere in the -vastness of the great, round world must be those who, because they -craved for more than full stomachs and daily security, still clung to -the power which is knowledge. Little groups and companies that chance -had brought together or good fortune saved from destruction; resourceful -men who had striven with surrounding anarchy and worsted it, and, having -worsted it, were building their civilization.... And in the very -completeness of surrounding anarchy, the very depth of surrounding -brutishness, would lie their opportunity and chance of supremacy, their -power of enforcing their will. - -If such groups, such future nations, existed, he asked himself how they -would build? What manner of world they would strive for—knowing what -they knew?... This, at least, was certain: it would not be the world of -their fathers, of their own youth. They had seen their civilization laid -waste by the agency of science combined with human passion; hence, if -they rejected the alternative of ignorance and held to their perilous -treasure of science, their problem was the mastery of passion. - -He came to believe that the problem—like all others—had been faced in -forgotten generations; that old centuries had learned the forgotten -lesson that the Ruin was teaching anew. To a race that had realized the -peril of knowledge there would be two alternatives only; -renunciation—the creed of blind ignorance and savagery—or the guarding -of science as a secret treasure, removed from all contact with the flame -that is human emotion. There had been elder and long-past civilizations -in which knowledge was a mystery, the possession and the privilege of a -caste; tradition had come down to us of ancient wisdom which might only -be revealed to the initiate.... A blind fear massacred its scientific -men, a wiser fear exalted them and set them apart as initiates. When -science and human emotion between them had wrought the extreme of -destruction and agony, there passed the reckless and idealistic dream of -a world where all might be enlightened; the aim and tradition of a -social system arising out of ruin would be the setting of an iron -barrier between science and human emotion. That, and not enlightenment -of all and sundry—the admission of the foolish, the impulsive and the -selfish to a share in the power of destruction. The same need and -instinct of self-preservation which had inspired the taking of the Vow -of Ignorance would work, in higher and saner minds, for the training of -a caste—an Egyptian priesthood—exempt from blind passion and the common -impulse of the herd; a caste trained in silence and rigid self-control, -its way of attainment made hard to the student, the initiate. The deadly -formulæ of mechanics, electricity and chemistry would be entrusted only -to those who had been purged of the daily common passions of the -multitude; to those who, by trial after trial, had fettered their -natural impulses and stripped themselves of instinct and desire. - -So, in times past, had arisen—and might again arise—a scientific -priesthood whose initiates, to the vulgar, were magicians; a caste that -guarded science as a mystery and confined the knowledge which is power -of destruction to those who had been trained not to use it. The old lost -learning of dead and gone kingdoms was a science shielded by its -devotees from defilement by human emotion; a pure, cold knowledge, set -apart and worshipped for itself.... And somewhere in the vastness of the -great round world the beginnings of a priesthood, a scientific caste, -might be building unconsciously on the lines of ancient wisdom, and -laying the foundations of yet another Egypt or Chaldæa. A State whose -growth would be rooted in the mystery of knowledge and fear of human -passion; whose culture and civilization would be moulded by a living and -terrible tradition of catastrophe through science uncontrolled.... And, -so long as the tradition was living and terrible, the initiate would -stand guard before his mysteries, that the world might be saved from -itself; only when humanity had forgotten its downfall and ruin had -ceased to be even a legend, would the barrier between science and -emotion be withdrawn and knowledge be claimed as the right of the -uncontrolled, the multitude. - - * * * * * - -Till his brain began to fail him he watched, in dumb interest, the life -and development of the tribe; learning from it more than he had ever -known in the world of his youth of the eternal foundations on which life -in community is built. The unending struggle between the desire for -freedom, which makes of man a rebel, and the need for security, which -makes of him a citizen, was played before his understanding eyes; he -watched parties, castes and priesthoods in the making and, before he -died, could forecast the beginning of an aristocracy, a slave class and -a tribal hereditary monarchy. In all things man untraditioned held -blindly to the ways he had forgotten; instinctively, not knowing whither -they led, he trod the paths that his fathers had trodden before him. - -Most of all he was stirred in his interest and pity by the life -religious of the world around him; watching it adapt itself, steadily -and naturally, to the needs of a race in its childhood. As a new -generation grew up to its heritage of ignorance, the foundations of -faith were shifted; as tribal life crystallized, gods multiplied -inevitably and the Heaven ruled by a Supreme Being gave place to a crude -Valhalla of minor deities. Man, who makes God in his own image, can only -make that image in the likeness of his own highest type; which, in a -world divided, insecure and predatory, is the type of the successful -warrior; the Saviour, in a world divided and predatory, takes the form -of a tribal deity who secures to his people the enjoyment of their -fields by strengthening their hands against the assaults and the malice -of their enemies. As always with those who live in constant fear and in -hate of one another, the Lord was a Man of War; and when Theodore’s -first grandson was received into the tribe, the deity to whom vows were -made in the name of the child was already a local Jehovah. Faith saw him -as a tribal Lord of Hosts, the celestial captain of his worshippers; if -his worshippers walked humbly and paid due honour to his name he would -stand before them in the day of battle and protect them with his shield -invisible—would draw the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, show himself -mightier than the priests of Baal and overthrow the altars of the -Philistines. - -A god whose attributes are those of a warrior, of necessity is not -omnipotent; since he fights, his authority is partial—assailed and -disputed by those against whom he draws the sword. A race in its -childhood evolved the deity it needed, a champion and upholder of his -own people; to the tribal warrior the god to whom an enemy prayed for -success was a rival of his own protector.... So the mind primitive -argued, more or less directly and consciously, making God in its image, -for its own needs and purposes; and even in Theodore’s lifetime the -deities worshipped by men from a distance were not those of his own -country. The jurisdiction of the gods was limited and the stranger, of -necessity, paid homage to an alien spirit who took pleasure in an -unfamiliar ritual. - -In his lifetime the darkness of Heaven was unbroken and there emerged no -god whose attribute was mercy and long-suffering; the Day of Judgment -was still too recent, its memory too clear and overwhelming, to admit of -the idea of a Divine Love or a Father who had pity on his children. -Fear, and fear only, led his people to the feet of the Lord. The God of -Vengeance of the first generation and the tribal superman who gradually -ousted him from his pride of place were alike wrathful, jealous of their -despotism and greedily expectant of mouth-honour. Hence, propitiation -and ignorance were the whole religious duty of man, and the rites -wherewith deity was duly worshipped were rites of crawling flattery and -sacrifice.... The blood of sinners was acceptable in the sight of -Heaven; the Lord Almighty had destroyed a world that he might slake his -vengeance, and his lineal descendants, the celestial warriors, rejoiced -in the slaughter of those who had borne arms against their -worshippers—in the end, rejoiced in blood for itself and the savour of -the burnt sacrifice. And a race cowed spiritually (lest worse befall it) -evolved its rites of sacrificial cruelty, paying tribute to a god who -took ceaseless pleasure in the humbling of his people and could only be -appeased by their suffering. - -There were seasons and regions where abasement produced its own -reaction; when, for all the savour of sacrificial cruelty, the gods -remained deaf to the prayers of their worshippers, delivered them into -the hands of their enemies or chastened them with famine and pestilence. -Hope of salvation beaten out of them, the worshippers, like rats driven -into a corner, ceased to grovel and turned on the tyrants who had failed -them; and the Lord Almighty Who made the heavens, shrunk to the -dimensions of a local fetish, was upbraided and beaten in effigy. - -Since it seemed that the new world must in all things follow in the ways -of the old, the gentler deities who delighted not in blood would in due -time reveal themselves to man grown capable of mercy. As the memory of -judgment faded with the centuries—as the earth waxed fruitful and life -was kindlier—humanity would dare to lift its head from the dust and the -life religious would be more than blind cringing to a despot. The Heaven -of the future would find room for gods who were gracious and friendly; -for white Baldurs and Olympians who walk with men and instruct them; and -there would arise prophets whose message was not vengeance, but a call -to “rejoice in the Lord.” ... And in further time, it might be, the God -who is a Spirit ... and a Christ.... The rise, the long, slow upward -struggle of the soul of man was as destined and inevitable as its fall; -all human achievement, material or spiritual, was founded in the -baseness of mire and clay—and rose towering above its foundations. As -the State, which had its origin in no more than common fear and hatred, -in the end would be honoured without thought of gain and its flag held -sacred by its sons; so Deity, beginning as vengeance personified, would -advance to a spiritual Law and a spiritual Love. When the power of -loving returned to the race, it would cease to abase itself and lift up -its eyes to a Father—endowing its Deity with that which was best in -itself; when it achieved and took pleasure in its own thoughts and the -works of its hands, it would see in the Highest not the Vengeance that -destroys but the Spirit that heals and creates. - -Meanwhile the foundation of the life religious was, and must be, the -timorous virtue of ignorance, of humble avoidance of inquiry into the -dreadful secrets of God. In Theodore’s youth he had turned from the -orthodox religions, which repelled by what seemed to him a fear of -knowledge and inquiry; now he understood that man, being by nature -destructive, can survive only when his powers of destruction are -limited; and that the ignorance enjoined by priest and bigot had -been—and would be again—an essential need of the race, an expression of -the will to live.... The jealous God who guards his secrets is the god -of the race that survives. - -How many times—(he would wonder)—how many times since the world began to -spin has man, in his eager search for truth, rushed blindly through -knowledge to the ruin that means chaos and savagery? How many times, in -his devout, instinctive longing to know his own nature and the workings -of the Infinite Mind that created him has he wrought himself weapons -that turned to his own destruction?... Ignorance of the powers and -forces of nature is a condition of human existence; as necessary to the -continued life of the race as the breathing of air or the taking of food -into the body. Behind the bench of zealots who judged Galileo lay the -dumb race-memory of ruin—ruin, perhaps, many times repeated. They stood, -the zealots, for that ignorance which, being interpreted, is life; and -Galileo for that knowledge which, being interpreted, is death.... - -Many times, it might be, since the world began to spin, had men called -upon the rocks to cover them from the devils their own hands had -fashioned; many times, it might be, a remnant had put from it the -knowledge it dared not trust itself to wield—that it might not fall upon -its own weapons, but live, just live, like the beasts! Behind the -injunction to devout ignorance, behind the ecclesiastical hatred of -science and distrust of brain, lay more than prejudice and bigotry; the -prejudice and bigotry were but superficial and outward workings of -instinct and the first law of all, the Law of Self-Preservation. - -With his eyes open to the workings of that law, folk-tale and myth had -long become real to him—since he saw them daily in the making.... The -dragon that wasted a country with its breath—how else should a race that -knew naught of chemistry account for the devilry of gas? And he -understood now, why the legend of Icarus was a legend of disaster, and -Prometheus, who stole fire from Heaven, was chained to eternity for his -daring; he knew, also, why the angel with a flaming sword barred the -gate of Eden to those who had tasted of knowledge.... The story of the -Garden, of the Fall of Man, was no more the legend of his youth; he read -it now, with his opened eyes, as a livid and absolute fact. A fact told -plainly as symbol could tell it by a race that had put from it all -memory of the science whereby it was driven from its ancient paradise, -its garden of civilization.... How many times since the world began to -spin had man mastered the knowledge that should make him like unto God, -and turned, in agony of mind and body, from a power synonymous with -death? - -And how many times more, he wondered—how many times more? - - * * * * * - -Theodore Savage lived to be a very old man; how old in years he could -not have said, since, long before his memory failed him, he had lost his -count of time. But for fully a decade before he died he went humped and -rheumatic, leaning on a stick, was blear-eyed, toothless and wizened; he -had outlived all those who had begun the new world with him, and a son -of his grandson was of those who—when the time came—dug a trench for his -bones and shovelled loose earth on his head. - -He had no lack of care in his extreme old age—in part perhaps because -the tribe grew to hold him in awe that increased with the years; the -sole survivor of the legendary age that preceded the Ruin and Downfall -of Man, he was feared in spite of his helplessness. He alone of his -little community could remember the Ruin with any comprehension of its -causes; he alone possessed in silence a share of that hidden and -forbidden knowledge which had brought flaming judgment on the world. -Here and there in the countryside were grey-headed men, his juniors by -years, who could remember vaguely the horrors of a distant childhood—the -sky afire, the crash of falling masonry, the panic, the lurking and the -starving. These things they could remember like a nightmare past ... but -only remember, not explain. Behind Theodore’s bald forehead and dimmed, -oozing eyes lay the understanding of why and wherefore denied to those -who dwelt beside him. - -For this reason Theodore Savage was treated with deference in the days -of his senile helplessness. As he sat, half-blind, in the sun by the -door of his hut, no one ever failed to greet him with respect in -passing; while in most the greeting was more than a token of respect or -kindliness—the sign and result of a nervous desire to propitiate. In the -end he was credited with a knowledge of unholy arts, and the children of -the tribe avoided and shrank from him, frightened by the gossip of their -elders; so that village mothers found him useful as a bogy, arresting -the tantrums of unruly brats by threats of calling in Old Bald-Head. - -Even in his lifetime legends clustered thick about him, and sickness or -accident to man or beast was ascribed to the glance of his purblind eye -or the malice of his vacant brain; while there was once—though he never -knew or suspected it—an agitated and furtive discussion as to whether, -for the good of the community, he should not be knocked on the head. The -furtive discussion ended in discussion only—not because the advocates of -mercy were numerous, but because no man was willing to lay violent hands -on a wizard, for fear of what might befall him; and, the interlude over, -the tribe relapsed into its customary timid respect for its patriarch, -its customary practice of ensuring his goodwill by politeness and small -offerings of victuals. These added to the old man’s comfort in his -latter years—nor had he any suspicion of the motive that secured him -both deference and dainties. - -With his death the local legends increased and multiplied; the -distorted, varied myths of the Ruin of Man and its causes showing an -inevitable tendency to group themselves around one striking and -mysterious figure, to make of that figure a cause and a personification -of the Great Disaster. Theodore Savage, to those who came after, was -Merlin, Frankenstein and Adam; the fool who tasted of forbidden fruit, -the magician whose arts had brought ruin on a world, the devil-artisan -whose unholy skill had created monsters that destroyed him. His grave -was an awesome spot, apart from other graves, which the timorous avoided -after dark; and, long after all trace of it had vanished, there clung to -the neighbourhood a tradition of haunting and mystery.... To his -children’s children his name was the symbol of a dead civilization; a -civilization that had passed so completely from the ken of living man -that its lost achievements, the manner of its ending, could only be -expressed in symbol. - - - PRINTED BY GARDEN CITY PRESS, LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - _A Complete - Catalogue of Books - Published by - Leonard Parsons, Ltd. - Autumn_ - - 1921 - - ⁘ ⁘ ⁘ ⁘ ⁘ - - - _DEVONSHIRE STREET, BLOOMSBURY, LONDON_ - - _Telephone No.:_ _Telegraphic Address_: - _Museum 964._ “_Erudite, Westcent, London_” - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PART I - - PAGE - NEW AND FORTHCOMING WORKS 1003 - - - PART II - - SUBJECT INDEX 1008 - - - PART III - - INDEX TO TITLES AND AUTHORS 1014 - - - _NOTE—All prices of books quoted in this Catalogue are net._ - - - - - NEW & FORTHCOMING WORKS - - - FICTION - -THE FRUIT OF THE TREE, by _Hamilton Fyfe_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -Mr. Hamilton Fyfe is an attentive social observer. He sees that the -growing distaste of the more intellectual kind of women for motherhood -is bound to have disturbing consequences. Just as in the past men sought -in “gay” society distraction from aggravated domesticity, so now they -are liable to crave for domestic joys as a relief from childless homes. - -Without taking sides Mr. Fyfe describes such a case with an ever-present -humour. He does not plead or preach: he is content to set forth problems -of personality which have a vivid application in the everyday lives of -us all. - -WOMEN AND CHILDREN, by _Hugh de Sélincourt_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -MR. HAVELOCK ELLIS writes: “This novel seems to be, in some ways, his -most notable achievement.” - -_Observer._—“This is the best novel that Mr. de Sélincourt has yet -published.” - -SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER, by _Bertha Pearl_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -This is a story of New York’s Ghetto, showing the Ghetto family as it -lives from day to day. - -The thing has never been done before. It is the first novel setting -forth the whole world of the Ghetto and the emergence of the younger -generation into the larger world of American life. - -It has the Potash and Perlmutter laugh, and the tears of the sufferers -of all ages. - -A work of genuine humour and understanding realism. - -THE QUEST OF MICHAEL HARLAND, by _Nora Kent_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -In reviewing Miss Kent’s previous novel, “The Greater Dawn,” _Land and -Water_ said: “Mrs. Florence Barclay and Miss Ethel M. Dell have cause to -tremble.” Her new story has the same fragrance and delicacy of sentiment -that attracted readers in “The Greater Dawn,” and will, we feel -confident, increase their number. - -GARTH, by _Mrs. J. O. Arnold_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -_Times._—“A thoroughly well-told ghost story.... It is admittedly -exceptional and inexplicable, and in that lies its thrill.” - -_Sheffield Telegraph._—“A very clever and exciting piece of work. Good -ghost stories are none too common, and this one is very good.” - - - GENERAL LITERATURE - -THE MAKING OF AN OPTIMIST, by _Hamilton Fyfe_. Demy 8vo, 12/6. - -CLAUDIUS CLEAR in the _British Weekly_: “Mr. Hamilton Fyfe has written a -remarkable volume.... It is needless to say that the book is frank and -able and interesting.” - -H. M. T. in the _Nation and Athenæum_: “I hope Mr. Fyfe’s book will be -widely read, because I think it must be unique.” - -H. W. NEVINSON in the _Daily Herald_: “A very remarkable and -exhilarating book.” - -DIVORCE (TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW), by _C. Gasquoine Hartley_. Author of -“The Truth about Woman,” “Sex Education and National Health.” Crown 8vo, -6/-. - -This book deals with many aspects on the subject. It shows historically -how the present divorce laws developed and how closely they are still -allied to the ancient ecclesiastical Canon Law. It proves that most -Protestant countries have far more liberal laws, and that, but for -accidents in the lives of our kings, our own laws would have been -reformed in the 16th century. The harmful way in which the laws work -against morality and the family is shown by an analysis of a number of -present-day divorce suits. The present position in regard to proposals -for an extension of the grounds of divorce is examined, and a contrast -is drawn between our petrified laws and the liberal reforms introduced -by those of English stock in the dominions over the seas. The author -finally brings forward her own proposals and explains her own moral -standards. She declares that ecclesiastical defenders of the present law -do not understand the spirit of the Founder of Christianity. - -STRAY THOUGHTS AND MEMORIES, by the Late _James A. Rentoul, K.C., LL.D._ -Edited by _L. Rentoul_. Demy 8vo, 18/-. - -_Times._—“Many racy anecdotes.” - -_Daily Telegraph._—“Good stories abound.” - -_Daily News._—“Racy and warm-hearted memories of a varied life ... -should be widely read.” - -MY YEARS OF EXILE, by _Eduard Bernstein_. Translated by _Bernard Miall_. -Demy 8vo, 15/-. - -_Times._—“Herr Bernstein is a calm and dispassionate observer ... full -of simple narrative and naïve reflection.” - -_Morning Post._—“Of this country and its people he gives a very shrewd -and sympathetic analysis ... worth recording.” - -A LADY DOCTOR IN BAKHTIARILAND, by _Dr. Elizabeth MacBean Ross_. Crown -8vo, 7/6. - -_Daily Mail._—“A really admirable and entertaining study.” - -_Medical Times._—“An attractive volume which should make a wide appeal.” - -_Geographical Journal._—“This book possesses a permanent value.” - -THE KEREN HA-YESOD BOOK. Colonisation Problems of the Eretz-Israel -(Palestine) Foundation Fund. Edited by The Publicity Department of the -“Keren Ha-Yesod.” Crown 8vo, 2/-. - - -=THE NEW ERA SERIES= - -BREAKING POINT, by _Jeffery E. Jeffery_, with Foreword by _G. D. H. -Cole_. Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -This book is an attempt to consider the future of civilisation in the -light of the present world crisis. It speaks much for Mr. Jeffery’s -optimism that while he manfully faces his facts and never in any way -evades the issues, his book ends on a hopeful note. He believes that -_now_ is the time for mankind to turn the next corner on the road of -progress and that ours is the opportunity to seize or to throw away. - -ECONOMIC MOTIVES IN THE NEW SOCIETY, by _J. A. Hobson_. Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -Perhaps the most telling argument used against drastic schemes of -economic reconstruction is that which holds that any system of public -ownership and representative government of essential industries would -break down because it would fail to create the necessary incentives to -production and distribution. In this book Mr. Hobson examines this -important question in detail. He analyses these “incentives” both from -the producing and the consuming side and proposes many ways by which -they might be not only retained but stimulated. He provides satisfactory -answers to such questions as: Will the present standards of management, -skill, workmanship and factory discipline be improved? Will the -consumers benefit? Will people save? _i. e._ Will sufficient fresh -capital be forthcoming for the further developments of industry? - -It is a valuable book because it successfully counters the argument -which has, on appearance at least, some show of reason behind it. - -LAND NATIONALISATION, by _A. Emil Davies, L.C.C._, and _Dorothy Evans_ -(formerly Organiser, Land Nationalisation Society). Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -In the past the importance of the land problem has been neglected, but -now the changed conditions brought about by the war call for increased -production at home. This book shows that the present system of land -ownership impedes production on every hand and stands in the way of -almost every vital reform. - -The authors contend that no solution of the serious problems that -confront the community can be found until the nation itself becomes the -ground landlord of the country in which it lives. They put forward a -scheme for nationalisation complete in financial and administrative -details, providing for the participation of various sections of the -community in the management of the land. - -PROLETCULT, by _Eden_ and _Cedar Paul_ (authors of “Creative -Revolution”). Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -Education to-day, availing itself of the widest means, employing the -press and the cinemas no less effectively than the schools, imposes upon -the community the ideology, the cultured outlook, of the ruling class. - -The authors contend that among the working classes there are many who -strive for the realisation of a new culture. - -Proletcult (proletarian culture) organises and consolidates the -thought-forces which will complete the overthrow of Capitalism. It will -then inaugurate and build up the economic and social, the artistic and -intellectual life of the “new era.” This great and far-reaching -contemporary movement is the theme of “Proletcult.” - -OPEN DIPLOMACY, by _E. D. Morel_. Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -“Foreign Policy” and “Secret Diplomacy” continue to be terms invested -with some kind of mysterious attributes. In this volume Mr. Morel -endeavours to simplify a problem which still remains complicated and -obscure to the general public. He shows us “foreign policy” as an -influence working in our everyday lives. He brings “diplomacy” into our -homes, and serves it up as a dish upon the breakfast table. He depicts -us as helpless automata moving blindfolded in a world of make-believe -until we secure an effective democratic control over the management of -our foreign relations. - -THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK, by _Robert Williams_. Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -_Morning Post._—“An exceedingly shrewd and lively commentator on the -significance of events ... decidedly valuable.” - -_Daily Herald._—“We hope this book will have a wide circulation, as it -will enable all who read it to realise the difficulties before us.” - -SOCIALISM AND PERSONAL LIBERTY, by _Robert Dell_ (author of “My Second -Country”). Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -“Personal Liberty in the Socialist State” is an old controversy, and the -publishers feel that Mr. Dell’s new volume will evoke widespread -interest and discussion. - -The author shows that Socialism is not necessarily incompatible with -personal freedom, or with individualism properly understood, but is -rather an essential condition of both. He contends that economic freedom -is unattainable under Capitalist conditions by any but the owners of -capital and that individual liberty is being threatened by political -democracy, which is becoming a tyranny of the majority. - -A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY, by _F. E. Green_. Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -_Times._—“His advocacy is clear and detailed, and his criticisms -pointed ... worth noting.” - -_Glasgow Herald._—“Brightly and vigorously written by a shrewd -observer.” - - - - - SUBJECT INDEX - - - CRITICISM, POETRY & BELLES-LETTRES - - -=CRITICISM= - -SOME CONTEMPORARY POETS, by _Harold Monro_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -SOME CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS (WOMEN), by _R. Brimley Johnson_. Crown 8vo, -7/6. - -SOME CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS (MEN), by _R. Brimley Johnson_. Crown 8vo, -7/6. - - -=POETRY= - -WHEELS, 1920 (FIFTH CYCLE), edited by _Edith Sitwell_. With cover design -by _Gino Severini_. Crown 8vo, 6/-. - - -=BELLES-LETTRES= - -CHILDREN’S TALES (from the Russian Ballet), by _Edith Sitwell_. With 8 -four-colour reproductions of scenes from the Ballet, by _I. de B. -Lockyer_. Crown 4to, 12/6. - - - FICTION - -THE FRUIT OF THE TREE, by _Hamilton Fyfe_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -THE WIDOW’S CRUSE, by _Hamilton Fyfe_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER, by _Bertha Pearl_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -WOMEN AND CHILDREN, by _Hugh de Sélincourt_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -THE QUEST OF MICHAEL HARLAND, by _Nora Kent_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -THE GREATER DAWN, by _Nora Kent_. Crown 8vo, 7/-. - -GARTH, by _Mrs. J. O. Arnold_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -THE BURIED TORCH, by _Coralie Stanton_ and _Heath Hosken_. Crown 8vo, -7/-. - -THE BISHOP’S MASQUERADE, by _W. Harold Thomson_. Crown 8vo, 7/-. - -SIDE ISSUES, by _Jeffery E. Jeffery_ (author of “Servants of the Guns”). -Crown 8vo, 6/-. - -THE INVISIBLE SUN, by _Bertram Munn_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -MIRIAM AND THE PHILISTINES, by _Alice Clayton Greene_. Crown 8vo, 7/-. - - - GENERAL LITERATURE - -THE MAKING OF AN OPTIMIST, by _Hamilton Fyfe_. Demy 8vo, 12/6. - -STRAY THOUGHTS AND MEMORIES, by _James A. Rentoul, K.C., LL.D._ Demy -8vo, 18/-. - -MY YEARS OF EXILE, by _Eduard Bernstein_. Translated by _Bernard Miall_. -Demy 8vo, 15/-. - -THE KEREN HA-YESOD BOOK. Colonisation Problems of the Palestine -Foundation Fund. Crown 8vo, 2/-. - - - SOCIAL, POLITICAL & ECONOMIC - - -=THE NEW ERA SERIES= - - Crown 8vo, 4/6. - -NATIONALISATION OF THE MINES, by _Frank Hodges_. Second Impression. - -A NEW ARISTOCRACY OF COMRADESHIP, by _William Paine_. - -WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA, by _George Lansbury_. - -AFTER THE PEACE, by _H. N. Brailsford_. - -PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF THE LIQUOR TRADE, by _Arthur Greenwood_. - -LABOUR AND NATIONAL FINANCE by _Philip Snowden_. - -A POLICY FOR THE LABOUR PARTY, by _J. Ramsay MacDonald_. - -DIRECT ACTION, by _William Mellor_. - -A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY, by _F. E. Green_. - -THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK, by _Robert Williams_. - -BREAKING POINT, by _Jeffery E. Jeffery_, with Foreword by _G. D. H. -Cole_. - -PROLETCULT, by _Eden_ and _Cedar Paul_. - -LAND NATIONALISATION, by _A. Emil Davies_ and _Dorothy Evans_. - -SOCIALISM AND PERSONAL LIBERTY, by _Robert Dell_. - -ECONOMIC MOTIVES IN THE NEW SOCIETY, by _J. A. Hobson_. - -OPEN DIPLOMACY, by _E. D. Morel_. - - -=SOCIAL STUDIES SERIES= - -PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY, by _J. Ramsay MacDonald_. Crown 8vo, 3/6. - -RELIGION IN POLITICS, by _Arthur Ponsonby_. Crown 8vo, 6/-. - -LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX, by _M. Beer_. Crown 8vo, 5/-. - -SOCIALISM AND CO-OPERATION, by _L. S. Woolf_. Crown 8vo, 5/-. - - -=MISCELLANEOUS= - -GUILD SOCIALISM—RE-STATED, by _G. D. H. Cole, M.A._ Crown 8vo, 6/-. - -DIVORCE (TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW), by _C. Gasquoine Hartley_. Crown 8vo, -6/-. - -SEX EDUCATION AND NATIONAL HEALTH, by _C. Gasquoine Hartley_. Crown 8vo, -6/-. - -THE NEW LIBERALISM, by _C. F. G. Masterman_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -THE CORPORATION PROFITS TAX, by _Raymond W. Needham_. Crown 8vo, 7/6. - -THE GREAT RE-BUILDING, by _H. Denston Funnell, F.S.I._ Demy 8vo, 15/-. - -THE MARCH TOWARDS SOCIALISM, by _Edgard Milhaud_. Translated by _H. J. -Stenning_. Crown 8vo, 8/6. - -RED RUBBER, by _E. D. Morel_. Crown 8vo, 6/-. - -THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN, by _E. D. Morel_. Crown 8vo, 6/-. - - - TRAVEL - -A WEST COUNTRY PILGRIMAGE, by _Eden Phillpotts_. With 16 three-colour -illustrations by _A. T. Benthall_, tipped on mounts. Buckram, crown 4to, -21/-. - -A LADY DOCTOR IN BAKHTIARILAND, by _Dr. Elizabeth MacBean Ross_. Crown -8vo, 7/6. - - - - - INDEX TO TITLES AND AUTHORS - - - INDEX TO TITLES - - - PAGE - - After the Peace, 1011 - - Brailsford, H. N. - - - Bishop’s Masquerade, The, 1010 - - Thomson, W. Harold - - Black Man’s Burden, 1013 - - Morel, E. D. - - Breaking Point, 1006, 1011 - - Jeffery, Jeffery E. - - Buried Torch, The, 1010 - - Stanton, Coralie and Hosken, Heath - - - Children’s Tales (from the Russian Ballet), 1009 - - Sitwell, Edith - - Corporation Profits Tax, The, 1013 - - Needham, Raymond W. - - - Direct Action, 1011 - - Mellor, William - - Divorce—To-day and To-morrow, 1004, 1012 - - Hartley, C. Gasquoine - - - Economic Motives in the New Society, 1006, 1012 - - Hobson, J. A. - - - Fruit of the Tree, The, 1003, 1009 - - Fyfe, Hamilton - - - Garth, 1004, 1010 - - Arnold, Mrs. J. O. - - Great Rebuilding, The, 1013 - - Funnell, H. Denston - - Greater Dawn, The, 1010 - - Kent, Nora - - Guild Socialism—Restated, 1012 - - Cole, G. D. H. - - - Invisible Sun, The, 1010 - - Munn, Bertram - - - Keren Ha-Yesod Book, The, 1005, 1010 - - Edited by the Keren Ha-Yesod Publicity - Department - - - Labour and National Finance, 1011 - - Snowden, Philip - - Lady Doctor in Bakhtiariland, A, 1005, 1013 - - Ross, Elizabeth MacBean - - Land Nationalisation—A Practical Scheme, 1006, 1012 - - Davies, Emil and Evans, Dorothy - - Life and Teaching of Karl Marx, 1012 - - Beer, M. - - - Making of an Optimist, The, 1004, 1010 - - Fyfe, Hamilton - - March Towards Socialism, The, 1013 - - Milhaud, Edgard - - Miriam and the Philistines, 1010 - - Greene, Alice Clayton - - My Years of Exile, 1005, 1010 - - Bernstein, Eduard - - - Nationalisation of the Mines, 1011 - - Hodges, Frank - - New Agricultural Policy, A, 1008, 1011 - - Green, F. E. - - New Aristocracy of Comradeship, A, 1011 - - Paine, William - - New Labour Outlook, The, 1008 - - Williams, Robert - - New Liberalism, The, 1013 - - Masterman, C. F. G. - - - Open Diplomacy, 1007, 1012 - - Morel, E. D. - - - Parliament and Democracy, 1012 - - MacDonald, J. R. - - Policy for the Labour Party, A, 1011 - - MacDonald, J. R. - - Proletcult, 1007, 1011 - - Paul, Eden and Cedar - - Public Ownership of the Liquor Trade, 1011 - - Greenwood, Arthur - - - Quest of Michael Harland, The, 1003, 1009 - - Kent, Nora - - - Red Rubber, 1013 - - Morel, E. D. - - Religion in Politics, 1012 - - Ponsonby, Arthur - - - Sarah and Her Daughter, 1003, 1009 - - Pearl, Bertha - - Sex Education and National Health, 1013 - - Hartley, C. Gasquoine - - Side Issues, 1010 - - Jeffery, Jeffery E. - - Socialism and Co-operation, 1012 - - Woolf, L. S. - - Socialism and Personal Liberty, 1008, 1012 - - Dell, Robert - - Some Contemporary Novelists (Men), 1009 - - Johnson, R. Brimley - - Some Contemporary Novelists (Women), 1009 - - Johnson, R. Brimley - - Some Contemporary Poets, 1008 - - Monro, Harold - - Stray Thoughts and Memories, 1005, 1010 - - Rentoul, James A. - - - West Country Pilgrimage, A, 1013 - - Phillpotts, Eden - - What I saw in Russia, 1011 - - Lansbury, George - - Wheels, 1920 (Fifth Cycle), 1009 - - Edited by Sitwell, Edith - - Widow’s Cruse, The, 1009 - - Fyfe, Hamilton - - Women and Children, 1003, 1009 - - Sélincourt, Hugh de - - - INDEX TO AUTHORS - - - Arnold, Mrs. J. O., 1004, 1010 - - Garth. 8/6 - - - Beer, M., 1012 - - Life and Teaching of Karl Marx. 6/- - - Bernstein, Eduard, 1005, 1010 - - My Years of Exile. 15/- - - Brailsford, H. N., 1011 - - After the Peace. 4/6 - - - Cole, G. D. H., 1012 - - Guild Socialism—Restated. 6/- - - - Davies, Emil, 1006, 1012 - - Land Nationalisation. 4/6 - - Dell, Robert, 1008, 1012 - - Socialism and Personal Liberty. 4/6 - - - Evans, Dorothy, 1006, 1012 - - Land Nationalisation. 4/6 - - - Funnell, H. Denston, 1013 - - The Great Rebuilding. 15/- - - Fyfe, Hamilton, 1003, 1004, 1009, 1010 - - The Fruit of the Tree. 7/6 - - The Making of an Optimist. 12/6 - - The Widow’s Cruse. 7/6 - - - Green, F. E., 1008, 1011 - - A New Agricultural Policy. 4/6 - - Greene, Alice Clayton, 1010 - - Miriam and the Philistines. 7/- - - Greenwood, Arthur, 1011 - - Public Ownership of the Liquor Trade. 4/6 - - - Hartley, C. Gasquoine, 1004, 1012, 1013 - - Divorce—To-day and To-morrow. 6/- - - Sex Education and National Health. 6/- - - Hobson, J. A., 1006, 1012 - - Economic Motives in the New Society. 4/6 - - Hodges, Frank, 1011 - - Nationalisation of the Mines. 4/6 - - Hosken, Heath, 1010 - - The Buried Torch. 7/- - - - Jeffery, Jeffery E., 1006, 1010, 1011 - - Breaking Point. 4/6 - - Side Issues. 6/- - - Johnson, R. Brimley, 1009 - - Some Contemporary Novelists (Men). 7/6 - - Some Contemporary Novelists (Women). 7/6 - - - Kent, Nora, 1003, 1009, 1010 - - The Greater Dawn. 7/- - - The Quest of Michael Harland. 8/6 - - Keren Ha-Yesod, Publicity Department, 1005, 1010 - - The Keren Ha-Yesod Book. 2/- - - - Lansbury, George, 1011 - - What I saw in Russia. 4/6 - - - MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 1011, 1012 - - Parliament and Democracy. 3/6 - - A Policy for the Labour Party. 4/6 - - Masterman, C. F. G., 1013 - - The New Liberalism. 7/6 - - Mellor, William, 1011 - - Direct Action. 4/6 - - Milhaud, Edgard, 1013 - - The March towards Socialism. 8/6 - - Monro, Harold, 1008 - - Some Contemporary Poets. 7/6 - Morel, E. D., 1007, 1011, 1013 - - Black Man’s Burden. 6/- - - Open Diplomacy. 4/6 - - Red Rubber. 6/- - - Munn, Bertram, 1010 - - The Invisible Sun. 7/6 - - - Needham, Raymond W., 1013 - - The Corporation Profits Tax. 7/6 - - - Paine, William, 1011 - - A New Aristocracy of Comradeship. 4/6 - - Paul, Eden and Cedar, 1007, 1011 - - Proletcult. 4/6 - - Pearl, Bertha, 1003, 1009 - - Sarah and Her Daughter. 7/6 - - Phillpotts, Eden, 1013 - - A West Country Pilgrimage. 21/- - - Ponsonby, Arthur, 1012 - - Religion in Politics. 5/- - - - Rentoul, James A., 1005, 1010 - - Stray Thoughts and Memories. 18/- - - Ross, Elizabeth MacBean, 1005, 1013 - - A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiariland. 7/6 - - - Sélincourt, Hugh de, 1003, 1009 - - Women and Children. 8/6 - - Sitwell, Edith, 1009 - - Children’s Tales (from the Russian Ballet). - 12/6 - - Wheels—1920. 6/- - - Snowden, Philip, 1011 - - Labour and National Finance. 4/6 - - Stanton, Coralie, 1010 - - The Buried Torch. 7/- - - - Thomson, W. Harold, 1010 - - The Bishop’s Masquerade. 7/- - - - Williams, Robert, 1008, 1011 - - The New Labour Outlook. 4/6 - - Woolf, L. S., 1012 - - Socialism and Co-operation. 5/- - - - _LEONARD PARSONS LIMITED_ - - [_Printed in Great Britain by R. Clay & Sons, Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk._] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. P. 70, changed “moral” to “morale”. - 2. P. 215, changed “tailing” to “trailing”. - 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. - 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - 6. 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